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

globalsecurity.org

Discussion (globalsecurity.org)

• Resulting from Talk:Nuclear-powered cruisers of the United States Navy. See previous discussions at [1]. Horse Eye's Back (talk)

--Not to be confused with globalresearch.ca, an unrelated site.--

Globalsecurity has been mentioned on this board several times, and is listed as "no consensus" at RSP, but it is currently being removed en masse, along with the "fansites" listed just above at "#Military fansites" (by the same editor), though the site is not part of that list. Looking among the previous discussions regarding this site, it has been noted that it is cited here over 8000 times. Several editors have noted that despite some issues with other subjects, this site should be considered reliable for military-related subjects, as the content is written by subject matter experts and military historians. Several times when this site was brought up here, is was grouped with other sites and the focus ended up on those other sites instead. As noted above, this site has been confused for globalreseaech.ca.

Lastly, I would of course encourage anyone responding here to read those previous discussions for yourself, and also review the site, to help determine if it should be considered reliable. Thanks - wolf 20:53, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Care to comment on this unattributed and apparently original unhinged rant about the United States waging "WWIV" on the world[2]? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:03, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

LOL. Can it be for real? Reads like Sino-Russian hacktivists at work. But the fact that the lack of attribution is typical of the site says it all. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 14:31, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

RFC (globalsecurity.org)

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.

---

What best describes globalsecurity.org's reliability?

• 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

Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:42, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

• Deprecate, the vast majority of the site is scraped from elsewhere without attribution. For example their headlining page for their major topic area "Taiwan"[[3]] is ripped without attribution from Radio Free Asia[4]. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:45, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) "As has been noted in the previous discussions[5] they also hawk conspiracy theories about 9/11, HARP, and chemtrails." ([6]) - that was globalresearch.ca. - wolf 21:18, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

• DeprecateBanks Irk (talk) 23:48, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
• Deprecate as the site's material is full of unattributed WP:COPYVIO. Typical scraping operation. - Amigao (talk) 04:49, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3, by their own admission (my emphasis): "This website is compiled by human beings, mostly by compiling or summarizing what other human beings have written. Therefore, it most likely contains some mistakes and/or potential misinterpretations and should be used primarily as a way to search quickly for basic information and information sources. It should not be viewed as an exhaustive, "last-word" source for critical applications (such as those requiring legally defensible information)."[7]. Note that WP:DEPSOURCES currently only lists 46 sites. I think we'd need to find a better case for adding a relatively narrowly-focused source to the automated deprecation system. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) [Updated 16:36, 11 September 2022 (UTC)]
• Option 3 - No evidence of reliability. -Indy beetle (talk) 20:02, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
• Comment - In the distant past I have used globalsecurity.org as an External link for articles like 5-ton 6x6 (I got carried away) with pages like M939. I felt that it was accurate and I had plenty of other good sources to compare it to. It has no sources and I wouldn't use it as RS (edit add: I apparently did here, sorry) but in my specific example it isn't false or fabricated. I don't care if it goes myself, just pointing out that at my level it isn't Option 4. Sammy D III (talk) 22:33, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Baby with the bathwater? Sammy D III (talk) 13:29, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

• Leaning Option 3. There aren't any real good reasons to use it. I sometimes resort to using it as a placeholder until I can get to the library and verify with Janes. Schierbecker (talk) 04:24, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
• Leaning 3 as well; if you look at the staff page, it's sort of a mixed bag between people who are established experts in their field and those who aren't. If the individual articles told you who wrote them, there'd be a case to put this in option 2, but as far as I've seen, they don't credit authors. And I can't imagine a situation where they would have information on a topic in the area I edit where a better source isn't readily available. Parsecboy (talk) 14:51, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

I spot checked a name I knew (Joseph Trevithick) to be more broadly a reliable writer in this space and their linkedin suggests that their listed position is only honorary and was only retained as a form of compensation: "Conducted independent research to update sections of the website and led the internship program as an interviewer and first point of contact. Was furloughed due to a funding crisis between January and May 2010. Left the organization in 2013, again due to funding issues, but retained the unpaid title of Fellow." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:57, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

• Option 3. At least for Chinese military topics, many GS articles are seemingly running aggregations of anything and everything said on the subject, rumors and all. Lack of attribution makes it difficult - if not impossible - to separate out the reliable bits (which negates the need to reference GS anyway.) It doesn't help that there are pages that look like they were Google translated, presumably from (unidentified) Chinese-language sources. - RovingPersonalityConstruct (talk, contribs) 19:19, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
• Deprecate and let's begin the slow, agonizing work of removing most of the nearly 9,000 citations to this site. The examples above show the site plagiarizes routinely, and we can't (per good sense and WP:V#Copyright and plagiarism) link to sites that violate copyright. I can mention more examples if they're needed to convince others of the major issues this source presents. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:08, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

  You (or someone, at least) might want to set up something similar to User:Ljleppan/Aerodrome cleanup for tracking purposes. Ljleppan (talk) 07:47, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

• Option 3 this was once a better albeit borderline site, but it's only gotten worse over time even as our citation standards have increased. Also per Parsecboy. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 05:45, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 4: Deprecate the website is a well-known rumor mill. - Hunan201p (talk) 12:57, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3, as per above. I oppose this "deprecation" system. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:42, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
• Comment: I requested closure of this discussion at WP:ANRFC. Though I still support Option 4 (and am honestly baffled people are supporting other options), I hope that the closer can include a caution about the plagiarism of the site. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:49, 23 October 2022 (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.

Catholic.org (Catholic Online)

How would you evaluate the reliability of Catholic.org?

• 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

Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:13, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Discussion: Catholic.org (Catholic Online)

• Option 3, Catholic.org is a fansite unaffiliated with the Catholic Church run by Michael Galloway[8]. On the site you can do such things as learn about early Christians, Church teachings, and buy beef[9], wait... buy beef? Why is selling beef the primary purpose of a religious website? Color me unconvinced that this WP:SPS is a WP:RS. See also sister site catholiconline.shopping[10]. From the Justice Department source the enterprise is highly lucrative. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:20, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Having look at a brief sample of citations (from the first five pages that came up in an article-space search for 'Catholic.org'), I can't see much that looks obviously 'false or fabricated'. Some content seems to be press releases-based, or archived from elsewhere. One article cited an 'encyclopedia' article which probably shouldn't be used, but beyond that, from my limited sample I'd say that the website probably falls into a 'best not used for anything important' category - so probably option 2-ish, since they are unlikely to be fabricating press releases on the appointment of cardinals etc. As for the website flogging beef, if we excluded sources that tried to sell us stuff, we'd probably have to exclude the majority of web-based sources entirely. I'd need more to go on to convince me that deprecation for 'fabrication' was merited. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:51, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Why not Option 3 however? Deprecation is unnecessary, but this source definitely seems like it would fall under generally unreliable. Silverseren^C 17:18, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

I'd say the trying to sell stuff bit is relevant due to its prominence, its lack of separation from the site's other information, and because Galloway was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for failing to report a massive amount of income from the site[11]. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:16, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• Invalid RFC. Catholic.org is a republisher of articles and a repository for information. That information has been collected from disparate sources and its reliability for various purposes is highly variable. For example, there is certainly a good deal of information about patron saints contained herein, and that can generally be considered reliably and stably published. Likewise, the information about popular devotions and prayers is generally reliable. In my experience, this site also republished articles by reputable authors and scholars that had previously been published by news sites. I don't use Catholic.org too much due to its high quotient of ads and donation appeals, but I see no reason to deprecate it nor pronounce it as "generally reliable for whatever" but instead it should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, as editors typically do according to policy. Elizium23 (talk) 17:43, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  None of that makes the RfC invalid. Also, republishing of articles elsewhere doesn't make this source valid either. Wikipedia doesn't support using rehosting sources in the first place, since there's also copyright issues with that. You're really making the case that this is really not a source we should be using at all. Silverseren^C 18:11, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  Catholic.org obtains copyright permission to republish the articles. I'm not sure why you would accuse them of not doing so. Elizium23 (talk) 23:55, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• Option 3 Sounds like this is a site with no reason to be considered reliable. Rehosting of outside content doesn't make the source reliable just because of that and introduces additional issues of copyright. We should be using the original actually reliable sources, not a rehosting fansite. Silverseren^C 18:11, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 Site fails the basic criteria in WP:RS. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:31, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 Should not be cited but it can be used in discussions that review certain facts for accuracy (specifically feast days and anglicization of saint names). It filled the role of what should have been actually RS on so many saint articles when they were created and it’s continued use should be halted. ~ Pbritti (talk) 17:24, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3/4; the things it writes itself are unusable because it's a personal website, and the stuff it rehosts without concern for copyright makes things worse because they put it under WP:ELNEVER point 2. Depending on the degree of copyright infringement and the extent to which they try to deal with it, it may require actual deprecation. --Aquillion (talk) 05:42, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3. Any reprinted content is entirely dependent on the reliability of the original source, and should be cited to that original source. Any original content fails our standards for Reliability. I see no indication applies any professional-level standards for journalistic editorial oversight. I see no indication that it has any significant reputation. Anyone can establish a non-profit and anyone can throw up a website. It fails our criteria. Beyond that, the fact that the owner has apparently been indited for issues relating to the website is hardly inspiration to extend a favorable exception here. Alsee (talk) 08:55, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
• Invalid RFC as per above and oppose this "deprecation" system. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:40, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
• Depends on context - per RS, it depends on what for. It seems obvious that it is a decent source for general information on Saints, and equally obvious that any rfc about RS without defining on the RS topics or a specific article question and not using the RS criteria items ... is not right. I also agree with Emir dislike about this “deprecation” system ... we just do not need a rfc on this nor is a record of this rfc going to have any meaningful value. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 14:27, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
• Why? This is controversial? RAN1 (talk) 09:44, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

  To elaborate, I don't think it's a good idea to RSP sources that have never had their unreliability disputed as a matter of WP:BEANS. RAN1 (talk) 18:22, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

  Its reliability has repeatedly been disputed, thats why this discussion was opened. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:50, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

  @Horse Eye's Back: I ran a link search for www.catholic.org, and I'm pretty sure there are over 1000 articles that cite this site. Is this problem bigger than an RS issue? RAN1 (talk) 23:47, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

  Thats not a lot, we've had discussions about sources with 10k plus here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:30, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

• Invalid RfC can't see what dispute is being addressed. I'm glad to see that others are tiring of this kind of RfC, I'm hopeful that someday what we'll ban instead is the 4-way template. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:24, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option nuke-from-orbit. This plainly self-published site is a one man project by a convicted tax-dodger previously credibly accused of defrauding Catholic charities. The comment above about its primary purpose being sales, is perceptive: he got 21 months for evading taxes on those sales. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:17, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
• Options 2/3 while the website is not reliable as a secondary source … any primary documents it hosts/reprints are reliable primary sources that CAN be cited (with the usual caveats that apply to all primary sources). And when citing those primary sources, the website can be used as a WP:Convenience link within those citation. Blueboar (talk) 20:43, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Newadvent.org

How would you evaluate the reliability of Newadvent.org?

• 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

Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:35, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Discussion: Newadvent.org

• Option 3, once again I'm a little surprised that we have to have this discussion but there are thousands of cites to it... Newadvent.org is a fansite published by Kevin Knight[12], it primarily contains links to catholic sites (links currently on the homepage [13][14][15][16][17][18]), material scraped from other sources and original translations or transliterations of public domain texts. Clear fringe non-expert WP:SPS with almost no uses as a WP:RS. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:40, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  Framing a journal of a well-respected institute of the University of Notre Dame as being among Fringe catholic sites is frankly nowhere close to reality. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:06, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  My apologies, you are correct that they are not all fringe. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:12, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• Newadvent.org is a primary source repository that is generally reliable for the sources that it lists. As I and others noted in the previous botched RfC that Horse Eye also started, this is a website that peer-reviewed academic review says is reliable for those sources. Are those transcriptions faithful to the original text? Yes; the articles are straightforward, word-for-word transcriptions of the originals, per that review, though there are occasional transcription errors. The primary content on the website is as accurate as the original sources themselves and, much like how we can link to Wikisource, it's perfectly acceptable to link to New Advent in citations as a courtesy link for people who are unable to access the original print source themselves. The statement that New Advent primarily contains links to fringe catholic sites is plainly false; it's a reputable repository of primary sources that's commented on positively in an academic review for its fidelity to the original source material.— Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:06, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  I will also note that the way that the academic source describes the site being built is that there was a large volunteer project to faithfully transcribe the content. Volunteers would perform the transcriptions and then email them to Kevin Knight, who would review the emails and publish the transcriptions. There's evidence of the basic level of editorial controls in the project, which is no surprise given the accuracy of the site's transcriptions. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:11, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  So the source says that it exists and has user generated content as its most usable feature? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:16, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  I have previously offered to email you the source so that you can review it yourself; your question comes off as confused. The source says that the content on the website is a faithful transcription of several public domain works and states that the source is highly recommended as a scholarly reference material, which seems like a ringing endorsement of its reliability for the purpose of representing the the text of public domain sources online. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:23, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  Lots of things are 100% usable as scholarly reference material which are not WP:RS... They're not the same standard. We don't need to use a SPS for public domain content, we can just cite the public domain content (when its WP:DUE that is). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:30, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  We could, and we could avoid providing any sort of digital link to the content, but we are more than free to add convenience links to our citations so that people can view the content for themselves. The guideline notes that [w]hen offering convenience links, it is important to be reasonably certain that the convenience copy is a true copy of the original, without any changes or inappropriate commentary. And, based upon that academic source's review of the website, I'm more than reasonably certain that the convenience copy is faithful to the text of the original copies. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:37, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  We already established that it wasn't a true copy "there are occasional transcription errors" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:39, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  The way that the academic source describes this, verbatim, is that a few minor typographical errors were found in several articles. If you think that the presence of a few minor typos is enough to make links to the website verboten, I think that we're just going to have to agree to disagree. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:44, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  Either something is a true copy or it isn't, thats a binary... Something can't be "kind of" a true copy it either is or it isn't and if it has even one minor error it isn't. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:48, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  That is silly. Considering that the transcribed sources were on paper and pre-electronic, an OCR or hand-transcription of a source is naturally going to contain some slight variance from the original writing, whether in orthography or typesetting or a regional spelling. That is something that is a natural side-effect of recopying, no matter what the method. If I photocopy a document and it has a little bit of gray cast to it, is that an imperfect copy? Did it somehow corrupt the semantic meaning of the text? Does the gray cast or a minor error prevent it from being a "true copy" If it didn't, why protest about it? Elizium23 (talk) 17:52, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  Thats what "true copy" means, and no a gray cast would not necessarily prevent one text from being a true copy of the other unless if destroyed the legibility in some way. This is why we use experts/mainstream academia not some guys on the internet. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:58, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  Is your position that a scan of a document, where a single word is illegible, should never be linked to as a convenience link? I'm a bit confused here. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 18:08, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  I was not involved in crafting our current standards, those who did clearly do mean "true copy" in that every word can be verified because thats the wider wikipedia standard. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:23, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

It seems to me that you are trying to fix a generic problem - the use of poor sources in Wikipedia articles on religion - by selecting particular examples. This looks like a poor source to be using, for the examples given, but would deprecating it actually solve the problem? As noted above, people are citing Wiki's (already excluded by policy) and the like. What is needed is a better appreciation of what sources should be used, rather than a list of ones that shouldn't. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:09, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• Why do you keep bringing up deprecation? They advocated for Option 3, not Option 4. Silverseren^C 17:17, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

I did/am doing the same with military history/aviation, those two areas seem to have the biggest issue with this problem. I doubt deprecating it would solve the problem, part of why I am not advocating for it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:16, 17 September 2022 (UTC) Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:16, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Regardless of exactly how the source ends up characterised, I remain unconvinced that this type of 'evaluate the general reliability of...' RfC is an effective way to deal with endemic poor sourcing. How exactly are those who have been using such sources supposed to learn about the outcome of this RfC? And more to the point, how are they going to be persuaded to assess sources better for themselves? AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:23, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

It seems to me that you are trying to fix a generic problem - the use of this particular RFC question format - by selecting particular examples. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:25, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• WikiProject Catholicism has been notified of this discussion. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:24, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
• Invalid RFC. This is a dumb question, as New Advent is a library which has transcribed and republished Public Domain sources. We cannot pronounce on its "generally (un)reliability" for any purpose because that depends on the purpose and context. New Advent hosts ECF writings, the Catholic Encyclopedia, and other really solid sources which are reliable for their scholarship on Sacred Scripture, Catholic Tradition, and historical Canon Law. In context, these writings can be quite reliable, but this RFC strips the citations of their contexts and requests that the community pass judgement in the form of a number 1-4. That is a wholly invalid question, and this sort of nonsense should be nipped in the bud, rather than wasting a lot of our time on trivial pursuits. Elizium23 (talk) 17:45, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  So, once again, it is rehosting other sources. Those other sources may be reliable, but there's no reason to use this website that is rehosting them. We should have references aimed at the original sources. Silverseren^C 18:15, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• Option 3 We shouldn't be using rehosting sites as references in the first place. We should be citing the original material. Just because someone decided to put a bunch of public domain religious content into their website doesn't then make them a source we should be using because of it. Silverseren^C 18:15, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  How do you feel about using the website as a convenience link in citations? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 18:29, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  I think only an actual official hosting source should be used, such as Newspapers.com or ProQuest for news articles or official journal depositories such as JSTOR. This source is not one of those, as they deal in material that literally anyone could host. So it's basically just a random person's website, which isn't the sort of thing we should be using for convenience links. Silverseren^C 18:33, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• Invalid RFC per Elizium23. While I understand Silver seren's concerns about hosting cites, especially ones that do not have the same academic filters as JSTOR etc., NewAdvent contains a mixture of materials that vary from strictly RS to non-RS. Of course, if these non-RS contents were being cited with with great frequency, it would be an issue. But as far as I can tell, NewAdvent is used almost exclusively for RS and appropriate primary-source material. The website provides a service that neither citing WikiSource nor Wikipedia can provide with regards to Catholic Encyclopedia and other critical resources to Christianity-related topics in its sorting, and using it as an alternative to linking WikiSource for certain things is entirely appropriate. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:56, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
• Invalid RFC (Summoned by bot) – Per Elizium23. The discussion about rehosting services and whether they should be allowed is a reasonable and worthwhile one, but this is the wrong venue for it. (Sneak preview: it's like Wikisource in that way, which has similar transcription procedures and proofing, and which we don't allow in a citation, but we do allow as a convenience link.) This is about one website. Option 3 as a second choice. Mathglot (talk) 21:23, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Knight does more than rehost, see the notice "Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight."[19] which appears on many of the pages of historical content. So we aren't talking public domain content in general, we're talking about specific amateur revisions of public domain content published by Kevin Knight on his blog newadvent.org. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:31, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Right, which is why this is only a speck in a much larger discussion. This larger question cannot be answered here. Mathglot (talk) 21:47, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

The larger question hasn't been asked in this RfC so the point is moot. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:55, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• Invalid RFC Agree with Elizium23 and Pbritti. "This is a dumb question", also silly. Wikisource CE is largely taken from New Advent. If it's so unreliable, what's it doing in wikisource in the first place? Perhaps OP would care to review all the sources in wikisource. If wikisource is not to be used then a lot of contributors have wasted a lot of time. Manannan67 (talk) 01:53, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

If editors added something to Wikipedia just because it was on wikisource and not because it was WP:DUE then yes they have wasted a lot of time, see Wikipedia:Wikisource#Using Wikisource as reference "Inclusion of text in Wikisource does not automatically justify mentioning of it in Wikipedia, because of potential differences between what Wikisource includes and what Wikipedia includes." None of that makes the RFC invalid BTW. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:04, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

You miss the point, which is if it's reliable in the first place, not whether or not it's DUE. Please don't change the subject. UC Santa Barbara hosts NA as part of thier research databases.[20]; One can access NA and cite it through the LOC Researcher and Reference Services Division [21]; Oxford University: "A treasure trove of information on the Roman Catholic tradition. The encyclopaedia and documents sections are especially helpful."[22] to name a few. Manannan67 (talk) 02:10, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Please assess the source based on wikipedia's standards, see WP:RS and more specifically WP:SPS: "Anyone can create a personal web page, self-publish a book, or claim to be an expert. That is why self-published material such as books, patents, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs (as distinguished from newsblogs, above), content farms, Internet forum postings, and social media postings are largely not acceptable as sources. Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:15, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

"How accepted and high-quality reliable sources use a given source provides evidence, positive or negative, for its reliability and reputation. The more widespread and consistent this use is, the stronger the evidence." See WP:UBO. Manannan67 (talk) 02:27, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

This is an WP:SPS, so those rules apply. You also have not presented widespread and consistent use so your evidence is incredibly weak, high-quality reliable sources do not appear to use New Advent (note that none of the cases presented so far are uses, they're reviews or entries in directories). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:33, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

It's not my evidence that "is incredibly weak". "High-quality reliable sources" in fact host a link to provide their researchers with access New Advent. "Self-published works are those in which the author and publisher are the same." Knight publishes articles by Kirsch, Maas, Thurston and others. We're not talking "vanity press" here. "Self-published works are sometimes acceptable as sources, so self-publication is not, and should not be, a bit of jargon used by Wikipedians to automatically dismiss a source as "bad" or "unreliable" or "unusable... While many self-published sources happen to be unreliable, the mere fact that it is self-published does not prove this. A self-published source can be independent, authoritative, high-quality, accurate, fact-checked, and expert-approved....Self-published sources can be reliable, and they can be used." WP:USESPS Manannan67 (talk) 03:03, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Hosting a link =/= using in an article or similar. SPS can be reliable, when published by an expert... Which Knight is not, he is a self-professed amateur. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:07, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Also if "Knight publishes articles by Kirsch, Maas, Thurston and others." then how is this an invalid RfC? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:08, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

How is it self-published, when he's not the author of any of the CE articles or an Ante-Nicean Father? Manannan67 (talk) 03:38, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Every single page says "Copyright © 2021 by Kevin Knight" or a variation thereof. Their "Contact Us" page says "New Advent is maintained by a Catholic layman named Kevin Knight."[23] Not really sure how you can argue its isn't a personal website, blog, or group blog. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:47, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

CE is in the public domain. In the US no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. I seriously doubt Knight pretends to a copyright of either CE or Schaff and Wace; and nobody cares about the rest of the site's content. Therefore, it can be selectively used. Manannan67 (talk) 04:53, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

We aren't discussing the reliability of a hundred year old encyclopedia we're discussing the reliability of Kevin Knight's personal website Newadvent.org. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:56, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Do we have a reason to suspect that Mr. Knight is changing or amending the original documents hosted on his sight? Does he provide his own commentary or analysis? Or does he merely host transcriptions and scans? Blueboar (talk) 17:15, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the attribution "Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight."[24] is attached to many of the texts. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:20, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

@Blueboar: As I noted above, the academic review posted above characterizes the website's transcriptions as straightforward, word-for-word transcriptions of the originals, with important keywords hyperlinked to other referenced articles within the work. My understanding of the extent of "revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight" is the insertion of hyperlinks within the text. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 22:20, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

• Option 3/4. I don't understand the people saying this is an invalid RFC - we can, of course, use a non-WP:RS as the link to a host for something that is otherwise reliable, provided they generally respect copyright, but it is necessary to establish that each link is individually reliable and accurate, since a non-RS host provides none. This is basic WP:RS. The site itself is clearly not a reliable source and therefore cannot confer any reliability itself, which is an important thing to establish - republishers and churnalist sites and the like are not and have never been RSes themselves. Furthermore, at a glance there are possible copyright issues, which could put it under WP:ELNEVER (in which case we have no option but to bar citations to it - of course, people can still find something there, and, if they think it is accurate and an RS, cite that document, but they shouldn't link to a potential copyvio as part of that, in the same way that I might look up an academic paper on sci-hub but could never link to it or cite it there.) --Aquillion (talk) 05:38, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1/2 per Red-tailed hawk. It seems like it's mainly a large collection of public domain texts, and all the examples I checked appear to be translations by experts (e.g. [25] appears to be Knox Bible, [26] "Second and Revised Edition, 1920 Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province", [27] by some professor who has other project compiling ancient primary sources [28]). I see no evidence presented that the content is corrupted or distorted. There also doesn't seem to be anything else besides those public domain texts, except a very Web 1.0 homepage with external links. The submitter's !vote dwells quite a bit on those external links, but they seem completely irrelevant to me. Who could ever cite this website for an external link? I'm also open to just closing this RFC with no action or as an Invalid RFC, because it might not make sense to evaluate a compilation like this as a single source. - GretLomborg (talk) 14:12, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 Reliable as a hosting cite for otherwise reliable material, unreliable for self-written material. --Jayron32 13:47, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 per Jayron32 --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 14:32, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
• Invalid RFC as per above and oppose this "deprecation" system. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:39, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3. I checked some of its articles and couldn't verify this elsewhere. This isn't a reliable source, not if you ask me. --SHB2000 (talk) 10:58, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
• option 1 as a source repository, option 3 otherwise Mangoe (talk) 13:54, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
• Comment - I would say that the issue here is likely mal-formed citations. Except for rare occasions, we should not cite Newadvent.org as a source, but rather we should cite the original document … and then link to Newadvent as a courtesy link. This may require amending the citations, but the material will then be properly cited. Blueboar (talk) 23:38, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
• Comment transcription errors do no make the repository unreliable. Transcription typos in the hosted copy do not materially affect the reliability of the underlying source. –Zfish118^⋉talk 17:38, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

However… if a hosted copy contains transcription errors, then it is not the best copy to link to. We should (if possible) amend the citation so it links to a non-erroneous copy, hosted elsewhere. Blueboar (talk) 18:13, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

If errors don't make a transcriber unreliable what does? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:15, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

• Irrelevant… since what we should be citing is the original document (which does not contain the transcription error). Blueboar (talk) 18:25, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
• Not necessarily true; the original could easily have typos and equivalent errors that do not meaningfully impact the reliability of the source. Textbooks and technical manuals have errata sections. Newspapers have editorial comments noting corrections. Even online archives for the New York Times has a link in its archives where readers can report transcription errors (do we exclude the NYT online archives due to transcription errors?). –Zfish118^⋉talk 20:37, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Military-Today.com

How would you evaluate the reliability of Military-Today.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

Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:47, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

• Military-Today.com (also MilitaryToday.com) is an amateur military group blog run by Andrius Genys. This is one of those non-expert SPS that I wouldn't think would ever need to be brought here but shockingly it is used on more than 300 articles. It is not possible for a reasonable editor to mistake this source as reliable, its clearly internet gutter trash. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:50, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3:=, he is not an acknowledged expert, so it does not pass SPS. Slatersteven (talk) 16:53, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
• Unnecessary RFC this is obviously a non-reliable site. Nothing changed since Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 330#Military Today. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:06, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

  If there were no current cites to this source it would be unnecessary, unfortunately it is cited on more than 300 pages. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:53, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

  What exactly is this RfC supposed to achieve? If articles are citing sources that have already been declared unreliable, doing the same thing again isn't going to change anything. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:25, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

  I don't think we've had an RfC on this topic before, the previous discussion was informal. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:37, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, but what is an RfC on this specific source supposed to achieve? I very much doubt that the people using such sources check through noticeboard archives before using them. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:10, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

  I will get scrub a dub dubbing in a serious way if the RfC ends in 3 or 4. Once there is no backlog of old uses then new uses can be quickly identified and neutralized. In general I think the preferred outcome of this sort of RfC is that editors present strong supporting evidence of the source's reliability which allows us to continue using it widely. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:13, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

  Seems to me that you are looking for permission to do something you don't need permission for. If the source is crap, scrub it. If someone seriously disputes that it is crap, maybe we'll have something worth discussing here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:31, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

  Seems to me like you don't know what you're talking about... Thats how you end up at ANI with a half dozen people calling for your head (they won't get it obviously because the source is crap but ANI isn't a fun place to be dragged even under the best of circumstances)... Been there... Done that... This way is much less disruptive to the project. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:36, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

• Unless someone presents a good case to the contrary, Option 3. As far as I can see this appears to be essentially a high-class blog. I suspect there's lots of good info there, however it does not appear to satisfy our reliability standards. We should not be citing hobby websites just because they happen to look good. Whatever information we're pulling from there should be cited to a better source. Alsee (talk) 10:51, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
• Unnecessary RFC per HEADBOMB. - GretLomborg (talk) 13:46, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
• Unnecessary RFC per WP:SOFIXIT. You don't need permission to make Wikipedia better. If someone complains, direct them to read WP:RS and explain to them why the source is not a reliable source. --Jayron32 13:44, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

• I agree that it is clearly unreliable, and would be in favor of deprecating. But I also understand the perspective that a RFC should be unnecessary. Go ahead and strip out the references in the hundreds of articles which cite it and give the explanation, in detail, that the source has been definitely deemed unreliable at RSN. Yes, somebody may complain at ANI regardless; I've seen many examples of exactly what you apprehend. And some editors will undoubtedly back up the complainers for various specious reasons. Don't worry about it. Banks Irk (talk) 00:43, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

• Unnecessary RFC per above --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 14:30, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
• Unnecessary RFC as per above and oppose this "deprecation" system. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:38, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

RFC (The Daily Dot)

What best describes The Daily Dot's reliability?

• 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

X-Editor (talk) 00:05, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

• Sigh… none of the standard options fit… so I will say Option 5: Use with in-text attribution Blueboar (talk) 02:03, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I'm not sure this RfC is helpful. It looks like the discussion in the previous section was already reaching a consensus of something like 2 but the more difficult question is what additional considerations apply. Most people were arguing that it should be seen as a biased source and used with attribution where something is contentious. I think DFlhb's suggestion that we treat it similarly to the WP:DAILYBEAST is probably sensible. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:52, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• I just want to post here to point people to my analysis and conclusion in the section above (here). I think an "option 2 with required attribution" would be fitting, similar to User:Blueboar's option 5 idea above. It's quite unlikely that the Daily Dot would be the only source reporting on something, so other sources that don't require attribution should be preferred; and the Daily Dot shouldn't be used for notability evaluation since many editors have pointed out in the discussion above that the Dot frequently covers inconsequential topics or Daily-Mail-like gossip. DFlhb (talk) 14:08, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I agree with others that our typical options don't work well here. In fact I think this is a good example of why the typical options list and the color coding in general aren't very helpful. The current RSP listing says DD is reliable for internet trends. It doesn't say it's green for comments about people or politics etc. Of the options we have I would say #2 because that is where I think most sources like this should fit. Are they likely to tell an outright lie? No. Are they likely to skew what they report in a way that could lead to a false impression or that leaves out signiticant context? Yes. Are they likely to amplify a claim based on their own bias rather than based on a good analysis of the evidence? Yes. So all of these things point to a clear "use with care" type warning. However, the other issue is how much weight, if any, should be given to claims that we only find in DD? I would say just about none. I mean I'm fine with using them as a source for an otherwise mundane detail, "Ford released the new Palomino on March 5th". Should the source be used for a controversial claim ("Ford is hiding a safety defect in the Palomino"), heck no. Would I consider a claim made by another source more valid because DD echos it? No, they are trolling the web for clickable content. Thus my biggest concern is why would we give them any weight rather than are they messing up the actual facts. Springee (talk) 15:12, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 for politics. I think it makes sense to split this out by topic. The Daily Dot seems fine when they write about so-called internet culture, which seems to mostly consist of reporting on a viral TikTok video or the like, with a few paragraphs of analysis, which they do quite often, with a special focus on customers and employees at fast food restaurants and food delivery services, for some reason. (All of these examples are from the last four days!) It seems harmless enough. But when they cover politics, their status as a clickbait-y aggregator really becomes a problem: they still focus much of their reporting on Twitter randos and so on, with very little actual reporting, and in their analysis they seem much more interested in taking cheap shots at conservatives than at accurately capturing events. And, as User:DFlhb pointed out in the section above, even when they get things right, any non-obvious facts would be covered in other sources. So it seems useless to include them as a source for political topics. Korny O'Near (talk) 16:34, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 in general, biased and WP:RSOPINION for politics. I see no evidence above of serious failed fact checks or blatant propagandistic shenanigans like doctored images or mixing fringe POVs with factual reporting (please feel free to inform me if I missed something of this form), but it does appear to be biased and opinionated for politics, so it should have a disclaimer similar to Jacobin, Reason etc that it is an opinionated/biased sources and treated as such (attributed where usable when biased/opinion, not for weight). Andre🚐 19:48, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  Reason is a publication with years of history and plenty of good work to it's credit. This is none of that. It's mostly a farm for click bait stories. It's crazy that we would consider this crap source more reliable than Fox News (which isn't meant to be a compliment to Fox). Springee (talk) 20:30, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  I'm open to changing my view on it, but I haven't seen any evidence, unlike copious failed fact checks and misleading statements by Fox. Andre🚐 20:36, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

• Probably option 1.5/2? It seems like sometimes attribution is appropriate when there's an unclear separation of reporting/analysis and commentary, but I have not seen sufficient evidence that we should consider it unreliable. Presumably we're supposed to base this, at least in part, on the list of stories which exemplify DD as unreliable in the section above. But actually looking at them, it's less a list of problems and more a list of when the OP disagrees. That DD considers Joe Rogan's statement that healthy 21-year-olds who exercise regularly have no need for vaccination to be a "false claim about COVID" is not an example of this source being unreliable. As for the Vance quote about being a "nationalist who worries about America's low fertility", as the DD article says, that's typically a white nationalist perspective. Maybe he wants there to just be more Americans, and supports lowering barriers to immigration rather than wanting more of specific types of Americans, but we don't need to know his thoughts to say that the Daily Dot pointed out that it's typically a racist argument (or a dog whistle to those who support that racist argument, with the built-in deniability that dog whistles come with). OP seemed to simply miss the point of the Musk/hair/gender-affirming care story, but that's ultimately DD highlighting a perspective other people made rather than their own, anyway, and there's no "unreliability" in there. The evidence is simply unconvincing. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:56, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with this read Andre🚐 20:10, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

• Option 2: There is no question that its home page looks clickbaity, and my initial reaction was to dismiss the publication outright (though not for the reasons cited by the OP, as to which I agree with Rhododendrites). But it actually seems to be reasonably accurate in its substantive news, it has something of a reputation for breaking news, and it's used by others. So on further consideration, I think it can be used with attribution. Some examples of use by others:

• "The woman [who alleges she was drugged and raped by Cliff Maloney Jr.] came forward last year shortly after the Daily Dot published an article recounting accusations that Maloney sexually harassed women connected to Young Americans for Liberty, a conservative political organization." Atlanta Journal-Constitution (5/8/2022).
• "The caller also provided police with a username, which belonged to a website's administrator, which they claimed belonged to them, suggesting that the caller's alleged motives and identity may have been fabricated, according to the Daily Dot, which first obtained a copy of the police report [about a swatting incident involving Marjorie Taylor Greene]." Independent Online (U.K.) (8/25/2022).
• "[Rep. Barry] Loudermilk gave an interview to a local Georgia radio station on the day of the riot [i.e., Jan. 6, 2021]. The Georgia Republican was still in an undisclosed secure location as he spoke. His comments would not become widely known until The Daily Dot uncovered them months later." Business Insider (6/16/2022).
• "Unjected, a dating app and the "largest unvaccinated platform" online, apparently left its entire website's back end unsecured. Security researchers, working with Daily Dot reporters, reportedly accessed the site's administrator dashboard, which had been left entirely unsecured and in de-bug mode." National Law Review (8/4/2022) (also covered in other sources).
• "The Daily Dot recently discovered that one of the companies the state authorizes to provide campaigns and political action committees (PACs) with campaign finance software is owned by an open and avowed White supremacist who still praises the Confederacy." Florida Politics (9/16/2022).

These are just some recent examples from Westlaw. John M Baker (talk) 04:23, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1.5/2 per Rhododendrites, but weakly oppose Option 1 due to additional considerations below. The Daily Dot evidently appears to be clickbait, and most of its culture articles are superficial, reporting on popular social media videos with limited analysis. This, IMHO is echoed in its political coverage, which per the previous thread is somewhat exaggerated and leaves out context. However, I couldn't find specific examples in which The Daily Dot has written a piece that is blatantly misinformation or disinformation, but it is far from the quality of a newspaper of record or another site with high-quality editorial control. Numerous pieces previously provided are also marked as opinion pieces, which are irrelevant, such as 1 2. Also, while the label of the coronavirus piece could be slightly opinionated, IMO it is not misleading to the point of damaging reliability. Further, the previous articles definitely show that The Daily Dot is WP:BIASED, reflected by the current RSP entry Some editors have objected to its tone or consider it to be biased or opinionated. Consider whether content from this publication constitutes due weight before citing it in an article. Due to that The Daily Dot frequently covers controversial and possibly exaggerated content that possibly violates due weight, IMO attribution should be recommended, and better sources should be preferred when possible. VickKiang (talk) 01:47, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

  > reporting on popular social media videos with limited analysis

  Is a lack of analysis for that a problem, I wonder? Watching and documenting the Web is also necessarily their forte (it's some of ours too). It may seem irrelevant and silly to many, or even clickbait-y. But to give a contrasting example, I found the Daily Dot indispensable in helping to catalog the cultural evolution of Pepe the Frog. An Internet cultural history that nobody could argue didn't dip into some politics, by the way. Chillabit (talk) 19:59, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1. WP:RS is not based on whether editors personally disagree with a source's conclusions (which seems to be the only arguments made above), but on its reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; and nobody has presented any secondary sourcing calling the Daily Dot's reputation into question, just things they personally disagree with. We don't perform WP:OR here, we rely on what other sources say - you have to demonstrate its reputation, not just a laundry-list of articles you take issue with. And as far as its reputation goes, the source does have decent WP:USEBYOTHERS. See eg. [29][30][31]. The first two particularly stand out because the authors relied on the Daily Dot for part of their classification scheme, ie. its reputation for accuracy - when covering politics, note - was central to their research. [32] is similar, presenting an article and comparison from the Daily Dot to justify the basis of their research. That's (generally) the way we'd expect academic papers to treat a WP:RS. And coverage in other sources generally covers it the way we'd expect them to cover another RS, eg. [33][34] --Aquillion (talk) 02:36, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

  Quite a few of these are paywalled, but this one, which you describe as standing out, lists Media Bias/Fact Check the exact same way it lists Daily Dot. Yet, MBFC is not a reliable source on Wikipedia. I don't think a pile of links to largely paywalled sources that (at least some of the time) refer to them in a way they refer to unreliable sources really establishes their reliability.

  Also, the question of bias needing attribution for WP purposes is separate from the issue of factual accuracy; and the site's strong bias is quite obvious. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:27, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

  I think you need to read that source again. They aren't listing them, they're using lists from them (and three other places). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:32, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes. The point is that, in context, their conclusions depend on the accuracy of data that they got from the Daily Dot, which is the way I would expect an academic paper to use a WP:RS. This alone is not always enough because we have to consider what others say about them, but since it is otherwise generally structured like a reputable news source, and since the only objections anyone seems to be raising about the Daily Dot are that they personally disagree with its conclusions, it seems sufficient in this case. --Aquillion (talk) 19:40, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1. I just looked at TDD. A story about an incident at a Walmart ends with "The Daily Dot reached out to ...." Another about a TV weatherman using scenes of an animal caught in Hurricane Ian rising waters states "The Daily Dot reached out to WINK News...." There's one about a former employee exposing JCPenney's secret loss prevention surveillance, with "The Daily Dot reached out to Han via TikTok comment and JCPenney via email." TDD does what journalism is expected and supposed to do.
  As for opinions, and its coverage of politics and culture, WP:BIASED states: "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject... Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context." Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 03:09, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1, there has been no evidence presented that The Daily Dot engages in misinformation or that they have purveyed factually innacurate information and refused to correct it, all publications that report on politics are biased to some extent and the only way to avoid this would be to delete all Wikipedia articles on politics. Devonian Wombat (talk) 23:17, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2/Option 5 from User:Blueboar above. Per User:DFlhb's analysis in the section above The Daily Dot does not appear to draw a clear line between opinion pieces and factual reporting, so they need to be treated like a WP:RSOPINION source with in-text attribution. Their building articles around random social media posts (as shown by User:Korny O'Near's list of articles about fast food tiktok's in this section and the quoted tweets mentioned by User:DFlhb above) raises some pretty serious concerns both around WP:BLP and about its usability for establishing WP:NOTABILITY/WP:WEIGHT. As its editorial standards appear to have gone down somewhat recently, maybe it would be possible to establish a rough cut-off point, prior to which it could be used with less caveats. Siawase (talk) 08:27, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 highly biased on numerous fronts, not a source that should be generally used on Wikipedia. Bill Williams 18:15, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. I don't see any evidence that suggests TDD is anything but a generally reliable source. In fact, the examples of TDD following (what should be) accepted journalism practices has left me more confident of their reliability than I had been previously. Woodroar (talk) 19:49, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2/5 per Blueboar, Bobfrombrockley, and others above; mixes fact and opinion and hence the rules on opinion pieces apply. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:00, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
• Terrible RfC as per all the varying views offered above, which are valid answers to the question but not the options presented. The only one I would be wholeheartedly against is option 4. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:45, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
• Comment - this RfC is due in part to a (now-archived) list I created of what I saw as false or misleading wording in some Daily Dot articles; you can see the list, and some discussion about it, here. Korny O'Near (talk) 00:25, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2? It depends - this RFC for generic labelling doesn’t seem applicable, it would depend on the specific item in question. The DailyDot collection of pieces range in areas and sourcing and value - many are by staff writers with good rep and giving a factual reporting, many are more question pieces or about non-fact topics. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 15:06, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 per Aquillion: they don't seem to have any sort of history of inaccuracy and there's sufficient WP:USEBYOTHERS to make it hard to say they're not reliable. I could see noting them down as biased but TBH they're not any more biased than something like Vox, which is also green on RSP. Loki (talk) 17:32, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 for political content, Option 1 for general content per Andrevan and Rhododendrites. Contentious or questionable political views (whether explicit or implied) are not enough to write a source off as unreliable, but it does warrant additional considerations in a source's use and preference for better sources when possible. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 06:00, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
• My personal view is: if text can be sourced only to the Daily Dot, then we should not include it. If it's in a more reliable source but the Daily Dot provides additional colour then it might be acceptable as a supporting source with inline attribution, but even then I'd be skeptical. It's trashy and clickbaity. We should never drop sourcing standards to the point that we can include sensationalist content just because people like it, after all. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:13, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Health Liberation Now! Relisted

Context: Original poorly formatted notification here. However, it contains how the authors and organization are covered in reliable sources. In addition, since the original listing, I created an article for Health Liberation Now!

Question: Can we use Health Liberation Now! as a source for factual information?

1) We can use it as a source without in-text attribution (X happened)

2) We can use it as a source with in-text attribution (Health Liberation Now stated X happened)

3) We can't use it as a source at all

TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 04:47, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• 1 though 2 is an acceptable compromise (as proposer): HLN's reporting is often used matter of factly in reliable sources. The authors are considered subject matter experts and we also have practically every mention in a reliable source, especially WP:SIRS, describing them as an organization known for reporting on political attacks on transgender healthcare. While they are an advocacy group, that doesn't mean they aren't neutral or uncitable, as we quote organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center in a similar manner. No reliable sources have raised doubts about the accuracy of their reports, and frankly they do good reporting on an under-reported issue. For those reasons, we should be able to include details from their reporting in articles, either as facts since they often publish easily verifiable statements, or attributed to keep in line with Wikipedia policies.

TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 04:55, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• Mu. The three options in the RfC represent a false choice, which is to say that the poorly constructed RFC ignores the potential that we should treat as self-published and apply additional considerations with respect to biographies of living persons. There is not all that much significant coverage of the website itself, though the best I can piece together is that this is a two-person job that appears to be a group blog. I don't see evidence of the sorts of things that we require of news organizations, such as strong editorial control and a reputation for fact-checking. I also don't think that this is anywhere near the level of WP:SCHOLARSHIP. As always, the guidance of WP:RSSELF that Anyone can create a personal web page or publish their own book and claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published sources are largely not acceptable is worth heeding here.
  There is a narrow exception for expert sources, which is reserved for people whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. Along those lines, @TheTranarchist: has the research of the two people who run this website previously been published by independent, reliable publications, such as academic or peer-reviewed journals? If so, would you be willing to provide links to some examples? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 16:24, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, I covered how they were considered experts extensively in the previous RFC but was chided for information overload.

  1) Leveille, Schevers, and Health Liberation Now are cited in this peer-reviewed article

  2) The independent calls Leveille a a trans researcher and health activist who has extensively documented the origins of what he calls TAnon

  3) Xtra Magazine describes Schevers as a researcher who researches TERFs because she used to be one. She’s written extensively about being sucked into a cult-like “detransition” movement which convinced young transmasculine people that their dysphoria was caused by misogyny and could only be cured by radical feminism.. They also state She has been my most patient guide through the world of organized transphobia, having previously spoken to me about the rise of anti-trans activism targeting doctors and gender clinics; every conversation is a whirlwind of names, dates, times and bizarre blog posts from TERF havens, illuminating the underbelly of an obsessive and increasingly dangerous movement.

  4) Ms. Magazine describes Schevers as a researcher who tracks anti-trans activity

  5) Salon describes Schevers as a trans journalist

  6) Vice despite being a passing mention does describe Schevers as a HLN researcher

  The Indepedendent and Xtra Magazine both discuss their research in depth and use them as reliable sources.

  In addition, Schever's past involvement with transphobic detransition communities is well documented in places such as Slate.

  While they are a WP:SPS, the policy states Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.

  The reason I initially listed this is because they have done in-depth reporting of modern anti-trans groups such as Genspect, and their reports are fact-based and link to evidence. Since we can't link to such evidence directly, such as when they provide receipts for Genspect partnering with anti-LGBT groups, they allow us to give a more in-depth article. An example of the kind of content they produce and how it fills in gaps in articles is also in the previous discussion. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 16:54, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  You are correct that Schever's work is mentioned in the journal article (along their blogspot post too). Reading the relevant portion of the article, which follows the sentence that mentions anecdotal accounts from detransitioners, Schever's work is used to represent an anecdotal account of a former detransitioner, which makes perfect sense for a journal article that wants to discuss narratives described by detransition advocates. And the remainder of the citations are used to describe Schever's sexual orientation/gender identity and personal regret with de-transitioning (i.e. the sort of stuff WP:ABOUTSELF is fine with) and their personal experience within the detrans community (again, see WP:ABOUTSELF).

  But none of this but lends credibility to Schever as being an SME broadly on the sorts of stuff that HLN covers, which per the website is the social and political forces acting in opposition to health liberation for transgender, detransitioned, retransitioned, and gender diverse people, as well as those questioning their gender. And, frankly, none of the other publications appear to provide evidence that either of the founders of the website have previously published their work in reliable, independent publications; merely being referred to as a researcher or a journalist by the popular press is not evidence that an individual is an SME in light of our guidelines on self-published sources. As such, this appears to be a non-SME SPS, though if you can provide evidence either founder has actually published their research in reputable, independent publications, I'd be happy to look it over. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:19, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  Does the Advocate count (Leveille wrote the article) or are you looking for scholarly sources specifically?

  In addition, considering the social and political forces acting in opposition to health liberation for transgender, detransitioned, retransitioned, and gender diverse people, as well as those questioning their gender, the fact that Schevers has verifiably been on both sides of the issue adds credence to her expertise. The Florence Ashley paper described her factually as heavily involved in detransitioner advocacy for 6 years. There's also the fun aspect that transgender people pay much closer attention to legislative attacks on our rights, since they affect us directly, than cis colleagues are likely to. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 17:34, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  A commentary/opinion piece in The Advocate (or news organizations, more generally) is not the sort of thing that makes one an SME, especially in light of our general guidance that op-eds and editorial pieces are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact. (I can't imagine that writing an op-ed or commentary piece in the WSJ or the The NY Times instantly qualified someone as a subject-matter expert when we don't typically consider their regular columnists to be reliable for statements of fact.) I think the guideline looks more for academic sources or something published by reputable think tanks like Brookings Institution or the like; we typically don't even consider independent journalists who formerly worked at a major newspapers to be SMEs.

  With respect to There's also the fun aspect that transgender people pay much closer attention to legislative attacks on our rights, since they affect us directly, than cis colleagues are likely to, I don't think that I've ever advocated for discounting trans people's writings or opinions on the basis of their gender identity. I also don't think that being trans makes one an SME on the social and political forces opposing trans people, much in the same way that being Muslim or being Jewish doesn't make one an SME on the various Islamophobic or antisemitic social and political forces that prowl about the world, respectively. Is one's baseline awareness higher? I imagine so, but that's not really relevant to source analysis here. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:48, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  I hadn't noticed that was an opinion piece, thanks for pointing that out! My comment wasn't implying you didn't, more so reflecting on the sad fact that two trans people who've had personal experience with the hijacking of the detransition community, have created well-formed factual reports and research tracking anti-trans attacks on our rights, which have been referenced in reliable sources, can't be used since they don't report through official institutionalized channels. The presence of an editorial board doesn't mean a source will report accurately or fairly any more than its absence means they won't. The quality of their reporting hasn't been brought up, and the fact we trust authority rather than veracity of reporting is saddening on many levels. Put simply, it's depressing they point out things that are happening that are completely verifiably true and we can't say they happened or even that HLN said they happened, even when it would greatly improve the quality of an article, not because they didn't actually happen but because of technicalities. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:25, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• None/3. I don't see why this page should be listed at RSP at all. My understanding is the RSP list is for frequently used sources. This source seems to be an obscure trans-rights group run by two people without an editorial policy. The WP article for the group is actually up for AfD. I just don't see how this rises to the level of being listed on RSP - there are thousands of websites that are used more frequently. --Kbabej (talk) 16:34, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
• As I noted when this question was first raised just a couple weeks ago, this is not a reliable source. It is self-published, and the co-founders are not recognized as subject matter experts. The only mentions of them or their website in independent sources are anecdotal and trivial. Neither has been published in a reliable independent source other than a single op-ed style article in The Advocate criticizing a 60 Minutes segment. The comparison to the SPLC is not apt. This is simply not a reliable source. Banks Irk (talk) 18:45, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
• 3 per what I said in the recent discussion on this, as well as Red-tailed hawk and Banks Irk above. It is a two-person activism blog with no editorial oversight whatsoever. We have actual RS on these matters we can use. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:02, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
• I prefer this format better than the one that commonly includes "deprecation". Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:54, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
• It's an obscure website that will most certainly be forgotten in ten years time and has only received sizable outside coverage in one LGBT magazine. There's no need for an RfC in the first place. X-Editor (talk) 20:47, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
• As above. We do not need an RfC to know whether to cite an activist website. The About page gives no indication of authority or editorial oversight, it's just two folks' website. We can quote it if it's cited in an independent RS, otherwise, not. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:07, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

cseligman.com

This (wikidata) seems like a personal website of some astronomy scholar, and it is quite widely used. But what makes it reliable? Wepage artist. one Courtney Seligman, describes herself as "Professor of Astronomy", but which university is/was she associated with? In fact, her about page at https://cseligman.com/about.htm states "Once I discovered how much I preferred teaching to research I abandoned my doctoral research, so although it might be appropriate to call me "Professor Seligman", "Doctor Seligman" is incorrect". So... we are using an old-style homepage/website maintained by scholar who is not really doing research and never got a doctorate? I think we have a problem here, Houston. PS. Example of material from her site: [35]. It looks to me like old style course notes for her students that she kindly shared online, very poorly referenced if at all. And I recall few years ago we decided that such stuff is not reliable. Google Scholar suggests she has a few academic articles published, but with little impact. We could discuss whether her website falls under WP:SELFPUB: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications". Thoughts? In general, per SELFPUB "Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent, reliable sources" we should be trying to replace any citations to her website to something more reliable, I'd think. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:30, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Just as a point of order, Courtney Seligman is, to all appearances, male. The name Courtney is unisex; like Stacy or Tracy, it has trended female in recent decades, it is borne by people of both genders. The website itself seems to be mostly used as a convenient compendium of otherwise public-domain sources for astronomy, as here. It is not original research, and Seligman's work doesn't appear to be being used as a source for Seligman's work, but merely as a convenience link for information otherwise available also at disparate other sites; he cites his sources as well. As a source of fairly well-established, otherwise published elsewhere information, which cites its own sources, I am not particularly bothered by its use. --Jayron32 12:52, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Someone's personal organization of catalog sources does not seem like a reliable source to me: we should be using those catalog sources directly, for statements of fact (size of objects, dates of discovery, etc.). I admit I'm somewhat biased by the ~1990s layout of the website. Given the single-page layout, uninformative changelog, and lack of specificity in citations (e.g. "Physical Information" sections have a lot of text and numbers, but don't say where those came from), I definitely don't think this is what we should be citing for e.g. NED-available numbers. - Parejkoj (talk) 18:52, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

It does appear that Courtney E. Seligman has contributed to some published research papers, particularly with regards to the peculiar star 112 Herculis. I'd say as a source he's as reliable as James B. Kaler, who also maintains an independent astronomy web site (STARS). Most of CE Seligmnan's comments on NGC objects come from other, reliable sources that would otherwise be more difficult to access. Some of those sources also use a notation that takes some effort to convert into English, which makes CE Seligman's site a convenience for article editors. Praemonitus (talk) 14:48, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

• Is nobody else here concerned that the major source of references to his name in Google, is Wikipedia articles? This is a guy who describes himself as an "emeritus professor" but still lists his college summer school program in his resume. We disallowed the website of one of the most famous authorities on quackery, Stephen Barrett, as a SPS, despite him having collaborators and subsequently handing over control to a nonprofit. That site is referenced by governments as a source of information on fake medical claims. This? It's one guy's website with inflated and unsubstantiated claims of expertise. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:00, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Vox

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.

---

List of Black Hebrew Israelites (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Is this Vox piece a reliable source for listing Kanye West (Ye) as Hebrew Israelite at List of Black Hebrew Israelites? Politrukki (talk) 14:35, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Vox is normally reliable, but I see nothing in this piece to suggest that we could even classify West as a Hebrew Israelite. Someone may be reading between the lines on that article to presume that which is OR. Masem (t) 14:42, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't think this is really a reliability question, but I don't think the source verifies West being a Hebrew Israelite. Belief in the Hebrew ancestry of Black Americans is not enough. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:42, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

"Black Hebrew Israelites (also called Hebrew Israelites, Black Hebrews, Black Israelites, and African Hebrew Israelites) are groups of African Americans who believe that they are the descendants of the ancient Israelites"

If belief in Hebrew ancestry of Black Americans is not enough, what is? 675930s (talk) 07:46, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

A reliable source that states the person belongs to one of the subgroups and denominations listed in the infobox in Black Hebrew Israelites, or to another named group that is shown by reliable sources to share the beliefs of such groups, would work. Donald Albury 14:50, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

We need the source to be 100% explicit about it, and because this is also a BLP, we need that to be in the words of the person themselves since it relates to their personal identification. Can't have tiptoeing around that. Masem (t) 14:53, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

So if Vox said that Kanye was seen drinking water, it wouldn't be Wikipedia policy to put him under the List of water drinkers, as Vox failed to specifically identify him as an agent therein? 675930s (talk) 17:58, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

We are talking about someone's personal ethnicity which is something they only can claim as a BLP (long after death, researchers may work to verify the truth ethnicity). Watching someone drink water is not a personal belief or the like, so yes, that would be a case we can use observation, but we're talking here about a facet only the person themselves can express. Masem (t) 18:05, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

And what beliefs is he proclaiming? That black people are the Ten Lost Tribes lol. What is the point of having the Black Hebrew Israelites article if it can only be documented through abstract references? 675930s (talk) 19:10, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

For comparison, Björn Höcke is categorised as a fascist without describing himself as such. 675930s (talk) 06:40, 24 October 2022 (UTC)\

Why? (if you can answer that question it will answer your question here as well) Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:09, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

My answer is that Wikipedia has an article about the Analytic–synthetic distinction, and it seems to me that "Black Hebrew Israelites (also called Hebrew Israelites, Black Hebrews, Black Israelites, and African Hebrew Israelites) are groups of African Americans who believe that they are the descendants of the ancient Israelites" is an analytic sentence (i.e. it means what it means in its own right – it is self evident that belief in Hebrew descent of Africans means one is a Black Hebrew Israelite). If not, I would like to hear the word to describe somebody with these two characteristics:

1. Is an African American who believes he is a descendant of the ancient Israelites
2. Is simultaneously not a Black Hebrew Israelite

675930s (talk) 16:16, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

The reliability or not of Vox changes with the season. Adoring nanny (talk) 16:15, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. If you actually have evidence of Vox's unreliability, then present it. Otherwise, this is disruptive, and serves no purpose. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 21:02, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Vox is reliable, but they do not make that claim. This is a pure BLP question not a reliability one and we absolutely can not make claims which do not appear in WP:RS. Thats not negotiable. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:30, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Vox is generally reliable, but I agree with the others that the source does not say West is a Black Hebrew Israelite. Andre🚐 18:46, 21 October 2022 (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.

Either Shibbolethink is being unclear or less than completely truthful. If "OP" refers to me or my original post, then "the article in question" did list Kanye West as Hebrew Israelite before I removed the content, because I didn't believe the source supports the claim. I explained the reasoning on the talk page before posting here. Moreover, on October 24, i.e. during this discussion, an IP editor readded West to the list using a different source. This time JTA (via Times of Israel). The listing was removed again a couple of hours ago while I was verifying the JTA source, reading about Kendrick Lamar's beliefs (Lamar was listed yesterday), and writing this message.

Generally speaking, Vox may be a reliable source for attributed opinions or analysis (in the spirit of WP:NEWSORG, even though Vox is not strictly a news source, it's closer to a news organisation than advocacy group). Nothing in this discussion has convinced me that Vox is a reliable source for the claim it was used. JTA is a news organisation with a reputation of fact-checking and accuracy, but the cited source doesn't support the claim, and hence is not a reliable source for listing. Thanks for all the help on this forum and thank you Jjipop for removing the listing today, but I hope there would more of us "working on improving the encyclopedia" in the list article. Politrukki (talk) 20:43, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

citing a headstone

The Wikimedia Commons has a photo of somebody's tombstone, and it's specific enough that it cannot possibly be the wrong person. If I cannot find a better secondary source for that person's DOB, (a) can I cite the grave marker and (b) how would I do so? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 03:12, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

{{cite sign}} exists. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:37, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

That's a new one to me, thanks! As to point (a): if the Commons photo is unquestionably the correct one, is that a suitable source for citing a DOB barring any other reliable sources? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 03:53, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

We don’t cite the photo, we cite the tombstone itself. Blueboar (talk) 12:49, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

A tombstone in public view is a published source, albeit a WP:SPS. It's probably fine for DOB if the DOB isn't extraordinary in some way (i.e. I wouldn't use this if this is a contentious claim related to somebody being the oldest person in X at some point in time). The point in using the {{cite sign}} template is so that someone can actually verify that the tombstone says what we are citing it to say; you could provide a link to the photograph in the URL field as a convenience link. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 16:03, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Nexta

I saw Nexta with the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant being captured by the Russian army. First they claimed that the plant was hit: [36] As a result of the shelling at the #Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, a fire started. The exact location of the fire is being specified. CCTV cameras at the plant show flames and smoke. which caused a lot of panic, even Al Jazeera published their tweet. And this week [37] they claimed that Turkish mercenaries were noticed in Putin's Z-army. which was debunked by Euronews. In my opinion, this is at the same level with Greek City Times and Al Masdar News. These kind of propaganda outlets shouldn't be used in Wikipedia.

• 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

Beshogur (talk) 13:15, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

I think it depends. They report a lot on internal Belarusian matters and while they are clearly biased it can be a useful source. On the other hand, I don't see any reasons to use Nexta tweets for events in Ukraine. There are much better sources for that. Alaexis_¿question? 13:02, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Nexta's main outlet, so to speak, at least public facing and in English, appears to be their twitter feed. And a quick search shows it doesn't seem widely used on Wikipedia, so there may be quiet consensus already that this is not an ideal source. It's hard to get sufficient nuance and depth, as well as issuing corrections on a twitter feed. And they appear to be aiming for quick breaking news rather than full accuracy.

That said, looking at the examples given by User:Beshogur, the first one does not seem particularly problematic. Nexta did not in fact say that "the plant was hit". The quote from their tweet shows they said there was shelling at the plant resulting in a fire. Two BBC reports from the same day 12 contained very similar information. But with full articles outlets like BBC can give a more complete and nuanced picture than short tweets, which is why tweets are better avoided as sources. Second example would not be usable by itself on Wikipedia on WP:REDFLAG grounds. But from the Euronews article it appears to potentially be a misunderstanding, rather than a deliberate misstatement.

All in all, an outlet where better quality sources should generally be preferred, and where Nexta's twitter feed is the only source WP:REDFLAG and WP:UNDUE would likely come into play. Siawase (talk) 17:48, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

@Siawase: how exactly is this a misunderstanding? If those so called newspapers can not do their own research, they shouldn't be manupilating the internet. Calling Russian citizen Meskhetian Turks who were forcibly conscripted "Turkish mercenaries" is a deliberate misstatement. Beshogur (talk) 18:13, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

I would attribute at a minimum, they definitely blur the line between journalism and activism. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:53, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

A tweet from Kevin Rothrock, managing director at Russian independent news outlet Meduza: Folks, I know they share a lot of red-hot content, including sweet, sweet multimedia, but @UnianInfo and @nexta_tv simply are not reliable information sources. Please do All Deities a favor and stop citing them uncritically. [38]

Also, on here Nexta#Misinformation has one example where they corrected themselves within an hour, and a second one where they eventually removed the item. Siawase (talk) 07:24, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Page Publisher

An annon over at Talk:Atlantis‎ is claiming that [[39]] is not a self-publishing outfit.

What do people know about it.

Ancillary to this is

Is Djonis, Christos. Atlantis: The Find of a Lifetime. Conneaut Lake, PA: Page Publishing, Inc., 2021. ISBN 978-1-66244259-9 an RS for any factual claims? Slatersteven (talk) 15:01, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Page Publishing is a Vanity Press. Wikipedia considers that self-published. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 15:21, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Now the Anon has accepted its vanity press, but still insists the book is an RS. Slatersteven (talk) 15:06, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

The discussion on Talk:Atlantis is an utter waste of time, since nobody has given the slightest indication of what the book is being cited for. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:14, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

The whole point is that Atlantis is not fictional [[40]]. Slatersteven (talk) 15:17, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

That isn't a 'point' as far as Wikipedia is concerned until we are given a proper citation, along with proposed new text. Vague claims that some random book proves Atlantis is real don't need to be discussed here. We aren't going to rewrite the entire article on the basis of a single book, even if it is RS (and even if it claims 'Atlantis is real', which from what I can see from online excerpts, it may only be claiming to the extent that it suggests that Plato may have drawn inspiration from real events - which isn't a particularly controversial claim). AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:25, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

True, but as they were not listening so I wanted to get other opinions and then point to this. And they still refuse to accept it (and indeed they) is not an RS. Slatersteven (talk) 15:30, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Military fansites

I need help mowing the weeds of military fansites, currently identified are:

• navysite.de [41] with 300+ uses [42]
• navsource.org [43] with 500+ uses
• maritimequest.com [44]] with 100+ uses
• helis.com [45]] with 500+ uses
• gonavy.jp [46]] with dozens of uses
• uscarriers.net [47] with dozens of uses
• Weaponsystems.net [48] with dozens of uses
• designation-systems.net [49]] with 500+ uses
• joebaugher.com [50] with 100+ uses
• f-16.net [51]] with dozens of uses
• aerialvisuals.ca [52] with 100+ uses

Any help is much obliged, feel free to name more as well. Also wondering whether blacklisting these wouldn't keep the weeds down once mown. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:21, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

• Blacklisting is generally limited to spam, but it would be appropriate to have these sites deprecated, like the many self-published peerage sites. In addition to those you've listed, here are dozens, if not hundreds of other military-related fansites that are used as sources, each with their own focus; ships, aircraft, weapons, this or that war or combatants, medals...etc. It's a nearly inexhaustible list. But,your list is a start I propose that they all be deprecated.Banks Irk (talk) 15:08, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I think in some cases they are spam as well, people make a fansite and then add it to wikipedia to drive traffic to their site or to steal legitimacy. In any case we need a RFC to deprecate so I will open one below. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:12, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

• @Redjacket3827: care to give your two cents here? Your most recent edits are all related. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:40, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

  Actually I wrote the page in question and those references have been there for some time. If you have better references, by all means use them, but for now that is all we have. Redjacket3827 (talk) 19:46, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

That makes it worse not better... No reliable sources means we don't cover it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:49, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

• Previous discussions from RSN: (1) f-16.net, (2) aviation fansites, including aerialvisuals.ca
• I'd go with assume they are unreliable WP:SPS unless proven otherwise. Cleaning up after these is supremely annoying, as demonstrated by the extremely slow progress in User:Ljleppan/Aerodrome cleanup. -Ljleppan (talk) 08:25, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
• I've notified WP:MILHIST, WP:AVIATION and WP:SHIPS of this discussion, as these sources appear related to articles within the scopes of said WikiProjects. -Ljleppan (talk) 10:23, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
• I would add to this list Military Factory - see here and here as previously discussed on WP:RSN. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 13:20, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

We've already started the RFC so I'm not sure if its kosher to just add more, we can make a second list though. I would add www.hdekker.info which for some bizarre reason was actually added to Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Resources as a preferred source. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:50, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

The OP wrote, "feel free to name more as well." I'm not sure it's kosher to open an RFC while that process is still live. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 01:46, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

I like the cheek but that is actually how it works RFC wise. I apologize for the sloppiness of the whole thing, I was not originally intending to open an RFC but a request was made for deprecation to be on the table and thats not possible without opening one. Do you think it would be helpful to make a dedicated page for cataloguing such fan sites? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:52, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

A dedicated list of fan sites? Not in general, there are far too many of them and few have established any notability in themselves. However, as I mention somewhere, the Aviation Wiki project maintains a short list of the most persistently cited offenders at Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Resources#Questionable sources. Other projects might wish to do the same. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 02:08, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

RFC (Military fansites)

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.

Result - Option 3 (Generally unreliable), but with subject-matter exemptions applying as always.

---

This was a tough one, but one I think we genuinely do need consensus on, for the future of the project. I'll be summarizing this discussion in three ways, as always: 1) By the numbers, though this is !NOTAVOTE, 2) by the arguments, which and in what ways were these persuasive to discussion participants, and 3) by the policies, as any good Wikipedian should.

By the numbers:
Option — !Votes

Opt 1 — 00

Opt 2 — 08

Opt 3 — 11

Opt 4 — 04

Badrfc – 02

Option 3 holds a plurality, with option 2 close behind. But of course, RFCs and consensus on Wikipedia are not a popularity contest.

By the arguments: Several option 2 participants cite WP:SPS as in support of option 2. SPS details quite plainly that such self-published sites are generally not reliable for use on wikipedia, except where published by subject-matter experts. Some discussion participants who may have initially favored option 2 were swayed to support option 3 by this argument. Those in favor of option 2 also cited that such sites are used widely in the project, and often cite their own sources. It is worth noting that multiple option 2 participants intended for their option 2 to read as "generally unreliable" except where A) used as an external link or B) written by an authentic expert. This weighs in favor of option 3 overall, with the always present caveat that subject-matter expertise is still a clue-in for reliability.

By the policies: This is an easier call, as WP:SPS weighs in favor of "generally unreliable". These sites are also largely tertiary sources citing multiple secondary sources. WP:RS details quite plainly that secondary sources are the gold standard, with tertiary sources less preferred.

In conclusion:

Option 3 is what consensus by compromise has shown is the preferred label for these sites, with the caveat that WP:SPS applies and thus subject-matter experts on such sites can still be considered reliable.— Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:14, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

---

What best describes the 11 listed military fansite's reliability?

• 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

Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:40, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

• Should be decided on a case by case basis depending on the claim and the sources provided for the specific article Boynamedsue (talk) 16:57, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
• Deprecate. All of the eleven listed are self-published fansites. They should all be deprecated, similar to the deprecation of the various self-published peerage sites. Cf.WP:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Self-published_peerage_websites I see no need to go through a dozen separate RFCs on this, as it is so clear-cut. Banks Irk (talk) 17:08, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

  WP:DEPSOURCES currently only lists 46 sites. I think we'd need to find a better case before adding these relatively little-used sources to the automated deprecation system. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:31, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

• Option 3:. Not a lot to say, unless they are published by aknowleged experts they are not RS. Slatersteven (talk) 17:11, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Option 3 These are typically self published or user generated sources and are typically considered not reliable. However, a SPS exception could be made for acknowledged experts on a case by case basis. Springee (talk) 17:16, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Option 3 [changed]. All are self-published and are not peer reviewed. Therefore, by default they fail the policy on WP:Reliable sources. But WP:DEPRECATE lists only 46 sites, so these are clearly not on that scale of problem. The Aviation wiki project maintains a shortlist of the worst offenders it comes across at Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Resources#Questionable sources, but frankly there are so many such sites everywhere that military fandom is nothing unusual and, for most of them, simple recognition of WP:RS should be enough to police the issue. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 13:18, 10 September 2022 (UTC) [Vote changed 16:27, 11 September 2022 (UTC)]

• Option 3 for the main body of an article but exceptions might be made for the external links section per WP:ELMAYBE. Skeet Shooter (talk) 15:47, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 - I've only encountered the naval-themed sites, and I wouldn't ever use them as references. But maritimequest and navsource are generally good repositories of images, so those at least are fine for external link sections (which is where I generally see them used in any event). Parsecboy (talk) 14:00, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

  FYI the editor that opened this RfC has already removed links to the listed sites, including navsource, from the external links sections of hundreds of articles so that's exactly what we're talking about here. Raitchison (talk) 18:16, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

  FYI I've also left it in the external links where it appears helpful. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:24, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

  Using one specific example, the one that made me aware of this discussion/issue you edited the article for USS Paul F. Foster to remove 3 of the 4 entries under external links. Just by removing the links to navsource and navysite you removed access for interested Wikipedia users to hundreds of images as well as other documents relevant for that particular ship. I am having a hard time understanding how those links were not helpful. Raitchison (talk) 18:36, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

  None of those images are unique, a google image search for "USS Paul F. Foster" returns all that and more so its not really helpful in any way. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:06, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

• Obviously self-published and/or user-generated sources should not be used. Bishonen | tålk 07:43, 14 September 2022 (UTC).
• Option 2 - I can't comment on this particular site list as I am not familiar with all the sites in question. However, my understanding has been that there is a long-established consensus that sites of this type are acceptable as sources so long as they themselves include a list of reliable sources from which their information was derived. Perhaps the foremost example would be uboat.net, which is used on literally hundreds of U-boat articles on Wikipedia, but there are plenty of others. I might add that generally speaking, I have found such "fansites" to be considerably better than many supposedly reliable sources, which are in fact often riddled with errors in my experience. Well maintained fansites which list their sources are not only typically highly accurate, but also usually reflect the most up-to-date scholarship, which reliable sources frequently do not. In short, I think it would be a mistake to reflexively purge such sources if that's what is being proposed; rather they should be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Gatoclass (talk) 22:31, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

@Gatoclass: a review of this noticeboard's history suggests that either we have no consensus on uboat.net or we have a consensus that it is unreliable, there is not way to interpret those prior discussions as resulting in a consensus that uboat.net is reliable. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:04, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Okay, but then there is no clear consensus that they are unreliable either. In practice, however, they clearly have been widely accepted as reliable - there are 23 uboat GAs, for example, that appear to rely on uboat.net as their primary source, and there are probably also numerous GAs for merchant ships and other surface vessels that reference the site. But I think the bottom line here is that the website clearly is a highly reliable resource for information about uboats and the vessels they interacted with. If the information on a website is demonstrably reliable, what purpose is served by excluding it? If better sources can be found, by all means substitute them, but failing that, there seems no compelling reason to me to remove such references and the information derived from them. Gatoclass (talk) 20:26, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

That would be an issue with the competence of those GA evaluators. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:28, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

It is still a factor to be considered. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:35, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

• Bad RfC Sources should be evaluated individually, without prejudicial framing. And if they truly are "fansites," RSP doesn't need to be populated with them unless they've been especially problematic. GretLomborg (talk) 22:36, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 - My opinions largely mirror those of Gatoclass. Absent examples of these 'fansites' providing inaccurate, unreliable or otherwise problematic information they should not be assumed to be unreliable. The sites listed that I am familiar with are certainly well maintained with editorial control by the operators. I can't tell you how many times a listed reliable source has made an error that one of these sites would never have made. Moreover a wholesale purge of references to these sites (that has already been undertaken) will unquestionably result in the removal of a massive amount of both useful and overwhelmingly factual information being removed from these articles. Raitchison (talk) 16:50, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

@Raitchison: so you are explicitly arguing that we should disregard WP:SPS? They are still SPS absent any of that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:56, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back: SPS isn't completely blacklisted (except in the case of WP:BLP which doesn't apply here) we're supposed to 'exercise caution'. I did not suggest that these sites should always be considered reliable either. Raitchison (talk) 17:23, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Nobody has proposed adding these sources to the Wikipedia:Spam blacklist. Are you of the understanding that "largely not acceptable as sources" falls under option 2 not 3? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:28, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm under the understanding that 'additional considerations apply' under Option 2 clearly applies in this situation. Also I don't see the point of not calling them blacklisted sources when you've already purged links to these sites from hundreds of articles and have asked for assistance in finishing the job. In any case I certainly don't agree with option 2 because it's absurd to suggest that the information on these sites is not overwhelmingly reliable or factual. I'd certainly trust information on these sites more than information from a non-military focused generally reliable source (example of Newsweek or the New York Times). Raitchison (talk) 17:39, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

you don't see the point of not calling things that haven't been added to our wp:blacklist blacklisted? Removing poor quality sources (which includes all amateur SPS) in contexts that require reliable sources is all of our responsibility, that will be the same if the result is additional considerations apply or deprecate+blacklist. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:46, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if a site hasn't been added to WP:BLACKLIST if it's lack of inclusion/approval on WP:RSP and the mere fact that the sites are SPS will be used to justify a wholesale purge of useful and overwhelmingly factual information from the site. Moreover I flatly reject the notion that these sites are automatically 'poor quality' just because they are SPS. In the case of at least the first two listed sites this is clearly not the case. Raitchison (talk) 18:08, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Wait, the first one? What about navysite.de isn't poor quality? Its a single person (Thoralf Doehring) amateur blog which is scraped from half of the internet and hosted on an ad-heavy yet childishly constructed site. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:14, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Debatable whether that site could be considered ad heavy considering it has a small fraction of the ads that most commercial RSP sites do. In any case that site is overwhelmingly encyclopedic in nature as is navsource. Raitchison (talk) 18:29, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

"encyclopedic in nature" is not part of our reliability standards. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:33, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Which again brings us back to 'additional considerations apply'. I don't disagree that SPS sites should be used with caution per WP:SPS but I do not agree that SPS automatically equates to 'poor quality' and used to justify a wholesale purge of useful and factual information. Also I don't even know what would make a site 'childishly constructed'. Raitchison (talk) 18:43, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Amateur SPS are automatically poor quality sources, expert SPS are a completely different kettle of fish but none of the sources under consideration here qualify. Also just FYI unless there are BLP or copyright concerns "useful and factual information" generally won't be removed, just the source. That "wholesale purge" only exists in your imagination. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:04, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

I would suggest that your edit history for this month effectively illustrates the 'wholesale purge' I am referring to. In any case I am confident that I have adequately explained my position and reasoning for the benefit of other editors as well as the closing administrator so I bid you good day. Raitchison (talk) 19:35, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, look at my edit history... I'm not removing "useful and factual information." You don't get to make a personal attack and walk away, you have to provide diffs at the bare minimum. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:41, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

• Option 2 - falls under SPS and only if there is some way to verify that the person who wrote it is who they say they are (eg a verified twitter account of an expert saying I wrote this on this site). Generally option 3/4 though, but for the rare instance in which an acknowledged subject matter expert says publicly that such and such account on such and such forum is theirs, the usable for attributed views of experts. nableezy - 17:02, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

@Nableezy: note that to the best of my knowledge none of these sites contain an "instance in which an acknowledged subject matter expert says publicly that such and such account on such and such forum is theirs" rare or otherwise. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:06, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Ok, doesnt change my answer as such a rare possibility remains possible. nableezy - 17:10, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Now worries, I was just a little confused because people normally use "generally unreliable" when only a rare possibility remains possible. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:13, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

I mean I did say generally 3/4, but Ive long been on record that SMEs are citeable if they write their thoughts in yellow in the snow. So that view remains in place for this. nableezy - 17:57, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Option 4 this is a topic covered by academics extensively in a vast variety of publications including online. Should be no reason to use fansites at all.....this is not pop culture but an academic topic.Moxy- 18:45, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

FYI we're not talking about OPED type articles here, many of the pages linked are simply lists of facts about what the article along with images and other documents. Here are a couple examples of what we are talking about: [53]http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/964.htm [54]https://www.navysite.de/bb/bb61.htm. Most of the time these sources are linked it is in the External Links section of the article.

There is no indication that the sites are posting false or fabricated information as Option 4 would suggest. Raitchison (talk) 19:02, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Correct, we are talking about sources which are literally less reliable than many op-eds. Op-eds are often published by subject matter experts, none of these here are. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:08, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

• Comment - Google scholar records hits in excess of 500 for both navsource.org and uboat.net. Gatoclass (talk) 13:25, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Do you want us to have an RfC for uboat.net? You keep bringing it up a lot for a source that isn't under consideration here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:57, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Well according to your criteria, it wouldn't be any more eligible than any of the other sites listed, would it? But you haven't responded to the question I tacitly put, which is, if a website is considered reliable enough to cite by literally hundreds of scholarly works, why should it be considered unreliable here? Gatoclass (talk) 04:54, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

This Wikipedia is cited by hundreds of scholarly works, but we do not regard ourselves as a reliable source. Some purportedly scholarly journals have been outright blacklisted as quackery. So it is more correct to challenge any supposedly scholarly claim, that is supported by reference to Wikipedia or dubious fansites such as the ones under discussion here. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:40, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

You know as well as I do that a source can be used by others and not WP:RS. It should be considered unreliable because it is a non-expert SPS and nothing you have said has countered that core point. Steelpillow has a good point that you appear to be working backwards, you're starting from the position that these fansites are reliable and then arguing from there which is how you end up with deadend arguments like GA and used by others. You need to put aside your COI and objectively evaluate the source. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:03, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

What, all 1000 sources citing these websites on Scholar are unreliable? Does that sound likely to you?

Other than that, something that bothers me about this discussion is that there is no clear definition in the guideline of what constitutes a WP:SPS, but it appears to be concerned mainly with books or websites published by a particular individual and that include original research. But websites like navsource and uboat.net fit neither description. Both are the result of collaboration by multiple individuals. And neither publish any original research, rather they just make available and readily accessible the latest research from reliable sources. And judging by the number of Scholar cites, they have "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy", which is surely the most important criterion. Gatoclass (talk) 05:31, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Common sense says that uboats.com is unreliable, you're being unreasonable. What you're describing is a group blog which is very common and also explicitly included under our definition of SPS. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:41, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Do I have your permission to make this section an actual discussion for uboats.com given thats what you want to talk about and it isn't included in the RfC here? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:43, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand what it is you are proposing. However, after my previous post, I took a quick look through some of the citations in Google Scholar for uboat.net, and on the first two pages alone, found cites in works by Naval Institute Press, the U.S. Navy's official publishing arm, and in Conway Maritime Press, arguably the world's most prestigious publisher of maritime books. I also found the following quote from the reputable maritime magazine Northern Mariner: "Clay Blair (Hitler’s U-Boat War) and Guðmundur Helgason (Uboat.net) bring the highest standards of data dissemination to the field."[55] Helgason is the owner of uboat.net. See WP:USEBYOTHERS. Gatoclass (talk) 07:53, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm proposing that you either stay on topic (uboats.net is not under consideration at all) or we open an RfC on this topic. If their field is internet fansites thats true, but the highest standards for internet fansites are still below what we can use here on wikipedia. Note that we can't use raw data no matter how well disseminated because original analysis is forbidden to us. WP:USEBYOTHERS can not establish reliability on its own, you know that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:38, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Apologies for the delay in getting back to this. The point I have been trying to make here is that sites of this type fall into a kind of grey area with regard to policy. They do not appear to be self-published in the sense implied by policy, they do not include original research but only republish content found in reliable sources, and they often have editorial oversight, but do not necessarily include input from an "expert in the field" (though that is another term not clearly defined in policy). However, some clearly meet WP:UBO and that is the most important criterion in my view. I would add that in the last discussion on uboat.net, most participants appear to agree that it is acceptable as a source, though perhaps not ideal, a position which concurs with my own.

Having said that, as I said at the outset I am not familiar with all the sites listed above and therefore cannot vouch for all of them, but I do believe that navsource for one is a highly reliable website, on a par with uboat.net, in which case I should probably change my !vote from Option 2 to Bad RFC as I think these sites need to be assessed on an individual basis - but perhaps it's a little late to do that now. Gatoclass (talk) 13:16, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Just FYI the Naval Institute Press is not the U.S. Navy's official publishing arm, you could call it the U.S. Navy's unofficial publishing arm and be at least a quarter right but the US Naval Institute is a private organization, I know because I am a member. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:41, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

• Option 2 per WP:SPS --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 14:35, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2: Perfectly fine as an external link. Not so much otherwise. Nweil (talk) 20:05, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Option 3 We should use such sites with caution there is probably always better sources --Shrike (talk) 09:21, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• Option 2/3 Not sure whether this falls under option 2 or option 3, but I'd like to see these treated as WP:SPS, with onus on those referencing the fansites to demonstrate why that specific subpage/snippet is reliable. For fulfilling said onus, I'd accept "this specific page/paragraph was written by this specific established SME" (with the citation including the author's name, and not just a generic "fansite.com" attribution), but not "others have cited other information from this website" or "I haven't seen anything wrong with it so far". -Ljleppan (talk) 09:31, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• Option 3 to 4 Fansites are no more reliable than various sites with user generated content. There touch is usuallu quite afar from scientific research which is the only way to learn about things. So, I am for exclusion as a rule. There maybe some exceptions, should be discussed seperately.Cinadon36 13:23, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 as per above. We cannot apply a blanket ruling to them all, but this is not the worst RfC in the fact that it is an issue that needed to be addressed. Also I oppose this "deprecation" system. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:43, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 to 4: self-published, user-generated sources with no reputation for fact checking and accuracy. Hobbyist sources do not belong in the topics well studied by historians. --K.e.coffman (talk) 14:56, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
• Mostly Option 3 - These websites have lots of cool info, but there's usually no way to determine their reliability. I cannot just create a blog and declare it reliable unless proven otherwise. Military history is intensively studied and better sources almost always exist. The only caveat consideration is if there is a contribution by an established expert. -Indy beetle (talk) 08:58, 13 October 2022 (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.

greydynamics.com/

Looking for feedback on whether this site should be considered reliable. Thanks - wolf 04:52, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Reliable for what? I would stay away from this site generally as it doesn't actually explain what they and how they do it. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 18:39, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

It was just added to a page on my watchlist. I've never heard of this site, and in general do not recall a "private intelligence" firm ever being used as a source, hence the reason I posted here seeking addtional opinions. Thanks - wolf 19:43, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

This is the part where you post a link or a diff. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:50, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

The link is in the heading. What else do you need? - wolf 01:19, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

In what article is the source being used? What's the context? Reliability can depend on the claim that's being made. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 03:11, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

It was added here. - wolf 13:33, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

I guess the link wasn't in the heading after all. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:58, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Erm, what do you see in the heading, other than the link? - wolf 16:35, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

History of masturbation

What do you think about [56]? WP:RS are entitled to perform their own WP:OR, we aren't. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:03, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Sources are supposed to engage in research: that's why we cite them. As to whether that particular source is WP:RS for the statements made, that is another question. For a start, the citation includes a link to a website which seems to be hosting a chapter from a book - quite possibly in violation of copyright - we cannot cite that, and must cite the original. Dening's The Mythology of Sex was published by Macmillan, a reputable publisher, and seems to have a few citations show up on Google Scholar, so it probably shouldn't be rejected outright, without further discussion. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:23, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, cite Denning not "The Temple of Ishtar" (seems to be a Burning Man thing?). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:26, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Denning is a popular book on a wide variety of sex-related topics. The author clearly has no independent expertise on Sumerian society, about which she makes a number of statements in relation to sexual behaviour. She provides no references for these statements (in fact the book is entirely without references). It is the absence of authoritative references that renders the book an unreliable source in this specific area, despite the reputable publisher. There might be another area in which the author is authoritative but about Sumerian sexual mores she isn't. As the source is not reliable, the statements in the page that reference it do not conform to NPOV. John Lazenbatt (talk) 21:48, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Reliability and neutrality are two different things. And if we were to demand every source we cite cites its own sources in turn, we'd end up with no sources at all. Is there any specific reason to suspect that Dening (one 'n') is wrong? AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:35, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Isn't the issue one of expertise? If an academic in some field that covers ancient Sumer tells me something about the sexual behaviour of Sumerians I will be inclined to believe it because I'll regard them as an expert. If someone I have no reason to accept as an expert tells me the same thing I will ask how they know that and I'll expect them to be able to point to the experts. Dening doesn't do that. She isn't an expert on Sumer and her book contains no references. John Lazenbatt (talk) 23:15, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

You can check Dening out at https://archive.org/details/mythologyofsexan0000deni John Lazenbatt (talk) 23:26, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that Dening was making it up? It seems rather specific to be pure invention. Her book is clearly a general overview of a very broad topic, and ideally it would be nice to cite scholarly works directly, but it seems unlikely to me that Macmillan would be publishing such an extensive work without at least assuring themselves that Dening wasn't inventing stuff wholesale, and one gets the impression from the context to the material being cited that she must be basing it around expert sources - who else would be translating Sumerian tablets?. So again, I'd ask whether there is any particular reason to think that Dening is wrong? AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:58, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

You're experiencing Goldilocks expert syndrome... If an expert on sexual practices isn't an expert on Sumerian sexual practices because they aren't an expert on ancient Sumer then your desired expert in ancient history isn't an expert on Sumerian sexual practices because they aren't an expert on sexual practices. Most of the time the double or triple niche academic who would be perfectly qualified to answer a given question doesn't exist. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:03, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Also informative are the reviews of the book at https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0713481110 John Lazenbatt (talk) 09:01, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

It's not the best source, but it's not the worst either. On the positive side: it's published by MacMillan, a respected publisher with a reputation for accuracy. On the negative side: the author, Sarah Dening, is not a historian and I can find no evidence that she has any particular historical training – she is a psychotherapist whose other books are on the I Ching and the interpretation of dreams –, the book is for a popular rather than academic audience, and I can't find any substatial academic engagement with it. I wouldn't call it outright unreliable, but we should absolutely prefer a better source. Perhaps {{better source needed}} would be a more appropriate tag than {{unreliable source}}. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:01, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, a better source would be preferable. The article also cites Gwendolyn Leick, who definitely is a subject expert: I wonder if she has written anything directly relevant to Sumerians (as opposed to their gods) attitudes to masturbation? AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:15, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

I think Dening's source is probably this paper: Vern L. Bullough (1971) Attitudes toward deviant sex in ancient Mesopotamia, The Journal of Sex Research, 7:3, 184-203. Though it raises similar questions of interpretation to Dening - Bullough's interest is in sex rather than Ancient Mesopotamia - he does at least provide references. I think his own primary source is this: Biggs, Robert D. Šà.zi.ga, Ancient Mesopotamian Potency Incantations. Locust Valley, N.Y: J. J. Augustin, 1967. I don't have access to this at the moment but I can get it through a library. There is a basic page for Šà.zi.ga which has been flagged up as needing work. John Lazenbatt (talk) 17:52, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Bullough at least is an academic publishing in an academic journal; even with the knotty problem of interpreting Sumerian sources, I wouldn't be concerned about an article citing that for claims about Sumerian sexual attitudes unless there was some particular reason to doubt the claims made.

Biggs apparently was a well-respected expert on ancient Mesopotamia – a quick google search turns up a festschrift dedicated to him – and would by all appearances be an excellent source on Sumerian attitudes.

It shouldn't be controversial to replace citations to Dening on Sumerian sexual attitudes with either Biggs or Bullough if they can support the same claims. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 09:05, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Robert D. Biggs, author of the Šà.zi.ga study, was Professor of Assyriology at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

I've been very negative about Dening's book as regards Sumerian mythology but taken as a whole it seems like a very enjoyable and wide-ranging romp though sexual matters. It was probably quite liberating when it was published in 1996. John Lazenbatt (talk) 18:31, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

El American

What best describes El American's reliability?

• 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

NoonIcarus (talk) 21:37, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

• Comment I have removed several of El American's references in the past weeks. Even if the amount of articles where it was used didn't reach the hundreds, it was still used in tens of pages, it has been included in Pablo Kleinman's article several times. It has additionally already been mentioned in this noticeboard in a discussion about the John Stossel article (Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 378#John Stossel's views on Wikipedia, where it was suggested to start a discussion on the outlet. I'll ping @Orangemike, Zaathras, and Peter Gulutzan:, who were involved in these discussions and might be more knowledgeable in this regard. I would personally vote for Option 4 and ask to deprecate the outlet, but I would like first to elaborate my point before, if I have the time. --NoonIcarus (talk) 22:00, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

• Option 4: As I have now offered a neutral introduction, I would like now to explain the reasons why I believe the outlet should be deprecated. Editors or participants in the noticeboard might by familiar with PanAm Post, which was deemed unreliable by the noticeboard in 2020. El American was founded by its chief editor Orlando Avendaño after leaving the outlet the same year, and it essentially is a website that mixes news with opinion currently that has an alt-right editorial stance, with a reliability more questionable than that of PanAm Post.

Among the dubious information they have published, to say the least, are articles about the 2020 US elections ([57][58][59][60], republishing content from the deprecated outlet Breitbart ([61][62][63][64][65][66]), conspiracies related to Hunter Biden's laptop ([67][68][69][70]), that fascism is a left-wing ideology ([71][72][73]) and quoting that "not only were masks effectively worthless against stopping the spread of Covid-19, but also that wearing them might be harmful for people’s well-being and for society in general". They even have an article titled "Wikipedia Adheres to White House Propaganda by Changing Meaning of Recession"

El American has published false or fabricated information in the past, and should be deprecated as such. --NoonIcarus (talk) 22:53, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Option 4 - unreliable and to be deprecated. -- Orange Mike | Talk 23:17, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

• Bad RfC. I guess I'm pinged because I commented in thread Stossel on Wikipedia Edit removed. There I said that Mr Stossel's opinions were allowable if the article's editors could agree, there was no policy against. There still isn't and no WP:RSN RfC can result in an opinion ban. This kind of question, though, can encourage people to think it's okay. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:21, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

NoonIcarus, some of your examples are opinion pieces which shouldn't be used anyway and thus are irrelevant for the discussion on the reliability ([74], [75]). Taking an article from your list which is *not* an opinion piece, can you clarify what false or fabricated information does it contain? Alaexis_¿question? 07:44, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Newshub

1. Source. [76]

2. Article. John_Campbell_(YouTuber)

3. Content. Special:Diff/1060577128

The specific content sourced on Newshub is the following: In November 2021 Campbell included in a video the false information that Ivermectin was responsible for a decline in COVID-19 fatalities in Japan, when in reality the drug has never been officially authorised for such use in Japan – its use was merely promoted by the chair of a doctors' group in Tokyo, and it has no established benefit as a COVID-19 treatment.

Is Newshub reliable to backup the assertion of Campbell having used false information in his Ivermectin video? Forich (talk) 21:40, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Archontology.org

archontology.org: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

We have several hundred links to this website, but a cursory glance doesn't indicate that it qualifies as a RS. It claims to have an editorial board but there's no indication of qualifications, affiliations or expertise, and Google is unhelpful in finding any. Some of those cited (e.g. Dr. Gillian MacIntosh) are subject matter experts, but it's unclear what their contribution is or how it's reviewed, I saw no detailed attribution on a dozen or more pages reviewed. There are lists of sources but they are disjoined from the content, so it's hard to know if it's good scholarship or not. Most of it looks superficially plausible, but I don't know. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:00, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

We discussed it briefly about a year ago here. As the editors listed on their about page do not appear to be relevant experts (Schaffer was a mathematician; I can't find out anything about who Oleg Schulze or Alexander Kunde might be), and I can't find any evidence that the site has a reputation for accuracy or the backing of any organisation with such a reputation, I can't see that it should be considered reliable. Some of the individuals credited as contributors might count as subject matter experts, but as no articles I have checked appear to credit their contributors it is unclear what any individual might actually have worked on, so I don't see how we can rely on that as a source of reliability. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:22, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Looking at the sources used, I would not want to base a wikipedia off of them either. The fact that e.g. they cite the Everyman Library's 1953 translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in their articles on Anglo-Saxon kings gives me pause – I would expect an expert to cite a more scholarly edition! Similarly, the only source cited on Elizabeth I (surely one of the most written about monarchs in English history!) is the Handbook of British Chronology. Even if the site were reliable, there's just not much there on some of the most discussed monarchs in the history of the world. Possibly for more obscure figures it's a useful pointer to sources, but that's about all I would use it for. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:39, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Wikileaks

If we applied the standart used for wikileaks then not a single source would be reliable, so why it is really deemed "unreliable"?

Edit: I don't really care anymore, even if the editors admit that wikileaks is 100% reliable they would still claim it as a primary source and using them is banned here in favour of uncritically using secondary sources, I studied the list further and it's allways completely arbitrary reasoning and seems just a cover for political bias to me. This side could adopt an unbiased standart of scientific journalism were articles refrenced have to refrence primary sources for every claim but that's a pipedream seeing the state of the side. Timmtell (talk) 22:46, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Can you back up the assertion in your first sentence with evidence? Or is this just a rant? AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:48, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Wikileaks never published anything false but it is still deemed unriable for "some editors believing that the documets fail the veriability" or "concerns that documents were tempered" which is completely arbitrary and nonsensical reasoning. Timmtell (talk) 23:05, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Have you read Wikipedia:Reliable sources? If not, I suggest you do. And then provide evidence that Wikileaks has "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:10, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Can you show me one examble of Wikileaks publishing false documents? I doubt you can considering not even the institutions those were leaked from contest their authenticity. Timmtell (talk) 09:05, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

That's not the point. When Wikileaks released an important document that was judged to be authentic, the mainstream media reported on it. Those mainstream media reports are reliable sources under Wikipedia's definition, and of course can be used as references. Wikipedia editors do not make their own independent judgment about the validity of whistle-blowers' revelations, but rather must rely on the judgment of reliable sources, such as the mainstream media. NightHeron (talk) 10:14, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

There was a well-attended RfC regarding Wikileaks last year. Please take a look at it and if you believe the circumstances have changed you can initiate a new RfC. Alaexis_¿question? 10:31, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

taketonews.com: Machine generated translations as standalone WP:RS ?

The website taketonews.com appears in a substantial number of source citations, e.g. here [77]. Upon inspection this web-site appears to provide machine translated content based on non-English sources, the example source [78] is quite obviously a translation of this source [79]. It appears in fact to be a Google translation of the original article. This practice has at least a few issues: 1) The accuracy of the translation, 2) No credit to the original source (not website nor author), 3) No clear indication how or by whom the content is actually created, with the website's own 'about' page [80] not being helpful. Java-script imported from [wp.com] could be an indication that this site has been created to simply generate traffic to its domain, for financial gain with no editorial effort being spent.

While a non-English source in itself is problematic, I have to ask: Is this an acceptable approach to dealing with non-English source citations?

I would argue no: If a machine generated translation would indeed be acceptable, then we could just as well present the machine generated translation along with the original, non-English one, to at least keep a link between the two. Lklundin (talk) 14:55, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Hell no. Translation algorithms aren't remotely reliable sources. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:19, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Seconded. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:20, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

If this site does not have permission from the sources of the texts it's publishing, or even properly credit them, it fails Wikipedia policites on several levels, like basic verifiability and WP:COPYLINK. The machine translation part is almost a sidenote as the site does not appear to be usable at all. (Looking up WP:NOENG I'm surprised to see that machine translation is apparently acceptable in some circumstances per Wikipedia policy.) Siawase (talk) 18:11, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Animeuknews.net (Anime UK News)

I recently found an advertisement cited as a critical review in the article for Your Lie in April, refer to the edit I made here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Your_Lie_in_April&action=history

In the process of investigating the advertisement, I discovered a pattern of Anime UK News and it's writers engaging in this practice without clearly disclosing it in the articles. Is something like this worth reporting? If so, what kind of evidence should I gather and what kind of report should I file? Cheers.

Here is the content in the article that the source is supporting:

others called the series a masterpiece of storytelling.

The anime's characters also received praise, with several critics calling them enjoyable and realistic.

And here is the source: https://animeuknews.net/2016/11/your-lie-in-april-part-1-review/ 216.164.249.213 (talk) 18:41, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

I took a quick look at the source and I don't see anything about it being a paid advertisement. In the article you mention the author's Twitter, could you add a link here? Aside from that, reading the website's "about us" at the bottom of the main page does not feel me with confidence about their reliability. Isabelle Belato ^{🏴‍☠️} 19:37, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Sure thing - I had to obscure the link because of WP restrictions on links in edit summaries. Here is the unobscured one: [removed]. Good point about the about us, I didn't even think of that. Cheers.

...Turns out I can't post it here either. Just make appropriate changes to the partial URL in the edit summary. 216.164.249.213 (talk) 06:15, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Request for comment on samurai terminology

Comments needed concerning the historical figure Yasuke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Yasuke#Request_for_comment_on_samurai_terminology natemup (talk) 03:39, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Rock 'n Load

Brought this up at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Albums#Rock_'n_Load but didn't get much response so I figured I should try bringing this here. In short:

1. Multiple editors have concerns about the site and admit to actively avoiding it (see the above-linked discussion as well as this older one). One of those editors admits to not investigating too deeply so most observations are perhaps relatively surface level, but there's still a lot of circumstance that doesn't look very good.
2. There's apparent evidence, as I detailed on WP Albums, that this website is actually publishing press releases/ad copy and passing it off as legitimate reporting and album reviews.
3. There are also several other issues with the site such as a lack of bylines or a staff page and a poor archiving job for reviews.

I personally believe this site is deserving of at least a listing at WP:NOTRSMUSIC. QuietHere (talk) 13:36, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Regarding point 2, this is something that affects even long-established reliable sources these days – half of what Billboard or Rolling Stone or NME publishes as news has been fed to them by press releases or even directly uploaded by the artist's management. But you are right about the other issues: even album reviews from a few months ago are coming up as 404s, and the ones that do work are credited to obvious aliases or first names only, so it's impossible to tell if they are paid staff or enthusiastic readers sending in their own reviews. Richard3120 (talk) 15:30, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

The Wire (India)

I request Wikipedia community to identify this as an unreliabkle source due to multiple reasons.

1- A prominent Indian independent news site destroys its own credibility - https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/10/27/a-prominent-indian-independent-news-site-destroys-its-own-credibility

2- https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/27/indias-wire-says-it-was-deceived-by-staffer-articles-about-instagram/

3- https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/18/india-facebook-meta-the-wire/

4- https://about.fb.com/news/2022/10/what-the-wire-reports-got-wrong/

5- https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/sharechat-asks-the-wire-to-take-down-story-on-the-tek-fog-app/articleshow/94963861.cms

6-https://scroll.in/latest/1036058/editors-guild-removes-references-to-articles-on-tek-fog-after-the-wire-retracts-its-investigation

Those who have technical knowledge have explained that they were not deceived or cheated as they claim, but they intentionally made fake accusations and created a fictious tek fog app which never existed. 2402:3A80:1C3C:1155:34EA:FDF6:191B:630 (talk) 15:39, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Just a note that the sources you've used to talk about this story all have similar if not more troubling skeletons in their closet... One bad retracted story doesn't sink a whole paper. Also note that your ending statement there goes further than the sources do. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:43, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Meta and tek fog are two different cases and both are taken down. You said one story, I think you didn't check all. and regarding other comment, I read tweets from verified handles. 42.105.7.4 (talk) 16:29, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

I was speaking metaphorically, replace "one" with "a dozen" and the message is the same... Retraction is part of the normal editorial process. Random tweets are not WP:RS. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:38, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

The website is not like 'massive circulation' newspapers that covers many cases from cities and villages, or like news channel covering many stories everyday; but they focus on few cases and evem claim to investigate the story for months. I think, you don't have experience about this website and reports they make. The journalists, editors and founders of wire have verified twitter accounts. For months they debated, defended their stories. Meta is latest but tek fog is old. There is also a third case, where a Judge Loya died, his son told media, "my father died naturally", wire tried to create sensational conspiracy theory about political murder and cover up. Recently one article about judge Loya is also deleted. If you find other existing aticles about Loya, that is not the article they deleted. 42.105.7.4 (talk) 16:52, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree with u:Horse Eyes Back, retraction is a normal editorial process. Having two high-profile stories retracted doesn't look good, but I don't think we should consider them unreliable. Alaexis_¿question? 18:53, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Association of Religion Data Archives and World Religion Database

Æo has removed ARDA religious estimations from various wiki pages because he says it uses some World Religion Database data which he claims is affiliated to the World Christian Database which he claims is unreliable. First of all, ARDA is completely separate from both of them. Below is ARDAs impressive resume from their about page https://www.thearda.com/about/about-the-arda

Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) strives to democratize access to the best data on religion. Founded as the American Religion Data Archive in 1997 and going online in 1998, the initial archive was targeted at researchers interested in American religion. The targeted audience and the data collection have both greatly expanded since 1998, now including American and international collections submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. The ARDA is generously supported by the Lilly Endowment, the John Templeton Foundation, Chapman University, Pennsylvania State University and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

ARDA Advisory Board: Renata Curty (UC Santa Barbara), Joel Herndon (Duke University), Nathaniel Porter (Virginia Tech), Ruth Tillman (Pennsylvania State University), Andrew Tyner (Center for Open Science)

ARDA Affiliates: US Religion Census, Baylor Univeristy, World Religion Database at Boston University, which is part of Brill publishing: https://www.worldreligiondatabase.org/

Below are multiple sources that call ARDA and the World Religion Database "Reliable", including the Oxford handbook and Cambridge University: 12, 3, 4, 5 Foorgood (talk) 23:44, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

• Since 2022 ARDA has completely reviewed its datasets and has aligned them with those of the WRD/WCD. As I have thoroughly demonstrated here, the WRD and the WCD are the same, they are the continuation of the World Christian Encyclopedia, and are ultimately produced by the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. They are therefore biased and unreliable (WP:PARTISAN, WP:QUESTIONABLE, WP:SPONSORED). In any case, they should never replace data from national censuses and surveys conducted by statistical organisations. In the linked discussion, I cited extensive excerpts from WP:RS which have criticised the WRD/WCD. I have also thoroughly commented the links provided by Foorgood in support of his opinion and even provided an excerpt from one of them.
• Other users who have recently been involved in discussions about these topics can intervene: Erp, Nillurcheier, Lipwe.--Æo (talk) 23:55, 28 October 2022 (UTC)