Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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Xinhua

Discussed perenially here, there is currently contention on using a Xinhua piece on the article for Id Kah Mosque to describe a claim about a plaque in the mosque. The article itself reports on a twitter video from the US Chinese Embassy on the statements of the imam of the mosque and specifically on the point of contention of the removal of a plaque in the mosque. While some are stating that Xinhua cannot be used due to potential bias (this is a situation where the Chinese government is a stakeholder), considering that it's being used to report on the opinions of the Chinese embassy and a blatantly real video of the mosque and imam, I don't see how the usage of the source ought to be contentious, especially with in-line attribution. As it currently stands, the plaque section is heavily biased towards a western narrative by only including testimony given by radio free asia that directly contradicts the chinese embassy video and the Xinhua reporting. I feel as if both statements should be included with in-line attribution or none of them ought to be, but I'd like to know what others have to say about the reliability of Xinhua in this situation (directly reporting on a video posted by the Chinese Embassy). Deku link (talk) 20:57, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

• Unreliable and Undue. Per WP:RSP, For subjects where the Chinese government may be a stakeholder, the consensus is almost unanimous that Xinhua can not be trusted to cover them accurately and dispassionately; some editors favour outright deprecation because of its lack of editorial independence. Simply put, this is one of those situations; the Chinese government is clearly a stakeholder in this dispute in its relation to the suppression of Muslims in Xinjiang. There is a source listed as WP:GREL at WP:RSP that report differently from Xinhua, namely Radio Free Asia (RSP entry). None of the sources contest that the plaque was moved (and it's more than just RFA that frame this in the context of the suppression of Uyghurs). The question on if a video produced by and for the Chinese government's use in public relations is unreliable for facts doesn't seem to be a question, but this is exactly the sort of video that Xinhua is reporting on. CGTN's (RSP entry) forced confessions are also "blatantly real" videos (inasmuch as they are verifiably videos that were taken), but that doesn't make them reliable for facts or due for inclusion in articles. We have a real and present motivation here for Xinhua to be used as a form of propaganda and, owing to the RSP entry, I don't see any reason for this to be considered reliable in this context. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 21:47, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

We also have a real and present motivation here for Radio Free Asia to be used as a form of propaganda. There is no reason in my mind that Xinhua cannot be used to report on the opinions of the Chinese Embassy considering that this is a self-reflective usage of the source, and the video clearly shows the plaque is still intact, so given that no western source has reported on the video in any capacity, I don't see how Xinhua's reporting in this specific situation is unreliable. Deku link (talk) 22:06, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

This isn’t reporting on the opinions of the Chinese Embassy, its reporting on a statement from a BLP who is not a part of the Chinese government. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:10, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Is it not a statement of fact that the Chinese Embassy has claimed that the plaque was relocated during renovation with a video of testimony from the Imam of the Mosque? That should be absolutely self-evident, and the overemphasis placed on sources such as Radio Free Asia over the clear existence of this video shows a heavy bias towards Western sources. Continual biblethumping over the general reliability does not change the individual reliability of this article's reporting on what has been put forth by the embassy. Deku link (talk) 22:13, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

The game of telephone you’re talking about ends with a living person. All of the statements that have been added to the page so far fall under BLP, if you think that you can craft a statement which does not fall under those restrictions you are more than welcome to try. I’ve always been saying that this specific article's reporting is unreliable in this specific context, if you’re just realizing that now I don’t know how to help you. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:32, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

If you read the Radio Free Asia statement at WP:RSP, you will find that it says that there is little reason to think RFA demonstrates some systematic inaccuracy, unreliability, or level of government co-option that precludes its use. I do not see a reason why it is different in this case. Community consensus exists on this; Xinhua is fundamentally controlled by the Chinese government, while Radio Free Asia does not experience government co-option that interferes with its reliability. Arguing that they should be treated as equals in terms of credibility does not align with community consensus established through recent RfCs. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 23:54, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Putting aside my personal opinions that the RS discussion on RFA came to a woefully inaccurate conclusion (ignoring, among other things, RFA's tendency to grossly inflate covid statistics and fake testimonies for geopolitical reasons), this is a case by case analysis of the sourcing. RFA's claim is clearly inaccurate and inflammatory in nature, and yet we include it with in-line attribution based on a GENERAL discussion of reliability. Meanwhile, Xinhua's reporting on the Chinese Embassy and the Imam is evidently accurate (the plaque itself is shown on video), yet is rejected based on a GENERAL discussion of reliability. Deku link (talk) 01:35, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

The RfC on Radio Free Asia acknowledged that for geopolitically sensitive subjects, in-text attribution of RFA's claims is appropriate. There is an acknowledgment that in some sensitive subject areas, RFA is a biased source with a somewhat checkered record. As I pointed out in the RfC, RFA has pushed disinformation over the last year about the CoVID-19 death toll in Wuhan, suggesting completely wild figures that are orders of magnitude higher than scientific estimates. RFA recently suggested that 150,000 people may have died in Hubei province. That's over 30 times the scientific estimates, which are typically around 4500. An excess mortality study finds about 4600 excess pneumonia deaths in Hubei province during the outbreak. A study in Nature estimates a CoVID-19 death rate of 36 per 100,000 inhabitants in Wuhan, which translates to approximately 4000 deaths in total in the city. These studies (and a host of others on seroprevalence: [1] [2] [3]) all paint a consistent picture of the overall level of mortality in Wuhan and Hubei province, in the range of 4500 deaths. The figures that RFA has been pushing, as high as 150,000, are just wild conspiracy theorizing. This is the sort of reporting that led to the RfC result that in-text attribution is appropriate for RFA in geopolitically sensitive subject areas. -Thucydides411 (talk) 08:21, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Do you have a WP:RS which also calls it "wild conspiracy theorizing" or is that your personal opinion? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:32, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

You don’t need an RS that directly calls a source unreliable to come to that conclusion in consensus. Cross referencing data from reliable sources clearly shows RFA inflating COVID deaths. Deku link (talk) 17:51, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Exactly. It's kind of ridiculous to ask for a source that confirms that 150,000 is way higher than 4,500. RFA's "reporting" on the number of CoVID-19 deaths in China is so out of whack with the scientific consensus that there's no way to describe it other than as "disinformation". -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:04, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

As I noted on Talk:Uyghur genocide, Bloomberg/Time, The Washington Post (1 2), The Financial Times, and France 24 have also reported on the urns story as casting doubt upon the true death tolls. In fact, WaPo gave a pretty damn similar estimate to that of RFA. Unless you believe that the The Washington Post is engaging in disinformation here, I don't think that there's much of a leg to stand on in terms of arguing against RFA's general reliability. And, as you might note, the RfC found consensus in favor RFA's general reliability; it did not note any sort of difference in quality of reporting or systemic inaccuracy that would support the conclusions that you are attempting to draw. In fact, it said quite the opposite, noting that there is little reason to think RFA demonstrates some systematic inaccuracy, unreliability, or level of government co-option that precludes its use. If you're looking to the RfC's closure for a reason to call RFA unreliable, the reasoning ain't there. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 20:19, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Last spring, a number of Western media sources did indeed repeat Radio Free Asia's original, wild speculation about 40,000+ CoVID-19 deaths in Wuhan. That was not a shining moment in journalism history. Just recently, Radio Free Asia has pushed an even crazier estimate - 150,000 deaths. To my knowledge, none of those outlets have repeated this new claim that RFA is pushing. And this time around, there are multiple high-quality scientific studies of CoVID-19 mortality and serorprevalence available, which make it clear that 150,000 deaths is orders of magnitude too high. RFA is engaged in outright CoVID-19 disinformation here, and I don't know why you'd defend it. Finally, you left out a very important part of the RfC on Radio Free Asia - that in geopolitically sensitive areas, in-text attribution may be appropriate. That's an admission that there are problems in these areas, and RFA's CoVID-19 disinformation is a good illustration of that. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:34, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Can you point to WP:RS or a community consensus which say that RFA publishes disinformation? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:37, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Can you stop badgering genuine concerns on reliability based on simple comparison of reported statistics with your insistent misunderstanding of when RS applies? Deku link (talk) 20:44, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Asking for a source or community consensus which supports an extraordinary claim is not badgering, however repeatedly responding to questions which where not posed to you in an aggressive manner could be interpreted as such. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:46, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

The only extraordinary claim here is RFA's suggestion that 150,000 people died of CoVID-19 in Hubei province. What I've laid out is the fact that multiple scientific studies have found death tolls around 4,500. It's a fact that RFA is pushing a vastly inflated number. If a Chinese government media outlet were to push a death CoVID-19 death toll for the US that was inflated by a factor of 30 relative to scientific studies, I have no doubt that you would consider that disinformation. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:00, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Please AGF. As in this case I would require a WP:RS to have made a clear statement about that source publishing disinformation (remember that unlike misinformation disinformation requires intent). I take it you don’t have either a community consensus or reliable source to point to which makes such a statement? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:21, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Do you really need a reliable source to tell you that an outlet created under congressional mandate funded by the USFG whose expressed intent is clearly propaganda oriented in nature grossly inflated Covid deaths not just as a harmless mistake? Dogmatically interpreting wiki policy doesn’t change any of this. Deku link (talk) 21:34, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

RFA's crazy claims about the CoVID-19 death toll in Wuhan/Hubei province are either:

1. Deliberate disinformation
2. Gross negligence and failure to do any basic fact-checking
3. Willful disregard for the truth

Take your pick. None of the options bode well for RFA's reliability though. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:45, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Its not up to me or you to “pick," we only use whats been published by WP:RS. What do reliable sources say about this issue? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:00, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

We do NOT need an RS to blatantly say a source is unreliable for the sake of reliability discussions. This is an insanely dogmatic interpretation of WP:RS and is becoming absolutely ridiculous. We have sttistics from RS that directly contradict those of RFA and Thucydides411 has demonstrated this to you several times, yet you continue to deny it. Deku link (talk) 15:14, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

We already have a consensus on reliability for RFA, the consensus is that they’re reliable. The extraordinary claim against consensus that they publish disinformation does actually require a source. If it "directly contradict” then a WP:RS will have noted that, if not then its not an issue for us. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:19, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

There is no such thing as an "extraordinary claim against consensus" and even in the reliability discussion their inflation of COVID deaths was discussed. This is not in contention, and the fact they were considered reliable despite this being acknowledged is (in my opinion) in great error. Deku link (talk) 15:32, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Multiple scientific studies in reputable journals (including Nature), which I've cited above, all paint a consistent picture - that approximately 4,500 people died of CoVID-19 in Hubei province. In contrast, Radio Free Asia is pushing the claim that 150,000 people died of CoVID-19 in Hubei province. I don't think I need a reliable source to tell me that 150,000 is more than 30 times higher than 4,500. It's obvious that RFA is engaged in disinformation here. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:53, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

@Mikehawk10: Your insinuation that the imam Memet Jume's interviews may be some sort of "forced confession" is belied by some basic background information on the subject. For those that are unaware of the background, Memet Jume's father, Juma Tahir, the previous imam of the Id Kah mosque, was viewed as being generally pro-government and was vocally opposed to what he saw as separatism and religious extremism. He was assassinated in 2014, very likely because he was viewed as pro-government and anti-separatist. His son, Memet Jume, is the current imam of the Id Kah mosque, and is the person whose interviews we are discussing here. There is nothing at all to suggest that Memet Jume is being forced to "confess" anything here, and his statements in the interviews are, in fact, generally in line with the views he and his father have expressed for decades.

Fundamentally, I don't think we should present this story in a one-sided manner. Radio Free Asia claimed that a plaque with religious text had been removed from the mosque. The imam of the mosque gave at least two video interviews in which he showed, on video, that the plaque had been moved to a different part of the mosque. We should not present RFA's claims (which now appear to have been perhaps exaggerated) in isolation, but leave out opposing claims by a high-profile individual involved in the story. It is fine to give in-text attribution to every statement: we can write, "In an interview with Xinhua, a Chinese state media organization, the imam of the Id Kah mosque stated that ...". Readers can make of that what they will, but we shouldn't hide it from them. -Thucydides411 (talk) 08:55, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

• Unreliable and Undue as per Mikehawk and Horse's Eye above. Worth notinng that the imam is also a state official (imams are state-appointed and this imam is broadly a mouthpiece of the government), which might mean that state media is a reliable source, but only if we express clearly that he is a state spokesperson rather than voice of the local Muslim community. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:06, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

What is unreliable here? The imam clearly gave the interview (it's on video). The claims he's making are not in any way extraordinary. In fact, the claim by Radio Free Asia that he replies to appears to be wrong or exaggerated (as the video shows, the plaque is still on display at the mosque).

this imam is broadly a mouthpiece of the government. I'd be careful with statements like that about a living person. I'd also point out that just because the imam is generally viewed as pro-government and anti-separatist, that's no reason to censor his statements. If we're going to start systematically censoring opinions of people in China who are viewed as generally supportive of the government, we're going to have quite a task on our hands. -Thucydides411 (talk) 09:22, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Re: he is a state spokesperson rather than voice of the local Muslim community. This is a rather simplistic view of the Muslim community in Xinjiang. Leaving aside the fact that there are also non-Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, the Uyghur Muslim community itself is divided. As a Reuters article about the assassination of Juma Tahir (the father of the imam interviewed by Xinhua) points out, there is significant conflict between supporters and opponents of the East Turkestan separatist movement, and among followers of what are seen as more extremist and more moderate religious movements. The imam interviewed by Xinhua, and his late father Juma Tahir, have opposed the separatist movement and what they see as extremist religious movements. To simplify this all down and say that the imam doesn't speak for anyone in the Muslim community, and then to say that we should therefore exclude his views from an article about the mosque he runs, just strikes me as incredibly simplistic. -Thucydides411 (talk) 10:16, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

I simply mean that as an appointee of the government and government official he is by definition a spokesperson of the government. This means that on the face of it, as Xinhua is also generally reliable for the views and positions of the Chinese government and its officials, Xinhua can be used - but our readers will not necessarily understand that the imam is an official of the government without us making that clear, so it's not clear-cut. If we don't consider him a government official, then he counts as BLP: Caution should be exercised in using this source, extremely so in case of... biographies of living people. But I think both these considerations are overshadowed by the fact that the Chinese government is a stakeholder in a dispute: For subjects where the Chinese government may be a stakeholder, the consensus is almost unanimous that Xinhua cannot be trusted to cover them accurately and dispassionately. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:59, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

I find it ironic that you raise BLP concerns in one breath, but in another breath refer to the imam as a mouthpiece of the government, an extremely insulting characterization. Whether you think he's being taken advantage of by state media, or whether you think he's some sort of government mouthpiece, the imam is a central figure in this story, and we shouldn't censor what he says about it.

When it comes to geopolitically-charged issues like China, Radio Free Asia has a checkered record and should only be used with caution and in-text attribution (see RFA's CoVID-19 disinformation, which I documented above). Yet we include their claim about the Id Kah mosque. We can't then simply omit a central figure's response to those claims. If we follow this sort of systematic policy of including US government media claims about geopolitically-charged issues in China, but censoring Chinese responses to those claims, we will end up with extremely biased articles. I think our readers are smart enough to see a statement such as, "In an interview with Xinhua, a Chinese state broadcaster, the imam of the Id Kah mosque stated that ..." and form their own intelligent opinions. But systematically concealing one set of views from them is not the way Wikipedia should go. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:24, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

This appears to be inherently self contradictory. The imam is a state official and Xinhua is state media and therefore it is reliable for reporting the opinions of the state and its officials, yet it is undue for the purpose of reporting the state’s opinion in this article? Deku link (talk) 14:22, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

OK, let me try again if this is difficult to understand. EITHER the imam is a government mouthpiece (for which Xinhua could potentially be a reliable source, but we'd need to be clear in the article that the imam is a government official) OR it's a BLP issue (so we should steer clear of Xinhua) - either way it's a bad source. If you are arguing he's central to the story and his words as reliably quoted by Xinhua are due, then the article needs to give a clear explanation of his government links. If you're arguing he's not a government mouthpiece, then we have to avoid the source. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:19, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm having a hard time believing you have BLP concerns here when you repeatedly refer to the living person in question by the insulting epithet, government mouthpiece. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:47, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

• While Xinhua should not be used for any Xinjiang-related facts, I think it's reliable for the position of Chinese government itself. Alaexis_¿question? 09:26, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

• Unreliable per Mikehawk and others. PRC has a general media freedom issue and Xinhua can be considered a noticeable example of that. --► Sincerely: Solavirum 11:42, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

This is not about the reliability of Xinhua as a perennial source, this is about the reliability of Xinhua in the case of reporting on the PRC’s own opinions as given through an embassy. Deku link (talk) 14:25, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

• The Id Kah Mosque is a real mosque in Xinjiang and China, not just a plaything for propagandists using Wikipedia as a WP:SOAPBOX to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Yes, you need to cite Xinhua and the Chinese imam of the Id Kah mosque at the article Id Kah Mosque.

Right now [4] we cite a US government-funded newsource [5] and "the U.S. Department of State’s platform for communicating American foreign policy worldwide" [6] to reproduce the allegation that the Mosque has been transformed into just a tourist attraction.

However, the imam of the actual mosque itself, Memet Jume, disputes this in multiple Chinese media sources [7][8][9]. Jume's father had earlier been the imam of the mosque, prior to his assassination [10].

The fact that Mikehawk10 and Horse Eye's Back are actively trying to push this information from a US-government funded news source into China-related Wikipedia topics, while simultaneously removing all Chinese news sources and Chinese responses from these articles, shows that they don't have the objectivity to edit these articles and are engaged in WP:TENDENTIOUS editing: "a manner of editing that is partisan, biased, or skewed taken as a whole." -Darouet (talk) 14:52, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Please don’t make this personal, this may come as a shock to you but CGTN and China Daily are both deprecated. If WP:RS cover the Imam’s statement of course we can include it, but if no WP:RS cover the statement then there is simply no way to use it on wikipedia. I would also note that per WP:BLP you cant use those sources to make claims about living people, even on a noticeboard. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:20, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back: China Daily is not deprecated; you may be thinking of The Global Times.— Mikehawk10 (talk) 17:47, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

You’re right, I misremembered the consensus (admittedly its an odd one which is extremely close to deprecation) "In this RfC, the community assesses the China Daily. The discussion below contains a lot of detail and nuance that doesn't lend itself to a pithy summary and, when future editors are making a tricky decision about the use of this source, they are encouraged to read the debate in full. There is much disagreement, and I am confident that if there were better sources for China, then the China Daily would be deprecated entirely; but a narrow majority of the community, just about amounting to a rough consensus, feels that there are so few good sources for China that it's needful for us to lower our bar. The community concludes that the China Daily may be used, cautiously and on the basis of good editorial judgment, as a source for the position of the Chinese authorities and the Chinese Communist Party; as a source for the position of the China Daily itself; as a source for facts about non-political events in mainland China, while noting that (a) the China Daily's interpretation of those facts is likely to contain political spin, and (b) the fact that the China Daily doesn't report something doesn't mean it didn't happen; and, with great caution, as a supplementary source for facts about political events of mainland China (supplementary meaning that the China Daily shouldn't normally be the sole source for these things). Editors agree that when using this source, context matters a great deal and the facts should be separated from the China Daily's view about those facts. It would be best practice to use plenty of in-text attribution as well as inline references when sourcing content to the China Daily.” Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:51, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

It’s hard not to “make things personal” when both users mentioned have actively participated in several China related articles for the sole purpose of eradicating any mention of a Chinese perspective (this entire reliability conflict started when @Mikehawk10 decided to remove the cited Xinhua content from the article simply because it was mentioned on another talk page as being in conflict with an article he created, and proceeded to also add extraordinary claims to it mentioned in few sources, not to mention when RFA was also mentioned on the talk page of the same article he immediately went and altered the lede of its article contrary to the ongoing talk page consensus). Furthermore, you continue to make fallacious use of wiki policy (such as calling into question the competence of and borderline hounding other users over the American usage of “lede” and repeatedly insisting that you somehow need an RS for every claim made in talk page discussions) and generally berate other users with a thick degree of sarcasm. When someone enters the conversation and rightly observes that there may be a significant bias given your preference towards western sources and quick removal of Chinese sources (even those not deprecated), they're not the ones "making it personal." Many people involved in conversations with you across multiple talk pages have stressed how hard you make it to assume good faith. Deku link (talk) 18:03, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

The notion that I go around and edit for the sole purpose of eradicating any mention of a Chinese perspective throughout my editing on China-related articles is simply false; my goal in editing these articles is to improve them by adding appropriate sources and by removing content that is dubiously sourced and/or WP:UNDUE. I am more than happy to incorporate the Chinese perspective into my editing, when the perspective can be reliably sourced and would constitute due weight. In the case for this particular article, the question is regarding whether to include information from a Tweet that has been covered by Xinhua. WP:RSPTWITTER states that Tweets that are not covered by reliable sources are likely to constitute undue weight. Xinhua is not a reliable source with regards to topics in which the Chinese government is a stakeholder, and thus the tweet isn't covered by a reliable source simply because Xinhua has covered it, so I think I am reasonable in arguing that the tweet constitutes undue weight.

If you believe that there are behavioral issues here, feel free to take it to the appropriate noticeboard (WP:AN or WP:ANI), but please do not cast aspersions on this page or attack my motives by claiming that there is a malicious "sole purpose" behind my edits (and don't attack another editor by attacking their motives here either; that isn't what this board is for). — Mikehawk10 (talk) 20:09, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

@Darouet: Please do not cast aspersions here. Do you believe that my addition of information from WP:GREL sources on relevant topics is "skewed" in light of previous reliability discussions on this board? If you believe that there are behavioral issues, the place to discuss them would be the appropriate noticeboard (either WP:AN or WP:ANI)—not here on the reliable sources noticeboard. If not, I would ask you to take back the part of your statement that is a direct attack against my character as an editor. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 17:47, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

• Unreliable/propaganda for any claims related to Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, such as the claim under discussion. This is according to consensus in previous discussion linked at the top [11]. Is it reliable in general? Of course not, although it probably might be used for noncontroversial non-political info. My very best wishes (talk) 15:44, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Could you please explain how it is unreliable for reporting on a video that as clear as day was posted by the Chinese embassy and clearly shows the imam giving testimony? Deku link (talk) 17:53, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

• Unreliable in context. This is clearly the sort of thing there is a consensus against using Xinhua for. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:07, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

What do you mean by "unreliable"? There's a video of the interview. There's not even a shadow of a doubt that the imam said what Xinhua reports him to have said. So what specific factual claim are you saying is unreliable? -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:49, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Was the video of the interview published by a reliable source? If not its literally useless for our purposes. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:03, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

You have a very dogmatic and restricting view of wikipolicy if you believe that this is true. Deku link (talk) 15:14, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

If you can point me to something that says we can use videos from unreliable sources I’m more than willing to expand my "dogmatic and restricting view of wikipolicy.” Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:22, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Taking a perennial source consensus (which is a general guideline) as the end all be all gospel for including information is already dogmatic. Deku link (talk) 15:32, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

User:Horse Eye's Back, you are WP:BLUDGEONING. Besides being against Wikipedia policy seeing you repeat the same points over and over is tedious and boring. I am asking you nicely to drop the WP:STICK. If you continue this behavior I will seek a topic ban. Note that I am not saying that you are wrong or that you are right. I am saying that you made your point. Give someone else a chance.

User:Deku link, you are getting close to bludgeoning. You don't have to respond to everything Horse Eye's Back posts. Give someone else a chance. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:45, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Apologies for my behavior. I've gotten quite heated on this topic and similar ones and might need to take a break. Deku link (talk) 15:52, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

I don’t think I am but I will respect your opinion. I will however note that per policy we are instructed to "Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources.” Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:08, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support inclusion of the twitter video with attribution as a primary source as per WP:PRIMARYCARE. A mosque would be most analogous to the business example on the page, which states primary sources are acceptable for "simple, objective descriptions." Whether a plaque is in place or not is both simple and objective (and controversial, but that is unmentioned). WP:ABOUTSELF similarly says "Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves." We should be careful when using primary sources, especially a clearly biased one like this, but in this situation they are allowed with attribution. In such a controversial example, the best thing to do would be to report what the primary source has to say on the subject. Zoozaz1 talk 16:02, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
• Include. Xinhua is a reliable source for this type of information; it is one of the main news agencies in the country, and other reliable sources regularly rely on its reporting. In-text attribution is probably a good choice in this context, given the controversy. To include the Radio Free Asia claim but omit Xinhua's reporting on the issue would make a mockery of WP:NPOV. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 06:58, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
• Unreliable Xinhua is under the control of the People's Republic of China, which routinely disappears people who hold the wrong opinion. Adoring nanny (talk) 03:17, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
• Include. Xinhua obviously carries water for the Chinese government, but RFA—constrained by extremely restrictive conditions on reporting in the region imposed by the Chinese government—made a straightforward, factual claim about a feature of a landmark, and Xinhua provided video evidence against that claim. Unlike interviews with factory workers and whatnot, it is much entirely plausible that someone chosen as the head of a major mosque (who undoubtedly underwent serious political vetting) is making that counterclaim absent coercion. We can never know for certain, but to leave out such a glaringly obvious counterexample to RFA's reporting cannot but appear non-neutral. If we reject Xinhua's inclusion here, there seems to be absolutely no reason that we could ever include anything stated by Chinese sources, even in cases where western reporting is factually incorrect, and there are no doubt examples where that is the case, even if the thrust of western reporting is overall more accurate than PRC propaganda. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 01:04, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
• Include in this case. Sate-controlled media is reliable for both the opinions of the controlling state and uncontroversial matters of fact. This seems to be a case where the opinion of western sources and the opinion of Chinese sources differ about a matter of fact (the location of a plaque), presenting only one of those opinions would lead to a biased article. There is also no credible reason to believe that the opinion of a generally pro-Government religious leader that paints the government in a favourable light has been misreported by a pro-government outlet, but even if they have that this is the pro-government opinion is directly relevant. Thryduulf (talk) 11:12, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
• Comment, I would like to note that since the opening of this discussion the moving of the plaque inside has been reliably sourced (to The Art Newspaper). RFA says the sign was removed from its place at the front of the building but does not specify what happened to it, Xinhua says the sign was removed from its place at the front of the building and moved inside for conservation/preservation, The Art Newspaper says it was moved inside. At least on the plaque I’m not actually seeing significant daylight between RFA, Xinhua, and The Art Newspaper. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:53, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

The significant daylight would be that RFA is claiming the plaque was removed for the purposes of nefarious repression, while The Art Newspaper claims it was just moved inside (but not why), and Xinhua claims it was moved inside due to preservation and erosion from weathering (which, for the record, is supported by photographs of the mosque pre-move and the video footage of the plaque outside the prayer hall now restored after the restoration). Paragon Deku (talk) 22:42, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

• Unreliable, but for reasons more nuanced than those presented by Horse Eye's Back and Mikehawk10. Many of the users opposing inclusion have made arguments based on the general reliability of Xinhua as evaluated by past community consensus. While past community consensus is important, there is always room for flexibility, local consensuses, and editorial discretion to override the community consensus for a particular usage of a source. Those in favour of inclusion have made arguments based on the additional verifiability provided by the inclusion of video evidence of the plaque and the imam's testimony, arguments that were not sufficiently refuted by appeals to consensus on general reliability. To really justify excluding Xinhua, we need to also look at ways in which its general lack of reliability might compromise this specific usage of the source. It is true that there is a video interview with the imam, but it could be that the imam was coerced (which is possible, even for pro-government religious leaders, given the recent sentencing of Uyghur education officials over trumped up charges relating to textbooks), or that the imam shown in the video was in fact an actor. Similarly, it is true that we have video evidence of the plaque being in the mosque, but it could have been temporarily moved back there for the video. Since it is above Wikipedia's pay grade to evaluate the reliability of a primary source video, to say that the video is reliable would therefore be WP:OR. This is how Xinhua's lack of general reliability affects its specific reliability in relation to this article.--DaysonZhang (talk) 20:52, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

This is starting to veer into conspiracy-theory territory. The imam in the video is not an actor. Memet Jume is reasonably famous, has given interviews to various media, and the person in the Xinhua video is indeed him. We can state that he gave the interview in Xinhua, a state news outlet. That would be fully appropriate, so that readers can judge for themselves how to view the imam's statement. However, there is no doubt that this is an interview with the real Memet Jume. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:33, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

• Unreliable. I have seen way in my life too many staged videos in Communist government-run media. That said, the plaque incident seems way too trivial for inclusion in an encyclopaedia. Do we normally document when plaques are removed from buildings across the world? — kashmīrī ^TALK 21:06, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

  In most cases no, but when the movement of a plaque generates significant comment in multiple sources from multiple countries it's clear that this is not most cases. Other examples of our covering the moving and/or removal of plaques include Silent Sam, Jonas Noreika#Legacy and controversy and Statue of Jefferson Davis (Frankfort, Kentucky). Thryduulf (talk) 15:01, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

• Unreliable and should be deprecated together with China Daily. Reasons have been given in this previous discussion: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 323#Xinhua News Agency. Normchou ^💬 21:53, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
  • As has been noted multiple times above, this is not a discussion about the general reliability of the source, it is a question about the reliability for a very specific instance. China Daily is completely irrelevant here, as are calls for deprecation. Thryduulf (talk) 08:59, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
    • The mere fact that Xinhua is mentioned above is a sufficient condition for the "unreliable" categorization, as well as for a renewed call for deprecation, regardless of any very specific instance. What else would Wikipedians expect from a propaganda outlet? Independent news reporting? Normchou ^💬 21:45, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
      • What else would Wikipedians expect from a propaganda outlet? accurate reporting of the views of the organisation that it publishes propaganda for, accurate reporting of facts that support and/or are neutral regarding the viewpoint espoused by the propaganda, and similar. The publication has not been judged "unreliable" or even "generally unreliable" it has been judged to publish accurate reporting in some areas, biased reporting in other areas and unreliable reporting in yet others - There is no consensus for applying any one single label to the whole of the agency.. All this means that there are occasions, like this one, where we need to examine how reliable it is for a specific claim, trying to re-litigate the reliability of the whole publication (which there is no evidence has changed since the recent discussion) is at best pointless and at worst a bad faith attempt to obstruct consensus. Thryduulf (talk) 09:42, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
      • Despite my insistence several times that this is about a SPECIFIC usage of the source, a large swathe of editors seem to have seen the word Xinhua, dropped an "unreliable" without a second thought, and left the discussion based only on perennial discussions that have taken place before. Overall this and the globe discussion below have greatly diminished my faith in the process as it stands. Paragon Deku (talk) 01:46, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
• I support inclusion, I feel that people who respond to queries like this should take more time to evaluate the actual proposition and not immediately jump to conclusions. I have noticed some people also claim that the person was coerced and that it is a staged video without any proof and somehow believe that they have made a constructive argument. You could make this baseless accusation against anything that contradicts your views. I do not see a reason to not include this article, especially if the reported situation is verifiable by anyone. CPCEnjoyer (talk) 16:07, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Questions regarding Geo TV / Geo News (geo.tv)

The largest and most well-known Pakistani media outlet, and one that I've used frequently as a source, particularly when writing about Turkish TV. I would say it is reliable in its entertainment info. It offers occasional political commentary, although that is usually from field experts and should probably be considered in the same light as The Guardian. IronManCap (talk) 21:36, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

• Speedy close This isn't how a RfC is started, and there's no need to have one unless there are unresolved or repeated disputes. 92.24.246.11 (talk) 22:10, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

  Then better just have this as a regular discussion (without the RfC bit, since the RfC template was not even added anyway. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:13, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

  Yes, newbies offen get that wrong despite the clear instructions at WP:RfC. Best to just quietly convert the pseudo-RfC to a normal discussion. Maybe we could create a user talk page template that starts with "Hi! I noticed that you labeled a discussion as and RfC without reading the instructions at [[W{:RFC]]. I have converted it to a regular discussion (optional: ...and moved it to the article talk page at X)." --Guy Macon (talk) 02:33, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Getting back to discussing geo.tv...

We have an article on Geo TV with a URL of https://harpalgeo.tv/ but I don't think that is the right Wikipedia article. The correct article appears to be at Geo News. Are they the same? Should the articles be merged?

Also, whenever I deal with a non-English source that has an English version, I always ask whether someone who speaks both languages could compare the two versions. Some sources just do a straight translation. A lot of them do a straight translation but only on selected articles. Sometimes you get wildly different content and editorial standards. Could someone who speaks both languages please tell me which ois true for geo.tv?

Despite the name, [ https://www.geo.tv/about-us ] is a contact-us page. The actual about-us page is at [ https://www.geo.tv/corporate-profile ].

[ https://www.geo.tv/privacy-policy-and-tos ] is interesting. That page led me to Jang Media Group, Daily Jang, and The News International. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:49, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian and Guy Macon:Sorry about putting this on this page, I saw other sources being listed and assumed this was how to get a reliability check. About Geo TV vs Geo News, the News is the news and bulletin branch of the outlet, whilst 'TV' is the station for airing various TV programs, including the likes of Geo Entertainment. Geo as a whole is owned by the larger Jang Media Group, which includes other outlets such as Daily Jang and The News International. If this is indeed given a reliability rating, maybe it should be done under the single 'Jang Media Group' header. I think the given website for Geo TV is correct as an on-demand website for the TV branch. IronManCap (talk) 12:53, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

No problem. You are doing fine, and this was a really good question to bring up. Wikipedia can be confusing for a new(ish) user, which is really more our fault than the new(ish) user's fault.

I just looked over a dozen articles on that site, and to me it looks like they print uncontroversial news items with a strong emphasis on local Pakistani stories. Unless someone gives me a reason to believe otherwise I am going to call this one as generally reliable. Of course some of their articles are useful as citations in an encyclopedia[12] while other articles are only of local interest[13] but that's true of most news sources.

Speaking of local news, I found this to be especially heartwarming. The world is full of good people. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:36, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

• Reliable for most things but not politics, religion, or civil rights. Geo is decent by Pakistani standards, but those standards are incredibly low. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:58, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back: Could I ask what you are basing that on? IronManCap (talk) 16:59, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I consume a lot of english language asian media, Geo is a tier below Dawn (newspaper) and Dawn isn’t super strong if we’re comparing it to global benchmarks like NYT, The Guardian, etc so I feel like putting Geo in the Generally Reliable tier would be a misstep. Their coverage is often a bit too sensational but that seems to be a journalism wide problem than anything to fault them specifically on, why I say to be careful when it comes to politics, religion, or civil rights is that Geo tends to mirror the opinions of its ownership on those issues while maintaining, at least in my opinion, a more open mind on other topics. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:13, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

About 'sensational coverage', the exuberance is just a trait of Pakistani media. They love to dramatise things, and every bulletin is more like a Bollywood blockbuster trailer. I don't think it makes them any less reliable as it doesn't affect how they present the facts; they aren't propagandist or anything. IronManCap (talk) 19:21, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

• @RandomCanadian and Guy Macon: Any comment? Do we need a broader assessment of Pakistani media? IronManCap (talk) 13:38, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

  My opinion was based upon 10 minutes of reading articles, so I would defer to HIB if they have looked more closely. How about reliable with attribution? Would that work for everybody? --Guy Macon (talk) 14:03, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

• Probably additional considerations apply considering the state of freedom of press in Pakistan. Didn't see anything outlandish looking at their website, it is used as a citation on 2,409 articles per geo.tv  , so a discussion may not be unwarranted. I'll see what I can find with respect to its reliability. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 08:52, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

New York Post

In October last year, New York Post reporters refused to write a story about "Hunter Biden's laptop" that even Fox rejected,[14] but the Post put it on the front page anyway.

Last weekend another politically motivated fabrication was published on the front page:

Under the tabloid-ready headline “KAM ON IN,” The Post, which is controlled by the conservative media baron Rupert Murdoch, claimed that copies of a children’s book written by Vice President Kamala Harris were provided at taxpayer expense in a “welcome kit” for unaccompanied migrant children at a shelter in Long Beach, Calif.
[...]
But the claims were untrue. And on Tuesday, the Post reporter who wrote the original article said she had resigned from the paper because of “an incorrect story I was ordered to write,” describing the episode as “my breaking point.”

— https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/business/media/new-york-post-kamala-harris.html

This is not a journalistic error. In both cases the paper ordered the writing and front page placement of false stories its own staff identified as dubious. The Post is currently marked "generally unreliable". I think it should probably be deprecated and potentially even blacklisted. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:02, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Here it's usually been claimed that correcting an error is generally a positive sign. I see that the article no longer claims that Harris' books are distributed to migrants [15]. Alaexis_¿question? 17:16, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

This is usually true yes. However that is as a result of publishing in good faith and later being corrected. Not as the journalist here claims, where from the outset it was known it was not true. Thats the key difference. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:24, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, according to this journalist. Alaexis_¿question? 19:17, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Alaexis, who, you know, was forced to write the article, and then resigned in disgust. So that's two egregious fabrications on the front page. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:44, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

I’d give it a minute to see if we get confirmation of the reporter’s story from more than the NYT, those are certainly shocking allegations and *if true* would put NYP solidly into deprecate territory. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:19, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Both the Washington Post and CNN have detailed reports that agree with the NY Times report, and also say that the NY Post correction did not correct all of the falsehoods in the original report (in fact, repeating the part that the book in the photo was given to an immigrant child). NightHeron (talk) 18:08, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Ok, it looks like we have a major issue here then. On a side note don’t we need to open an RfC to deprecate? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:35, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

The New York Post acknowledged the error, posted a different story, and got the resignation of the reporter. The reporter responsible for the falsehood is now making a claim that some Wikipedia editors seem to think is worth considering without seeing whether there's any corroboration, but the verifiable facts point to: the New York Post did what we expect from a reliable source. In any case, if somebody had rushed to put it in Wikipedia, it could have been corrected on the appropriate page instead of going to WP:RSN without saying what Wikipedia page was affected. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:42, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Peter Gulutzan, no they did not. They partially corrected the story after they were caught out, but it still contains substantial inaccuracies, and has not been retracted despite having been made up from whole cloth by them. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:46, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

There's nothing false about the Hunter Biden laptop story. Regarding the Harris book, the paper updated the story to include the correct details, which other organizations do all the time. Again this is common and happens all the time, and is expected of reliable sources when they make a mistake. In fact, the USA Today just recently edited a Stacey Abrams op-ed changing the tone of her support for boycotts in Georgia once a particularly impactful one was announced. Mr Ernie (talk) 17:44, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

"There's nothing false about the Hunter Biden laptop story". Oh dear, reality must be difficult sometimes (i.e. no-one knows what the truth actually is currently, so saying it's true or false is ... simply your opinion). Anyway, it appears that the paper told her to write a false story. If that is the case, then yes we must Deprecate. Black Kite (talk) 17:49, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

no-one knows what the truth actually is currently, so saying it's true or false is ... simply your opinion The funny this is that I've been trying to argue this for a few weeks now at the FAQ section for the laptop. According to CNN, the law enforcement assumption is that the laptop is Biden's. What do you think is false or wrong with the Post story? Mr Ernie (talk) 18:02, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Mr Ernie, it would be greatly quicker to list all the things which have been proven true about it: there was a laptop. Everything else is somewhere on the scale from doubtful to known Russian disinformation. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:47, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

There is no "known" Russian disinformation about the Biden laptop story. Some suspect it, but there's no proof yet. Maybe we'll find out soon after this FBI raid at Giuliani's place? Mr Ernie (talk) 20:08, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Mr Ernie, ah, so you haven't been keeping up with the intelligence declassifications. Since 2020. OK, then. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:27, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

It would be nice if we had an actual site guideline for when a generally unreliable source should become deprecated. For example, my understanding is we deprecate sources to prevent sloppy (or outright deceptive) reporting reaching and misinforming readers. The source is already considered generally unreliable, and at minimum that appears to be the correct classification based on this incident as well. To bump that up to deprecated surely there should be evidence that the status quo is proving insufficient. So: did someone actually try to push that New York Post story into an article, and did it successfully gain consensus to be pushed into an article? Does the NYP have these issues outside of American politics? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:02, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Separately, Fox News seems to be mentioned in the NYTimes report Guy links for their false reporting, apparently they repeated a report from the Daily Mail (lol).[16][17][18] Fox is currently at no consensus. Does this event constitute reason to up it to generally unreliable for politics? Again, a lack of site guidelines on generally unreliable sources is seemingly resulting in inconsistent outcomes. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:20, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it would probably be good to have a little more general guidance about the difference between pink, red, and gray at WP:RSP. XOR'easter (talk) 20:15, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, Fox's reaction to the Jan 6 insurrection was to fire Chris Stirewalt, who correctly called Alabama for Biden, and to promote bot Maria Bartiromo (a proponent of the Big Lie) and give more airtime to Tucker Carlson (Big Lie proponent now promoting white supremacist talking points to the delight of Stormfront, VDARE, The Daily Stormer and David Duke).

For the avoidance of doubt: fuck yeah. Fox is unreliable for politics. Entirely unreliable. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:26, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Arizona, not Alabama. XOR'easter (talk) 20:29, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, yes. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:56, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Status quo for this source seems OK, this incident would only reinforce what we already know and what WP:RSPSOURCES already says about NYP. --Chillabit (talk) 18:52, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

• This journalistic malfeasance does not make The Post more reliable. At any rate, the new head of The New York Post is from [ WP:THESUN!!! ], so we probably should at least update with that info. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:07, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
• This is indicative of a sick process within the NY Post. In no way does it reflect well upon them. I can sympathize with the inclination to push them even further into the red at WP:RSP, though I'm not sure how much of a difference it would make in practice. Do we have a problem with people trying to push their stories here that the current rating is inadequate to handle? (I'm not asking rhetorically; in my experience, the status quo seems to have been adequate, but I don't see everything.) XOR'easter (talk) 20:06, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

• A quick search says that the New York Post is being used on 12,000 pages, which seems like an awful lot for a source whose RSP rating is generally unreliable. Furthermore, at a glance a lot of the usage seems to be for politics, especially New York City politics, which is the usage that the current RSP rating specifically warns against. It might make sense to depreciate it for politics specifically, although I would be more inclined to depreciate entirely - my assumption would be that it's not that the Post publishes more false stories about politics, just that those tend to get caught more often because they are more alarming. --Aquillion (talk) 03:21, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

• I don't see a need to change from the status quo. If we have contentious information that is only corroborate to the Post, it should be removed as potentially wrong; but the Post otherwise usually is corroborating contentious information with other sources, but that means we should simply replace the Post with other sources, it should be. When the material is not contentious (eg around entertainment news) it seems far less in any type of hot water. Basically if the store seems to be front page clickbait, we should clearly avoid the Post and use other sources. --Masem (t) 20:25, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

  Entertainment? Good for celebrity gossip should mean, wrap fish with it and throw it away. At any rate, do they really "corroborate", would that not require real journalism work? As opposed to say, notice a donated book on a bed in a Reuters picture, and write 500 words of innuendo and falsehoods about someone. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:34, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

  Not celebrity gossip (though they do engage in that too and that should be swept away broadly that we simply don't do celebrity gossip). I mean, they will talk to producers/directors/actors to gain insight on a production if it happens in NYC, which is useful information for a show or film. We're probably talking different departments here at play, their "news" department ordered to be as sensational as possible while an "arts" department, far under the fold, is under far less pressure to draw readers so can actually be journalistic. --Masem (t) 22:40, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

• I would at least deprecate this source for politics related content. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 20:43, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
• Per what I said above I'd lean towards depreciation. This seems like a pretty clear-cut pattern of intentionally publishing false or misleading stories, which is the baseline for depreciation; more alarmingly, it looks very much like the current RSP rating isn't doing its job, since the Post is currently cited 12,000 times, many of them for politics or even New York City politics, which is the precise topic area where its current RSP entry specifically says it should not be used. --Aquillion (talk) 03:21, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

• Deprecate for political topics specifically I think this and the many other incidents in the past have shown that the NYP can't be trusted for accurately reporting on political topics and, in fact, can be known for fabricating political stories that they then front-line. For that reason, I think any usage of the NYP for political articles and topics should be deprecated. For anything non-political, I think they are still trustworthy until/unless we obtain further evidence in the future that this corruption has spread to other parts of their news departments. Silverseren^C 03:33, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
• I would oppose deprecation and support the status quo, seeing as the NY Post does post op-eds and opinion pieces from notable individuals in U.S. politics, including sitting senator March Rubio and the mayor of New York City, The Speaker of NYC's Council, among others. A blanket deprecation would catch these opinion pieces as well, which may very well influence the ability of the project to provide balance on these sorts of issues, which might affect our ability to cover relevant political reactions (especially in New York City local politics), and it might help us to retain the source as generally usable for the quotes of these authors as it pertains to issues of public controversy. WP:GUNREL maintains that it is generally unreliable for facts, which appears very much to be the case, but deprecation might be a bridge too far here. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 05:37, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

• I see that 6 discussions about the reliability of NYP have already taken place. Now I've seen movie reviews or film festival coverage published by NYP deleted from film articles based on WP:RSP. Whatever results from this particular discussion, a distinction needs to be made between using NYP for news stories and fact checking -- and an article such as a film review. We should not be cutting off the nose to spite the face. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 11:03, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

• Reading the last few comments, I'd now say that I support deprecation. As Aquillion says, the current RSP rating isn't doing its job. I don't see a reason to separate out politics from other subjects; fundamentally, if they're willing to pull shenanigans on one topic, I don't see why we should respect them on any other. Tabloids will tabloid. Nor should we presume that they take any particular care in whose opinion pieces they run. Opinions are cheap, and for our purposes, they are not noteworthy unless reliable sources have taken note of them. XOR'easter (talk) 16:01, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose deprecation: The laptop story is referred to above as a politically motivated fabrication, but my understanding was that the laptop story had been substantially verified now. At least, the central element of the story that many people originally called into question - the claim that the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden - is now assumed by many (including the law enforcement agencies that have possession of the laptop) to be true. According to a recent CNN article,

Hunter Biden told CBS News in an interview clip released on Friday that he has 'no idea whether or not' the laptop belongs to him, but acknowledged that it was 'certainly' a possibility, before raising several other theories.

A law enforcement source has told CNN that the assumption is that it is Hunter Biden's laptop.

I would genuinely be interested in hearing if there was some other aspect of the story that turned out to be false, but right now, I don't understand why this story is being characterized as a fabrication above.

Beyond the question of the laptop story, deprecation is a drastic step, and should only be taken for very few sources. I think there are problems with the NY Post (it's a tabloid, with the typical sensationalism that one finds in that medium), and editors should certainly be aware of its political leanings, but I don't think we should go as far as deprecating it. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:36, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Thucydides411, no, the laptop story has not been "substantially verified". What you're missing when you quote the source that says the laptop belonged to Biden, is that there is no evidence whatsoever that it was Biden who handed it, along with two others, to MacIsaac. The involvement of Giuliani, Bannon, and a well-documented influence campaign by Russian intelligence in Ukraine, suggests the most likely explanation is that it was stolen and planted, along with a fabricated back-story founded on Giuliani's delusional belief that he would be accepted as a trusted source because he once played a lawyer on TV. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:38, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

@JzG: I'm still waiting for that "smoking gun" Tucker Carlson claimed was on it when his delivery went missing (then was quickly found and delivered without a peep out of him). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:46, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

@JzG: You called the story a politically motivated fabrication. Can you explain precisely what part of the NY Post story is a fabrication?

• there is no evidence whatsoever that it was Biden who handed it, along with two others, to MacIsaac: I've looked back at the original NY Post article, and it does not state that Biden himself handed the laptop to Mac Isaac. The original article states that The shop owner couldn't positively identify the customer as Hunter Biden.
• the most likely explanation is that it was stolen and planted: This is a hypothesis about how the laptop ended up at the repair shop, but even assuming that your speculation is correct, how does it render the NY Post story a politically motivated fabrication?

A fairly recent BBC article goes through some of the claims from the original NY Post articles, and it doesn't describe them as fabrications. I'll quote the BBC's discussion of one of the more controversial issues raised by the NY Post:

The New York Post reported an email from April 2015, in which an adviser to Burisma, Vadym Pozharskyi, apparently thanked Hunter Biden for inviting him to meet his father in Washington.

Hunter was a director on the board of Burisma - a Ukrainian-owned private energy company while his father was the Obama administration's pointman on US-Ukrainian relations. Hunter was one of several foreigners on its board.

The New York Post article did not provide evidence that the meeting had ever taken place. The Biden election campaign said there was no record of any such meeting on the former vice-president's 'official schedule' from the time.

But in a statement to Politico, the campaign also acknowledged that Mr Biden could have had an 'informal interaction' with the Burisma adviser that did not appear on his official schedule, though it said any such encounter would have been 'cursory'.

So the claim is difficult to verify, but there's prima facie evidence supporting it (the email on the laptop), and the Biden campaign acknowledges that it could be true (though it describes the possible meeting as an "informal interaction", rather than a formal meeting). The BBC also notes that while Biden's team has called the NY Post story as a whole "Russian disinformation", it does not dispute the authenticity of the emails. All in all, this story appears far less concerning than, say, the publication of the Steele dossier by Buzzfeed (Buzzfeed News: generally reliable, Buzzfeed: no consensus).

In my view, calling an article a politically motivated fabrication is a very strong claim, and you should ground it with some concrete examples of claims in the NY Post article that were fabrications. Given that you're arguing for deprecation, which is a drastic step, this is particularly important.

As I've said above, the NY Post is a tabloid and is prone to sensationalism, but I don't think that that justifies deprecation. And most importantly, a decision for deprecation should be based on actual facts, not unsupported assertions. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:45, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Thucydides411, I'm fully aware of the right-wing narrative and the attempt to fit facts to the story. It remains the case that there is no evidence that the laptop was not tampered with, no evidence that it was left by Biden, no evidence to support MacIsaac's story, strong evidence that Giuliani is compromised by Russian intelligence assets, strong evidence that neither Giuliani not Bannon is an honest broker and, above all, absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Joe Biden took any actions in Ukraine other than in furtherance of official bipartisan US policy.

There is, however, compelling evidence that Donald Trump tried to use his office to extort Ukraine for his own personal benefit, and that Trump appointees then tried to conceal the evidence of this. There is also compelling evidence that Rudy Giuliani used his contacts with the Trump regime to have Marie Yovanovitch fired as ambassador, at the request of Russian-backed Ukrainians.

The New York Post's story was a politically motivated fabrication., We have contemporaneous reporting that the Post writer who was forced to write it, refused to add his byline. Fox had turned it down. It is, in short, a rather obvious crock. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:58, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

There's a lot of invective in your reply, but not a lot of substance on the concrete question I asked you: what, specifically, was fabricated in the NY Post story? Maybe the BBC article I cited is part of the "right-wing narrative and the attempt to fit facts to the story", but please forgive me if I'm not convinced. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:17, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

The assertion that there must be outright fabrications in the story before we can consider it disingenuous is, ironically, quite disingenuous. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:30, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

JzG called the laptop story a politically motivated fabrication. There's nothing disingenuous about asking JzG to back up that characterization. Do you agree with JzG's characterization of the article? From your response to me, it sounds like you're conceding that there are no outright fabrications in the article, or have I misunderstood you?

Look, I just asked why JzG was describing the article as a fabrication, because my impression was that the central claims in the article had largely held up with time (e.g., Hunter Biden has conceded that the laptop might be his, the Biden campaign did not dispute the authenticity of the emails, and they conceded that the meeting described in one of the emails might have taken place). The responses to my straightforward question have been personally aggressive, but have avoided actually answering my question. I could have been convinced by a straightforward response laying out the elements of the story that the NY Post fabricated. The way you two have chosen to respond makes me more strongly suspect that there's nothing behind the "fabrication" claim. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:47, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Thucydides411, there is no possible doubt that the story was politically motivated - it was rejected by Fox and rammed through by the Post editors in the face of objections from their own staff. So the only question is whether "Russian-coordinated disinformation operation" and "fabrication" are synonymous. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:10, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

It's only "disinformation" if it's untrue. You keep asserting that the laptop story is untrue, a fabrication, Russian disinformation (by the way, I wouldn't care if it came from Russia - I just care if it's correct), etc. Can you back any of those claims up?

As for motivation, I wouldn't even dispute that the NY Post is a right-wing newspaper, and that editors should be aware of that bias. I think it would be naive to assume that any source is completely unbiased, and when it came to the 2020 US election, I think most newspapers had strong biases, one way or the other. But we don't deprecate newspapers because they're biased. We're supposed to deprecate sources that are so unreliable that they can be trusted for almost nothing.

I don't even like being in the position of defending the NY Post, but you made a very strong assertion about the laptop story, and you're using that assertion to argue for deprecating the entire newspaper. I'd just like to see some evidence. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:26, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

That's a lot of words for "I can't deny what you clearly meant, so I'm gonna deny the words you used to say it." ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 00:22, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

• One of the only reasons I can think of to oppose deprecation is that their sports articles are pretty good. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:41, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
• Deprecate for the simple fact that we can't trust their editorial board, which means the articles we read might very well be different than the article their journalists write. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:46, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
• Deprecate, per MjolnirPants. I had not thought about it that way: the benchmark for what makes a reliable source is effective editorial oversight, and when two of the most prominent examples of fabrication originated with the editorial team who then coerced or bypassed the journalistic staff, that is such a complete reversal of how it's supposed to work that we cannot, indeed, trust it at all. This is the exact opposite of editorial oversight. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:51, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose deprecation. Relieved to see this touched on in comments by Pyxis Solitary: there are areas where a source (any source) might be considered unreliable and areas where it is reliable, so removing it wholesale from the encyclopedia would be extremely short-sighted. I work on 1960s/'70s music articles; Al Aronowitz wrote (quite famously) for the New York Post at that time – is the idea that any of his cultural reporting would be deleted from articles here? From watching this noticeboard since last year (when a music website was up for discussion), it's concerned me that a lot of editors proposing deprecation of a source seem to view Wikipedia through a straw ... Just sayin'. JG66 (talk) 15:05, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
• Deprecate political, allow all other uses - I agree that their political "reporting and news" is bull at this point. But at the same time, their historical reporting and their non-political reporting seem to be okay still. Seems like they have a double standard for their departments - but that's not on us to remove them completely. I am fine with saying that the NY Post should never be considered reliable for politics, but I think that anything beyond that is improper. Even if it's technically the same editorial board, it's clear they take a very different view on political stories than they do on others - and that is something we must consider. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 00:27, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
• Deprecate. The standard I use to differentiate unreliable versus deprecated is that an unreliable source is as reliable as an amateur making a good faith effort to fact-check, and any source we know to be less reliable than that we should deprecate. It's hard to be less reliable than that, but one easy way to get there is if there's proof that the source has deliberately lied, especially on more than one occasion. We have that for the NY Post, so we should deprecate it. Loki (talk) 03:17, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: Can a source be deprecated without a formal RfC? Springee (talk) 03:27, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose deprecation without date cutoff. It seems clear from this discussion that the reliability has taken a nosedive, I'm not immediately sure when but it seems to be with the current editorial team. If we deprecate we need to be clear that it is only and explicitly for articles published after the cutoff date. If we don't do this then experience shows that some editors will simply remove all cites to the publication (without replacement), even if there were no concerns about the reliability of the source when that article was published. Thryduulf (talk) 09:34, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose further deprecation - We already caution against using NYP for political information. It is fine for less controversial topics (such as sports coverage). No need to change the status quo. Blueboar (talk) 12:12, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
• Deprecate [19][20][21][22][23][24] Nuff said. Firestar464 (talk) 02:33, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose deprecation as per Thucydides411, and the lack of any evidence politically biased or otherwise against their general content. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 17:57, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

RSP wording for SPLC

Right now the RSP wording is:

The Southern Poverty Law Center is considered generally reliable on topics related to hate groups and extremism in the United States. As an advocacy group, the SPLC is a biased and opinionated source. The organization's views, especially when labeling hate groups, should be attributed per WP:RSOPINION. Take care to ensure that content from the SPLC constitutes due weight in the article and conforms to the biographies of living persons policy. Some editors have questioned the reliability of the SPLC on non-United States topics. SPLC classifications should not automatically be included in the lead section of the article about the group which received the classification. The decision to include should rather be decided on a case-by-case basis.

I believe this should be amended to something more like:

The Southern Poverty Law Center is widely cited by reliable secondary sources as an authority on topics related to hate groups and extremism in the United States. As an advocacy group, the SPLC is a biased and opinionated source. The organization's views, especially when labeling hate groups, should be attributed per WP:RSOPINION. Take care to ensure that content from the SPLC constitutes due weight in the article (for example by reference to reporting of SPLC's statements in reliable independent secondary sources) and ensure all content conforms to the biographies of living persons policy. SPLC classifications should not automatically be included in the lead section of the article about the group which received the classification. The decision to include should rather be decided on a case-by-case basis and should be guided by secondary sources, not SPLC's own publications.

I'm not disputing SPLC's authority on hate groups (and anyone who wants to do so has already lost that argument, per the first sentence above - reliable sources see them as an authority, and if that is a problem, it is not our problem to fix). This is about the UNDUE question, and ensuring that we let RS judge whether a particular classification or statement is worthy of note, rather than quote-mining the internet for primary opinion sources, per WP:ARSEHOLES.

• WRONG: $GROUP is a hate group,<ref>SPLC page calling $GROUP a hate group</ref>
• WRONG: SPLC classifies $GROUP as a hate group,<ref>SPLC page calling $GROUP a hate group</ref>
• RIGHT: SPLC classifies $GROUP as a hate group,<ref>$RELIABLESOURCE noting that SPLC designates $GROUP as a hate group</ref>

I'd even be happy with mandating that we don't include it unless it's noted by two or more RS.

We'll never stop people demanding that we exclude SPLC designations on the basis that they reject them. We'll never stop Conservapedia from accusing us of being Zionist liberal cucks because we note that the Family Research Council are considered a hate group. But I thnk we can ensure that any fair-minded reader (if such a thing exists in today's polarised world) recognises that we're not just quote-mining the internet for stuff we agree with. Guy (help! - typo?) 10:10, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

This sounds sensible. Can you give some examples of groups that would be affected? That's is, ones SPLC calls them a hate group but other reliable sources do not mention it. Alaexis_¿question? 11:04, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Alaexis, all I know is that we have a large number of articles that cite SPLC as a source per splcenter.org  , and I think that number should be in single digits. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:21, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

JzG. Btw did you remove "Some editors have questioned the reliability of the SPLC on non-United States topics" from the proposed version on purpose? Alaexis_¿question? 11:29, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Alaexis, yes, because we don't care about "some editors" but we do care about reliable independent sources - especially since the "some editors" have consistently failed to achieve consensus. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:36, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Per Chesterton's fence, probably there was a reason why it was there in the first place, so I was wondering why you no longer consider it right. Alaexis_¿question? 18:38, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

• all I know is that we have a large number of articles that cite SPLC as a source per splcenter.org  , and I think that number should be in single digits. I think you're forgetting that a large number of those cites are to the SPLC alongside a secondary source, which is entirely legitimate. I'm not a huge fan of citing opinion-pieces or over-reliance on WP:RSOPINION in general without secondary sources, but if we are going to retain that practice, the SPLC seems like a classic example of something that is citable as opinion - they have a strong reputation, large numbers of secondary sources defer to their assessments, and they're one of those few organizations high-profile enough that it's reasonable to say that their opinion on something is inherently worth noting. I would prefer a secondary source wherever possible but if you're suggesting we start scouring it down to single-digit primary citations in the manner we do for depreciated sources, I'm going to have to insist that the only way we could do that is by changing WP:RSOPINION to be much more strict in general - changing A prime example of this is opinion pieces in sources recognized as reliable to read something like Opinion cited via RSOPINION must be published in sources otherwise recognized as reliable or even Opinion cited under RSOPINION must always be accompanied by a secondary source indicating relevance. Or perhaps more specifically specifying the requirement for biased or opinionated RSOPINION, which is where the problem seems to lie ("opinionated opinion" might sound like a redundency, but the idea is to allow reviews provided they're written by roughly unbiased reviewers - and the objection here seems to be that the SPLC's strongly-opinionated nature calls for more caution.) Because if the SPLC doesn't qualify as RSOPINION then I'm hard-pressed to understand what WP:BIASED sources ever would - certainly, since their expertise in their topic-area is widely-recognized, I would rate them higher than an editorial or opinion-piece by a non-expert. --Aquillion (talk) 16:38, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

  Aquillion, ah, you are doing a masterful job of exposing my muddled thinking here, but broadly speaking, you are spot on with "opinionated opinion". There is far too much of this on Wikipedia right now. My personal bar is high: for example, I would not cite Maddow directly even if other sources note that Maddow has commented on something (exception: her books Bag Man and Blowout appear to be RS, footnoted and published by reputable publishing houses independent of the author or her network).

  The fact that SPLC is considered an authority by RS does nudge the needle towards direct inclusion as a supplementary source. But I am really not a fan of "X said Y about Z, source, X saying Y about Z on X's website" for anything, let alone accusations of being a hate group. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:43, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

  "There is far too much of this on Wikipedia right now" ← Word. There almost seems to be two Wikipedias, the "let's look in the library and find great sources on interesting topics" Wikipedia, and the "what in today's news can I get into Wikipedia in a way which advances my tribe's cause" Wikipedia. It's doin' my head in. Alexbrn (talk) 18:52, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

• I partly agree... and partly disagree. There is actually a two step process in situations like this...

1) to mention THAT an advocacy group (such as the SPLC) label “X” as a hate group, we need to cite reliable secondary sources that are independent of both the advocacy group (SPLC) and “X”. The reason for this is to establish due weight. However...

2) once that due weight is established, we can (and should) then cite the advocacy group itself (as a primary source) for the details on WHAT the advocacy group says about “X”.

I would extend this to all “opinion sources”... first cite independent reliable sources to establish weight, then cite the opinion source itself for what it says. Blueboar (talk) 12:18, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Blueboar, I'm not adamantly opposed to a primary link after the significance is established, but I'd invite you to consider what this invites in terms of other primary links to opinion sources. Think-tanks, hyper-partisan websites, the Daily Mail and so on. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:35, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

• • Yup... and I would apply the same standard. Set an extremely high bar on deciding WHETHER to mention the opinion in the first place (a function of DUE WEIGHT), but IF you do mention it, then we should turn to the original primary source (with attribution) for citing WHAT they say. Blueboar (talk) 20:46, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
• As I said above, this seems to strike at the heart of WP:RSOPINION. If you're going to make it a strict requirement to have secondary sources for biased or opinionated WP:RSOPINION, even in the cases where the opinion's source is well-regarded, high-profile, and has established expertise, I would happily agree... but it would have to be a general rule. I would strenuously oppose changing the current practice for using such opinions solely for the SPLC, which is near the high end of sources that are cited under the current practice. I am envisioning, essentially, a situation where a source can be generally-reliable for facts, but WP:BIASED, and still be citable; and could be WP:RSOPINION without strong biases, and still be citable; but something that is both WP:BIASED WP:RSOPINION would require a secondary source. Is that's what's being suggested here? --Aquillion (talk) 16:38, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
• I agree that descriptions of groups and individuals by the SPLC must be attributed in all cases. However I disagree with JzG's assertion that we should only use SPLC when used by other sources. Per WP:PARITY SPLC covers a lot of fringe hate figures and groups that receive little coverage otherwise, and to remove the ability use SPLC directly would be a detriment to the encyclopedia. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:43, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
  • On the third hand... if the ONLY source to cover a fringe group is the SPLC, I would question whether WP should have an article on the group in the first place. Blueboar (talk) 18:12, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

    Blueboar, 100%. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:43, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

  Hemiauchenia, it's a primary opinion source, and it's a strong opinion. To include it directly when not covered by independent sources is a real problem. It's also not that common for a genuinely notable hate group not to have third parties note their listing by SPLC, in my experience. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:32, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

• As for some above my concerns are that it would serve as precedent to dismiss WP:PARITY in other contexts. In theory, if secondary sources are lacking about a topic, the article should ideally be deleted for lack of notability. When well covered by secondary sources, it would naturally result in content that meets the above suggestion. I admit that there still are cases of articles subsisting despite the lack of independent criticism even where warranted... —PaleoNeonate – 02:34, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

• I don't see any need for the additional wording. The reason we typically mention that the SPLC has called a group a hate group is that major news media typically report this in articles about the group. But the same guideline policy for any fact or opinion reported in any article. No opinion is noteworthy because of its source. The proposal is based on a false assumption that there are cases where media don't report the SPLC's categorization, which is dubious at best. Incidentally, saying it is "only an opinion" is misleading. It's an expert opinion, which means for all practical purposes it can be treated as a fact. It's in the same league as the opinion that smoking is harmful. The SPLC is biased and opinionated in the same sense that the Surgeon-General is by advising people not to smoke. TFD (talk) 05:22, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
  • You can back up claims around smoking with scientific evidence and evaluation under a scientific method using statistical tests and all that, and while there may be underlying political or biases to want to sway the results, there are still fundamental objective determinations that can be established and thus can be presented closer to fact (though I would still think that if the only source for such a claim is the S.G., we'd attribute that to the S.G. until there's further corroboration). Whereas even the SPLC is still using a subjective measure of what a hate group is to classify people and groups into these categories - one that is likely 95% in agreement with what most people think a hate group is but still which they have infrequently gotten flack for excessive inclusion and even backed off in some cases - because there is no objective process to make that determination. Thus while they are an expert source, and one we should include on groups that are in SPLC's classification, it should be treated as an RSOPINION about the group with clear inline citation to the SPLC, and definitely not treated as fact. Given there are legal ramifications around what are hate crimes and related terminology, and the SPLC is not a legal authority here but simply an expert source, we absolutely need to make sure it is clear classification by the SPLC (or similar agencies like ADL) are clearly delineated. --Masem (t) 05:50, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
    • Masem, the concept of hate speech does however have an empirical basis. It is speech that is likely to promote hatred or violence against minorities on the basis of their immutable (or virtually immutable) characteristics. In the classical example, by persuading people that Jews were responsible for Germany's defeat in WW1 and were conspiring to destroy the German nation, the Nazis incentivized citizens to attack Jews and remove them from society. That's an empirically provable claim. Most opponents of the SPLC do not question that. What they question is whether certain groups deserve protection from discrimination. Rhetoric accusing Islam of being an evil religion is designed to restrict Muslims from entering the U.S. and practicing their religion. Anti-LGBT rhetoric is designed to promote anti-LGBT legislation. No one questions that. What SPLC opponents say is that Islam is evil and therefore Muslims should be banned and homosexuality encourages child abuse and therefore it should be banned. TFD (talk) 21:23, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
      • But hate speech, just like hate group, still has subjective facets despite having perhaps an objective core. I agree with how you define hate speech, for example, and I think that's a fairly objective definition, but when that definition is used in practice, it can be misused or misconstrued by subjective criteria built into that definition. People will look for the smallest slights in statements, particularly out of context, to call others out as racist or hatred or the like. This is one thing that the SPLC as an expert in the area we don't expect them to do, but we still need to keep aware that they are working with subjective determinations to what a hate group is based on their own biases. --Masem (t) 22:02, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
        • Not really. In all Western countries outside the U.S., hate speech is illegal and there are criteria for establishing what constitutes hate speech. While hate speech is constitutionally protected in the U.S., violent hate crimes are federal offenses, so just as in the rest of the world what constitutes hate is determined by courts. Supreme courts in the U.S. and every other country that has hate speech laws agree on where those laws apply and the SPLC uses the same standards. Can you show that the SPLC departs in anyway from what experts say? It's similar to saying that accounting standards are subjective. Indeed they are and accounting is not an exact science. As with other social sciences, judgment is required and opinions may very. But that doesn't mean the IRS and the Supreme Court are going to accept an "it's all subjective" claim when you fail to pay taxes. Pamela Geller for example was denied entry to the UK for promoting hate speech and challenged the decision in court. The Crown submitted evidence from the SPLC and the court upheld the government's decision. They didn't say, "Duh. It's all subjective. Her opinion that it isn't hate speech is as good as the SPLC's position that it is." Instead, they determined that her speech could lead to violence and she was barred. You of course are welcome to disagree with the consensus of legal experts and the SPLC, but must acknowledge that there is agreement. TFD (talk) 05:37, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
• On the issue of RSOPINION this comes back to a wholly separate matter I raised long before which had to deal with the Daily Mail and its television and film reviewers. In the area of mainstream British television and major films, there are several notable writers that have spent time at other UK papers but have ended up at the DM and part of the known body of reviewers of contemporary works). If I were looking for sources about a Brit TV episode or a film, their reviews as published by the Daily Mail would easily come up, and one would normally be expected to include their reviews... but we have the DM deprecation in place that would initially say they can't be used. That's basically BS, in that this is exactly what I was trying to propose for RSOPINION to be clear about, that as long as it is clear that for the specific topic area that there are experts that would normally be polled or used for their opinion, it doesn't matter where their opinion is published as long as we are confident it is there work - RSOPINION does not require that a secondary source be present to be able to include what has been determined what are known experts in the given topic area, as determined by consensus. So in the case of British television, these TV reviewers that work for the DM would be experts that could be included (presuming consensus agreed) just simply based on the DM publication. The same analogy works here for the SPLC or ADL. In the area of hate groups or other racist/bigotry etc. they are expert groups, I doubt we need consensus to demonstrate that, so their RSOPINION can be included without the need of a secondary source.

Obviously, when RSOPINION is evoked, inline sourcing is 100% required.

Now, UNDUE and secondary sources that reference the RSOPINION as to back up are important when there is possible significant disagreement. In the case of TV reviews, this isn't an issue - every critic has their own view, there's no majority view so all RSOPINIONS are equal. But for hate groups, we can anticipate hostile counterargument from the labeled group and its allies. If the group is significant, more than likely we'll have multiple RSes re-reporting the SPLC's classiciation and that will drown out the counterargument to a level that puts aside the UNDUE issues. If a group isn't significant, and we have almost no RSes re-reporting the SPLC's classificatoin, we first should probably re-review notability of the group, and if its still notable then, then we have to be careful with how much to talk about it, maybe at most just a sentence or even omission --Masem (t) 06:06, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Masem, That, especially the second paragraph, is exactly the analysis we should apply, IMO, and that's why I think we should change the wording / recommendation. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:21, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

• I do not have an opinion on the wording. Sorry couldn't resist. Nil Einne (talk) 12:09, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
• I largely agree with this, but I think it should be more clear that any publishing on the SPLC's own website are considered self-published. This would help clarify the BLP concerns with using this as a source. --Kyohyi (talk) 13:43, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
• I don't believe such wording actually makes much sense. Since SPLC "is considered generally reliable on topics related to hate groups and extremism in the United States", the designation will likely appear in RS because people and news media generally respect SPLC's opinion, however imperfect, and they will often say "it has been labeled a hate group by SPLC" in their reporting in what is alleged/considered to be a hate group.

That said, I'd prefer an idea to have both SPLC and a reasonable amount of resources to corroborate the opinion and the rationale (I'd say 2 RSs would be enough, unless that's a particularly notorious group, in which case more can be added). In realistic terms, a majority of readers of Wikipedia will anyway read either the lead only or most of the text but still without going deep into references, so if there is indeed consensus this is a hate group, it will be the best way to show it (if there is not, I'd think twice before adding the sentence). So if I were to write the entry in the RSP, I'd ask to search for both SPLC and RSs.

PS. When citing the SPLC, find the article where they expand on the motives to include the group and not just the heat map. For people who will go deep into references, other references and the body of the article will show whether that opinion (and reasoning) is substantiated or RS actually doubt whether to follow SPLC's advice. And, of course, just as every opinion, it must be attributed whenever used. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 14:54, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

• I'm not convinced of the need for a change, though I think I can follow the motivations for suggesting it. Perhaps more examples would help: what article might be impacted by the change, and how? XOR'easter (talk) 16:09, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
• I'm not convinced that this change is a significant improvement, although some examples of what it would change in practice might help. Much of the discussion above seems to be about different interpretations of WP:RSOPINION and of determining what is and is not DUE more generally than the SPLC, but I don't think this the right venue for that discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 10:51, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

RfC: The Globe and Mail

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.

There's a strong consensus that The Globe and Mail is generally reliable for news coverage and is considered a newspaper of record. Early close per WP:SNOW. (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 22:34, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

---

Which of the following options should apply to the The Globe and Mail for its news coverage of international events?

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting on these topics.

— Mikehawk10 (talk) 05:16, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Survey (RfC: The Globe and Mail)

Please use the discussion subsection below for responses and threaded discussion and leave this subsection for one comment or !vote per editor.

• Option 1. The Globe and Mail has long been recognized as a Canadian newspaper of record and is quite possibly the most prestigious newspaper in Canada (1 2 3 4 5). The paper has extensive WP:USEBYOTHERS across many topic areas, with use by The Times of London (1 2 3 4 5), The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post (1 2 3 4 5 6 7), and The Associated Press (1 2 3 4), among other news sources. The use of the source by others across a multitude of topics, including its news coverage of international events, only points additionally towards the source's exceptionally high reliability more broadly and supports its status as Canada's English-language paper of record. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 05:16, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1. It is a reliable and rather conservative publication in Canada and is considered a newspaper of record, as it has been actually cited quite well in the lede to the article, and their international coverage isn't bad, either.

For the answer to the specific issue, see my comment in Discussion. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 09:25, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Option 4, this should not even be suggested without a seriously good reason. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:39, 4 May 2021 (UTC) Revoke my vote. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:24, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 as a newspaper of record like  The New York Times (RSP entry) and  South China Morning Post (RSP entry). Chompy Ace 22:25, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2, reporting is generally factual on international topics but their reporting and sourcing has taken an incredibly hawkish bent in regards to nations like China. I'd say just be cautious and use in-line attribution for potentially extraordinary claims. Paragon Deku (talk) 22:32, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1, they are one of Canada’s papers of record and I have not seen their reporting called into question in any substantive way. Strong reputation, use by others, location in a country with significant press freedoms, and a history of editorial independence all speak in their favor. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:43, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1. Reputable source with a good track record.Sea Ane (talk) 02:55, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 The Globe is as reliable as the independent or New York Times or other quality media. Whether or not Western media coverage of China is accurate is a wider issue. While it may or may not be unfair, all Western media treat China in the same way. In the 1970s, the Globe was the only Western newspaper in China and its articles were routinely picked up in other Western media. The paper is owned by the Thomson family which also owns Reuters, one of the world's leading wire services, and at one time owned the Times of London, which is one of the world's most respected newspapers. TFD (talk) 03:15, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1. Usually I say of RS that it mostly depends on context, but this RFC includes context of international events and coverage that is reporting. (That does not however say their coverage of a specific like Memet June is right.) As Mikehawk10 said above, the newspaper has good reputation and use by others. I would place this paper above the other mentioned New York Times or South China Morning Post paper. will add that its own circulation also has a respectable WEIGHT. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:19, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 Seems like a standard newspaper of record. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 04:37, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 in many cases, but Option 2-3 with regards to some aspects of China coverage. Adding to comments from Markbassett, TFD, and Paragon Deku here, and Aquillion, Thucydides411, and Jayron32 below: general reliability doesn't guarantee that a couple articles [25][26] published by The Globe and Mail provide a neutral or comprehensive treatment of the status of the Id Kah Mosque, of its imam Memet Jume, or of related issues in China.

Last year, the University of Alberta's China Institute published a comprehensive evaluation of The Globe and Mail's recent coverage of China [27]. The report observes that this recent period has been one of tension between Canada and China, characterized by a steep decline in state-to-state relations, a "reality" reflected in Canadian newspapers. From the executive summary:

These political and economic conflicts weighed heavily on the way newspaper coverage framed China, with “unpredictable” and “conflict” leaping into first and second place as the most prominent descriptive frames applied to China.

The report explains how specific language used by the paper frames readers to perceive China as threatening. After quoting from a Globe and Mail news article (page 7), the report describes the paper's writing [28]:

Firstly, it invokes the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarianism, a connotatively negative association that serves to prime readers to be critical of China. Secondly, it gives the impression that Canada is vulnerable to China by implicating “China’s political apparatus,” whose authoritarian quality has been foregrounded, to “a key Canadian industrial sector.”

Of course we can use The Globe and Mail as a source. But we're not obliged to replicate its editorial biases. We need to be critical editors and acknowledge, like the University of Alberta researchers, that newspapers can also have biases, sometimes subtle and sometimes overt.

Editors have these biases too. Right now, in the lead (!) of Id Kah Mosque, we describe [29] it as a

former mosque turned into a historic tourist attraction.

Is it really a "former mosque," i.e., only a tourist attraction? Of the two articles from the Globe and Mail one states that it is transformed into a tourist attraction, and the other provides more detail: visitors in the past few years have reported that the religious site has been transformed into a tourist destination where people at Friday prayers now number only in the dozens. More recently, the mosque's main entrance has been padlocked. The article itself is attributing these statements to reports from visitors (we've dropped attribution in our own text), and according to the visitors, Id Kah is both a mosque and a tourist attraction, with religious attendance far lower than it was at some point in the past.

Whatever biases a newspaper might have, it would be a shame if we did worse because of our own. -Darouet (talk) 15:36, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

The study shows that the tone, extent of coverage and topics covered in Canadian media have changed in line with government policy on China. However, the writers say, "We refrain from commenting on the accuracy of the coverage." "However," as policy states, "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective." The change in tone or coverage is a totally separate issue from the accuracy of reporting. Furthermore, you would need to show that the Globe's coverage is more biased than the rest of Western media before singling out the paper. See Dean Baker "Media's biased reporting on China serves only the rich and powerful" (The Hill 8/20/17), Dan Hu, "Is Australian Media Biased Against China?" (The Diplomat February 15, 2020), "International media coverage of China: Chinese perceptions and the challenges for foreign journalists" (2011). Accusations of anti-China bias are not unique to the Globe among Western media. TFD (talk) 16:39, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Agreed - neither I, nor the report, state that The Globe and Mail is worse than many other outlets. Rather, the report shows that this paper, used as a prominent example among others, has shifted its tone in response to political conflict. You're basically right that it has changed in line with government policy on China, and this should come as no surprise: the paper's opinion section is a hub for the political who's who in Canada. But just because most Western media have bias doesn't mean that we should ignore specific cases. The textual analysis done by the U Albert China Center, which I quoted above, is a great demonstration of how this works in one instance, and the report is evaluating this for The Globe and Mail and The National Post generally in recent years. When you write below that we should leave the correction of Western media bias to society, that's partly what this research report is doing. -Darouet (talk) 16:58, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

The way we resolve bias in media is to await the publication and acceptance of peer-reviewed research. When there is consensus in scholarly writing about the "Uyghur genocide," we should use it to rewrite articles based on news reports. But that is already in RS: "When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources." But unless we can show that the Globe is less reliable than its competitors, it makes no sense to single it out for sanction. In fact it may well be more reliable and even-handed than U.S. or UK media. In fact as pointed out above, Rosie DiManno, the Pentagon cheerleader who writes for The Toronto Star, accused the Globe of being soft on China. TFD (talk) 21:37, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

TFD, the report I'm citing from is itself a scholarly work, showing anti-Chinese framing in major Canadian papers. Right now, at RSP, we are systematically labeling newspapers with editorial views outside the NATO political framework as biased or unreliable. I wish that all editors were savvy enough to recognize that all national presses have political biases, but they're not. For that reason we do need the scholarly descriptions of those biases to be reflected in the RSP entries. We should not place special sanction on The Globe and Mail or The National Post, but we should include similar descriptions of national biases at other RSP entries, if scholarly treatment of those biases is available. -Darouet (talk) 14:15, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Why would we start including scholarly descriptions of ... biases in RSP entries, in cases where they do not affect the factual reliability of sources? Are you aware of a policy-relevant reason to do this, because I'm not seeing one. It looks like a case of portable goalposts from here, and the NATO political framework appears to be a chimera/conspiracy theory in this context, unless you have sourcing that has some bearing on the reliability of published facts/events. Newimpartial (talk) 14:47, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

If scholarly descriptions of media biases have no place in RSP entries, Newimpartial, I'm not sure what you think should replace those. At every point in this discussion, you've declined to address the reliability of the specific issue at hand: a claim about the Id Kah mosque. Now you're saying that scholarly descriptions of bias by The Globe and Mail are irrelevant to an RSP entry about that same paper. Such an assertion is so ludicrous as to be practically tendentious. If you don't want to discuss the paper or what academic sources say about it, please stop WP:BLUDGEONING my comment. -Darouet (talk) 15:13, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

The question at issue in this RSN RfC is the factual reliability of the Globe & Mail source, which you have addressed by deflecting the discussion to alleged bias - citing as your only a source a study that explicitly declines to address questions of factual reliability. I don't know what game you think you're playing, but it isn't cricket. Newimpartial (talk) 15:19, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

To use you your own terminology if that helps you, your statements deflect from the specific factual question at hand in this case (the Id Kah Mosque), and from the larger, well-sourced reality of editorial bias regarding China by The Globe and Mail, which you insist is irrelevant. It isn't. -Darouet (talk) 15:33, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

1. The specific factual question of the Id Kah Mosque is not the topic of the RfC.

2. Have you presented any evidence whatever that the G&M is not reliable, even on the specific factual question of the Mosque? 3. In what way is the supposed well-sorced reality of editorial bias regarding China by The Globe and Mail supposed to be relevant to the RSN question of its factual reliability? You keep asserting this without either real-world evidence or policy-based argumentation. Newimpartial (talk) 15:40, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Newimpartial, this is your sixth response to my comment here. If you're not satisfied you can take the discussion to the "discussion" section below. Were you to do that, you'd see that nearly every comment there — by other editors — answers the issue you're debating with me here. Literally the first and second comments announce that the Id Kah Mosque is the motivation for this RfC, and that the RfC framework is inappropriate to resolving that dispute. Otherwise, you're telling me that an anti-Chinese editorial line is perfectly consistent with factual reporting on China, and that for the Globe and Mail's coverage of China, there's no reason to believe that such bias should mean that "other considerations" may apply, or that the paper might be factually inaccurate in some cases. I hear you, and respectfully, I think your certainty that editorial bias won't influence reliability is ludicrous. -Darouet (talk) 15:49, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

And you have replied eight times in this section to comments on your !vote, including six replies to me, without answering the basic question of why any editorial line is not compatible with factual reporting on any subject. By policy, these are two distinct considerations, but I suspect that WP policy is not really your thang. Newimpartial (talk) 16:12, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

@Darouet: @Newimpartial: This dispute starts to look ugly for my taste (and it is there for at least a day). Please cool down and don't escalate. Also, as @Darouet has rightly noticed, the place for such arguments should be in the Discussion section; please do not move your argument there now, at least not until the heat of the discussion goes down at least somewhat. Leave the survey section for just one or two sentences of justification. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 17:01, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Darouet appears to be misreading the China Institute at the University of Alberta source. There is nothing in that source to suggest that the Globe & Mail is anything other than reliable for factual reporting, which is the RSN question. A shift in tone of coverage over time, or in the terms prominently used in news stories, is not evidence of "factual inaccuracy" or even that additional considerations apply in the use of a source. Newimpartial (talk) 17:08, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

By no means: Newimpartial you are misreading my comment. I stated nothing about "factual inaccuracy," and the report specifically states, We refrain from commenting on the accuracy of the coverage. -Darouet (talk) 17:23, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Your !vote was for Option 2-3 with regards to some aspects of China coverage, where Option 2 is "additional considerations apply" and Option 3 is "unreliable for factual reporting". If you didn't intend your reference to the U. of A. piece to support your !vote, then why did you make it in this section? Newimpartial (talk) 17:28, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

As I've stated repeatedly in the past, these categories are poorly fitted to real world decisions about how to use sources. For that reason I often write that options 1-2, or 2-3, should be considered for sources in order to take into account the possibility of bias. The Globe and Mail is an important source, but we should expect it to be biased in some cases (as TFD notes, that would be normal for all newspapers). In this specific case, editors should be aware that The Globe and Mail tends to have a particular editorial view with regards to China, and it's unclear if or to what extent their reporting on the Id Kah mosque is neutral or accurate. If you don't think that bias on the part of The Globe and Mail could impact the reliability of their reporting, I disagree; the U Albert report explicitly declines to comment on that question. -Darouet (talk) 17:39, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

A source that declines to comment on X can scarcely be used as evidence for or against X. And whether a source is biased or not is entirely tangential - that is, irrelevant - to whether or not it is generally reliable, so any evidence you give that the G & M may or not be biased is strictly irrelevant to this RfC. As a point of comparison, Fox News is not considered unreliable for factual reporting because it is biased; it is considered unreliable for factual reporting because its factual reporting is unreliable. Newimpartial (talk) 18:36, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Your commentary is deviating so far from the quotes I provided from the report on Canadian media that to answer you will take us in circles. I'd urge you to read the comments being made in the "discussion" section of this RfC. -Darouet (talk) 18:55, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

• Option 1 Szmenderowiecki stated it well. I do not read it, but it is Canada's newspaper of record. Suggest a snow close. Walter Görlitz (talk) 07:23, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 Canada's newspaper of record. No source is perfect. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:40, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1. The Globe and Mail is a well-established newspaper of record. Concerns about the use of this source relative to a specific article are not sufficient cause to discredit the use of this source in general. DaysonZhang (talk) 17:55, 6 May 2021 (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.

Discussion (RfC: The Globe and Mail)

•  Note: This RfC was inspired by a disagreement over the reliability of the source that occurred in a discussion on the talk page of Id Kah Mosque. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 05:18, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

• If I read that discussion correctly, I believe Darouet is saying that the Globe and Mail is WP:BIASED on that subject and therefore requires attribution (and is possibly WP:UNDUE for the lead), not that it is generally unreliable. @Darouet: clarification? Seeing people leap straight to a broad RFC about an entire source when there's no indication someone is outright stating the source is unreliable always makes me uneasy - there sometimes reasons to be cautious about using a source for a specific claim that can be applicable even if it is generally the most reliable source in the world. More generally these sorts of broad RFCs are for when a source is repeatedly challenged - they're not the correct way to resolve an individual specific dispute over whether the source can be used in a specific situation. Especially when you're plainly seeking a positive answer - there are sources that are so unreliable as to be effectively useless in any place we're likely to use them, outside of a few exceptions like WP:ABOUTSELF; but there are no sources so reliable as to be completely, automatically usable in every possible context, or which are completely guaranteed to be utterly free from bias in all circumstances. In other words, a "generally reliable" result here isn't going to resolve your specific dispute. --Aquillion (talk) 06:12, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
• As for alleged China bias, if anything, it has been criticized by its opponent, Toronto Star, of directly copypasting state Chinese media in the "China Watch section", which is sort of incompatible with the claim it is being too harsh towards China.

But even if so, perceived hawkishness on China may be a bias, but unless The Globe and Mail has produced falsehoods about the issue of China and it has been established by, let's say, fact-checkers, we should not deprecate it. Unlike RFA, it doesn't have a government mission, so there should be no controversy about possible pressure from the government. It has been known that the West has soured on China and has made even more coverage about it, so it's predictable more negative content will appear.

The Globe and Mail has reported on visitors' testimony (who for obvious reasons cannot be identified) and there has been no misconduct or fabrication proven in creating the story other than the govt of China does not agree with stances different than theirs. That is perfectly understandable but means nothing to whether it's true.

Xinhua may be OK if that's a statement of government, but is otherwise notoriously unreliable. I have no belief whatsoever in the independence of that imam's opinions (I don't care who his father was). It is totally unbelievable that one of top religious authorities's statements would not be scripted for the purpose of the interview in a country known for its propaganda and censorship, particularly given he's on government payroll, could be fired immediately if he doesn't please the party (or, in worse cases, face prosecution from authorities) and it is a geopolitically charged area. Simply no way.

So if you say the imam, underlining he is a Chinese government employee, said that and that and link it to Xinhua's interview, I'm fine, but otherwise I'd leave it.

All of that is not to say his statement is necessarily false actually, but there are reasonable doubts to the story as presented by the Chinese state media.

PS. As they used to say in Russia in one of Radio Yerevan jokes: "How do you know if the news is true or just another provocation? - Well, if BBC runs a news story about something, which is then refuted by Pravda, you can easily trust the news".

Szmenderowiecki (talk) 09:25, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Szmenderowiecki, it's not The Star, but Rosie DiManno, who is a columnist. TFD (talk) 03:37, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, you're right. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 09:07, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Sourcing the imam's statement to state media is reasonable, but describing him as a government employee is not, unless we're sure that's true. -Darouet (talk) 15:40, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't think it's actually accurate to describe the imam as a government employee. As for the issue at hand, both the current imam and his late father's views on the issues in Xinjiang are well known (they've criticized the separatist movement and what they see as religious extremism, and advocated co-existence of different ethnic groups). The Globe and Mail related an extraordinary claim made by a US-based Uyghur activist, that the ancient Id Kah mosque is no longer used as a mosque. The imam of the mosque has disputed this assertion. The imam's statement is significant, and should not be simply swept under the rug. We can inform the reader that the imam made his statement in an interview with a Chinese state media outlet. Readers can decide what to make of that for themselves, but to censor the interview entirely would be wrong, and disrespectful to our readers. -Thucydides411 (talk) 10:27, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't think it's actually accurate to describe the imam as a government employee. Well, I strongly believe he is. His father was appointed by the government, so should be the current imam as the policy towards appointment of religious leaders has not changed since.

Their views on cohabitation of different nations, while laudable, are irrelevant. The only thing that is is whether a Xinhua interview is to be trusted (and mentioned) and to which degree we should trust other sources. I don't deny that imam's statement might be significant (as I hope I indicated clearly), but the reader must understand the caveat that he's appointed by the government and therefore has an interest not to speak against it for fear he, at the mildest, loses his job and falls out of favour with the party. That is exactly the reason we don't trust Xinhua - we don't know if the guy speaks as an imam or as a government employee and we don't know if the fact he'd given the interview to Xinhua changed its content significantly. That said, we might mention it but we should cue the reader into exercising caution while reading the passage (and mention imam's ties to govt).

The Globe and Mail related an extraordinary claim made by a US-based Uyghur activist There is no reason to believe that The Globe and Mail has not made its own analysis of claims or its own investigation (as it actually indicates in their March 2021 article). It is certainly not a copy-paste or a brief summary of an article from RFA or WUC or whatever. If we had Uyghurs claiming that and the reference reports the claim without deep analysis of their claims, just as with the imam, we should be cautious and indicate the reader should be, too; however, the newspaper is independent of both and we needn't apply such precautions here. Just because the author is critical of China's conduct doesn't mean he deliberately manipulated the facts or is biased (you must prove it) - you can be both critical and impartial in assessing some events. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 12:32, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

The government having a role in the imam's appointment and him being a government employee are two different things. The imam's views are relevant, because there are real divisions among Uyghurs in Xinjiang, with the exile groups in Washington, DC not necessarily representing the views of all (or even most) Uyghurs. If we systematically exclude any statements from within China, we will end up with extremely skewed coverage, reflecting solely what exile groups in Washington, DC (many of them funded directly by the US government) say. There is no reason to believe that The Globe and Mail has not made its own analysis of claims: There's also no indication that The Globe and Mail has done any serious independent investigation into the claims either. Given the extraordinary nature of the claims, and the fact that people directly involved are disputing the claims, we cannot present one side alone. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:06, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

You would have a fair point if the Chinese government hadn’t hounded every reporter who attempted to do on the ground reporting in Xinjiang out of China along with a fair number of their news agencies... Al Jazeera was the first to be kicked out for its coverage of Xinjiang (in 2012) and its gotten so bad now that there are almost no foreign reporters left in China. Its not us "systematically exclude any statements from within China” its the Chinese government. I would also note that if the imam is a government employee and can be demonstrated as such then theres a lot more Chinese sources we can use. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:59, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

You've been arguing for excluding the imam's statements. To then turn around and justify your attempt at excluding the imam's statements by pointing to Chinese government censorship in other cases is just absurd. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:34, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

If, as we’ve both agreed, the imam is not a government official then yes we should excluding the imam's statements. But if Szmenderowiecki is right and we’re both wrong that changes the discussion completely, Xinhua is reliable for the statements of government officials. What is absurd is suggesting that the The Globe and Mail could have "done any serious independent investigation into the claims” with the current restrictions in place on reporting in Xinjiang. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:09, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

1. I couldn't confirm he's a government employee, so I drop it and urge others to do so, too. That said, given that the state exercises very strong control over religion and religious authorities (as reported by numerous RS) and the appointment procedures (p. 48) are such that any candidate appointed by the government will be as harmless and obedient to the CCP as humanly possible, I can say that he represents the opinion of the government. To corroborate this, his opinions on how the people should coexist in Xinjiang happens to mirror CCP's official policy. It might be a coincidence, but I highly doubt it. I also don't believe he would have said otherwise if the mosque was demolished or converted into a tourist centre. As they say, the difference between the freedom of speech in China and Canada is that China has freedom of speech, but Canada has freedom after speech. With that, I can't trust him to be the voice of the Islamic community, but as a government-affiliated person, sure (in this case, I would say he's just a proxy for government claims).

2. Journalists, as just any other folks, are innocent until proven guilty. You can't assume bad faith on behalf of the journalist unless there are valid reasons to think so (censorship, his boss forcing him to publish a false story, his agenda which is known to preclude impartiality (in this case, Sinophobia), financing from a rival government that substantially influences reporting, or general unreliability of the publication). I see no proof to any of the factors; if you believe otherwise, the onus is on you to prove it.

3. I don't get your accusation of me wanting to strike out the imam's narrative when I repeatedly said we should include it, but only if we indicate appropriate precautions must be made to interpret the statement (he's appointed by the government, China has very strong control over religion).

Which leads me to the final point:

4. Let's not engage in false balance. Just because Western media coverage happens to confirm the claims made by Uyghurs, particularly those in exile, most of the time doesn't mean Western media peddle false narratives just because the claims were made by Uyghurs. Also, even if the majority opinion of Uyghurs is that the tactics used by the Chinese officials are non-repressive or non-discriminatory doesn't mean they indeed are not. The encyclopaedia we write does not need to cover each position equally, either. What we do need to report is the evidence as accurately as possible.

I think I made my case clear, I've spoken a little too much. Sorry if my texts seem to be on the long side. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 18:53, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Clarification. The sources that were sort of confirming my suspicion he's a government employee are these: 1. Ayup said the Chinese government was giving the imams salaries ranging from 600 to 5000 RMB before its clampdown campaign in Xinjiang. (Voice of America)

2. Monks, priests and imams on the mainland earn an average of only 500 yuan (HK$630) a month, a quarter of them are not medically insured, and 40 per cent have no old-age pension insurance, a study has found. (South China Morning Post, 2015)

3. Some (of Hui imams) live at the mosque or in an affiliated Muslim school, and some are paid salaries, while a smaller number volunteer. (Aramco World)

4. "I haven't had any students since 1996," she says, shaking her head. "Women don't want be imams anymore, because the salaries in the mosques are too low. No one is willing to do it." (NPR-affiliated). The info is also cited here

5. The position of imam carries a good deal of respect and influence, but leading a mosque as a profession garners a very small salary and little actual power. (p. 89, 78 per book) Also from the book: "One of the teaching ahongs at Beiguan Mosque (one of the oldest surviving mosques in downtown Xining) told me that he and most others declined a 500 RMB monthly salary because they taught out of service to the community and had other means of making a living." (p. 111, 100 per book)

(Alexander B. Stewart, Chinese Muslims and the Global Ummah: Islamic Revival and Ethnic Identity Among the Hui of Qinghai Province. Routledge Contemporary China: New York, 2016)

I could not conclusively say, based on the sources, that he received a government salary and was therefore a government employee; he might have refused it. However, my hunch says that it might be very true in the case with the current imam of Id Kah mosque; it's just I couldn't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. You may come to other conclusions. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 20:48, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back: If the Globe and Mail has not independently verified the claims, then they are just relating what an activist has said. The fact that accurate information is difficult to obtain is not an excuse to put unsubstantiated claims into Wikivoice. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:07, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

• Aquillion and Thucydides411 are right on target: the allegation that the oldest and most venerated mosque in Xinjiang is nothing more, now, than a tourist attraction is an extraordinary claim, particularly since the claim is contested by the mosque's imam. The claim might be printable here with attribution, but it shouldn't be stated in wikivoice. If the claim is put into the article, the imam's response needs to be present as well (also with attribution). As a reader, I would expect an encyclopedia to tell me what the relevant parties had stated, including the Chinese government itself, if it took a position on the matter. -Darouet (talk) 15:40, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Two problems with that... We don’t know when the imam made his statement and he doesn't directly contest that claim (it not clear that he’s even aware that such a claim has been made). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:02, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

• @Emir of Wikipedia: There are only 3 options in this RfC. Did you place your !vote in the wrong discussion section? — Mikehawk10 (talk) 20:05, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

  I have revoked my vote. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:24, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

• @Mikehawk10: I would like to add that this is the second time that a discussion over a specific usage of a source (a claim made in one article from that source) has been inflated into a generic RfC in the line of perennial usage. This happened previously with Coda Story and you were told not to do it again by other editors. I would seriously ask you to please not do it a third time if such a situation comes up again, especially when other editors tell you it's not the proper usage of RS discussions. Paragon Deku (talk) 22:34, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

@Paragon Deku: This isn't about the particular use of the source. If you read the talk page, you will notice that an editor questioned the general reliability of the paper, writing that The Independent is a great paper (The Globe and Mail far less so). The question for this RfC was framed in light of its ability to cover international news generally, and indeed there are editors (including yourself) who were party to that talk page discussion who do not believe that The Globe and Mail is WP:GREL for its international news coverage. The point of making an RfC on WP:RSN is to bring in the community to see if the source is reliable in general (within a broad context). The WP:NPOVN noticeboard is the appropriate location for questions about the use of a generally reliable source in a particular article. Since there was disagreement over the source's general reliability (not just the specific use of the source in a single article), I believe that this RfC has been placed on this board appropriately. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 00:13, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Actually, it's abundantly clear that the questions raised were mainly about the Id Kah Mosque specific sources. This is corroborated by multiple editors in this RfC, including ones participating in discussion below. This is, as I have said, the second time you have done this, and it feels like WP:BLUDGEONING to stop individual interpretation of sources. Paragon Deku (talk) 19:22, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

@Paragon Deku:

1. If you read WP:BLUDGEONING, you will note that it says that Bludgeoning the process is where someone attempts to force their point of view by the sheer volume of comments, such as contradicting every viewpoint that is different from their own. If you believe that I am spamming the discussion with my own comments, then I won't be able to change your mind on it, but I really don't think it's reasonable to conclude that I'm doing that here. Would you please point to where I am spamming my comments in this conversation?
2. It's perfectly acceptable to call an RfC where there is a dispute over a source's general reliability in a context. Again, I agree that questions concerning the use of sources that would generally be considered reliable, for specific content, probably belong at WP:NPOVN. But, this particular dispute (as evidenced by your !vote and that of another involved editor) is not one in which there was agreement over the general reliability of the source; the dispute includes whether the source would generally be considered reliable in its coverage of China, broadly construed. As such, I believe it to be appropriate on this board.

— Mikehawk10 (talk) 06:37, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

@Mikehawk10:

1. Key word here is "like," it creates a situation where you're obfuscating the actual discussion to overwhelm the original questioner with a slew of uninvolved editors who have been robbed of context. It's an outsourced torrential downpour of new content to sort and reply to.
2. This is blatant RfC spam and others have already called this into question besides me. This is not some sort of unique argument on my part.

- Paragon Deku (talk) 07:16, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

It's not bludgeoning (which is when an editor comments excessively in a thread, perhaps replying to every single comment), but it is an inappropriate use of WP:RSN. If one has a question about a particular source for a particular claim in a particular article, one does not launch an RfC about the source in general. There was a dispute about whether an extraordinary claim (that a famous mosque is a now a "former mosque") could be made in Wikivoice, based on a particular article in the Globe and Mail. Mikehawk10 then launched this RfC about the Globe and Mail in general, knowing that the overall response would be positive. I believe the idea was then to go back to the original dispute and argue that since the Globe and Mail now has the green stamp of approval, it must be acceptable to make this particular extraordinary claim in Wikivoice using one particular article from the newspaper. But Mikehawk10 did not just come to RSN and ask the original question directly. The whole exercise is a roundabout way of trying to get some sort of stamp of approval from RSN, without actually discussing the sourcing issue at hand. I think this is a misuse of the RfC process. -Thucydides411 (talk) 08:31, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

The reason I compare it to bludgeoning is that the massive positive response that comes in from uninolved editors who are not given the entire context becomes a burden to bear by the editors originally raising claims of reliability. It's not the same in methods, but it's the same in effect: the original questioner becomes overwhelmed by a large number of responses and can't correct the record and keep up. Paragon Deku (talk) 08:51, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

To respond to Paragon Deku, I don't see an issue with involving the community more broadly where the individuals on the talk page cannot reach a consensus. At the end of the day, this is about building consensus, rather than seeking a pre-determined outcome that goes one way or the other. I don't understand why a large number of uninvolved editors being drawn into these sorts of discussions is a bad thing, especially when it helps to achieve consensus. When discussions fail, it is good practice to use established processes to attract outside editors to offer opinions. This is often useful to break simple, good-faith deadlocks, because uninvolved editors can bring in fresh perspectives, and can help involved editors see middle ground that they cannot see for themselves. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 15:54, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't think that anyone is objecting to "involving the community more broadly where the individuals on the talk page cannot reach a consensus." What I object to - and I think that many others do, too - is filing an RfC instead of first engaging in a more informal process. It's fantastic when editors (responsibly) ask others for input and advice but we don't need editors jumping straight from "a few editors in the Talk page of one article can't come to consensus" to "we need to fire a red flair to summon as many editors as we possibly can (through an RfC)." There are intermediate steps that can resolve many of these discussions and disagreements and editors should be encouraged to try them first. ElKevbo (talk) 16:03, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

The problem with a RfC such as this one is that an answer of "Yes - reliable" here doesn't necessarily mean "Yes - reliable for the specific case in question". This RfC can't provide an affirmative answer the question that prompted the RfC. Only an answer of "unreliable" would impact that specific question. Springee (talk) 18:28, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

To respond to @Mikehawk10:, this is as I have said the second time you have been asked not to do this exact thing and any attempts to dodge that observable fact with the guise of involving the community does not seem genuine. Paragon Deku (talk) 01:44, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

• I think this RFC is completely misguided in that the problem is not with reliability in general, it is with the use of information from a reliable source. Just because a source is thought to be a generally high-quality reliable source does not mean that citations from that source can be used however we want in Wikipedia without any restrictions or guidance or whatever. Sometimes, information from a reliable source needs direct attribution, or explanation, or clarification based on what other reliable sources may say (which may be in conflict with the first source). If that is the case, we have a number of ways to deal with the first source, but none of that means that the source in question is unreliable, generally. Reliability is not perfection, and if it can be demonstrated that an otherwise reliable source was incorrect (or in conflict with what other reliable sources say) that doesn't mean we are required to use the incorrect information. Being cited to a source doesn't mean we must use it, especially if it is demonstrably wrong. Furthermore, even if it is not wrong but merely in dispute (that is, it is unclear which of two conflicting sources is correct) then perhaps we should directly attribute each source to let the reader know that the is not widespread agreement. That's okay too. What's not okay is finding a single mistake, or conflicting viewpoint, or whatever, and then trying to elevate that singular situation to question the entire reputation of the source as a means to affect the use of that one citation. Deal with the citation on its own terms. The result of this discussion will do nothing to resolve the conflict in question, and is a distraction and a waste of time. There are other, more productive, ways to resolve this conflict. --Jayron32 16:20, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I wish more editors understood this fundamental issue. Unfortunately, while helpful in principle, the framework of WP:RSP is being misused to eliminate critical thinking and subtlety from the evaluation of sources. -Darouet (talk) 16:31, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

As I wrote above, there is no evidence that the Globe is more biased and less accurate than Western media in general. Singling out one publication which has a relatively high reputation among its peers is unhelpful. A better discussion would be how articles should deal with the issue of Western media bias in general. Personally, while I believe that a lot of the reporting is unfair including on many other topics, I think that Wikipedia articles should reflect what sources say and leave the correction of Western media bias to society. The best we can do is to ensure that articles have proper tone and weight. TFD (talk) 16:47, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

• I oppose the continuing volume and structure of these RFCs on principle. Most if not all news sources that provide information about the previous days news are not unbiased on all subjects. I generally trust the BBC, but would not go to them for neutral coverage of the British Monarchy. I generally trust al-Jazeera, but would not go to them for neutral coverage of Saudi Arabia. I generally trust the Washington Post, but would not go to them for neutral coverage of Amazon.com . This insistence among a large part of the community that we can do a simple "reliable/not reliable" assessment of news sources is simply incorrect; hopefully through time and persuasion more editors will see this. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 17:56, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

  I don't have the time or energy to draft one, but I would support someone else's RFC imposing a (6 month?) moratorium on RfCs specifically about adding sources to WP:RSP. All the truly "perennial" sources should be there already, perhaps we can figure out a better way forward. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 19:31, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't know if that's exactly the right solution, even though I pretty much agree with you. I think the question is "we know users are using perennial RfCs as a smokescreen for discussions that are actually about specific articles and pieces, so how do we prevent this without limiting actual perennial discussions?" Overall it's a very messy situation. Paragon Deku (talk) 19:56, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

So long as we are complaining about RSP, I am concerned that some of the additions seem to be rather subjective interpretations of a few RSN discussions. We may have a few RSN discussions that ask, "is source X good for this claim". The answer is yes, then the source gets added as a "Green" source. Did we really have a wide ranging consensus that source X was generally reliable? Now a question that comes to RSN asking, "is X a good source for this controversial claim" may not be considered on the merits of the claim, rather on the color of the RSP entry. Springee (talk) 20:18, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

power~enwiki: An RfC re a moratorium in 2019 failed. Springee: you're right again. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:27, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

• Agree with those who think these RfC are not helpful. RSN shouldn't be continuously blessing/condemning sources as reliable/not reliable. Instead we should be answering questions about using a specific source for a specific claim. This is an important distinction because many times the underlying issue is a generally reliable source being used in a way where say an opinion is treated as fact or the more relevant question should be DUE rather than WP:V. I certainly see no reason to see the Globe as anything other than generally reliable but that should never be treated as cart blanche for ignoring things like attribution of opinions/commentary, RECENT, UDE etc. Springee (talk) 18:33, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

  Well put. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:04, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

• Voicing my support that we need to stop RFCs seeking deprecation of sources due to one or two incidents and/or claims of bias. A well-formed RFC on the matter, showing a record of problems over multiple areas and many years, is what needs to be presented (of which, for example, we have had with Daily Mail, RT, and Fox News). But we have editors that seem to want to use RS/P as a means to win content conflicts by declaring a source bad. I think that if we add clear wording to the top of this page and RSP about what serious RSP RFC requests should be constructed around, admins should have the freedom to immediately shut down RFCs that clearly are not of a proper type so that we aren't dragging too many editors into a content issue at RSN. (eg here, there is a fair question of whther the given Globe and Mail article can be used for the claim about this site become a tourist attraction, but that absolutely did not need to drag in the overall reliability of G&M into question). --Masem (t) 20:03, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Agree 100% with Springee and Masem. This noticeboard absolutely needs to get back to discussing sources in specific context (what the source is being cited FOR)... and WP:RSP needs to be reserved for sources that keep coming up (the “P” stands for PERENNIAL after all). Blueboar (talk) 20:37, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Agreeing with this 100 % myself, can I also add that we need to develop more realistic categories for news organizations. Humans are extraordinarily susceptible to us vs. them thinking, and the these RSP discussions have devolved into mob-like environments with people voting for 1 or 4 depending on their political views. That's not the way the world works, and Wikipedia can do better. -Darouet (talk) 20:50, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Otokonoko

Fellow editors, There some disagreement as to the reliability of the sources used (and proposed) at Otokonoko.

• Proposed sources are:
  • "Japanese Fans Rank Top 5 Anime Traps, "Otokonoko"!". Japanese kawaii idol music culture news | Tokyo Girls Update. Retrieved 2021-03-17.
  • Bhattacharya, Anirban (2021-01-03). "19 Best Anime Trap Series That Aren't Hentai - Cinemaholic". The Cinemaholic. Retrieved 2021-03-17.
  • "26 Best Anime Traps Characters". My Otaku World. 2020-02-03. Retrieved 2021-03-17.
• Are these reliable for the article text Otokonoko characters are commonly referred to by English-speaking anime and manga fans as "traps".? Alternatively, are these group blogs, therefore failing WP:RS?
• Currently used sources are:
  • Ashcraft, Brian (26 May 2011). "What Is Japan's Fetish This Week? Male Daughters". Kotaku. Retrieved 5 January 2014.
  • Clegg, Cara (7 June 2014). "Japan slowly begins to openly discuss crossdressing men in heterosexual relationships". SoraNews24. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
  • "業界用語集". Newmo (in Japanese). Retrieved 7 January 2020.
  • "OTOKONOKO : DES GARÇONS TROP MIGNONNES". Vice. 8 August 2013. Retrieved 5 January 2014.
  • 森友, ひい子 (2 June 2014). "「男の娘」「女装子」と呼ばれる人々 "中性化受け入れ"円満な夫婦の鍵 〈週刊朝日〉". AERA dot. (アエラドット) (in Japanese). Retrieved 14 March 2018.
• RSP has Vice as "no consensus", and doesn't have listings for Kotaku or SoraNews24, though both seem to be used extensively as references. Kotaku is considered generally reliable for video games coverage. AERAdot looks to be part of the Asahi Shimbun family. Newmo looks to be a job recruitment website.

Which of these are sufficiently reliable to be used as sources?

The article was previously discussed at WP:RSN here.

Thoughts? - Ryk72 ^talk 06:02, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't think any of the proposed sources are reliable. It's bad enough anime articles tend to have to rely on blog tier articles due to a lack of coverage in western sources, but I don't think we should be bogging down what is ultimately a Japanese cultural concept with a (relatively) new and niche expression used by Americans to describe a similar concept. Although it is not a concern to me personally, it would also be a very controversial addition to the article due to it also being considered a slur against transgender people (which the article is not particularly describing). Paragon Deku (talk) 22:52, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

The appellation "trap" is WP:BLUE in the anime pop culture sphere and does not require a citation. The only potential problem is due weight. DaysonZhang (talk) 19:35, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Edmond Paris, Genocide in Satellite Croatia, 1941-1945: A Record of Racial and Religious Persecutions and Massacres, 1961, American Institute for Balkan Affairs

Just wanted to get a sense from some uninvolved users regarding the use of this book on articles about controversial aspects of the Balkans in WWII, specifically regarding the Ustasha genocide of Serbs, Jews and Roma. The book was reviewed in Slavic Review in 1962 here. Given the observations that Paris (now deceased) was not a historian or a participant, not a "craftsman of scholarship", had not "bothered much with the rules for screening, organising, and presenting evidence", and that he had overlooked important sources and made numerous errors, and the age of the work, nearly sixty years old, in an topic area where a lot of scholarship has been ongoing since the early 1960s, it seems to me that it cannot be considered reliable for articles regarding the Ustasha genocide. Thoughts? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:24, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Another issue is apparently critics of his work state Paris had a large bias against the Catholic Church which motivated writing literature magnifying any negative historical instances, perhaps magnifying, involving Catholic individuals or related groups. I don’t know if anyone here might have more about it. His quotes of testimonies have been used in other articles recently and I am concerned as well, is this a reliable source to be used all on its own?OyMosby (talk) 13:17, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn't use an article from 1961 because per Age matters older sources may no longer be accurate. That doesn't mean we cannot mention the work if it is cited in recent reliable sources. Even if the information is accurate, weight is also a requirement for inclusion. If you can't find the facts in more recent publications, then they lack weight for inclusions. TFD (talk) 23:03, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I cannot think of hardly any cases where it would be appropriate to cite a source from 1961 for World War II atrocities. So in short I would not cite it (t · c) buidhe 22:27, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks all. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:38, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Talk:Myles Moylan

A new user has said that the birthplace of this person is incorrect and is providing sources for an alternate birth location. I'm not really certain of the overall reliability of the sources, and many of them I don't have access to. I'd appreciate a few more eyes on the sources they're offering up, and if anyone has access to familysearch.org, newspapers.com, myheritage.com or irishnewsarchives I'd appreciate them taking a look at the sources behind paywalls. Thanks for any help that can be provided. As an aside I seem to recall seeing somewhere where you could put a request for someone with an account to take a look at a source, but I can't seem to find it now. Did I imagine that? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:28, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Find a Grave and Family Search cannot be used as reliable sources as they're both user generated original research sites. See WP:RS/P. Canterbury Tail talk 18:37, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I actually had searched for Find a Grave on RS/P, but unfortunately I searched as findagrave so I didn't find it on that list. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:40, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Actually that entire conversation is basically one person doing original research to change what reliable sources are saying. Third party sources would be needed, not one person digging up old registry records and newspaper announcements and putting 2+2 together to show he was born in another country. Canterbury Tail talk 18:47, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

That's kinda how I felt about it, but after their IP got blocked for changing the place of birth and they created an account and started discussing the change I felt that I should at least try to see if there was any merit. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:49, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Which is reasonable. Doesn't however change that they're doing original research and making assumptions that name mentions are the same person. They need a reliable source that states they're the same person and he was actually born in Ireland, and none of them are. Canterbury Tail talk 18:51, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Western Star source

I'm planning on adding a source to Western Star Trucks#Model Information to be a source for the 49X being part of a new series of trucks called the X-series and I just wanna make sure that this source: [30] would be a reliable source for the article as it is from the official website of Western Star Trucks. Blaze The Wolf | Proud Furry and Wikipedia Editor (talk) 15:53, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

It would be an acceptable source so long as the material sourced to it complies with wp:ABOUTSELF. No issues with basic facts but the content shouldn't read like an advert (the Honda Ridgeline article is an example of that). It also shouldn't be used for any claims that might be controversial ("best in class", etc). If this is the only source then we would have to ask is this truck notable beyond saying it is a model offered by WST. Springee (talk) 16:36, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

WAAF Blogs ( https://waaf.radio.com/blogs/ )

Source: WAAF Blogs ( https://waaf.radio.com/blogs/ )

Article section: Louis C.K.#2018–2020: Return to stand-up comedy

Claim:

On December 31, 2018, an audience member secretly recorded C.K. working out new material and posted it online. The comedy set included controversial topics such as Auschwitz, non-binary people and victims of the 2018 Parkland shooting. The jokes drew condemnation from Parkland survivors and a divided reaction from fellow comedians. Ricky Gervais defended C.K.'s jokes saying "[C.K.’s] got nothing against those [Parkland] kids. It was him pretending to be angry for comedy."

References

I have no issue with the content of the claim or with CNN/Vox as sources, but I am questioning whether WAAF Blogs ( https://waaf.radio.com/blogs/ ) is an acceptable source for negative information in a BLP, or indeed for anything. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:30, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

• I guess you'll be expecting this answer, but: no. The more controversial the claim, the less we should be prepared to accept blogs as sources, per WP:ARSEHOLES. Also this is potentially problematic per WP:C, as the material does not belong to the blog. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:01, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Not-An-RfC on RfCs

I propose to add the following to the guidance on RfCs for source reliability.

Before raising an RfC please consider the following:

1. The answer must not be obvious. For example, Reuters is obviously reliable, and the National Inquirer is obviously unreliable, and RfCs on either may be considered disruptive.
2. There must be evidence of ongoing disagreement between good-faith editors over the reliability of the source. If the question is whether a source (e.g. a primary-sourced opinion) may be included, this is not a matter for a source reliability RfC, because it is not a question of reliability it is one of weight. WP:NPOVN is second on the right down the hall, thanks for asking.
3. There must be evidence of a problem rising to the level of an RfC. A source used in three articles can be discussed but probably does not require an RfC; RfCs are needed to establish consensus where reasonable people may differ, or where the reliability of a widely-used source may have changed.

Opinions (Not-An-RfC on RfCs)

1. Support as supporter. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:13, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
2. Support, sensible criteria. Schazjmd (talk) 21:26, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
3. Object If there is more to be said in WP:RFCBEFORE then the appropriate place is the WP:RFC talk page. If the problem is the flood of bad RfCs from people who want blanket approval/disapproval of sources, I blame the bad advice that was added to the top of this page ("In some cases, it can also be appropriate to start a general discussion about the likelihood that statements from a particular source are reliable or unreliable" etc.). Peter Gulutzan (talk) 21:47, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
4. Support as is; however, inclusion of more criteria and their clarification and their refinement might be even better. See my proposal for clarification in Discussion. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 23:25, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
5. Support in principle Perhaps it would be better as a guideline at the top of this page rather than as a strict rule. Springee (talk) 02:03, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
6. Support, although I agree with Springee that it is better considered a guideline than a strict rule. Realistically speaking anything that falls under the first point will tend towards WP:SNOW anyway, and most things that fall under the second point will as well (although that can still leave problems when eg. someone is asking a patiently obvious question that they actually intend to use as the answer to a less-obvious question - I feel like it might be more useful to have a separate essay describing that problem, since it's not an issue limited to WP:RSN, even if it comes up a lot here due to people interpreting a specific objection as a general objection to the entire source.) And the third point is already somewhat covered by the existing guideline that reminds people that such sweeping RFCs are generally for things that are widely used in articles. But all three points are common enough issues that it cannot hurt to remind people about them. --Aquillion (talk) 04:45, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
7. Support, and concur with Springee. Also agree with most of Szmenderowiecki's points below, though it would need to be compressed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:44, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
8. Support. These seem like reasonable steps. I would also suggest that the person starting the RFC should explain why they are doing so, either in the opening statement or in the top response in the survey section. Simply asking "is x reliable" is insufficient. -- Calidum 14:47, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
9. Support in principle. I may think we need to change a word or two, and maybe cut down on some of the snark, but fundamentally I agree with the spirit of this entire thing. --Jayron32 15:00, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
10. Support overdue and badly needed. --JBL (talk) 20:18, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
11. Support with Springee's suggestion being my preferred method of implementation. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 00:16, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
12. Support with the added parameter that the "obvious" answers are only those which have no significant information change since last discussion (or ever for those which have never been discussed). While Reuters is obviously reliable now, it is improper to attempt to say that things that are "obviously reliable" will not ever become unreliable, and in fact we've seen multiple sources that were "obviously" reliable become unreliable quickly with new information. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 00:29, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
13. Object to proposed phrasing. In particular, the second bullet is rather snarky and, I believe, shifts some disputes that belong here to WP:NPOV. The notion that it is always the case that [i]f the question is whether a source (e.g. a primary-sourced opinion) may be included, this is not a matter for a source reliability RfC, because it is not a question of reliability it is one of weight is a bit silly; oftentimes many disputes over inclusion (and whether or not something constitutes due weight) intersects strongly with the reliability of the source in that context. This board is appropriate in discussing questions of reliability that may play a role in further discussions surrounding whether or not inclusion is WP:DUE. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 18:43, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
14. I abhor the practice of stripping a dispute of its context and then going to RfC with what purports to be an open, general question about the reliability of a source. I support the general idea behind this not-RfC, but I think it doesn't go far enough and I would like to propose a one-year moratorium on RfCs on this noticeboard, during which time the noticeboard restricts itself purely to evaluating the reliability of a source in the context of a specific dispute. If this noticeboard fails to resolve the question then the escalation should be an RfC on the article talk page for the community to evaluate the source in context. I believe this would improve the quality of our decision-making.—S Marshall T/C 09:20, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
15. Support, and thank you for proposing this. I'd say these criteria should be common sense, but the proliferation of unnecessary RFCs on this page shows that guidance is needed. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 16:29, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (Not-An-RfC on RfCs)

• Is condition 1 necessary? If there is an ongoing disagreement between good-faith editors (condition 2) rising to the level of an RfC (condition 3), then surely the answer cannot be deemed obvious. JBchrch (talk) 23:11, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
• Additional criteria to be considered and reformulation of what is proposed.

Criterion 1. The answer must not be obvious. Opinion on the general reliability should not be solicited if there is broad consensus the outlet is generally reliable or unreliable, unless there is an event (i.e. change of ownership, amendments to laws regulating freedom of speech and freedom of press in the country where the outlet is based, or a change in staff) that significantly influences the quality of the publication in question.

Criterion 2. is fine as is.

Criterion 3. The outlet in question should have multiple instances of usage. If the source has been used in relatively few articles, it may be discussed, but triggering an RfC is not recommended.

Criterion 4. Check if there were recent RfCs. An RfC should not be solicited if recent RfCs were close to unanimous or unanimous in their conclusions, unless a reasonable editor may conclude that the events that happened in the meantime significantly altered the quality of coverage.

Criterion 5. RfCs and responses to RfCs should not be guided solely on webpages that evaluate reliability and/or bias of the publication (i.e. Media Bias Chart, Media Bias/Fact Check, Newsguard etc.). These pages might be somewhat useful, but they do not have strong methodology. Instead, propose specific examples of what you feel shows (un)reliability of the publication and scholarly articles (if available) that evaluate the source.

Recommendations for those answering RfCs:

1. Presume that the publication is reporting news and investigating properly unless the pattern of reporting flaws is such that a reasonable reader would agree it is unreliable. A single instance of an error (particularly if a correction was issued) is not sufficient to declare that the source is unreliable or such that needs additional considerations. No source is perfect.

2. If citing older articles, do not apply hindsight. Stories should be evaluated on the basis of what was known at the time of their creation.

3. When voting, try to be as short as possible. General discussion on the motives to vote should be presented in the Discussion subsection. Use 2-3 lines at most to justify your answer. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 23:25, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

• I am assuming we're talking about source reliability as to add to RS/P? or is this meant in general? --Masem (t) 23:34, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
• If 1 is retained, I suggest using The New York Times and The Daily Mail as examples instead of Reuters and the National Inquirer. Reuters may be unfamiliar to the reader and some readers may be familiar with one of the famous 7 stories The National Enquirer actually got right. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:45, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

• The problem is that we did have a huge discussion about the Daily Mail (multiple times, even), so even if it is obvious now it at one point wasn't, we should assume that a small but not insignificant minority of editors will continue to see it as non-obvious. Even if the National Enquirer occasionally gets stories right, I've never seen anyone seriously defend its usability as a source (and the fact that them getting a story right is rare enough to be noteworthy obviously doesn't really recommend them.) --Aquillion (talk) 04:50, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

• I would add something to explain when to file an official RFC asking about general reliability vs when to hold an informal discussion about specific context reliability.

Specific context reliability can certainly be discussed at RSN... but if it rises to the point of needing a formal RFC, that RFC should usually take place on the article talk page, not at RSN or RSP.

Also, while a formal RFC on general reliability is appropriate at RSN, I think multiple specific context discussions (to show that the issue is indeed of a of “general” nature) are needed as a prerequisite before posting it. Blueboar (talk) 01:07, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't find appealing the idea to discuss the specific context reliability on the talk page of the article. There is a centralised venue for these requests for a reason, and I believe way more Wikipedia editors go on centralised noticeboards to see if they have something wise to say rather than click the "random page" link and go to the talk page to see if there's a dispute. If we were to search these several specific content disputes to escalate into an RfC about general reliability of the source, we'd need to keep them in one place to retrieve them when needed and not scatter them around Wikipedia. The editors, though, must first try to resolve the dispute on the talk page, and only then seek further input from the community if the dispute could not be resolved there.

I don't even see having the RfCs on the pages of relevant news sources at issue. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 02:21, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Question for Peter Gulutzan: in your !vote you state that the appropriate venue for this discussion would be the RFC talk page. Since this is a discussion about RFCs specifically about reliable sources, and not all RFCs community-wide, what benefits would there be to holding the discussion there? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 01:32, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Every RfC should be specifically about something, but it doesn't follow that for every talk page that has RfCs there should be different instructions on how to hold an RfC. I'm not sure what "not all RFCs community-wide" means, but if it's acknowledging that WP:RSN RfCs aren't products of any "Wikipedia community", I agree. Bypassing common rules and pretending WP:RSN is special won't help that. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:45, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

I would suggest this as a guideline at the top of this page. In the interest of keeping things short I would skip #1 based on the idea that such RfCs would be SNOW closes. For #2 I would emphasize that editors should show prior examples of RSN discussions that include discussions related to the source's general reliability (either as a general question or part of the discussion of a specific use). Finally, this shouldn't be applied to RfCs related to specific use examples (is this source reliable for this specific claim). Springee (talk) 02:15, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

• As this came to mind while replying elsewhere, I wonder if we can point to the Ad Fontes media bais chart [31] and note that we are pretty much never going to question the block of sources that sit at its apex (those it ranks "Fact Reporting" or better and fall within "Middle" on bias - eg the ones that Ad Fontes has outlined as Reliable) those stress that that bias chart does change over time and sources can move in or out of that range. There can be singular article/events with one of these sources (as to be discussed at RS/N but that doesn't impact the reliability of the source overall. --Masem (t) 18:55, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
• The only issue I might see for "obvious" unreliable cases is that it would make it a bit more difficult listing them at RSP, unless we'd be willing to alter the existing procedures there. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:45, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

• In condition 1, the National Enquirer is a poor example of an inappropriate RFC. While the Enquirer is obviously not reliable, there was not a strong consensus as to whether it is merely unreliable, or should also be deprecated. (While the weak consensus was deprecation, there was no consensus to create an edit filter.) Indeed, since deprecation requires an RFC, I am not sure that there is any example of a source that would be an inappropriate RFC because of its obvious lack of reliability. Also, while I am completely comfortable with Reuters as a generally reliable source of news, a famous journal such as Nature or the New England Journal of Medicine might be a better example of an inappropriate RFC for an obviously reliable source. John M Baker (talk) 21:46, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Nature is known to publish sensational claims that then turn out to be unlikely, see the Cerutti Mastodon site for an example, so I wouldn't use it as a "gold standard" for reliability. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:54, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
    • Point taken. But the "gold standard" doesn't have to be a periodical. For example, the Oxford English Dictionary is unquestionably RS. John M Baker (talk) 15:30, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Sex Differences: Modern Biology and the Unisex Fallacy

I stumbled on this book called Sex Differences: Modern Biology and the Unisex Fallacy. It written by this guy named Ives Christen. I haven’t read the whole book but, when I took a look inside it talked about various things like feminism and sex related things.

This is probably me over analyzing but, it felt like I was reading a book written by one of those conservative nut jobs.(This is me judging it by first glance.)

So instantly assumed this book was unreliable but when I looked the guy up. Apparently he is a French biologist.

What do y’all think?CycoMa (talk) 04:36, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Which articles are citing it? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 04:39, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Not sure but, I am thinking about citing for some biology articles. Like sex or sexual characteristics.CycoMa (talk) 04:43, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

The book was first published in 1991 and focuses of biological aspects of sex. Basic info on biology can be found in more recent sources, which are preferable to cite. It probably isn't reliable for feminism, which has changed a lot since 1991. If you get the hunch that a book may be written with a WP:FRINGE viewpoint, it may be better to look for other sources. (t · c) buidhe 07:11, 7 May 2021 (UTC) According to his frwiki article,[32] he has association with the far-right and is involved in promoting eugenics and Social Darwinism. There are much more reliable sources out there, don't cite this one (t · c) buidhe 07:19, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Sima Ćirković

Hello! Is Sima Ćirković [[33]] a reliable source? Here they are constantly erasing his source from the book [[34]]89.172.3.107 (talk) 23:38, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Looking at the objections in the edit summaries, it looks like they're not just objecting to the reliability of the source; they're saying that it doesn't actually support the statement it is used to cite. (Cirkovic says that it is unknown who are Vlachs (different ethnic group or cattle breeders part of same ethnicity) so this information needs conformation from more sources). Perhaps raise the issue on the article talk page first, with quotes from the source, since it seems like there have literally never been any discussions there. --Aquillion (talk) 22:26, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Eran Elhaik

The use of the following source for the genetic scientist Eran Elhaik 's wikibio:-

Aram Yardumian,Theodore G Schurr, 'The Geography of Jewish Ethnogenesis,' Journal of Anthropological Research Volume 75, Number 2 pp.206–234

has been challenged on the grounds of insufficient competence by the two scholars who wrote it. Aram Yardumian is part of the team at the Laboratory of Molecular Anthropology at Upenn. Theodore G Schurr is Director of the North American Regional Center of the Genographic Project and has specialized in human evolutionary genetic for three decades. Both have published extensively in peer-reviewed journals on anthropology and genetics. Nishidani (talk) 13:01, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

For what information the cite was used? --Shrike (talk) 13:18, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

The source mentions Elhaik and the Khazar hypothesis only in passing. The mention of the paper including both author's names in running text is quite undue in an article about Elhaik. The source could be used with such prominence in an article that covers the same topic, i.e. an article about the genetic evidence for the origin of the Jewish diaspora population (an article about research, not researchers). But even there, only with all caveats per WP:PRIMARY and WP:RECENT. The source is still new and hardly cited yet by peers. –Austronesier (talk) 13:31, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

I apologize if this is an annoyingly long wall of text; I hope to cover everything necessary. Much as I expressed earlier on the article's Talk page [[35]], my concern with the source is not as much the authors' competences as concerns that its use may be somewhat WP:UNDUE given that it proposes a hypothesis that is strongly at odds with mainstream consensus among poplation geneticists, as known from published research (which is that most Jewish groups - e.g. the Sephardi, Ashkenazi, and Mizrahi - do share a substantial Middle Eastern genetic component, with a common origin, though also carrying substantial differential admixtures in each from non-Jewish host population sources), whereas this source "proposes to invert" the traditional model and controversially states that Jewish groups do not have a common origin. But its proposals do not seem to have been cited or otherwise engaged with by the nainstream since its release in 2019. It appears to have no citations. See here: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=Yardumian+Jewish+ethnogenesis&btnG=

It seems to me that aspects of WP:REDFLAG may apply, particularly the first and fourth. From "Redflag", which explains:

"Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources...Warnings (red flags) that should prompt extra caution include:

Surprising or apparently important claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources;"

And:

"Claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community or that would significantly alter mainstream assumptions—especially in science, medicine, history, politics, and biographies of living and recently dead people."

Currently, there are not "multiple high-quality sources" but rather one source of unclear quality

The authors, of which there are only two, Yardumian and Shurr, while they are published in genetics (Schurr more so than Yardumian), interpret and characterize several papers by more notable and cited researchers in the area of Jewish and Near Eastern population genetics in ways that depart significantly from the conclusions (and statements) of the studies themselves (which are part of the mainstream consensus described above).

For these reasons, the addition seems to me to go against WP:WEIGHT and to give WP:UNDUE attention to a minority position (which could be described as an "extraordinary claim") advanced in one relatively new work that has not yet been engaged with by the mainstream of researchers in the field. It seems best to wait until there has been some mainstrem engagement with its proposals before using it. Thus I suggested that some caution is warranted. Skllagyook (talk) 13:33, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

@Austronesier: It would seem to me that the same issues mentioned above would also apply to its use in an article discussing the genetic evidence for the origin of the Jewish diaspora population, as well as, I would agree, those of WP:PRIMARY and WP:RECENT. Skllagyook (talk) 13:41, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

I must add that my concerns about WP:PRIMARY only refer to Yardumian and Schurr's own conclusions. Much of the paper however contains a review of exisiting research results; as such, it's a also secondary source, and per the authors' credentials, a reliable one. –Austronesier (talk) 14:40, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

in no regard is it a prim ary source and the distinction you make confuses policy.

A secondary source provides an author's own thinking based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event. It contains an author's analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources.

This is purely a secondary source evaluating primary source papers on genetics, and written by two ranking scholars whose credentials attest thorough competence in the field. Their conclusions can not be excerpted as primary except by the most antic of misreadings about how RS criteria are to be read.Nishidani (talk) 15:05, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

It is true that it contains a review. However Yardumian and Schurr's conclusions are in part derived from their interpretations of existing research, and those interpretations (in several cases), the subject of genetics, are very different from those of the conclusions of the authors of that research itself, and in some cases seems to characterize the conclusions of that research differently than its authors do. I'm not sure how one would distinguish their own conclusions from the review. (As mentioned, the WP:RECENT nature of the paper combined with its proposals that strongly diverge from consensus and lack of engagement -e.g. citations - with its conclusions from other specialists seems to recommend caution as well.) Skllagyook (talk) 15:13, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Look. This is getting exasperating. What you criticize is how science works. Hammer is cited by Behar, Behar by Atsmon, Atsmon by Elhaik in a continuing peer group argument as different models and data bases are used bearing on this question, and innovative analytic approaches are developed. All review each others' work and, in science, as in scholarship, reviewing scholars do their job also by disagreeing with their peers when the occasion requires. The fact that Yardumian and Schurr find a different interpretation for the research results of Hammer, Atzmon, Behar Elhaik et al., is perfectly normal. It doesn't mean some 'exceptional claim' is being made. It simply means that there are, in their view, other ways to assess that evidence. That is how serious science and scholarship work, and there is no reason for us to suddenly raise objections to these two scholars because they, in reviewing the evidence, suggest a model they think copes with it in a way that they consider more cogent and, above all, more in accordance with Jewish history, something many of these geneticists are not particularly familiar with (as opposed to many Jewish historians, who know how important conversion has been). Nishidani (talk) 15:45, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

@Nishidani: My concern/criticism, as explained earlier, is not merely with "how science works" or that scholars are reviewing each other with differences of opinion, but that a source is being added that makes an extraordinary claim that seems to strongly contradict the mainstream consensus (which is comprised of multiple studies/reseachers over years) of the relevant community (population geneticists) and as yet has no citations or other other engagement from the mainstream. (And I believe Yardumian and Schurr are also not historians.)

Not very long ago, in an admitedly more extreme than this, but perhaps broadly comparable case, I, and others, engaged in discussion (here [[36]]) with a user who had added a source (which I believe also contained a review) to Early expansions of hominins out of Africa that proposed a theory of Homo Sapiens origins strongly/radically at odds with the mainstream view. It was written by two authors (at least one of whom had relevant credentials), peer reviewed, and published in a legitimate journal, but was recent and had no expert citations. Skllagyook (talk) 16:30, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

I am inclined to accept the reliability of the source, keeping in mind that WP:PRIMARY sources are not prohibited, but must be used with care. The question then, I assume, is how much WP:WEIGHT to give it for this BLP. I look at the page history and I see that a previous version features a gigantic blockquote of the paper [37], which is obviously suboptimal. The current version of the "Criticism" section is better [38]. However, Nishidani, could you explain why it is necessary to outline this specific criticism in detail, when other are very succinctly outlined by the sentence The accuracy and reliability of Elhaik's population genetic theory of the Khazars has been strongly criticised by other academics in peer-reviewed publications based on linguistic and genetic evidence. News articles written by academics and commentators on Jewish history and genealogy have also criticised his population genetic methods and software, and historical and linguistic inferences., with 10 footnotes? This gives it way more weight than the other criticisms, and I wonder whether that's really WP:DUE. JBchrch (talk) 15:19, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

I devote I think three lines to paraphrasing their views. The line you quote originally read earlier today

The accuracy and reliability of Elhaik's population genetic research has been strongly criticised by other academics

which has been around apparently for a while, suggested that Elhaik is deemed incompetent by his peers. I made a minor fix - Elhaik trained under Dan Graur, an extremely rigorous and distinguished molecular biologist who has a high regard for Elhaik, and was unfazed by the hullabaloo over the latter's Khazar hypothesis. Whether he accepted it or not is not the point. Elhaik knows his stuff, which is not the impression you get on any wiki mention of him. I'm not here to support Elhaik's hypothesis, but to ensure he is not smeared by reductive caricature as some freak in his field.

The text you cite draws on several nondescript journalistic reports of reactions to his first formulation of the Khazar hypothesis, quoting peers whom Elhaik in turn had vigorously criticized for their ideological fixations.* So that requires expansion, rather than serving as a model of such terse concision that, for example, my paraphrase of the 2019 paper, a mere three lines, might seem a tad excessive. But it is not my parsimony that requires trimming. Rather it is the section you greenquote that requires expansion. Nishidani (talk) 15:52, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

I think this approach makes sense per WP:IMPERFECT. I cannot commit, but I may work on expanding the other criticisms at some point in the future to correct this (temporary) imbalance. JBchrch (talk) 16:16, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

::*The dispute is entrammeled by different perceptions of Israel's narrative of return entertained by Elhaik's several peers and one which he, an Israeli, challenges. The ideological investment is best put in the following remark one of the people he criticizes, Harry Ostrer:

'The stakes in genetic analysis are high. It is more than an issue of who belongs in the family and can partake in Jewish life and Israeli citizenship. It touches on the heart of Zionist claims for a Jewish homeland in Israel. One can imagine future disputes about exactly how large the shared Middle Eastern ancestry of Jewish groups has to be to justify Zionist claims. Harry Ostrer, Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People, 2012

My concern is that the refusal to accept a straightforward review article here reflects this ideological tension. The uneasiness that many have with the idea that many Jews do not descend from the early Jewish population of Israel/Palestine. Nishidani (talk) 16:08, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Maybe, but let's try to WP:AGF here. JBchrch (talk) 16:19, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

@Nishidani: I have explained my concerns more than once (at length and, I feel, engaged with your criticisms). My issue is not a personal ideological objection or resistence, and with respect, the suggestion that it is feels unjust (given that I have explained my reasoning) and not entirely appropriate. Skllagyook (talk) 16:30, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

I am absolutely sure that Skllagyook is not one of our ideologists with a POV remit. My apologies if that general statement came over that way. I am much concerned with the neglected WP:Systemic bias problem. I certainly have never noted any edit by you, in articles I have on my watchlist, which suggest you are POV-driven. My point was, editors should be keenly aware that, particularly in areas like this, ideology plays no small role even in scholarship. There is a good article by N. Kirsh showing how deeply these concerns inflouenced Israeli scientists from the early 50s. The ethnonationalist meme of 'return' is however ideological. Of that there is no dispute, and we should be aware that this is operative, even in genetics, as some Israeli geneticists have noted. Precisely for this reason, wikipedians should strive to assess potential articles for inclusion per NPOV. If the two authors here challenge an ideological meme, that is an eminently reasonable point of view, minority (though growing) but certainly not to be treated as fringe, or as some odd disrespect for the 'consensual' meme. Not to be aware of these emotional investments is, - that is the worry - to inadvertently fall prey to what is ideological rather than factual.Nishidani (talk) 16:56, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

@Nishidani: As I understand, our job as editors is to go according to what the sources in the relevant community (which is this case is population geneticists) say/are and the consensus among that group. Bringing to bear opinions or information derived from other disciplines/writings (not from the relevant field) about (what we may believe of know about) biases in Israeli society (etc.) on how we treat on the scientific sources (or suggesting that the mainstream opinion/consensus in the field is less credible because if it) seems to me a bit POV and possibly a little WP:OR/WP:SYNTH, as well as suggestive of righting great wrongs; (as the "Advocacy" page says, "Wikipedia is not a venue to right great wrongs, to promote ideas or beliefs which have been ignored or marginalized in the Real World,..") Skllagyook (talk) 17:06, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

All of those policy flags you are waving hav e nothing to do with my work here or my objections to holding a good article to ransom on Elhaik's page. I've been editing for 16 years. I have never seen any challenge to a source as obviously high standard RS as this. Two specialists in the discipline challenged because of their conclusion does not endorse a traditional view. The objections to it remain, in my view, either incomprehensible in terms of standard practice or are totally unrelated to policy, and, as somewhere above, screw up an elementary understanding of one such simply policy (primary/secondary). That disconcerting spectre made me think that a meme is being taken as a verified fact. Note that, all of my remarks about how science works, of which this paper is a normal example, were ignored. Still . I have to go out an do shopping for neighbours and knock off a beer or two with some local cronies. I'd prefer not to continue this conversation. We have said our piece, and this forum is invaluable for third party comments, which I hope will be provided. Co nversation between the parties only serves to create threads that drive off third parties. Nishidani (talk) 17:20, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Conversation between the parties only serves to create threads that drive off third parties Exactly. So back to the main point. @Nishidani: you have said that I'm not here to support Elhaik's hypothesis, but to ensure he is not smeared by reductive caricature as some freak in his field. What is the role of Yardumian & Schurr (2019) in the BLP then? They mention him directly only once in prose ("This problem cannot be approached analytically in the way that Elhaik (2012) attempted (p. 18 in the linked PDF)") and twice per citation. If it is to illustrate that scholars consider him a worthy peer and can engange and disagree with his research without drama, it should be made explicit in some way. If it is to show that his most vocal critics might be just as off the mark as Elhaik himself (as it reads now), the source better fits in Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry#Criticism_of_the_Elhaik_studies (no idea if it ever was there with all the back-and-forth editing) and would certainly be an enrichment among all the news articles cited there. –Austronesier (talk) 18:08, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

(Your query should go to the talk page, but I'll reply here. Please follow it up there if you wish) The section deals with criticism of Elhaik. Yardumian & Schurr state the general model and Elhaik's theory have opposed conclusions, but share a common homeland-diaspora dispersion premise, which they criticize.

(1)The major circulating ideas about Jewish ethnogenesis were developed in a time prior to advanced human genetic and genomic studies. These ideas have tended toward the homeland-diaspora model, drawing on biblical and post-biblical sources for an exile/founder effect model, or the Khazar model (which has been tested twice without success;see Elhaik 2012 and Das et al. 2016).The two models, in all their forms, visualize Jewish ethnogenesis as an expansive process, beginning with a single source population that then spreads and develops into multiple different geographic communities.' p.212

(2)It is this uncertainty that has given rise to both the mainstream theories of a Judean ancestry for contemporary Jewry and to alternative theories, such as the Khazar Hypothesis(Behar et al. 2013; Elhaik 2012; Koestler 1976). Neither of these theories, in their simplest forms, are supportable by current evidence.' p.222 n.3

(3)DNA sequences obtained from a variety of Jewish mortuary contexts or even Natufian or other Neolithic/Bronze Age Levantine populations.. .would provide useful information about the nature of genetic diversity that is at the root of the Jewish ethnogenesis narrative. This problem cannot be approached analytically in the way that Elhaik (2012) attempted.' p.223 n.13

I added to the page's Elhaik criticism section therefore:-

Yardumian and Schurr have criticized both Elhaik's Khazar hypothesis and the mainstream model it challenged, on the grounds that, in their view, both assume the same homeland-diaspora expansion model. As opposed to this, they view Jewish ethnogenesis as one rooted in multiple heterogeneous populations which, often after conversion, coalesced to form modern day Jews.'

Why is such a simple use of a quality RS critical of Elhaik not appropriate to the criticism section? Is it because it also criticizes the 'mainstream' model that Elhaik himself opposed? Is one not allowed to mention that though Elhaik's work has been criticized, those who criticize it have also come under challenge? Extraordinary.Nishidani (talk) 20:21, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

@Austronesier: I added disputed text to Khazar Hypothesis as you suggested

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry&type=revision&diff=1022218010&oldid=1022203273 SteveBenassi (talk) 06:31, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

@SteveBenassi: I don't believe the disputed text should be added anywhere untill the issues discussed are resolved. That has not yet ocurred. Skllagyook (talk) 06:48, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

@Nishidani: Regarding ... (3)DNA sequences obtained from a variety of Jewish mortuary contexts or even Natufian or other Neolithic/Bronze Age Levantine populations.. .would provide useful information about the nature of genetic diversity that is at the root of the Jewish ethnogenesis narrative.

New research does exactly that, and it confirms that Zagoros/Caucasus population during the Bronze Age, and Today, contributed to the Genome in the Levant, indicating Elhaik may be partially correct that Ashkenazi Jews are converts from the north. See Graphical Abstract ... The Genomic History of the Bronze Age Southern Levant https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30487-6 SteveBenassi (talk) 07:37, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

The paper does not support the idea that Ashkenazi Jews are converts from the north, but rather the idea that all Levantine groups have admixture from that area of the north (since/dating to the Chacolithic-Bronze Age) from before the formation of the religion of Judaism and before the Jewish diaspora, some of which admixture would therefore also be carried in Ashkenazi and other Jews (and Levantines/other groups with Levantine ancestry) - not only Ashkenazi Jews. Skllagyook (talk) 07:56, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

@Skllagyook: See Graphical Abstract ... 3 lines from Zagoros/Caucasus at 3 different times including from the Bronze Age to Today. SteveBenassi (talk) 08:13, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure what section you're referring to. The paper in Cell does not say anything about Ashkenazi being descended from northern converts. It found that Levantines in general (since the Bronze Age on, including Bronze Age Canaanites) have/had admixture (from the Zagros or Caucasus) which had arrived in the Levant in the Bronze Age (as your own comment said). This is quite different from the hypothesis of Elhaik, which is that very few of the Ashkenazi's ancestors ever lived in the Levant at all, and that they descend entirely/almost entirely from converts outside the Levant from a much later period than the Bronze Age. Skllagyook (talk) 08:27, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

hypothesis of Elhaik, which is that very few of the Ashkenazi's ancestors ever lived in the Levant at all

That's not 'Elhaik's hypothesis'. The same conclusion could be made from Atzmon (2010), Behar (2013) Costa (2013) and many other papers. It all depends on how you define 'identity' (A light hearted laugh about the genetic industry's Ashkenazi profiling can be found in Gideon Levy's article about the conclusions of his test: (a) he is thoroughly Ashkenazi, genetically tied in to millions of others of that description. (b) there is no trace in either his maternal or paternal lineages of having any connection with a hypothetical ancestor in the Levant:'astonishingly, there’s not a trace of the Land of Israel in my ancestors’ journeys in the past 275,000 years.'). But this is not the place for such a discussion. Another key point relevant for inclusion is that editors have stacked the Elhaik bio with over 10 hostile sources, that implicitly espouse the 'mainstream' theory. Now that we have one high RS paper that is equally critical of Elhaik and the mainstream model he challenges,introducing some balance, the presence of the latter is being questioned. That is a serious WP:NPOV violation.Nishidani (talk) 09:05, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

@Nishidani: You wrote:

"That's not 'Elhaik's hypothesis'. The same conclusion could be made from Atzmon (2010), Behar (2013) Costa (2013) and many other papers."

But that is not the conclusion made in Atzmon, Behar or Costa, nor in most other genetic studues on the topic. It is in fact a small minority view, as far as can be known from the stated conclusions of the research. Regarding Gideon Levy's article: I suppose this is not the place for such discussions, but Levy seems perhaps not to understand the importance autosomal DNA (which reflects overall ancestry); an individual's paternal and maternal lineages alone are not always representative of overall ancestral ethic makeup (especially coming from a mixed population like the Ashkenazi or other diasporic group), and the majority view is that Ashkenazi autosomal ancestry carries a substantial Middle Eastern component (as well as a substantial European one) - some such as Behar (2017), have also suggested that the R1a branch of Y-DNA Levy carries found in some Ashkenazi, came from the Levant). But this is beside the point I was making, which was merely that the Cell paper does not particularly support Elhaik's theory. Skllagyook (talk) 10:09, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

You're wrong. This is not the place to discuss this. But I suggest you read Atsmon et al 2010 p.857 closely, to cite just one of the four. (And certainly: do not take at their word what the several wiki articles write in their partisan syntheses of the debates). Ignore the fact that they get their history wrong (6 million practising Jews (mostly converts) in Graeco Roman times) on key points. The big difference is that Elhaik and others contest the assumption/meme of a prior 'Jewish genetic' homogeneity in Palestine datable to the time of the Babylonian exile. They don't believe interpretations of genetic data should be sieved through religious writ as though the latter were unimpeachably historical. That is ideological, not science, and the situation is rather like that which emerged when endosymbiotic theory was first broached: the mainstream insisted on an internal evolutionary development of cells - and the minority view argued for gene transfer qua organelles from captured bacteria. But, as I say, this is not the place to argue that. The point here is to decide if a high quality RS critical of both Elhaik and of his critics is appropriate to the criticism section of his page, partioularly since that page is intensely edited to include overwhelmingly criticisms of Elhaik from the mainstream POV, without any conmpensatory balance as NPOV requires.Nishidani (talk) 12:08, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

"Another key point relevant for inclusion is that editors have stacked the Elhaik bio with over 10 hostile sources, that implicitly espouse the 'mainstream' theory. Now that we have one high RS paper that is equally critical of Elhaik and the mainstream model he challenges,introducing some balance, the presence of the latter is being questioned." This sounds like a textbook example of WP:FRINGE. One or two outliers challenging the mainstream consensus of something is the definition of fringe. In this case, "introducing some balance" introduces "balance" between the mainstream consensus and a fringe view, which is against policy. Policy specifically states not to give such balance, where it says not to present fringe theories "alongside the scientific or academic consensus as though they are opposing but still equal views". It is worth noting that this study has not been cited by anyone else in the field following its publication, which is a strong indication of it being fringe. NonReproBlue (talk) 11:45, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Don't be silly. A work published in mid 2019 by definition will take some years to get considered response, as any academic knows. All of these three are tenured professors and scholars, and recognized as competent in their fields. Nishidani (talk) 12:08, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

It's not silly. To contrast this with the mainstream sources, the cited study by Flegontov, et al, had already been cited four times within one year of its publication. Behar, et al, ad been cited 13 times within 2 years of publication. It has been two years since Yardumian and Schurr published, and there have been zero citations to the study. You even admit that their view is not held by the mainstream consensus when you say "include overwhelmingly criticisms of Elhaik from the mainstream POV, without any conmpensatory balance as NPOV requires." The thing is, NPOV does not require us to "balance" the mainstream POV with the fringe POV. Policy actually states the opposite, and says not to give false balance between mainstream consensus and fringe positions. NonReproBlue (talk) 13:20, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

I would add that "The genomic history of the Bronze Age southern Levant" (the aforementioned paper in Cell) was published in 2020 and has been cited 10 times (https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=Genomic+History+of+Southern+Levant&oq=Geno). Skllagyook (talk) 14:20, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

And it has been reviewed here on his page by Elhaik. Cf. also this. None of this is quotable, because it is his blog. The objection is profoundly silly because you cannot challenge a paper published by tenured mainstream scholars in a standard peer reviewed journal out of personal disagreement with its content (for that is what Skllagyook's objection amounts to, with the point about it contradicting some hypothetical 'consensus'). This would give Wikipedia editors a right to stand over scholarship and assume control over what may and may not be mentioned in state of the art scholarship. To assert it is 'fringe' would require a source, and there is none. It is just new. Nishidani (talk) 16:09, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

It is precisely the job of Wikipedia editors to determine what may and may not be mentioned by weighing the sources and evaluating them based on our policies. But now it seems you are moving the goalposts. As the WP:FRINGE policy points out, determining that an idea is fringe does not in fact require sources saying that, as many fringe subjects and assertions are just ignored by the mainstream. It is true that it would require a source to say, in Wikipedia's voice, that something is fringe. However, to make a determination that a source is fringe, and outside the scope of mainstream consensus, requires evaluating a source based on the criteria laid in the policy. Furthermore, much, if not all, of this is being derived directly from a primary source (the study itself) rather than secondary sources as would be preferable. What reliable secondary sources do discuss, and describe, is that Ostrer, Behar, etc. represent the mainstream consensus viewpoint. They say it directly. You even say it when you say that this material is equally critical of Elhaik and "the mainstream model he challenges". If SteveBenassi is to be believed, even one of the study's authors says "we can't be placed in the Elhaik camp or in the mainstream view". It is abundantly clear that there is an accepted mainstream model, and this is a single paper that challenges it. That is fringe. There is no other way to view it. If it proves to be correct, the mainstream consensus will support it, and it then would absolutely merit inclusion. Until then, there is no reason why it should be given such prominence. It is clearly undue weight. NonReproBlue (talk) 17:24, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Yardumian and Schurr's article is not a primary source. Read the policy. The matter of it being not yet cited is irrelevant. In scholarship, you get published in journals through a prepublication process of peer-consultancy and review. That is why the authors' qualifications, and the authoritativeness of the publishing venue are all that count. Don't any of you know that Mendel's paper on hybridization was ignored, with just 3 cites in the relevant scholarship forthree decades or so, until someone woke up? Going beyond this to assert as editors that the conclusions run contrary to some hypothetical consensus and therefore the piece cannot be used is an abuse of editing, tantamount to censorship. Minority viewpoints are not 'fringe' in this context: we include them. We have no remit to pick and choose RS depending on our personal assessments of the state of scholarship. I expect a very old hand like yourself would chime in this way, but am surprised Skllagyook cannot perceive they have exceeded their remit. Punto e basta.Nishidani (talk) 20:37, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Seems totally reasonable to expect scholarship to take the same amount of time to make its way into the mainstream now as it did during Mendel's time. I can't think of any information sharing technologies that could have possibly changed between then and now. But please, continue to escalate the ad hominem attacks and move the goalposts rather than deal with the chance there might be substance to what I am saying. Glad to see you are similarly familiar with WP:NPA and WP:AGF as you are with WP:FRINGE. NonReproBlue (talk) 04:48, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

The editors here insist that

@Skllagyook: I emailed Aram Yardumian three days ago about the suppression of his article on Wikipedia, he responded "Dear Steve

Thanks for this email note and the link to the Eran Elhaik wikipedia discussion page. That was interesting to see.

Your question about why our article didn't warrant any news coverage is a good one. First of all, it was just a review article. There was no new data or genetic analysis. Had we undertaken new sample collections or a new kind of analysis -- as Eran Elhaik has done more than once -- I'm sure it would have at least registered a blip on the radar. Review articles often pass unnoticed.

Perhaps also: our view of Jewish ethnogenesis is actually somewhat at odds with Elhaik's. You may be aware that I posted an article on BioRxiv back in 2013 that was very critical of his methods (i.e., using Armenians and Georgians as surrogates for Khazars). Since we can't be placed in the Elhaik camp or in the mainstream view, perhaps nobody really knew what to do with us. Perhaps in some ways it's a blessing.

There's probably more that could be said, but I'll leave it there for now and ask how you came to be interested in this subject...

Regards Aram" SteveBenassi (talk) 14:48, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

A note: I (and others) am referring, not just to (a lack of) news coverage, but also academic citations. Skllagyook (talk) 15:06, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

As I said, high immediate citation has nothing to do with evaluating RS per se. In genetics, research turnover is rapid, with rapid responses, and a very thick field of academic researchers. In history things are slower, and there are not many who have the dual competences (historical anthropology and genetics) which the two authors have. In fact, reading genetics papers irritates historians because there they rarely shown familiarity with the state of the art research on history. Nishidani (talk) 16:09, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

So far we have one completely neutral third party editor providing us with input. So perhaps I should restate the problem so that no one wishing to comment need do the grind of actually reading the paper or the papers it refers to.

Research, particularly at the cutting edge, is often rancorous. Suffice it to read David Quammen's The Tangled Tree, a history of recent evolutionary biology's leading thinkers, to note only one of many studies. In a rapidly developing field like population genetics, it is wrong to speak of consensus, as editors hostile to the use of this paper repeatedly say. The article simply quotes or paraphrases four landmark sources ((Atzmon et al. 2010; Behar et al. 2013; Costa et al. 2013; Xue et al. 2017), which editors here state as mainstream as admitting the Ashkenazis have a close profile to European, rather than Levantine, populations.

• Atzmon et al. 2010 'concluded that Ashkenazi Jews were more closely related to regional “host” European populations than to Levantine or other Middle Eastern populations, whereas Iranian and Iraqi Jews clustered more closely with their host populations in the Arab and Persian worlds. . .In their opinion, the genetic proximity of Ashkenazi Jews to French and Mediterranean populations “favors the idea of ‘non-Semitic’ Mediterranean ancestry in the formation of the European/Syrian Jewish groups.

• (Behar et al. (2013) 'they observed that “Ashkenazi Jews show significant IBD sharing only with Eastern Europeans, North African Jews and Sephardi Jews” (as well as Cypriots and Sicilians), and only minimally with Middle Eastern populations.')

• ((Costa et al. 2013)'They concluded that 65–81% of Ashkenazi mtDNAs belonged to autochthonous European lineages, and that only 8% of them were demonstrably “Near Eastern” in origin.')

• (Xue et al, 2017) 'The most compelling evidence to date of a mosaic ancestry for contemporary Jews comes from the work of Xue et al. (2017). Their admixture analysis suggested a 70% European origin (and within this, 55% Southern Europe, 10% Eastern Europe, 5% Western Europe) and a 30% “Levantine” component in Jewish populations. In making these estimates, Xue et al. (2017) assumed the Levant to be the most likely source for the “Middle Eastern” apportionment of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry and, thus, did not make any effort to distinguish Levantine from Anatolian or Babylonian ancestral components . .While the analysis was unable to identify the ultimate source population, the founding event for Ashkenazi Jewry almost certainly occurred in Southern Europe.'

The farce of denial of the appropriateness of the paper by Yardumian and Schurr for inclusion in Wikipedia consists in asserting that it holds a fringe view since there is a putative consensus about the ultimate Levantine origin of Ashkenazi Jews. As the above quotes show, the very authors cited for this consensus say precisely the opposite (of course, some of their papers contain the Levantine qualification, but the authors suggest the empirical evidence for that part of their work is frail). It is acceptable for them to criticize Elhaik, but it is unacceptable to cite them when their work shows that the other school also, like Elhaik, suggests the 'Levantine' component is nugatory. That veto is incomprehensible. All the two authors are doing is (a) pointing out what the ostensible 'mainstream' says: of three Jewish groups, Ashkenazis have a strong Euroipean genetic profile, and (b) this suggests Jewish ethnogenesis is variegated, hardly a shocking surmise. Nishidani (talk) 11:59, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

@Nishidani: Those characterizations from the Yarmudian paper are not entirely representative of the sources quoted or their conclusions. That is what I was referring to when I said that the source characterises papers in a way different from what they state. I will expand upon this, in this comment soon. Skllagyook (talk) 12:18, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

They are not characterisations, but direct quotes. Neither you nor I as wiki editors have a right to sit in judgment over what scholars do. 'I said that the source characterises papers in a way different from what they state.' In other words you are asserting that you privately as a wiki editor contest the accuracy of Yardumian and Schurr's summation of the genetic evidence - their area of expertise, and want to give your reading of the primary sources as proof. That is egregiously WP:OR, not permitted, and used by an editor to criticize an RS, whose status as RS no one would question. Please don't post a massive expansion of your views. We need third party input, not another endless discussion of our respective private interpretations of genetic papers. I disagree quite strongly with the two authors' reading of Elhaik, but I haven't breathed a word of it, or provided proof (which I have) that they do misread him. We have no right to do this. I have refrained from exceeding our remit, and so should you. Nishidani (talk) 12:50, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

@Nishidani:. It is not my own interpretation of what the authors they quote say but what the authors (Atzmon et al., Behar et al., and Xue et al.) themselves said that I was referring to, not my views. What you excerpted from Yardumian and Schurr are direct quotes from studies but they appear to be selective in light of what the papers quoted in fact state and conclude. Again, this is not an expansion of my views or judgements but of what Atzmon, Behar, and Xue say (their views, not mine). Above you quoted Yardumian and Schurr's excerpts of Atzmon, Behar, Xue, and Costa to support the statement that the findings of the aforementioned researchers were in line with the idea that Ashkenazi Jews have only nugatory Middle Eastern or Levantine ancestry. But according to the papers themselves, that is simply not the case. (And the opinions of the researchers are relevant to the nature of the mainstream consensus.) See below.

It is not being disputed that it has been found, and is widely agreed, that Ashkenazi Jews have substantial European admuxture (that is fairly mainstream). But Atzmon, Behar, Xue, and others also agree that they, and most other Jewish groups, also carry a substantial shared Middle Eastern admixture component that has been identified as from the Levant and shared with other Jewish groups.

Atzmon et al. (2010) says:

"...genome-wide analysis of seven Jewish groups (Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Italian, Turkish, Greek, and Ashkenazi) and comparison with non-Jewish groups demonstrated distinctive Jewish population clusters, each with shared Middle Eastern ancestry, proximity to contemporary Middle Eastern populations, and variable degrees of European and North African admixture. Two major groups were identified by principal component, phylogenetic, and identity by descent (IBD) analysis: Middle Eastern Jews and European/Syrian Jews."

According to them, Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews were distinguished from Mizrahi Jews by the presence of southern (and other European) admixture in the former lacking in the latter, and other admixture in the lacking in the former (shared Middle Eastern ancestry combined with differential admixtures).

And:

"Two major differences among the populations in this study were the high degree of European admixture (30%–60%) among the Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Italian, and Syrian Jews and the genetic proximity of these populations to each other compared to their proximity to Iranian and Iraqi Jews. This time of a split between Middle Eastern Iraqi and Iranian Jews and European/Syrian Jews, calculated by simulation and comparison of length distributions of IBD segments, is 100–150 generations, compatible with a historical divide that is reported to have occurred more than 2500 years ago. The Middle Eastern populations were formed by Jews in the Babylonian and Persian empires who are thought to have remained geographically continuous in those locales. In contrast, the other Jewish populations were formed more recently from Jews who migrated or were expelled from Palestine and from individuals who were converted to Judaism during Hellenic-Hasmonean times...Thus, the genetic proximity of these European/Syrian Jewish populations, including Ashkenazi Jews, to each other and to French, Northern Italian, and Sardinian populations favors the idea of non-Semitic Mediterranean ancestry in the formation of the European/Syrian Jewish group."

Thus the study concludes the Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Italian Jews share a substantial component of Middle Eastern ancestry with Iraqi and Iranian Jews that dates to the time of the diaspora and which they attribute to Levantine Jewish migrants, but also carry significant southern European admixture from intermixture with non-Semitic Mediterranean converts (thus they have a mixed origin including both).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3032072/

You quoted (from Yardumian's discussion of Behar):

"Behar et al. (2013) 'they observed that “Ashkenazi Jews show significant IBD sharing only with Eastern Europeans, North African Jews and Sephardi Jews” (as well as Cypriots and Sicilians), and only minimally with Middle Eastern populations.')"

This does not mean that Behar et al. 2013 conclude that Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews lack significant Middle Eastern or Levantine ancestry. Behar et al. explicitly state that Ashkenazi Jews mostly share affinity and ancestry with populations from southern Europe and the Middle East (and to a lesser extent Eastern Europe). From the abstract:

"Thus, analysis of Ashkenazi Jews together with a large sample from the region of the Khazar Khaganate corroborates the earlier results that Ashkenazi Jews derive their ancestry primarily from populations of the Middle East and Europe, that they possess considerable shared ancestry with other Jewish populations"

Regarding IBD sharing, Behar et al 2013 explain:

"Analysis of genomic sharing, focused on IBD sharing between Ashkenazi Jews and population groups, further sharpens the results from genetic distance analysis (Figure 6). IBD analysis, which focuses on the most recent tens of genera-tions of ancestry, is expected to generate tighter clustering of individuals within populations, between populations that have a recent common ancestral deme, or between populations that have recently experienced reciprocal gene Áow (Gusev et al. 2009, 2012). Considering the IBD threshold of 3 Mb for shared segments, Ashkenazi Jews are expected to show no signiÀcant IBD sharing with any population from which they have been isolated for >~20 generations. In accordance with the results from the other methods of analysis, Ashkenazi Jews show signiÀcant IBD sharing only with Eastern Europeans, North African Jews, and Sephardi Jews. Sharing was minimal with Middle Eastern populations, a not unexpected result given that the time frame for the split from Middle Eastern populations is beyond the detection power of our IBD."(Page 882)

And according to Behar et al., the populations with the closest affinity to (and most common ancestry with) the Ashkenazi are firstly other Jewish groups from Southern Europe and North Africa, and then Southern Europeans and Levantines. According to them, their genetic signature reflects an admixed ancestry mainly from Levantines and southern Europeans (with a smaller Eastern European component):

"Admixture demonstrates the connection of Ashkenazi, North African, and Sephardi Jews, with the most similar non-Jewish populations to Ashkenazi Jews being Mediterranean Europeans from Italy (Sicily, Abruzzo, Tuscany), Greece, and Cyprus. When subtracting the k5 component, which perhaps originates in Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews from admixture with European hosts, the best matches for membership patterns of the Ashkenazi Jews shift to the Levant: Cypriots, Druze, Lebanese, and Samaritans."(P.882)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264390976_No_Evidence_from_Genome-Wide_Data_of_a_Khazar_Origin_for_the_Ashkenazi_Jews

In Xue et al. 2017 the final Middle Eastern admixture estimate for Ashkenazi is not in fact 30% but 40%, which they estimate after reviewing several methods (whole genome analysis, LAI, and Gkobetrotter) that yeild varying estimates. They estimate that Ashkenazi are about 40% Middle Eastern (which they consider to be Levantine) and about 69% European (with being mostly southern European)

They say:

"The estimates for the total European ancestry in AJ [Ashkenazi] range from ≈49% using our previous whole-genome sequencing analysis [9], to ≈53% using the LAI analysis here, and ≈67% using the calibrated Globetrotter analysis. The proportion of Western/Eastern European ancestry was estimated between ≈15% (Globetrotter and the LAI-based localization method)..."

And:

"Running RFMix on the AJ genomes with our EU [European] and ME [Middle Eastern] reference panels and summing up the lengths of all tracts assigned to each ancestry, the genome-wide ancestry was ≈53% EU and ≈47% ME, consistent with our previous estimate based on a smaller sequencing panel [9]."

"We used the f4 statistics to infer the fraction of European ancestry in AJ, as explained in Patterson et al. [48]. Assuming that the true source is Southern Europe, the EU ancestry proportion is theoretically given by f4(West-EU,YRI;AJ,ME)/f4(West-EU,YRI;South-EU,ME)≈67% (S4 Fig, part B). However, when simulating genomes with 50% European ancestry, the f4-inferred fraction came out as 63%; thus, an inferred European ancestry proportion of 67% is broadly consistent with the RFMix-based estimate of ≈53%."

And finally:

"Finally, we considered GLOBETROTTER [21], which can infer both the contribution of each ancestral source and the admixture time. The first step in a GLOBETROTTER analysis is running CHROMOPAINTER [20], in order to determine the proportion of ancestry of each individual that is “copied” from each other individual in the dataset. Then, an ancestry profile for each population is reconstructed, representing the contribution of each other population to its ancestry [21, 22]. The inferred ancestry profile for AJ was 5% Western EU, 10% Eastern EU, 30% Levant, and 55% Southern EU. The combined Western and Eastern EU component is in line with our other estimates, as well as the dominance of the Southern EU component. However, the overall European ancestry, ≈70% (or ≈67% after calibration by simulations; S1 Text section 5), is about 15% higher than the LAI-based estimate, as well as our previous results based on whole-genome sequencing [9]. Our detailed simulations (S1 Text section 5) demonstrate that evidence exists to support either estimate. Possibly, the true fraction of EU ancestry is midway around ≈60%."

Their paper includes a graph (Fig 7) that shows the estimated range of European and Middle Eastern admixture in Ashkenazi Jews: Middle Eastern at 40-65%, southern European 35-60%, and Eastern European 15-25%. (Which is not dissimilar to Atzmon's estimate of 30-60% European admixture in Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews.)

The authors do identify the Levant as the most likely source of the Middle Eastern component. They state:

"We observed that in simulations of admixed genomes, the Middle-Eastern regional source could have also been recovered by running the same localization pipeline. Applying that pipeline to the AJ genomes, we identified Levant as the most likely ME source: the proportions of chromosomes classified as Levantine was 51.6%, compared to 21.7% and 22.2% classified as Druze and Southern ME, respectively."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5380316/

Finally, Costa et al. (2013) do propose that the great majority of Ashkenazi MtDNA (maternal) lineages are of European origin, but do not contest that most of their paternal lineages (and a significant component of their autosomal DNA) is or could be of Middle Eastern origin. Costa's findings were cited and have received responses/mainstream engagement from notable researchers in (particularly Jewish) population genetics (including Karl Skorecki, Antonio Torrroni, David B. Goldstein, and Doron Behar), whose reactions (some of which which are mentioned on pages Wikipedia pages discussing the topic) were mixed, with some considering them plausible, and others considering them not likely. Another paper published soon after (Fernandez et al. 2014) found evidence that that the common Ashkenazi MtDNA K lineages identified as European by Costa might in fact have been Levantine (but it is uncertain).

None of this is consistent, as you seemed to imply, with the idea that the Levantine component in Askenazi and Sephardi Jews is nugatory (i.e. trivial/insignificant), but seemingly far from it. That opinion is in fact a small minority one in the published literature, held by Elhaik and his group and proposed (albeit perhaps to a somewhat less extreme extent) in this recent paper that has not yet been engaged with by the mainstream (which does not hold that view). Skllagyook (talk) 14:02, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

The above WP:TLDR effectively buries a quite simple request under a load of opinion. The essence of Skllagyook's post is that they understand genetics better than the two professors who authored the article. And since he knows better, he refuses to accept the article on Wikipedia. Now, can we have third party input on the authors' status as competent scholars and the venue for their publication in terms of RS? All that is asked is this simple question. Not some discussions about our opinions of the topic.Nishidani (talk) 18:13, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

@Nishidani: That is not the essense of my post at all. Your description of my reply is unfair and puzzling. I never said or indicated that I knew genetics better than the two professors. Above I quoted the quite explicit statements and conclusions of those notable sources (substantially quoted, which unfortunately caused the reply to be long), with their own positions, not my opinion or synthesis (which I added nowhere). It is not about my personal opinion. You seemed to be indicating that expert consensus is in line with the paper under discussion (and you brought up those sources). It is not (at least not currently) I agree that we need and should wait for third party input. Skllagyook (talk) 18:25, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

citypopulation.de

This website with unclear provenance is being used as a source for the list of megacities at Megacity. Is it reliable? It's been discussed at RSN a few times with unclear consensus (see eg Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_235#citypopulation.de; Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_164#citypopulation.de/). Pinging @JzG, The Four Deuces, and Emir of Wikipedia as some participants in past discussions. Site is apparently run by Thomas Brinkhoff, a professor at the Institute for Applied Photogrammetry and Geoinformatics at Jade University of Applied Sciences. Fwiw, I'm not sold on the reliability of Demographia, run by Wendell Cox, either. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 05:02, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Demographia, however Cox's views are controversial, is a good aggregator of data, as their methodology is reproducible and thoroughly described in the paper referenced. If you are going to change anything, maybe you'd want to use census data instead (from which he derived some calculations), because the numbers he gives for a lot of countries are approximations made by drawing polygons on a rather detailed density map.

This can't be said of citypopulation.de, which states in its methodology for the list that: "Official censuses and estimations are mostly the basis of this computation. The delimitation and composition of urban agglomerations is often defined or modified by »City Population« in order to increase comparability. This is a continuous, on-going process. The figures of such a statistic are all of varying accuracy. There are several reasons: varying relevance and accuracy of sources, difficulties of delimitation, errors in the projection and so on." It is unclear how they modify their areas and what are the other sources that Brinkhoff draws his data for. He is a subject-matter expert as well; he's even written a paper about how to determine them. Had he described his methodology thoroughly, it would be usable; without it, the data looks plausible but not rigorous enough.

One more thing: he seems to be using Wikidata at least at some parts of the website; IDK if he uses it in that particular table but, not being able to definitely exclude it, I see all the more reason to remove it. 09:42, 9 May 2021 Szmenderowiecki (talk) (UTC)

My comment about wanting to know more about Thomas Brinkhoff still stands. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 17:55, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

UAE news outlets: Gulf News and thenationalnews.com

• Gulf News
• thenationalnews.com

I've noticed that most UAE-related articles source content to these news outlets. I strongly suspect that these outlets are not independent of the authoritarian regime in the UAE. For example, this is how Gulf News describes Sulaiman Al-Fahim, a convicted grifter who pretends to have a PhD[39] and has close ties with the authoritarian regime in Dubai:

• At 31, Dr Sulaiman Abul Kareem Mohammad Al Fahim's achievements rival those of seasoned professionals twice his age. Today, his seemingly boundless energy is directed at building new ventures. What drives this former child prodigy, chess champion, entrepreneur, philanthropist and academic to generate ideas, pursue opportunities and turn them into successful enterprises?

Basic fact-checking would have shown that he does not have a PhD (as the NY Times confirmed with a phone call[40]) and the article completely omits any relationship with the authoritarian regime (which should matter for success in business). I'm raising flags about these outlets in cases anyone checks them in the future here. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 15:55, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

UAE has censorship, and the media are not considered free in the country.

As for Gulf News Apparently the managing director of Gulf News's parent company is the minister of finance of UAE and is chairman of UAE state telecom company, so I would absolutely not expect impartiality from that resource.

It even seems the source has not checked the webpage of the grifter, which says he doesn't have a PhD, only an MBA.

The National seems to be even worse, as it was created in 2008 by the UAE government and is now owned by a company controlled by deputy prime minister of UAE, who is a royal family member.

I therefore confirm your suspicions. The problem is - what is the alternative? I can't think of a good enough resource to cover UAE. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 18:56, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

@Szmenderowiecki: There is Pakistani media, which I flagged above with regards to geo.tv. That covers the UAE quite frequently, although questions have been raised about the reliability of Pakistani media also. I'd appreciate more opinions. IronManCap (talk) 19:00, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

I guess one of the easiest steps would be to remove content sourced to these outlets that is used for self-serving puffery. For example, content that emphasizes that various UAE government figures promote human rights, how they are responsible for economic prosperity, all the awards they have won, and all the bodies that they've headed. I've been trying to remove some absurd sentence in the lead of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum which says "He created the Maktoum Award for World Peace in 2011", as if it were some notable prize. It's sourced to "www.emirates247.com". No luck with that because editors insist that it's sourced to a RS and thus belongs on the page. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 19:11, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Agreed to what you say. emirates247 is owned by Dubai Media Inc., which is wholly owned by the Government of Dubai. It is very strange they insist on it being reliable when it patently isn't, particularly when talking of the UAE royal family. Basically every government-owned (either federal govt or emirate-owned) media resource in UAE seems to be more or less the same quality as the Chinese/Russian government-owned media (i.e. OK when citing government positions, or some, dunno, sports and other uncontroversial subjects; unusable otherwise), but I can't make a distinction between various media outlets and between Arabic-language and English-language coverage, as I don't know Arabic.

I can't contribute much to the topic (it's not my area of interest), but from what I see you wrote on the talk page, yes, I wholeheartedly support it. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 20:44, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Gulf News and The National aren't RS? Where did this come from? They're national daily newspapers in a UN member state. What about Khaleej Times, Gulf Today, Ittihad, Bayan and Emarat Al Youm? Why exclude them? It would take some experience, I would have thought, in the Emirates' media sector to produce reliable commentary and assessment of the various media outlets here. There's a lot of POV going on here from Snooganssnoogans and its showing in the edits being made - "an authoritarian regime in the UAE where human rights violations are severe and systematic, and Emiratis and residents are forcibly disappeared, arbitrarily detained and tortured for criticizing the regime" is typical fare - added to a BLP, might I add. So if we assume that the Evil Emirates makes North Korea look like a liberal regime (and that is the sort of level of assumption that appears to underpin the selective use of sources and attribution of weight to them), then we can assume that its media is cowed, controlled entirely by the government and therefore not admissible for WP sourcing. Except that's pretty mad, isn't it? The world's 30th largest economy should be excluded from Wikipedia because one editor is getting a severe case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT is hardly an argument that would seem to me to be terribly bright. By arguing here, with no participation from editors FROM the Emirates, that its media aren't RS, you are effectively giving POV-pushing editors carte blanche to demonise and otherwise denigrate and downgrade the UAE on Wikipedia - and that is most certainly the aim of attempting to get UAE media declared non-RS. Or am I wrong? Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 05:43, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Where did this come from? See above explanation (UAE is not a democracy, has censorship, and both of the outlets are directly or indirectly controlled by UAE or emirate government, which significantly influences the independence, hence reliability, of reporting).

They're national daily newspapers in a UN member state. First, there is basically no country in the world which is not part of UN (well, Western Sahara isn't, but it's mostly occupied by Morocco). North Korea and Cuba are also UN member states, which doesn't mean their newspapers are fine; Chinese media mostly aren't reliable, either. You set too low a bar.

What about Khaleej Times, Gulf Today, Ittihad, Bayan and Emarat Al Youm? Why exclude them? Well, these outlets have not been under discussion here. To be brief in my answer: Khaleej Times - no opinion; Gulf Today - should be evaluated together with Khaleej Times, but otherwise no opinion (the owners are the same); Ittihad - same opinion as The National (i.e. since, according to the Arabic Wikipedia (Google-translated) it is owned by the Abu Dhabi Media company, a government-controlled company, it is almost certainly not reliable for political coverage, but might be better for other uses); Emarat Al Youm - published by Dubai Media Inc., a Dubai emirate government company, therefore same opinion as Emirates 24/7.

There's a lot of POV going on here from Snooganssnoogans and its showing in the edits being made Nope. The opinion you quote is the opinion of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Reporters without Borders etc. See this article for details. Since there is ample evidence to the claim, it's not illegal POV-pushing.

So if we assume that the Evil Emirates makes North Korea look like a liberal regime No one is claiming UAE is worse than North Korea - in fact, it's not as abysmal, but it's not good, either. And yes, a lot of media outlets are government-controlled by ownership, while private media are subject to restrictive laws on news reporting, which are not conducive to reliable reporting.

The world's 30th largest economy should be excluded from Wikipedia because one editor is getting a severe case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT is hardly an argument that would seem to me to be terribly bright. Well, we in Wikipedia even deprecate a lot of outlets from the world's second-largest economy. Just how big the country's economy is is irrelevant.

By arguing here, [...] media declared non-RS. Or am I wrong? We on Wikipedia don't care to create a positive image for UAE, but an objective one. Unfortunately, it is often not possible to do so using domestic media. You are free to share your opinions, but do expect them to be confronted with analyses from other editors, which will often include objective criteria, such as ownership, country of operation, tone of coverage of politically delicate matters etc. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 08:01, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

We do, indeed, aim to create an objective picture. That includes using media sources on the ground. Yes, they are uncritical of the leadership. But I don't think your picture of a censored media governed by restrictive laws is fair these days, either. Balance is clearly always good, but we also need to make sure we don't swing the other way in our eagerness to balance things, giving WP:UNDUE weight to certain aspects of life in the Emirates. Blanket deprecating the national media is really not the way to go, IMHO. An afterthought - the media here is not used as a tool for international influence or political point-scoring like, for instance, RT or CCTV. It's domestic media covering domestic affairs for a domestic audience. And in many, many cases for WP, it's the only source editors here can use - and reliable in the vast majority of cases. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 10:31, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Which is exactly my concern. As I said, until we have evaluated them all on WP:RSP, I'd propose not to use them at least when describing a) whatever pertains to the royal family and their government, as their reporting will not be objective; b) whatever is written about countries on the Arabian peninsula, because, as we know, they are not particularly friendly of each other (one of the reasons I would not cite Al Jazeera in this case, too, even the English one); c) I'd be still cautious with the Israel coverage even when the relations have normalised; reporting on other Arab countries and Iran should also be given particular attention while citing; if possible, we should use other resources; if not, evaluate the plausibility and cite with attribution. Additional considerations may apply for other media resources, particularly if not controlled by UAE government, except for point a) from the list, because AFAIK Arab media do not have a tradition to criticise the rulers of the country in which they are in.

Also, all of the reporting has to be evaluated for neutrality and being due. What sounds like blatant promotion of the monarch, or, in the case cited, an interview that was almost certainly paid for should not be included, which is of course not only the problem of UAE (it is happening in Ukraine, for instance, relatively often).

I propose to use them for non-controversial news relating to domestic affairs (e.g. opening of a highway) and while reporting the stance of the government of UAE (federal or emirate), with attribution in the latter case. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 12:01, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

None of the UAE newspapers offer paid-for editorial outside 'special advertising supplements', which are clearly flagged as such. FWIW. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 15:13, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

The comments by Alexandermcnabb seem confused as to what reliability entails. Reliability is not determined on the basis of where a source is located. Breitbart News isn't a RS for US politics just because it's located in the US. In fact, there are many non-US news outlets that are far more reliable for US politics than Breitbart. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:55, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

No confusion here. Brietbart has an extreme agenda - you yourself used the phrase, "Arab media do not have a tradition to criticise the rulers of the country in which they are in" and that's very true. Beyond that, UAE media are generally (GENERALLY) not politicised or regional in their focus. And they don't have extreme or fringe motivations, they're not puppet media of the regime, they're generally let well alone to do their job: reporting news. Gulf News can get a bit purple sometimes. But that's hardly the stuff of broad deprecation. My point regarding location is that these newspapers are the only sources generally available to WP editors based in the Emirates. And they are generally sound, if perhaps also generally uncritical. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 15:12, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I think their coverage is almost always highly politicized... What it is not is polarized because that requires the toleration of at least one opposing political group. If you want an example of why we can’t use Gulf News see their coverage related to Latifa Al Maktoum... Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:07, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, these are obviously reliable. I suggest everyone here tread carefully, so others don't assume that this is thinly veiled racism and/or Islamophobia. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:00, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

• Reliable for uncontroversial statements of fact but I would not use them in any area where there is a conflict of interest based on their ownership, for all intents and purposes neither of these organizations has real editorial independence. Unreliable areas would include human rights, civil rights, Emirati royal families, international relations, national security, and all BLP. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:31, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Salomon Morel

I have been locked out of editing for Salomon Morel, who was a Jewish man whose family was murdered in the Holocaust. The information on his wikipedia page is provided by Polish nationalists, and one of the sources cited is the many citations in that article is from the "Institute of National Remembrance", which is an anti-Semitic organization known to spread anti-Jewish lies and propaganda since inception.

Is the text of an Executive Order by the President of the United States a Reliable Source for the Content of that Order

Hi,

I changed the text of the Christopher Rufo article as shown below. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christopher_Rufo&type=revision&diff=1022288141&oldid=1022256751

Specifically, the language of the article stated, citing a secondary source, that the order prohibited

" diversity training in federal agencies".

 I changed this to 

'diversity training training incorporating certain "divisive concepts" (such as claims that the United States in intrinsically racist, or that individuals of certain races are inherently racist)',

following the language of the Executive Order, and because the order clearly was not a blanket prohibition on diversity training. (Please note that I placed scare quotes around the former President's value judgment that these concepts were divisive, so as not to make this claim in Wikipedia's name.)

After being reverted for "synthesis" and for "unreliable sources", another editor came in and changed the language to

"diversity training that addressed topics such as systemic racism, white privilege and critical race theory", again criticizing me for using a primary source for the language in my edit.

It seems to me that the most reliable source for what an Executive Order requires is the text of the Executive Order itself, not a third party's summary of what the Executive Order says. Certainly the courts, in adjudicating whether someone had violated the order, would rely on the text of the Executive Order itself and not someone else's interpretation of it. The words "systemic racism", "white privilege" and "critical race theory" do not appear in the Executive Order. I believe the most accurate description of what the Executive Order prohibited is that found in the Executive Order itself.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/09/28/2020-21534/combating-race-and-sex-stereotyping

Could someone please contact Snooganssnoogans and Neutrality and let them know I posted here. I'm not sure how to best do that.

2603:8080:4C01:B0B7:A9F1:A46E:6329:24BD (talk) 22:01, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Secondary sources are better than primary sources, and this is what Neutrality has added to the article. Guettarda (talk) 22:22, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

To expand on this - secondary sources are reliable and can be used to support "facts" - whereas the executive order can only be used as a source for what it says. The president issuing an order can say whatever they want to in that order - regardless of its truth or how misleading it may be, and regardless of whether it is true to the legal effect the order will have (as the President can't say what legal effect it will have, that's up to the courts and the implementation thereof). So no, it's not okay to use the executive order to make claims, outside of a quotation, about what the order will do. You placed quotes around only one part of it - which implies that the rest of it was Wikipedia making the claim - and that is not a claim that can be sourced to a primary source. I am not sure why it seems to you that it does - but it shouldn't. The courts will not rely on one quote from the order, they rely on it as a whole as well as many other pieces of information - as evidenced by the fact that Trump's orders claiming they weren't racist at all in banning people from specific countries (based on race) were almost all struck down for being illegal. That type of information doesn't come from the order - it comes from third party summaries of it - and it's why we could report that they were likely illegal on Wikipedia even before they were struck down. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 22:26, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm still not quite understanding. I thought I was using the text of the Executive Order for exactly that purpose. To report "what it says". It's particularly difficult for me to see that, for example, a wrongful termination lawsuit would be settled based on the court concluding that the plantiff had taught "Critical Race Theory". The ruling would be based on whether or not the plantiff had violated the precise language of the Order. The order specifically prohibits training based on a list of specified topics that I gave examples of.

If an editor is not qualified to interpret the literal language of the Executive Order to report what it says, how is s/he qualified to interpret the literal language of the secondary source to report what it says? I'm not interpreting anything here, I'm reporting what the Order says.

2603:8080:4C01:B0B7:A9F1:A46E:6329:24BD (talk) 22:32, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

2603:8080:4C01:B0B7:A9F1:A46E:6329:24BD (talk) 22:32, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Reporting what it said would be putting the entire thing in quotation marks, and attributing that text to the order itself. You did not do such. Furthermore, our due weight policy applies here. If the vast majority of reliable sources (other than the order itself) hold the legal opinion that the wording is inaccurate, misleading, etc. then including a direct quote of the order without also including why that quote is considered irrelevant or unenforceable by reliable sources is improperly introducing a point of view by omission into the article. User:Snooganssnoogans said it well - you cherry picked one quote, didn't put it in quotation marks or attribute it, and you ignored the secondary sources which state that the text has the legal enforcement potential of banning diversity training as a whole. In fact, you ignored some of Trump's own comments (and others) that stated in no uncertain terms that was the goal of the order. You're focusing a lot on the text, and you're trying to impart your opinion as to what the text would do on us, while you're ignoring the plethora of legal scholars that disagree with you. That's not how Wikipedia works. We respect mainstream consensus views of scholars in a field - not one person's opinion that disagrees with those that do this on a daily basis. We aren't "interpreting the literal language of the secondary source". We are repeating what the secondary sources say. You claimed in one edit that you "didn't have an axe to grind", but if not, then why are you trying so hard to state that your opinion on the order (which is contrary to mainstream consensus of legal scholars) is correct? That's the definition of trying to grind an axe, and it's not how Wikipedia works. Your opinion does not trump that of reliable secondary sources' opinion. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 22:38, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. If we could limit the discussion to the issues and not speculating on one another's motives, I think it would be very helpful. If NPOV is the issue, it might be worth pointing out that other media outlets summarized the order differently than that currently cited in the article. The WSJ stated that the Order

"prohibits federal agencies, companies with federal contracts, and recipients of federal grants from participating in training that “promotes race or sex-stereotyping or scapegoating.” https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-order-against-diversity-training-generates-confusion-11602063000

There are lots of opinions out there about what the Executive Order requires, but it seems to me that the literal language of the Order is what matters. Third parties can say that the order prohibits walking your dog after 7 pm. And if they are major media outlets we can report that they said that. But at some point we should mention that the words "walking your dog" don't appear in the text of the order.

Giving the literal language of the text is not "stating an opinion", let alone trying to force it on anyone.

2603:8080:4C01:B0B7:A9F1:A46E:6329:24BD (talk) 22:49, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

You once again cherrypick the WSJ quoting the order - not commenting on it. I'm not sure if you have access to the WSJ to read the entire article (I do), but they make clear that it will do more (and had, at that time done more) than it claims by a quote. And no, we don't generally care about mentioning what words are in primary sources - we leave it to secondary sources to summarize and opine and we then follow their claims as to what is in the order. That is why you were referred to WP:SYNTH - because by the way you're including the text of the order, you're attempting to present a viewpoint that is not present in reliable, secondary sources - again - it's the way you're including it and excluding other views. No, giving literal language isn't stating an opinion, but how you present it, and what information you choose to include/exclude, does. By excluding the many reliable sources that disagree with you, you are not attempting to follow a neutral point of view - you are attempting to only allow sources that agree with your personal opinion. I am not going to explain this further - because it's clear that you have no interest in actually becoming an editor, you are only here to attempt to push your point of view on that executive order into articles. If you continue to attempt to do this, then you may find yourself blocked from that/related article(s) for being disruptive and pushing a point of view. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 23:03, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Well, I see my respectful request that we not speculate on each other's motives will not be respected. In fact, the WSJ quotes are not scare quotes, they are quotes indicating that they are using the exact language from the order. I can see how things are going here, and so I'll drop this. But I never thought partisanship would rise so high as for people to claim that a document is not a reliable source for what the document says. That's Kafkaesque.

2603:8080:4C01:B0B7:A9F1:A46E:6329:24BD (talk) 23:30, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

The document is reliable for the content. For example, if we wanted to quote a Biblical passage that supports slavery we could - and we could summarise the meaning / translate for instance, so long as we fundamentally relied on the Primary Source for all content and context. But if we wanted to write a section about The Bible and quote the passage with various value judgements or meanings then that would be an incorrect use of the Primary Source. To try and use the Primary Source to override the interpretation of Secondary Sources is equally fallacious. It is a kind of appeal to authority, but where the authority is considered unreliable for the purposes of describing their own work (such is bias). This is why we generally do not use biographies or autobiographies or personal statements without some corroboration. Koncorde (talk) 00:12, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Note: There is an entire Wikiproject, which is Wikisource, which exists to host public domain primary source documents. If the aim here is to reproduce the contents of such a document, that is the place to do it. BD2412 T 00:28, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

It's a reliable (albeit primary) source, but in the context of your diff I think that's probably original research (as the executive order doesn't mention Rufo) and improper use of a primary source. In that context, you're bordering on implying the purpose of the order. It should really be for secondary sources to describe what the order actually did, not sourcing to what the government said it was. Otherwise we'd get very strange results; for example if you took the government's word on the 'purpose' of 2019 British prorogation controversy, Trump travel ban, United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, etc., you'd reach conclusions completely contradicting what reliable sources and scholars say about it. I suspect similar applies here. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:36, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: just to note that the word "content" in the request is ambiguous. Content can mean the literal text, for which the EO is a reliable source, or it can mean the significance of the text, for which we require secondary sources if there is the slightest risk of misunderstanding. — Charles Stewart (talk) 09:40, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia fork

User:Ayaltimo is supporting wikipedia mirrors, i've explained to the user before that they're unreliable. [41] Reference being used [42] See their edit [43]. The user seems to think its ok to leave since it was on the page for 2 years based on their edit summary. [44]. The statement in the article isnt even found in the sources. The reference looks to be self published as well. I couldnt find any results that Yohannes is a "verified Ethiopian historian" per Ayaltimo's claim either. Magherbin (talk) 22:51, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Comparing the source added by Ayaltimo with a version of the article at the end of March 2013—that is, immediately before the source was published—shows huge swaths of copied text. I don't think the entire source is cut-and-paste plagiarism, but much of it is. And what isn't appears to be closely paraphrased, which is almost as bad. The author is certainly no scholar if he's copying our articles. Ayaltimo, this is not a reliable source and you should stop edit warring to include it. WP:BRD says that if you make an edit and it's reverted, it's up to you to make a case for the edit and the source's reliability on the Talk page. Woodroar (talk) 23:06, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps this should be taken to the talk or WP:ANI. Firestar464 (talk) 02:57, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Not reliable if it's copied as a circular reference. I hope Ayaltimo will heed the advice of editors here. Spudlace (talk) 18:55, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Huffpost

Link: [45]

HuffPost has failed fact checks [46][47][48]. Does this impact the reliability of HuffPost? Firestar464 (talk) 02:45, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

The HuffPo story fact-checked by Snopes (your first link) did not state as true the fact that Snopes was checking. HuffPo made a correction to the story checked by CheckYourFact (your third link). I don't have a great read on what was going on with the FullFact checked story, but whatever happened, The Times also fell for it. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 02:59, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

The FullFact one (second link) is a problem of how several newspapers, including the Times, as well as HuffPo misunderstood some stats. HuffPo corrected within four days with a full expalnation. This is an example of a corrected honest error not of unreliability. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:05, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

The CheckYourFact one (third link) seems pretty minor and it was corrected with an explanation within 17 hours of first publication. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:02, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

KUSI-TV

I have some concerns generally about the political slant, editorial independence and reliability of KUSI-TV, a television station in San Diego. In January 2019, the station said CNN had refused to have on one of their reporters for political reasons, but had no evidence for the claim. When U.S. Congressman Duncan D. Hunter did an interview with KUSI-TV in December 2019, while he was in the middle of a federal indictment, the station stuck to questions provided by his team. And in August 2020, they ran a highly flattering "exclusive" with notorious anti-vaccine activist (and later Capitol stormer) Simone Gold, framing her as "censored" and writing about "why the medical community, and Democrat legislators won’t embrace the drug as a valid treatment option for those infected with coronavirus" and "the success they have had using Hydroxychloroquine to treat patients infected with coronavirus." Needless to say, this recent track record of imbalance to the U.S. Republican Party and political right is concerning for what is supposed to be an independent station. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 06:47, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Baltimore quote

In the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists there is an article by Nicholas Wade which has the following passage:[49]

For the lab escape scenario, the double CGG codon is no surprise. The human-preferred codon is routinely used in labs. So anyone who wanted to insert a furin cleavage site into the virus’s genome would synthesize the PRRA-making sequence in the lab and would be likely to use CGG codons to do so.

“When I first saw the furin cleavage site in the viral sequence, with its arginine codons, I said to my wife it was the smoking gun for the origin of the virus,” said David Baltimore, an eminent virologist and former president of CalTech. “These features make a powerful challenge to the idea of a natural origin for SARS2,” he said.

Is the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists a reliable source for stating that the most notable living virologist and former president of Caltech David Baltimore is of the opinion that:

“These features make a powerful challenge to the idea of a natural origin for SARS2,”

and that he questions the natural origin of SARS2? I am of the opinion that the source is reliable. The writer of the piece Nicholas Wade is a respected science writer who has worked on the staff of Nature, Science, and, for many years, the New York Times. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is a very well respected publication with an incredible leadership team. And lastly, David Baltimore himself is on the board of sponsors and therefore knows fully well that he is being quoted on the record. --Guest2625 (talk) 07:39, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

If you're looking for quotes to support WP:FRINGE viewpoints, David Baltimore looks like a good candidate given his prominence as a Nobel Laureate and well known scientist working in virology. His quote could be used to support the notion that there is a fringe viewpoint, but his singular opinion, in-and-of-itself is not sufficient to say that the accepted view among the preponderance of virologists that SARS-CoV-2 is of natural origin. Simply put, his viewpoint may be used to show its existence, but not to give it any credence as likely to be true. --Jayron32 14:10, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Science Vs Podcast (and podcasts more generally)

As podcasts become more prominent is there any discussion about evaluating them individually as RS? Some are SPS and others are legitimate corporate media or educational productions affiliated with legit institutions. It's frustrating that all can be dismissed as merely a podcast. I suppose YouTube videos suffer from the same batch condemnation. Specifically, I'm asking about the podcast "Science Vs" which seems to me to be GREL. They make a comprehensive review of the literature and fact check much better than your average media outlet and provide extensive in line citations (often over a hundred) in the transcript. Produced by Gimlet Media, The show was a 2020 nominee for a Podcast Award, and the host Wendy Zukerman is a nominee for a 2021 Podcast Academy "Ambie" Best Host Award. It has over 13,000 reviews on Apple podcasts and a rating of 4.5 stars. It is Spotify's #1 science podcast in the US, Australia, Great Britain. It is Spotify's #48 podcast overall. It is Apple's #8 Science podcast in the US. This has come up here. Thanks. DolyaIskrina (talk) 07:49, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Not sure on this one specifically, but insofar that any podcast can be cited, it would be held to the same standards as radio and TV broadcasts. Wikipedia has a {{cite episode}} template, and has had one since 2006. Any policy we have for correctly citing a radio or TV broadcast would rather self-evidently be applicable to other similar media, such as podcasts. WP:RS sadly doesn't contain any specific guidance on broadcast sources, except noting that they would be covered no differently than written sources by existing policies and guidelines "The term "published" is most commonly associated with text materials, either in traditional printed format or online; however, audio, video, and multimedia materials that have been recorded then broadcast, distributed, or archived by a reputable party may also meet the necessary criteria to be considered reliable sources." So, insofar as the source is reliable, being a podcast is not a particular hurdle to also clear. --Jayron32 14:01, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Much appreciated. I see now that there is also a {{cite podcast}} template.DolyaIskrina (talk) 16:30, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

References

change.org ?

I don't know how the blacklist works exactly, but I wanted to add the change.org link as a primary source to support the secondary source on Railway Hotel, Edgware which I was updating, but it wouldn't let me. Are you really not allowed to use change.org for primary citing? Govvy (talk) 08:49, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Unreliable and undue in almost all circumstances. This would fall under user generated contents much like Vimeo, blogspot, and YouTube. A rare exception would be when it is covered in a reliable media source and it is discussed in the news article and you use it as a supplemental source, but you can not make inference or make your own analysis from what is said in it per our policy against original research. Graywalls (talk) 09:03, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I only really wanted to use it as a supplement source to support (Handley, Rhys (16 August 2016). "Edgware's long-abandoned Railway Hotel could be saved by petition to Historic England to bring it back into public use". Times Series. Retrieved 10 May 2021.) Which I had added in as inline. Govvy (talk) 09:10, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

US diplomatic cables on Wikileaks

In this Wikipedia:Biographies of living_persons/Noticeboard#Sisay Leudetmounsone, User:Thucydides411 has stated that we can be sure this document [50] is an original, unmodified, transmitted US diplomatic cable. To be clear, there is no reliable source discussion anyone has found of this cable. It's not something particularly interesting or contentious. It's only being used because so far no one has found a different source, such as an official Laotian government document or news report from the time. And although it's a US diplomatic cable, there isn't much concern over bias as it's simply a listing of members of the 8th Laotian Central Committee and whether they are new.

The main question is whether we can be sure of this cable since Wikileaks by their nature isn't that transparent over where the information came from, and how it was processed. There was a set of US diplomatic cables leaked over a decade ago that most RS consider authentic, but it's not clear to me how we know from Wikileaks this is part of that batch, however Thucydides411 believes it is part of the batch.

Also, while this cable has metadata suggesting it was transmitted, it's not clear to me how we can be sure without WP:OR that this cable was transmitted, instead of something like a draft.

WP:RSPS suggests there are concerns over whether documents hosted on Wikileaks are what they purport to be, but that doesn't preclude a particular set of documents being considered definitely authentic. Although this concerns a BLP and there is an ongoing discussion at BLPN, I felt it might be useful to bring here since RSN editors are more familiar with assessing the reliability of sources which is the main issue at the moment rather than BLP specific issues.

At the moment, my personal view is that the cable isn't an acceptable source, given uncertainty over its authenticity, but if the general consensus is with Thucydides411 that we can be sure this cable is authentic, then I guess I'm wrong. It may be better to comment at BLPN to avoid a split discussion.

Nil Einne (talk) 11:16, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I see no problems with using it, possibly with attribution to Wikileaks. You can never have 100% confidence as even the most reliable sources make errors so you can cast this kind of existential doubt on everything. Wikileaks have been criticised a lot for many things but I don't think they have been accused of forging cables. Alaexis_¿question? 11:33, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Its a BLP, source is required to be reliable and secondary except for uncontentious primary sources (those released by the subject themselves). Even if you take out Wikileaks involvement, it would at best still be a primary source (for the government) if we were 100% certain of its origin. And for that to be the case, it would have needed to be released by the author, or have a reliable secondary source confirming its authenticity. The problem with this one is that while the leaks in general are considered authentic per secondary sources, they are in context of discussing a particular cable "in cable blah ambassador blah said blah". There is no secondary coverage on this, and we only have Wikileaks word for it that they are part of the released cables, and last I checked, Wikileaks themselves are not a reliable source either. So no, the ENWP article is about a living person, and this is so far below our requirements for BLP's that I am surprised people are even questioning it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:07, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

The claim that this source supports is entirely uncontentious. Sisay Leudetmounsone is a Laotian politician, who we know from other sources was a member of the 9th, 10th and 11th Central Committees of the ruling party in Laos. This source is being used to document that she first joined the 8th Central Committee. This is not in any way an extraordinary claim, or one that would in any way be damaging to the subject of the BLP.

The US diplomatic cable in question is extremely straightforward. It is simply a list of members of the Central Committee of the ruling party in Laos, with a few pieces of data on each member (present position, former positions, date of birth, place of birth, ethnicity, whether or not they are new members of the Central Committee). This is not a nuanced source that requires any analysis by editors here.

I think this cable could reasonably be considered a secondary source. It's an unusual secondary source, in that it was never meant for public consumption. It was intended to update the US State Department on the composition of the Laotian ruling party's Central Committee. But it is a work of analysis by someone (US embassy staff) not directly connected to the events in question (the election of the Central Committee). As for reliability, I see no reason why the US embassy in Vientiane would be unreliable for basic factual information of this kind. Many other cables contain subjective analysis of politics and other matters, but this is a straightforward list of people sitting on a prominent political body in Laos.

This is an authentic US diplomatic cable. The US diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks from Chelsea Manning are widely acknowledged as genuine, and have been used by countless articles in reliable sources for reporting. Der Spiegel published a FAQ on the cables, which states:

DER SPIEGEL, the New York Times, London's Guardian, Paris' Le Monde and Madrid's El Pais have viewed, analyzed and vetted the mass of data provided to the publications by WikiLeaks.

When it first began publishing on the cables, New York Times described them in this way:

A cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years, provides an unprecedented look at back-room bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats.

These cables have been used and treated as genuine in so many articles that it's impossible to even begin to count. I'll give just a few random examples: The Hindu, The BBC, CBC, FT, Haaretz, and CNN. There's no doubt about whether or not the cables are genuine, so the only question is whether or not this particular cable can be considered a reliable source for the claim it's making.

Finally, there is not a huge amount of coverage of Laotian politics in the international press. For larger/wealthier countries, I would expect there to be plenty of news coverage of the composition of the leading political bodies in the country. I have looked for other English-language sources on the composition of the 8th Central Committee of the Laotian ruling party, and I have not found any. Yet this is clearly an important political body within Laos, and not using this source would leave a gap in Wikipedia's coverage. We have problems with WP:SYSTEMICBIAS and global perspective, and part of the problem is spotty English-language coverage of events in some parts of the world. But in this case, we have a relatively straightforward source that should be reliable for this sort of basic factual information, and I think we should use it. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:20, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

For a BLP, no it isn't reliable. Being unable to find an alternative source makes it more important to not use it. Anyway, intelligence reports and diplomatic cables often contain mistakes; that's why we need historians. Zero^talk 13:59, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Why is it unreliable? Newspaper articles also often contain mistakes, but that's not a reason to dismiss them entirely. This is a straightforward list of members of a major political body in Laos. I don't see any reason to doubt the reliability of the list - it seems like the sort of information that a diplomatic cable would be highly reliable for. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:06, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

• I think it's ridiculous to suggest that this source is primary: It was not written by the BLP or the government/committee the BLP was part of.

But I also think it's ridiculous to assert that this source passes any other criteria at WP:RS. Wikileaks itself is unreliable for various reasons, and as such, we can't trust material hosted by them unless that material is independently vetted.

The claim seems remarkably uncontentious, however. So I really think this is a good question for this board, and not for WP:BLPN, as that's reserved for BLP issues, and this is entirely a non-issue. I personally don't believe this source merits inclusion on WP, for any claim, as things stand. But I find the arguments that it's not BLP worthy or that it's primary to be spurious.

I'm open to revising my opinion if anyone can find an RS that establishes that this particular cable was part of the verified leak. That would include any copy (whole or partial) of the leak hosted by an RS which includes this cable. Basically, find this cable hosted by any RS, and I'm willing to accept that it's RS for the purposes of this claim. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:23, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

The cache of 250k diplomatic cables on WikiLeaks' site is the same cache that Der Spiegel, the NY Times, the Guardian, Le Monde and El Pais reported on. Le Monde (and the other 4 news outlets that WikiLeaks worked with) explicitly stated that this is the case:

WikiLeaks, le site spécialisé dans la publication de documents confidentiels, a publié dans la nuit de jeudi à vendredi 2 septembre la base de données complète et non expurgée des 250 000 câbles diplomatiques américains en sa possession. L'an dernier, le site avait communiqué à cinq journaux partenaires, dont Le Monde, ces documents confidentiels.

WikiLeaks, the site that specializes in the publication of confidential documents, published the entire non-redacted database of 250,000 American diplomatic cables in its possession on the night of Friday, 2 September. Last year, the site had communicated these confidential documents to five partner newspapers, including Le Monde.

The diplomatic cables are a very well known database, so it's not as if we're discussing some obscure WikiLeaks leak here. We're discussing possibly the most famous leak, which is treated as genuine by every news article I've ever seen on the subject. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:43, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

The cache of 250k diplomatic cables on WikiLeaks' site is the same cache that Der Spiegel, the NY Times, the Guardian, Le Monde and El Pais reported on. I'm aware, it's just that we can't know that this cable was a part of that cache at the time, or that it was one of the individual cables they verified (because we know they didn't laboriously go through each and every one).

Basically, the cache itself has been confirmed, but we don't have confirmation that this cable belongs to it, except by data generated by Wikileaks, which is not reliable. If any RS can link this cable to the cash, then I'd be happy to consider it RS for this claim.

My personal opinion is that this cable is most likely authentic and accurate, but without being able to demonstrate such, I don't think we can use it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:55, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're saying. The cable we're discussing is from the cache of US diplomatic cables - the one that Le Monde discusses above. I've never heard of a different cache of US diplomatic cables hosted by WikiLeaks, so I'm quite confused by what you're saying. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:19, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

What I'm saying is that we don't know that this isn't some fake document inserted into the cache or falsely claimed to be a part of the cache by some bad faith actor (which might include Wikileaks itself). I highly doubt that's the case because I can't think of a reason they would do this. However, I'm not an international cyberespionage expert, so it remains a possibility unless and until we can connect this specific cable to the cache through some RS. My advice would be to do a backlink search for the URL of the document on Wikileaks, then look for a result that appears in an RS. So if, for example, the NYT links this document deep in the bowels of one of their stories on the cache leak, than that would be enough proof to convince me that this is a legit document, good enough for the claim. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:34, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: It occurs to me that if the claim is that she joined in the 8th Central Committee, then I think one could use WP:CALC to grab a source for the 7th that doesn't list her as a member, and a source for that 9th that lists her as a returning member, and use that. I'd be okay with it, because there's really no logical explanation for that except that she joined during the 8th. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:08, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Der Spiegel explicitly says (as I quoted above) that the five newspapers that WikiLeaks worked with vetted the entire cache. Le Monde (as well as many other news agencies) reported that the cache published by WikiLeaks is the same cache that the five newspapers worked with. Additionally, countless news articles treat this cache as genuine (see the random sample of news articles I linked to above). On the contrary, I've never seen any reliable source claim that there are any faked cables in the cache. The idea that the cache contains fake cables is a new claim to me, but if there are sources that support it, please provide them. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:19, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I do not see the assertion that "five newspapers that WikiLeaks worked with vetted the entire cache" (emphasis added), either in your quotes or in the Der Spiegel English-language article you linked. I see the assertion that 5 RSes have vetted "the cache", however. But perhaps they did that by spot-checking a representative sample.

Also, even if they had, in fact, checked every single document, there's no way to know whether or not this was retroactively added to it at a later date.

You keep asserting that the document on WikiLeaks is "inarguably" part of the original cache and thus, a legitimate US cable, but that's the very assertion that I (and others here and, I'm sure, on BLPN) are disputing. Clearly, it's not inarguable.

To put it another way, it is the provenance of this individual document which is being disputed, not the authenticity of the cache, or even the contents of this document.

As mentioned above, I see two paths forward here: you can establish the provenance of this document through an RS mention (a backlink search would be your friend here), or you can sidestep the objections by finding two other citations and doing a WP:CALC. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:39, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

• As I said before the lack of a reliable publisher puts us in a tough spot with the wikileaks cables, my general interpretation is that unless content from one from one of them is published by a WP:RS (such as the BBC NYT etc) then they simply do not fall into the material usable under our WP:VERIFIABILITY policy. Anytime you’re examining metadata to determine accuracy you’re deep into OR and jumped the shark long ago. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:02, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

For the purposes of this discussion, the source whose reliability we have to determine is the US embassy in Vientiane, as they authored the document. For this sort of basic, factual information, I consider them reliable. If we were dealing with matters of opinion or nuanced analysis, then I would say that they are a potentially biased source. However, for a simple list of members of a prominent political body in Laos, they strike me as being just as reliable as any other good secondary source. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:23, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I don’t think thats true, we also have to determine the reliability of the publisher who in this case is wikileaks. If the US embassy in Vientiane had published this document you would have a point, but they didn’t. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:36, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

No, we're discussing the document hosted on Wikileaks. This is indisputably a primary source and we only use those with caution. The onus is on those arguing that this document is reliable and so far I haven't seen much evidence of that. Moreover, if the only place information can be found is in a primary source with questionable reliability then it's highly unlikely that the information should be included in an encyclopedia article at all. ElKevbo (talk) 17:37, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

• I agree with the OP, we don't consider Wikileaks an acceptable source. It's listed at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources as generally unreliable. This came up at my Kigali FAC, which was also related to a diplomatic cable, and I was asked to switch the source to a different one.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:45, 10 May 2021 (UTC)