Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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Is PolitiFact a reliable source for fact checking?

1. Is PolitiFact [1] a reliable source for reporting the veracity of statements made by political candidates? The relevant context is the proposed wording in this RfC at Donald Trump. Here is the relevant source: [2]

2. Is PolitiFact a reliable source for reporting the percentage of false statements made by a political candidate (of the statements checked by PolitiFact), provided that attribution is given? The relevant context is the proposed wording (both versions in the blue boxes) in this section at Donald Trump. Here are the relevant sources: [3] [4]

(Added clarification in green 22:20, 28 August 2016 (UTC)) updated link underlying "in this section" as the section has been archived Jytdog (talk) 05:44, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. - MrX 15:59, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

NOTE: Regarding the second question, here are full cites to the two sources linked above:

• Holan, Angie et al. "2015 Lie of the Year: the campaign misstatements of Donald Trump", Politifact (December 21, 2015).
• Sharockman, Aaron. "The truth (so far) behind the 2016 campaign", Politifact (June 29, 2016).

The Holan article is also the source cited above for the first question.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:53, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Survey and discussion

• Yes Obviously. The claims that they are unreliable are confined to opinion pieces and unreliable sources such as Breitbart.com. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:02, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
• Yes. Obviously. It has all the hallmarks of reliable sourcing: a professional journalistic operation, frequent citation by others (WP:USEBYOTHERS), awards and recognition from the profession (e.g., Pulitzer Prize). Neutrality^talk 18:22, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
• Yes. The Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact of the 12-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Tampa Bay Times which is owned by the respected non-profit Poynter Institute is a reliable source. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:07, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
• Yes. I cannot add anything to the points clearly made above. --MelanieN (talk) 21:48, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
• Yes provided the statement selected for fact-checking is clear as to what the speaker was trying to communicate[5] and no, respectively. Yes, they are reliable for determining whether a given statement is true or false or somewhere in between. But, no, they are not a reliable source for a purported "percentage of false statements made by a political candidate" because they would then have to analyze every sentence uttered by the candidate, and evaluate it for truth or falsity, which would be completely impractical, and is not something that Politifact has ever attempted to do. They can say the percentage of false statements among those they have evaluated, but then a high percentage could simply mean that they only evaluated the statements that they most expected would be determined false.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:04, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

  What I meant in the second question is percentage of false statements of the statements PolitiFact evaluated. I have now clarified this in the question.- MrX 22:22, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Okay, if that is what you meant, then I still think that Politifact is not a reliable source for the percentage of false statements of those that they evaluated, if they fail to explain how they selected the statements to evaluate, or if they selected the statements based upon inquiries by unknown people. In the latter case, those unknown people are unreliable, and hence the percentages depending upon those unknown people are unreliable as well. And, as I previously said above, "They can say the percentage of false statements among those they have evaluated, but then a high percentage could simply mean that they only evaluated the statements that they most expected would be determined false." Please note that I have given distinct answers to the two questions posed; I request that the closer not jump to the conclusion that people who only gave one answer were attempting to answer more than the first question.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:38, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Politifact is a source of both news and opinion, and Wikipedia treats those two things very differently in a BLP. Per WP:OR opinion pieces are primary sources rather than secondary sources, and per WP:BLPPRIMARY (which is under a section about reliable sources within WP:BLP) "Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources....Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source, subject to the restrictions of this policy, no original research, and the other sourcing policies." It therefore seems to me that opinion pieces by Politifact can only be valid and reliable for our purposes if the opinion is also discussed by a reliable secondary source, and so mere inline attribution to Politifact is not enough. The RFC statement above cites a Politifact article by Angie Holan for both of the two questions posed, and that article is an opinion piece; it's title expresses an opinion about who should get an award for worst lie, and Holan goes on to make generalizations like "Donald Trump doesn’t let facts slow him down. Bending the truth or being unhampered by accuracy is a strategy he has followed for years.... when challenged, he offers flimsy explanations and suggests he shouldn’t be held accountable -- or simply insists he’s right." There are other Politifact pieces that are mainly factual rather than opinion, and I think we can use those factual pieces as reliable sources to evaluate particular statements by Trump, but this piece is opinion, and so it would require not just inline attribution but also discussion by a separate reliable secondary source.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:18, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

• Yes. Criticisms from those not given poor ratings are generally about the concept of fact-checking as opposed to unreliability of Politfact itself. Objective3000 (talk) 22:15, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
• Yes and No. My objection on the second question above is basically the same as expressed by Anythingyouwant above: While the fact-checking organizations may be reliable for the specific statements that they analyze, we need to be careful about comparing percentages of False statements between candidates. As far as I'm aware, the fact checking organizations don't use a systematic approach in selecting which and how many of a politician's statements to analyze. Unless there's some indication that the statements are chosen for analysis in a systematic, unbiased manner, percentages can't be considered objective.CFredkin (talk) 22:54, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Well, yeah, exactly. That's why the OP is proposing in-text attribution for the comparison of falsehood rates: because it is inherently somewhat subjective. When a reliable source (like Politifact) makes a subjective judgement, then we convey that using in-text attribution. This is Wikipedia 101. MastCell ^Talk 04:37, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
    • Our role as editors calls on us to exercise good judgement regarding whether information is potentially mis-leading, regardless of whether it's mentioned in reliable sources. As mentioned above, factors like the selection process of the statements being analyzed can have a dramatic impact on the percentages being quoted. Thus far, no editor, either here or at the article Talk page has directly addressed this concern.CFredkin (talk) 05:11, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
      • In-text attribution for the percentages is necessary but more would be preferable, such as reliable third-party reporting of the Politifact percentages that is independent of Politifact. Otherwise Politifact would be in a position similar to a self-published source for material about a living person, not written or published by the subject of the biographical material. Separately, any attribution to Politifact would also be safest if supplemented by attribution to the unknown people who submitted the inquiries to Politifact, if Politifact used and were influenced by such inquiries (i.e. the nature of the inquiries could apparently significantly shape the percentages). If all of these steps are taken, I still doubt that these very malleable percentages have much relevance to the BLP, but that's a matter for discussion at the BLP talk page.Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:14, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
        • You lost me. Politifact is not a self-published source, nor is it "in a position similar to a self-published source", and I don't see how you can maneuver it into being one. It's a third-party reliable source, and can be used for statements of fact as well as for properly attributed opinion (the latter according to WP:RSOPINION). MastCell ^Talk 17:08, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
          • Per WP:BLPPRIMARY, "Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources....Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source, subject to the restrictions of this policy, no original research, and the other sourcing policies." If we use Politifact as a primary source about its own opinion regarding these percentages, then it would be best to also use a separate secondary source that discusses Politifact's percentages, IMHO.. Additionally, any attribution to Politifact would be safest if supplemented by attribution to the unknown people who submitted the inquiries to Politifact, if Politifact used and were influenced by such inquiries (i.e. the nature of the inquiries could apparently significantly shape the percentages).Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:25, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

"...it may be acceptable to..." and "...it is absolutely required to..." are two completely different things. In addition, if politifact says that they have checked a representative sample of a candidate's claims, then you'd need a reliable source to dispute this, not your own misgivings about whether it's true or not. We don't use WP:OR to pick and choose which statements by a reliable source are actually reliable. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:34, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi User:MjolnirPants, I'm hitting the road now for a long drive, but wanted to reply briefly first. You wrote, "if politifact says that they have checked a representative sample of a candidate's claims...." Has Politifact said that? Or have they said that they checked claims that unnamed people asked them about? Or that they only checked claims that looked doubtful at first blush? Or that they checked a broad sample of Clinton's claims as compared to a narrower sample for Trump that only included Trump claims that looked very doubtful at first blush? How the heck did Politifact choose claims to fact check???Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:53, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

That's why I said "if". If politifact doesn't give any information on how they choose claims for fact checking, then it would take a different source compiling statistics about how many claims they fact check for us to make any statement on the overall honesty of a candidate. If however (as I believe to be the case, but haven't confirmed), politifact says that they fact claim claims based on how notable the claims are (which means how much media coverage the claim gets in the hours and days immediately after it's made), then it's neither synth nor OR for us to say that their results are representative, because the overall honesty of a politician is going to be based on notable claims they make. The other, final option is that they fact check claims based on reader submissions (which may well be the case) and their own judgement as to what 'deserves' to be fact checked. In that case, we can't report an overall judgement unless the fact checking source gives one. In the case that they do provide an overall judgement of a candidate's honesty, then it is our trust in them as reliable which we lean on to determine whether or not to use that. Since it's pretty much universally felt to be a reliable source here at WP, the onus would be on those asserting unreliability. Again, however, that last clause is only the case if the fact checkers themselves make claims about the overall honesty of the candidates, which I don't think too many of them do. In other words:

• If the fact checking sites make claims about the overall honesty of the candidates, and we hold them to be a reliable source, then we should report those claims. We should, however put them in the source's voice instead of wiki voice.
• Alternatively, if the fact checking sites say that 1: they check a representative sample of claims; and 2: that candidate X has more false and fewer true ratings than candidate Y*, it is not synthesis of original information for us to report that candidate X is less honest than candidate Y, because we're not producing a result that is not verifiable from the source. This can be put into wiki voice, I suppose, though I would not prefer it.

*Note that a table showing the number of fact checked claims for each candidate is functionally and logically a claim by the fact checking source that candidate X has more false and fewer true claims than candidate Y, assuming the table demonstrates this. The claim shouldn't need to be made explicitly.

Otherwise, we should not make claims about a candidate's overall honesty. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 19:54, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

User:MjolnirPants, Politifact says, "We get asked all the time how the candidates compare. We often fret the question because we don’t fact-check every claim a politician makes (we’d never sleep), and we may fact-check a statement multiple times if candidates keep repeating themselves." This is strong evidence, it seems to me, that the percentages are subjective and incorporate opinions abut which claims should be fact-checked. It's a red flag that not even Politifact considers these percentages particularly reliable, in contrast to their analyses of a particular statement by a candidate.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:39, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

@Anythingyouwant: Given the statement on that page, I tend to agree that using politifact to make blanket statements about a candidates overall honesty in wikivoice should not be done. I'm still not opposed to doing so in source voice, per WP:BIASED. But we should be careful, using direct quotes and careful attribution. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:19, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

User:MjolnirPants, do you agree that the formulation of these percentages involve a substantial amount of opinion? WP:OR says that opinion is primary source material. And WP:BLPPRIMARY seems to say (or at least strongly suggests) that we would therefore need the percentages to be reported in a secondary source to be used in a BLP. Why do you think inline attribution is enough without any report by some secondary source other than Politifact? Even without WP:OR and without WP:BLPPRIMARY, it seems to May that reporting in a separate secondary source would be needed to indicate that the percentages are sufficiently noteworthy for our purposes.Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:58, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

What I'm talking about with respect to including any claims they make about a candidate's overall honesty is this: Politifact is notable and highly reliable. Politifact says claim X is false. Since Politifact is highly reliable, we can say "claim X is false." but politifact says "Candidate Y is dishonest." However, we have reason to doubt their conclusions, so their reliability for this claim isn't strong. However, they are still notable. The fact that Politifact said "Candidate Y is dishonest" is important to presenting a neutral, complete depiction of Candidate Y. So again, as long as it's very clearly attributed to Politifact, we should include it. Even if it's untrue, it's still worth noting that they said it. Failure to note it is equivilent to saying we can't mention many of Trump's claims which have been fact checked, because they're false. Well, we're not mentioning them because they're true, we're mentioning them because their notable. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:40, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

User:MjolnirPants, Politifact says "we don’t fact-check every claim" and they could easily raise a candidate's percentage of falsehood by simply not checking claims that sound somewhat plausible at first blush. I believe that the Politifact percentages therefore involve opinion. Loads and loads of editorials and opinion-pieces in newspapers and magazines have said very negative things about Trump, and the best way for us to pick and choose which ones to mention is to follow WP:BLPPRIMARY, which seems to advise extreme caution and only use opinion pieces that are sufficiently noteworthy to be reported by secondary sources such as news articles.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:14, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't see anything in BLPPRIMARY that would exclude the reporting of notable opinions. Notably, the section is titled "Avoid misuse of primary sources" (em added), and begins with "Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources". I'm not seeing how anything I've suggested is not using extreme caution, and it's certainly not a misuse of primary sources to report what that source says. Furthermore, in this case (Trump), such opinions have been reported on by secondary sources. So I'm really not seeing a good argument for excluding such opinions (and I don't deny they are opinions, all things considered) here. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:00, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

BLPPRIMARY says "Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source...." I don't see how this could mean anything but that a secondary source is needed in order to rely on a primary source within a BLP. The two questions at the start of this talk page section did not mention any secondary source, and I think the sources mentioned at the start of this section are not reliable without a secondary source, regarding opinions about a BLP subject.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:06, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

PolitiFact isn't a primary source. Full stop. Nor does WP:OR apply to material in reliable sources such as PolitiFact; it applies only to novel interpretations generated by Wikipedia editors. These policy objections are so obviously off-base that their continued repetition here is becoming disruptive. MastCell ^Talk 19:26, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Unless repeated in other media, yes, it certainly can be considered to be a primary source. Full stop. The comment you are responding to does not mention OR either. Arkon (talk) 19:44, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree with User:Arkon. And I do think WP:OR is relevant here. It says that "editorials, columns, blogs, opinion pieces" are primary sources for purposes of the OR policy. I don't see any exemption for editorials and columns that are printed in the New York Times or the like. So the question is whether editorials and columns are also primary sources for purposes of WP:BLP. The answer is clearly "yes" because WP:BLP very prominently links to WP:PRIMARY which is part of WP:OR.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:02, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm glad to see you believe we should abide by the policy at WP:OR, which opens its section on primary sources with Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them.

Since that's exactly what I suggested, can we then agree that it's okay to cite them, so long as we are very careful to attribute it properly? MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:32, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Nope. Per my comment above, "BLPPRIMARY says 'Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source....' I don't see how this could mean anything but that a secondary source is needed in order to rely on a primary source within a BLP." Moreover, the footnote to this part of WP:BLPPRIMARY says "Please note that exceptional claims require exceptional sources". Claiming in the BLP lead that Trump is often false...that's an exceptional claim. So is saying in the article body that x% of his utterances are false.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:01, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

"Anythingyouwant, you may call me handsome if you write it on paper and post a photo of that paper." Does the preceding sentence mean that you may not call me handsome if you simply type it here? No. Simply because the policy says that primary sources may be used under a given set of circumstances does not meant that they may not be used under others. Before you ask "then why would the policy highlight those particular circumstances, if not to set them apart?" let me say that those particular circumstances are ones where many editors would start crying WP:SYNTH" as soon as someone did it. It's not synth, but it really looks like synth if you say "so-and-so said X and Z, and whatsername said Y about X, without addressing so-and-so's additional mention of Z." then source that to so-and-so saying X and Z in one source, and whatsername saying Y in another. So I would say the policy highlights those particular circumstances because those are circumstances under which the rest of the policy isn't entirely clear.

Regarding the extraordinary sources part of your comment (which conflicted with my edit, grrr), I should direct you to the overwhelming consensus here in this very section. I dare say we have an extraordinary source for this claim. Besides which, the wikitext would be "Politifact says so-and-so is a liar", sourced to politifact saying that so-and-so is a liar. That's about as clear-cut an example of verifiability as it gets. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:15, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

User:MjolnirPants, I'm sure that you are very handsome.  :-) But, the meaning of this part of WP:BLPPRIMARY has been discussed many times in many places, and the predominant conclusion has been that attribution is not enough to cite primary sources in BLPs. Otherwise, we could troll through court records and the like to find little nuggets that we like. For starters, here are links to a couple prior discussions at this noticeboard, and at BLPN: [6][7]Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:43, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, thank you for saying so, and I appreciate the interactive proof of my argument. :) I'm afraid, however, that neither of those two discussions addresses this question. The first link is specifically about making claims in Wiki voice, and the second pertains to court documents, a form of WP:SPS. We're not talking about SPSs, nor saying anything in Wiki voice. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 05:43, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

No Arkon, PolitiFact is not a primary source, not today; not tomorrow; not ever. Their work is cited in other sources, but that doesn't matter anyway. Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved. They offer an insider's view of an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on. Not only that, PolitiFact cites other sources. Another way to know that PolitiFact is not a primary source, is the fact that their fact checks specifically cite other sources.- MrX 22:26, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

So you're saying, User:MrX, that Politfact never does what the New York Times does, which is to publish or express opinion (the NYT publishes op-ed columns as well as editorials)?Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:43, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Anythingyouwant Is that a trick question? The scope of this discussion is PolitiFact's fact checking, an activity that is intrinsic to journalism. Fact checks are not in the same realm as opinion columns at all.- MrX 22:56, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

User:MrX, no, of course it's not a trick question. You made a categorical statement that PolitiFact is not a primary source "not ever". That would be unusual for mainstream publications, most of which have a division between factual news reporting (which is a secondary source) versus opinion (which is a primary source). I agree with you that PolitiFact does a great deal of valuable and accurate reporting, in which case it's a reliable source. But I do believe they also sometimes mix in opinion, which is subject to WP:BLPPRIMARY. So my question stands: Politfact never does what the New York Times does, which is to publish or express opinion (the NYT publishes op-ed columns as well as editorials)?Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:11, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

From the source: "PolitiFact is a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others who speak up in American politics." Why in the world would a website called PolitiFact publish opinion pieces? - MrX 23:35, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Answer: For the same reason that some people insert their opinions into the Wikipedia. Any source known to publish purely objective truth would soon develop a powerful credibility with its audience. Credibility is the primary requirement for the dissemination of opinion. Opinions can have consequences, and can be highly profitably to the source. Conversely, objective truth is only moderately profitable to the publisher. Among human beings, the temptation to inject opinion into objective sources is usually overwhelming. No newspaper or other news organ has been able to resist. Professors and textbook publishers are notorious. And most people cannot even distinguish between their own opinions and objective truth. Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 23:49, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

User:MrX, fact-checking organizations like Politifact often inject opinion in how they interpret what Trump means. Trump often does not speak with crystal clarity, and fact-checking organizations will often attribute to him the most outlandish possible meaning, and then fact-check that meaning. This phenomenon is discussed by University of Wisconsin School of Journalism Professor Lucas Graves, author of a new book titled "Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism." You can hear him talk about it in this August 10 interview starting at 50:30. I'd be glad to give you particular examples of this phenomenon, but it's better you should hear it from a source like Lucas Graves than from me. And Politifact articles can likewise use opinionated language; consider the Politifact article by Angie Holan titled "2015 Lie of the Year: the campaign misstatements of Donald Trump". The bare concept of a "lie of the year" is opinion rather than objective fact, and she likewise writes: "Donald Trump doesn’t let facts slow him down. Bending the truth or being unhampered by accuracy is a strategy he has followed for years....when challenged, he offers flimsy explanations and suggests he shouldn’t be held accountable -- or simply insists he’s right." So, yes, there is lots of opinion involved in the PolitiFact fact-checking.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:01, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

When a highly reputable fact-checking organization (like PolitiFact) finds that a Presidential candidate is so exceptionally untruthful, and outright disdainful of the idea of truthfulness, that is notable. Yes, it's a subjective judgement, which is why it needs to be attributed (per WP:RSOPINION). I see what you're trying to do, but you're actually making a point opposite to the one intended. By emphasizing that PolitiFact has called out the unique and exceptional nature of Trump's dishonesty, you're making the case that it deserves mention, per our basic responsibility to follow high-quality sources and report their findings. MastCell ^Talk 17:08, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

I emphatically agree that the opinion of fact-checkers warrant mention with attribution, via reliable secondary sourcing, in the body of the Trump BLP, and I think that I have led the way in that regard. The material now in the article body is generally nuanced and well-sourced, as it should be.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:19, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

• Yes and yes. Politifact is a reliable source (really, it's not even a close call). As far as subjective judgements (for instance, that Trump is a uniquely untruthful politician), those can be expressed so long as they are relevant to the article in question and so long as in-text attribution is provided (see WP:RSOPINION). This is pretty basic, and the fact that it requires a trip to WP:RS/N to affirm (much less the fact that some experienced editors don't seem to understand it) speaks poorly to the editing environment at the articles in question. MastCell ^Talk 04:40, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
• Yes, but Talk:Donald Trump#RfC: Donald Trump's false campaign statements tries to push editorial freedom too far. A source can be reliable for certain statements, but the RfC proposal that many of Trump's statements have been false goes too far. Stuff like that has to be attributed (it does not seem to be in RfC), and is undue in the lead of a BLP. Johnuniq (talk) 09:43, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
• Yes for 1, No for 2. PF is not a statistical sample of someone's public statements, and should not be used to try to paint an overall picture of someone's overall "truthiness". TimothyJosephWood 18:02, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
• Snow yes for 1, It depends Yes but for 2. PolitiFact is one of the most reliable politics sources out there. It is cited approvingly by just about every major news outlet. If PolitiFact says something we can generally treat it as gospel. As for #2 however, I'm not aware of any PolitiFact source saying what MrX is proposing, but I suppose it's possible. Certainly PolitiFact has published articles about the number of false statements by a politician, or using the word "many," but that's a far cry from giving a percentage of all statements the politician has ever uttered. As for #2, sure that kind of a percentage would be reliably sourced, but moving beyond verifiability, how useful would it be? PolitiFact exercises a lot of editorial discretion in deciding which statements to fact check. I think they usually consider how high-profile, controversial, or suspicious-sounding the statements. A percentage of a denominator like that says as much about PolitiFact as it does about the politician. There might be a place for this information but I can't think of where. I'm not watching this page so please ping me if you'd like my attention. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:33, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

• Yes and no, per Anythingyouwant, CFredkin and TimothyJosephWood. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:49, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Alert
Compare with the RSN entry of 17:47, 25 August 2016 (UTC):

"You are invited to participate in Talk:Donald Trump#RfC: Donald Trump's false campaign statements. Prior discussion involved the reliability of the proposed sources."

One of the two proposed sources whose reliability was disputed is a PolitiFact piece. There is no consensus that the source can be used to support contentious material in a BLP. --Dervorguilla (talk) 21:08, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Are you really claiming that some consensus of which no-one but you seems to be aware somehow overrides a massive (and still growing) consensus here? MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 23:44, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

@MjolnirPants: To the contrary, I'm alerting editors to the lack of consensus in a related discussion started by a question that was posted here less than three days ago. --Dervorguilla (talk) 09:08, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

So you're alerting people who have taken part in a discussion that extremely rapidly produced an almost overwhelming consensus that there's still no consensus? MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 12:45, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

User:MjolnirPants - he's advising other editors more fully. That may lead them to reconsider their opinions as being based on bad WP:RSCONTEXT. That this thread was started immediately after the RFC at the other article makes this thread look suspect of WP:FORUMSHOPPING. Witholding or opposing the info about the other RFC does not help such suspicions. Markbassett (talk)

It wasn't started "immediately" after the RfC, unless your definition of immediately is three days. What other RfC? There's only one that I'm aware of.- MrX 12:45, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Advising them of what? He seems to be 'advising' them that their voices don't count because one or two people disagree. But that's not how consensus works. The reasons those few don't agree have been addressed already by pointing out that the 'evidence' of these sites' unreliability is simply a handful of opinions. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:19, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

*Probably not. I googled "politifact bias" and the results are somewhat troubling. Here is an image briefly summarizing my concerns. They appear to editorialize "facts" and cherry pick scenarios which doesn't fly for me. Mr Ernie (talk) 00:51, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

• • You're citing an anonymous Internet meme from Imgur.com in support of your conclusion? That's very creative, but makes no sense whatsoever. Neutrality^talk 01:09, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

If a meme can be used as an argument, can I use one as my rebuttal? Graham (talk) 01:13, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

I didnt know it was a meme as it was the first response on my google search. Is it accurate? Regardless I'll strike my vote. Mr Ernie (talk) 01:28, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Accurate? It simply shows a bunch of (carefully chosen to create the impression of a bias) examples of fact checking and sarcastically claims a bias (note there are no citations or evidence presented to support the text at the top of the two columns, so that text is really nothing but the claim of a bias itself). Even the examples shown don't fit the claim. How can Ted Cruz be "off by 1%" in the claim listed at the top of the (ironically) left column? No, while the web is full of charges of a liberal bias against the fact checkers, there's precious little in the way of evidence. I did read one well-written (if not well thought-out) piece on one of the bigger news sites once, but even then, the only evidence they presented was crunching the numbers and showing that conservative politicians get worse ratings than liberal politicians by some of the fact checking sites. The author tried to imply that they fact-checked the conservatives way more often, but only showed like a 5% difference. I believe the classic response is "Reality has a well known liberal bias." MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 04:24, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

• With caution When Politifact says the candidate said x and the truth is y, then that is reliable. But there is judgment included in their coverage too - what statements to list and how egregious they rate each discrepancy. This becomes a particular issue when their findings are summarized: "We checked 10 statements by candidate A and found 8 to be true, while for candidate B we found only 2 to be true." So Politifact's summaries show that Clinton is more honest than Sanders.[8][9] TFD (talk) 05:04, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
• No and No. The Wall Street Journal says "PolitiFact ... has marketed itself to ... news organizations on the pretense of impartiality." ("Politifiction: True 'Lies' about Obamacare".) And the Journal is the most trusted newspaper in America. --Dervorguilla (talk) 18:08, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Dervorguilla that's an opinion piece from the WSJ, not a news article. The "most trusted" study you linked to was about who Americans trust for news, not opinion. And it wasn't the "most trusted" paper, it was just more trusted than not by people in different ideological groups. Overall, however, the graph shows the USA Today has more trust than WSJ.Depauldem (talk) 21:19, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Exactly. It also doesn't make a declaration that PolitiFact is generally unreliable. It merely opines that it disagrees with PolitiFact's view that Obama Care is not a government takeover. - MrX 21:24, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

@Depauldem: See the Pew studies. 1. "The Economist, BBC, ... and The Wall Street Journal are among those with the highest ratio of trust to distrust [for news about government and politics]." 2. "The average consumer of the Wall Street Journal sits very close to the typical survey respondent, but the range of Journal readers is far broader because it appeals to people on both the left and the right." So the Journal's editorial board may be far less "liberal or conservative" than the average board -- and thus more trustworthy. --Dervorguilla (talk) 08:09, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

WSJ news is generally reliable. WSJ Opinion, not covered by that survey, is another beast entirely; their "editorial board" (James Taranto basically is the editorial board) is firmly planted on the conservative side of the field. Xenophrenic (talk) 08:50, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

This discussion is now publicized at PolitiFact.com Talk. I rephrased the questions per core policies and for accuracy and readability:

"1. Is the PolitiFact subsidiary of the Tampa Bay Times a reliable third-party source for material about the truthfulness of statements made by a candidate?"

"2. Is it a reliable third-party source for material about the ratio of false statements made by a candidate and checked by PolitiFact to true statements made by a candidate and checked by PolitiFact?"

For more on PolitiFact, see this old version of the article. (It's somewhat more concise than the current version.) --Dervorguilla (talk) 08:22, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

That link contains NPOV policy violations which don't appear in the present version: PolitiFact.com. Xenophrenic (talk) 06:25, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

• No the sources shown are not a RS for the statement.

• WP:RSCONTEXT - the statement is an unqualified broad judgement, put at the lead of BLP. These sources are not a source of encyclopedic review of sources that would support such a claim, nor are they posing as such, they are each a single secondary source of editorial opinion. Per WP:NEWSORG. an editorial article is suitable as one of a range of views, but not as an unqualified summary of fact.
• WP:BIASED, Politifact and Factcheck have both been mentioned as somewhat biased by quick google check. (USnews, Forbes, WSJ, National review, Salon). A bit from being slightly left-of-center sources, but more so from a systematic bias of what they choose to examine and that they structurally are a simplistic scoring, not something that looks for interpretations or what the person meant. A joke or hyperbole -- gets scored as 'false', even if reasonalb e people would not take it seriously.
• WP:RS, in particular for WP:BLP cautions about offensive words like 'false'. This has not approached the level of satisfying that.
• Look, bottom line there is no way suc an edit isn't going to be read as WP:BIASED and WP:ADVOCATE. For the sake of WP:CREDIBILITY just reject blanket judgement statements being proposed. We don't need to really look at whether the policy is evenly handled with other candidates or shown as just their opinion -- it's inappropriate to be going here with any candidate.

Cheers, Markbassett (talk) 00:52, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

• I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but PolitiFact is widely-cited by other reputable publications. PolitiFact lists sources for each of their determinations and each is reviewed by a three editor panel before being published. I notice that you haven't provided any evidence that "Politifact and Factcheck have both been mentioned as somewhat biased" so I assume there is none. - MrX 12:45, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Markbassett, I think you're misreading those policies and guidelines. WP:BIASED says that the bias of a source does not disqualify it--not the other way around. And WP:BLP (specifically, WP:PUBLICFIGURE) says that verifiable facts about public figures should be included even if they're negative or disliked--not the other way around. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:50, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

• Yes and (weak) Yes - They have the required reputation for fact-checking and accuracy required by our Reliable Source policies. The arguments about bias are unpersuasive, since the accusations of bias have come from both ends of the political spectrum. Some Wikipedia editors also seem to forget that WP:RS says: reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources... Use of PolitiFact in case (2) should be with attribution and additional care. Xenophrenic (talk) 08:50, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
• 1. Yes (with attribution) 2. No – No clue on methodology to pick which statements get fact-checked. Also potential bias towards checking "popular" controversial soundbites vs checking the totality of a speech. — JFG ^talk 11:17, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Comment. I have a simple question. Is this the main reference we are using to say that some of his speeches contain half-truths? If it is, I don't think this should be used. Also, in fairness, have they fact-checked Clinton's speeches? I am only asking because "Hillary pinocchio" has many matches on Google, and that connotation seems to have become a campaign issue, too.Zigzig20s (talk) 05:02, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Zigzig20s, the scope of this query is clearly articulated at the top of this section. It's about Trump's false statements. (No idea what a half-truth is.) Yes, PolitiFact has fact checked Clinton's statements, some of which are probably in her speeches. Why is that you can hijack nearly every discussion with this Hillary pinocchio and Hillary coughing nonsense, but you can't be bothered to go to PolitiFact.com to get the answer you seek? This tendentiousness and trolling is sure getting disruptive. No more good faith for you!- MrX 13:01, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, please assume good faith. It looks like PolitiFact.com is a project of the Tampa Bay Times, which is published by the Times Publishing Company, which is owned by the Poynter Institute, whose president is Tim Franklin. Has he made any political endorsements or contributions?Zigzig20s (talk) 13:44, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Actually, we would need to double-check their board of trustees.Zigzig20s (talk) 13:57, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

That's actually beside the point. "Reliability" and "bias" are two different things. The only question that matters is "do they have a reputation for fact checking and accuracy" (WP:RS)? Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:27, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

And if we have to ask if they are reliable, that means they are probably not sufficiently reputable. Otherwise we wouldn't even question it.Zigzig20s (talk) 14:49, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

And if we have to question Trump's honesty, that means he is probably dishonest. If we have to question whether WP:BLP applies, that means it probably doesn't. If we have to question your intelligence, that means you're probably not very intelligent*. Do you see the fundamental problem with this line of reasoning?

*(That is a purely rhetorical device, I'm not saying you are not intelligent, merely picking an example most likely to illustrate the utter inapplicability of that logic.) MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:20, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

• Yes although of course there might be some instances where additional sources would be useful.Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:27, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
• Yes They make occasional mistakes or use incorrect wording in their conclusions but don't we all. Gaas99 (talk) 21:26, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
• Yes and Yes - I don't know of a source that would survive the tests applied to PolitiFact by some in this thread. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:11, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
• Yes and wrong question. Politifact is not a reliable source for the number of true or false statements that a candidate has made. They do not even claim to be a reliable source of this. However, Politifact is a reliable source for the number of true or false statements rated by Politifact. However, on the latter question, Politifact is a primary source, so not really usable. Some news/opinion articles, which are secondary sources, have mentioned the Politifact statistics. I see nothing wrong with citing those statistics, and referencing Politifact (or the appropriate wayback machine archive), but using such opinion content as a secondary source requires a careful consideration of policies other than the WP:RS guideline, such as WP:WEIGHT, WP:NPOV, WP:BLP, etc. Sławomir Biały (talk) 22:45, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
• Yes per all of the above. --Taivo (talk) 22:57, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
• yes to both, based on the content provided in the blue boxes, which is attributed. for the second one, the content in the blue box notes "of the statements checked" which is essential - I would have said "no" to the second one otherwise. Jytdog (talk) 05:45, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
• Comment. I have requested a formal close on this. Neutrality^talk 20:56, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

rebelmagazine.com

Digging around I found out that this "Rebel Magazine" is not even the Rebel Magazine we have an article on ([10]), but instead some obscure Arizona Christian publication. A publication so non-notable that it doesn't even have an article on Wikipedia, and so poorly managed that none of their websites ([11] [12]) are even functional (though they do have a facebook page [13]. Therefore this source should not be considered as reliable on any article, including Shaun_King_(activist) (which by the way is the only article trying to use it as a source). -75.140.253.89 (talk) 03:16, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Article in question: [14]

Sources without proper websites or Wikipedia pages are not necessarily unreliable. The website may not be functioning now, but it was in August 2014, when the archive snapshot was created. Is there anything to suggest this Rebel Magazine lacks editorial oversight or has a poor reputation for fact-checking? clpo13_(talk) 03:24, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Assuming that it's really theirs, the twitter that they briefly reached out from really lacks professionality: [15]. Other than that I am not really sure how to demonstrate a lack of editorial oversight, only the opposite. I guess I'll read around about the process? -75.140.253.89 (talk) 04:01, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, you could demonstrate a lack of editorial oversight or reputation for poor fact-checking by finding evidence that the source in question has a broadly-held reputation for, and documented history of, publishing misstatements, fabrications, politically-motivated smears and outright lies about people. Sort of like, say, Breitbart does. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:17, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Sources are not usually presumed reliable until proven otherwise. Having no reputation is often considered nearly as bad as having a bad reputation. Rhoark (talk) 22:18, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

That's what I had thought until I was met with such resistance. I'm glad to finally hear some reinforcement of my assumption. So if anyone would like to show evidence of Rebel issuing corrections, that would easily establish reliability. -75.140.253.89 (talk) 19:19, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Name Mixup.

In the article on Tony Gardiner (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Gardiner), his Olympiad predecessor is given as Peter Shiu. While this information is correct, the Peter Shiu in question is Mathematician Peter Man-Kit Shiu (http://www.genealogy.ams.org/id.php?id=27070) as opposed to the Peter Shiu linked to who is the Vice Chairman of the Liberal Party in Hong Kong (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Shiu).

Encyclopedic dictionary of Azerbaijan toponyms. In two volumes. Volume I. Baku: "East-West". 2007. ISBN 978-9952-34-155-3

So called "material" from this obvious non-WP:RS "source" is being spammed on many (low-profile) articles by User:Freedom Wolfs. His mass "citing" of this material seemed highly suspicious from day 1. "According" to the "book", everyone in these towns/villages/etc. is only occupied with "husbandry", "gardening", and "animal keeping" (not even joking!), and whole etymology sections of millenia old place names are suddenly Turkified by said user while citing this so-called book.

I did some research myself and in fact, I couldn't find literally anything about it. In fact, it seemed to be as if the whole book didn't even exist. I subsequently raised by concerns @Doug Weller:, who agreed with me that its definetely non-RS, but advised/asked me to bring it here to make it official, and for the record as well. Pinging Tiptoethrutheminefield, MarshallBagramyan, and Yerevantsi, as they shared the exact same doubts about this so called "encyclopedia" as me and Doug did. - LouisAragon (talk) 00:01, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

See my previous dialogues with Doug as well about this.[16]-[17]. This is going to be quite a hell of a rv spree btw, as he literally "spammed" (sorry, but I believe thats the only termination appropriate here) on so many articles. - LouisAragon (talk) 00:01, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

The book exists and the rarity of the book is irrelevant to its reliability. I can understand the frustration of being unable to check material added from a source you don't have access to, but those are not grounds for excluding the material. What you need to do is check out the editor/author and publisher to see if they are well-respected or not. I see that Näsimi adına Dilçilik İnstitutu (something like Nasimi Institute of Linguistics) is listed as a corporate author, which is some sort of academic institute. Did you ask the person citing the book to explain what it is? Incidentally all the small villages in a region tend to be rather the same, so it proves nothing if their one-line descriptions are much the same too. Zero^talk 01:32, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

More on this: the Institute for Linguistics named for Nasimi is an institute of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences. On the basis that the encyclopedia is published under their auspices, it is reliable until proven otherwise. Zero^talk 01:45, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

This is going to be a complicated issue because it involves a knowledge of what is truth and what is lies, and why the lies are produced. Would Zero have talked the same way about 1940s institutional academic Nazi-produced publications detailing the origins of the German nation and its place in the world and the Jewish "problem"? Probably not, since the status and context of such publications is well known, making their use as acceptable sources unlikely. Unfortunately, in this particular case a specialized knowledge is required - and to be quite honest I question that the procedural methods of Wikipedia can easily stop such propaganda publications on obscure and little written-about subjects being used to generate Wikipedia content. The solution might be to firstly provide sources indicating the propaganda nature of Azeri-produced and Turkish-produced material dealing with Armenian history, and in particular the Turkification/Azerification issue, This would indicate that that they are almost all grounded in an ideology of state-cultivated and state-required race-hatred, and that they all should be excluded unless third-party impartial sources have cited them as usable sources. And, secondly, to provide a number of examples where the toponym explanations found within this particular source are clearly ludicrous, or are clearly false. For this, I think that as well as trying to find sources that give correct toponym explanations, since such sources are going to be hard to find, we should also use whatever expertise we can find amongst Wikipedia editors, have them comment on the quality of the toponym explanations, in order to come to a conclusion based on probability that the source is either acceptable or unacceptable. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:28, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

I suggest inviting editors [18] who might have some specialist knowledge of linguistics to this discussion, such as Florian Blaschke and TaivoLinguist, to give their opinions on the credibility of the place-name explanations found it the source, and whether the methodology revealed by these explanations is comparable to that found in acceptable sources in the field. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:40, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

When people invoke offensive Nazi analogies to support their arguments, I take the rest of what they say with a grain of salt. I have no personal knowledge of the subject area and don't intend to get involved in the details of it. I'll just repeat that "reliable until proven otherwise" is Wikipedia's attitude towards works published/edited by the highest academic institution in the country of publication. If you want to eliminate it, you need to provide more than assertions based on your own beliefs. Find negative reviews or something. Listing this discussion on relevant noticeboards is good and inviting people who know the field is also good provided you invite people who might disagree with you as well those you think will agree. Zero^talk 03:02, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

You are just revealing your ignorance of the subject, despite your proclaimed "research". You actually cited the fact that the publication comes from an academic institution in Azerbaijan as a reason for accepting its reliability. Anyone who knows the contemporary politics of this region (which could be gained by doing just a cursory amount of online research) would know that this origin will indicate the exact opposite, that its production via an academic institution in Azerbaijan will mean it will be highly unlikely to be acceptable for its reliability. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 13:28, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

The attitude of Wikipedia towards sources is what I was referring to when I said this is "going to be a complicated issue". From its outset, Wikipedia set itself as being averse to the use of experts. In fact it is often written (off-Wikipedia) that being an expert on a subject guarantees that you will to be banned. This is why almost no academics edit Wikipedia. An actual functional Reliable Sources noticeboard would have set groups of editors who are established experts in certain fields and who would be consulted to give their expert opinion on sources to be used for Wikipedia content. Bet we don't have that or anything close to that - we have everyone able to contribute their penny's worth of opinion, all set against a background of Wikipedia's distain of experts and a very loose criteria for deciding on which sources should be allowed. There is simply not an easy way to get propaganda sources excluded if they deal with obscure subjects that credible sources have neglected. It is what Wikipedia is. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 13:50, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Tiptoe, it would help if you actually cited anything for your allegations about why Azerbaijani sources shouldn't be trusted. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:41, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

See the two posts I've now made further down this thread. I realize the post I made above is a bit of essay writing, and, now that I see the WP:USEBYOTHERS guidance that another editor posted, I think maybe an overly negative one.Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 17:19, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Zero also misunderstands my suggestion for inviting linguistic experts. It is nothing to do with inviting people who will agree or disagree with a pov, nor anything to do with getting people who might be experts in this particular region. It is to get people who might know what an academically sound publication in the field of toponym research should look like. A comparison of the methodology of the toponym "analysis" presented in this book against similar works that are widely accepted as academically sound might be a way to decide on its credibility and thus its suitability as a source. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 14:09, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Tiptoe why do you always have this holier than thou attitude, you need to show some respect to Zero. Alexis Ivanov (talk) 15:05, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Can I point to WP:USEBYOTHERS which reads in part "How accepted, high-quality reliable sources use a given source provides evidence, positive or negative, for its reliability and reputation. The more widespread and consistent this use is, the stronger the evidence." It's a very useful guide for sources such as this one (which I'll also note is a tertiary source which we generally try to avoid). The fact that few libraries or universities seem to hold copies of it also argues against using it. Also, reliability is not the default position. You need to show that a source meets our criteria. I don't think this one does. And as I can't read the original and know that the editor involved doesn't understand our copyright policy regarding images, I wonder if there is any copyvio involved, although that's a separate issue. Doug Weller talk 19:41, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

I think you are correct and you hit the nail in the head, good feedback Alexis Ivanov (talk) 22:42, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Is there anything on Wikipedia as WP:REDFLAG as Azerbaijani toponyms? Rhoark (talk) 22:22, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

The rarity of this book in the libraries that subscribe to WorldCat (mostly libraries in the West) is no doubt largely down to the fact that it is written in a language that few users of those libraries understand. Libraries generally do not buy books that will never do more than gather dust. WP:SOURCEACCESS says that rarity does not eliminate a source. (Answering Tiptoe:) Unsupported claims like "the fact of its production via an academic institution in Azerbaijan will mean it will be highly unlikely to be acceptable for its reliability" without any evidence whatever looks just like a statement of personal prejudice and is not acceptable here. Provide an assessment from an expert to support your views or keep them to yourself. Zero^talk 00:03, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

• hm. The givens.

1) super hot topic here in WP.

2) obscure book rarely found in libraries worldcat) (although there is a digital version)

3) in a non-English language, and

4) I was unable to find out much about the publisher, Şärq-Qärb other than, a smattering of university libraries have one or two books from it; they seem to publish academic stuff;

5) I wasn't able to learn anything about the author, Rübabä Äliyeva (5 google hits...) so just more obscureness; so

6) we have really no basis to judge the reliability or otherwise of the publisher or the author.

7) ~maybe~ some highly respected editor (known by their deeds here) will come along and bless the publisher and author or provide some source that allows us to judge. But in the absence of that...

here is where i end up

A) generally the ugliest disputes in WP happen in super hot topics where there is also a lack of high quality sources that everyone agrees are authoritative and has reasonable access to.

B) injecting a source like this into such a topic is basically a trump card for the one who has the source, as few to no other editors will have access to it even to assess it, much less get consensus that the content generated from it is really verified (which is always what we care about - we ask - "is this specific content supported by this specific source?")

C so this is a place where IAR comes in, and we should exclude this source. I am making no judgements on whether it is reliable or not. It is really about whether it is possible to reach solid CONSENSUS that content generated from it is truly supported by it.

So exclude this source Jytdog (talk) 06:16, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

While "non-English language" is not a killer argument against a source, Azerbaijani is sufficiently obscure that the circle of Wikipedians who can use the source productively or merely assess its reliability is expected to be very small. I've cited academic publications in German before, which I thought was defensible because it is an important language in academia (especially historical linguistics), so there is a reasonable expectation that I'm not the only editor who will be able to access and read the source. French, Russian, Spanish and Italian are widely understood by academics, too (depending on the field), as they are widely studied as second or foreign languages. Azerbaijani is definitely not such a language. So I think both the difficulty of library access and the language are very weighty points, in addition to the others you bring up, Jytdog. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 10:34, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

For an understanding of the contemporary Azerbaijani political landscape in which this source exists and from which it was created, see "The Invention of History: Azerbaijan, Armenia, and The Showcasing of Imagination" by Rouben Galichian, 2009. I'm mentioning it because there is link to a pdf version of it I found using google. I'm not going to reproduce the link here because it is probably an unofficial pirated copy of the book, but you can easily find it. The book details Azerbaijan's 1990s and onwards destruction of everything culturally or historically Armenian that existed on its territory and the "Azerification" of the territory's history. The situation in Nakhchivan is detailed on pages 84-100, (the editor who has been using the Encyclopedic dictionary of Azerbaijan Toponyms source has restricted its usage to content on articles about places in Nakhchivan)Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:01, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

The extremely partisan nature of the source is revealed in its exclusion of all mention of non-"Turkic" origins of place names in Nakhchivan. All of the territory of Nakhchivan was historically part of Armenia, and all of its population was originally Armenian. So, while 1000 years can make a big difference, it is not credible that not even a single present-day settlement name in Nakhchivan has an Armenian origin or root. This fact alone indicates its propaganda nature: it follows the state ideology of Azerbaijan regarding Nakhchivan's history. This ideology was also expressed in the response to the destruction of the medieval Julfa cemetery: "Armenians have never lived in Nakhichivan, which has been Azerbaijani land from time immemorial" [19]. For an example of the source's exclusion of alternative (i.e. non-Turkic) interpretations of place-names see the "Etymology" content on Aşağı Əylis. As well as (in my eyes, anyway) being such a convoluted and contrived explanation as to be barely credible, it excludes mention that the oldest known form of the placename is "Argulik" (see the related Yuxarı Əylis article), and that an alternative explanation of the placename is that it means "Rich in Gardens", derived from the Armenian word "aygi", meaning "garden", or from "argilis", from the Armenian word meaning something "forbidden" or "inaccessible". This is on page 33 and 34 of this source [20]. There is also an additional folk etymology explanation given in this source. This source is an English translation of a work by an Iranian-Armenian academic who was actually born in Agulis, but note its author is nothing like as absolutist as the Azeri source because he recognizes that these sort of toponym explanations can almost never be substantiated at a scientific level. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:35, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

"From time immemorial". Heh. I call these kinds of ridiculous claims, usually by ultra-nationalists and easily refuted with basic knowledge of history, "Anglo-Saxon cavemen". --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:26, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

After reading through the comments, a lot of important arguments/reasons have already been said. Thanks much for the constructive responses. Doug, Jytdog and Tiptoethrutheminefield basically summed up everything that rules it out as a legit source. With all due respect regarding Zero0000, I genuinely appreciate it that he, as an admin and an assistant on this noticeboard, took the effort and time in order to help us deal with this matter, and was in fact the first one to reply here. However, as already mentioned by/hinted on by others here, I genuinely think that he lacks the needed knowledge and reading on the area (Armenia/Iran/Azerbaijan/Turkey), which without a doubt is needed in order to be able to present a proper conclusion, stance, and verdict regarding this matter. Once again, with all due respect. - LouisAragon (talk) 01:50, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

There is a pretty well-sourced subsection on Wiki as well regarding state-funded Azerbaijani attempts to falsify Armenian history, for readers to get a basic grasp of how rampant these Azerbaijani attempts have been in the past years.[21] Keep in mind however that these attemps aren't just limited towards Armenia, but also towards Iran (though literally no one takes those seriously). Azerbaijans main "beef" is for now, after all, mainly directed towards Armenia. - LouisAragon (talk) 01:50, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Two student-written university publications

I would like to use two sources, both student-written university publications:

The Yale Herald http://yaleherald.com/reviews/music-taylor-swift/

and The Daily Cardinal (University of Wisconsin - Madison) http://www.dailycardinal.com/article/2014/11/exploring-the-resurgence-of-disco-in-popular-music

Are either of these reliable sources? Life of Tau (talk) 04:51, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

For what article, and for what specific statement in the article? Neutrality^talk 04:54, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

what neutrality said, but if the content is something about taylor swift or the resurgence of disco, there must be better sources... Jytdog (talk) 06:19, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Is Heatstreet a reliable source for attributed opinion?

Fellow editors, Is Heatstreet (http://heatst.com) a reliable source for attributed opinion? The publisher as listed at the site is Dow Jones & Company, Inc. The content of the site appears to include opinion pieces from a range of persons. Specific context for the question is this piece, by games journalist Ian Miles Cheong. The question here relates strictly to reliability of the source; questions on the noteworthiness of the opinion, neutrality of inclusion, or other aspects being a matter for article Talk pages. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 23:47, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Everything is reliable for its author's opinions. Those other questions are the salient ones. Rhoark (talk) 00:08, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

What Rhoark said. The only time you have to ask if a source is reliable for an author's opinion, is when there is doubt the authorship is authentic, as opposed to a hoax. That said, the real question is: Who is Iam Miles Cheong and why should anyone care what he thinks? But as you said, that's a matter for talk pages. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:17, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

I wouldn't trust anything published on Heatstreet. I'll admit, I thought the site was satire at first. With articles like SJW vs. SJW: SJW Mad That SJW New York Times Writer Praised SJW Who Wrote SJW Book, Endless Social Justice Commentary Killed ‘Ghostbusters’, Liberal Media Admits, and MUST SEE: Photos of Hillary Clinton Propped Up on Pillows, I hope you'll forgive me. But then I read a few articles, and, well, it's hyperbolical tabloid material, but they're serious. I'm unable to find any reliable sources quoting or reusing their content, which speaks to a lack of a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". They've even been called the "‘Gawker’ for the Right". As for Ian Miles Cheong, Heatstreet has published his other opinion pieces about Wil Wheaton and Manveer Heir, but they give no author bio with his qualifications. (I won't link the articles here because they would likely violate BLP.) A Google search also failed to reveal why his opinion is relevant. Woodroar (talk) 00:54, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Miles Cheong was a member of the group in question which the source reports on. His relevance to the topic at hand is quite obvious. LCrowter (talk) 08:53, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

I'd also note that Gawker and its sister sites have previously been used as a source on the main Gamergate controversy article, with which Crash Override Network is intrinsically related. If Heat Street are indeed a "Gawker for the Right" then that doesn't exactly sound like a ringing endorsement of the validity of existing sources. LCrowter (talk) 09:11, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

*ding* *ding* *ding* We have a winner. Q ^{T C} 16:04, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

The salient rule is that opinions are almost always reliable sources for opinions cited and used as opinion. The only issue would be whether the person is notable in the field in which he is expressing opinions, and, at first glance, that appears to be the case. And opinions held by notable persons are not "fact checked" nor is "fact checking" a requirement for use of opinions. By the way, trying to find opinions which are absolutely neutral would rule out opinions on Wikipedia in the first place. Which might not be a bad idea, but is not what Wikipedia policy goes by. Collect (talk) 09:42, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Augustan Society

Is the Augustan Society a reliable source for articles like Kigeli V, Order of Saint Stanislaus (Imperial House of Romanov) and Most Honourable Order of Omukama Chwa II Kabalega? I'd assume so, but thought I should check as they seem to take a more inclusive position than International Commission on Orders of Chivalry. Cheers, Bromley86 (talk) 08:24, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Secondary sources that now only exist on a BLP subject's own website

John Lockley is sourced largely with articles that are no longer available online, but that have been archived in some form on the subject's personal sites: johnlockley.com and african-shaman.com. In the former case, these are pdf scans of the originals. But in the second, the articles have been retyped, so there is no way of checking if they are true to the originals. There are a couple of users that want all these sources, even those retyped onto the personal site, to be considered secondary sources, and one of the users is removing the flag on the page for over-reliance on primary sources:[22]. They have also insisted on inserting links to multiple pages from the subject's same personal site as independent "Further Reading" links (in same diff above). User has tended to edit war in the past over this article. I would appreciate more eyes on this situation. Thanks. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 23:18, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

If there are print versions of these sources, then as long as there's a sufficient reference to be able to locate that print source, it should be fine - the PDF availability or where its hosted is absolutely not required for print materials. If the material was only available online, that's a different matter, and attempts to be made to re-locate the material via archive.org, if possible. But those claiming that because the PDF archives of these are at this persons website make the article reliant on primary sourcing are incorrect: the sourcing is still judged by the original works that published them, not where an archived PDF can be found. There may be copyright issues with the local PDFs on that site, so one should be careful with those links. --MASEM (t) 23:31, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Is it appropriate to link the references directly to the subject's personal website archive? Would that not amount to advertising? I'd leave off the link and let anyone interested just use google to find the reference. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 23:41, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Are there any good reasons to suspect the originals have been altered when placed in the subject's personal site? I think in the absence of evidence suggesting otherwise (for example, does the content appear particularly controversial or marginal or overly flattering), good faith should be assumed and that the sources within the archived content on the subject's personal site should be assumed to be genuine and to exactly reflect the now non-available online originals. However, if even just one source is revealed to have been altered, they all are suspect. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 23:36, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Involved users are entirely willing to look and remove any retyped sources as per [23] if they are identified, as I agree, it would be better to remove any retyped primary material. I cannot see any of the further reading links as retypes, they all look to be valid scanned original independant archived articles. I have asked Corbie to identify the retyped articles, and we can look at them more closely. I don't agree with her blanket deletions of everything, just for minor infractions that can be easily removed or adjusted to make the article more reliable. Mycelium101 (talk) 00:17, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

I think it's advert-like, and most of these are not online anywhere but the subject's site. Also, Mycelium, can you stop with the revert-warring while this is still being discussed? You have once again added in multiple links to the subject's own website:[24]. This really seems excessively promotional. As this has to be so heavily reliant on his own website, I have to question the notability here, as well. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 01:50, 10 September 2016 (UTC

I would also point out the odd, WP:OWNy things Mycelium101 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is posting on the talk page like, "If you revert my reversion one more time, we will go back to the last stable version from 6 May"[25]. Sorry, but that is not your call. This article belongs to Wikipedia as a community, not to you. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 02:04, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Having multiple links to the subject's own website seems wrong to me too. But for the sources, as long as they are reliable, isn't all that is required is for their titles, authors, years of publication, etc., to be given. There is no need to have online links to them if they lead to the subject's own site. Also, an archived copy at web.archive.org is not technically "at Lockley's website" anymore. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:39, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

I know it's off topic for here, but I have to say, based on the article content, this guy does not seem notable enough to have an article. I'm surprised it has not been nominated for deletion. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:55, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

From an international perspective, that might be the case, but from a South African perspective, I disagree. He is notable, is in the media quite extensively and the ability for a white person to be initiated into black traditions is a highly notable event from both a South African and sangoma perspective, as it is quite rare given the history of SA and the context under which these initiations are performed. Mycelium101 (talk) 03:05, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

I get that, but it sounds like notability of a process, being the first of a particular race or nationality or sex to be a member of a particular group or profession or do a particular thing. I don't think that makes the individual necessarily notable enough for a dedicated article. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 03:19, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

I have to agree with you here. Additionally, even the sources that aren't on the subject's own site are not substantial sources by writers in the field. They are largely human interest blurbs on entertainment sites (see the video, for example) that rely wholly on the subject's self-reporting. I have yet to see substantial coverage that isn't either promotional or superficial. This is not coverage that is ever fact-checked and none of it is scholarly. Not every article on WP has to be scholarly, of course; we have plenty of articles on pop culture topics. But this is not a pop culture topic. The sort of sourcing we usually look for on Indigenous types of articles simply is not there. My impression is that the BLP subject sought some publicity in entertainment and specialized small presses or local papers a number of years ago, but that the interest waned before there was any substantial coverage.

Mycelium has already pushed to add Lockley to articles like Traditional healers of South Africa (even though Lockley looks to be living in Ireland now). So, if experienced editors there will accept the content, I really think a brief mention there is sufficient rather than a standalone article. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 20:12, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

A couple of things:

• My edits were done before I was aware of this conversation. It would have been helpful for you to notify involved editors of this discussion when you started it. Secondly, if you wish to quote me, the entire sentence is, "If you revert my reversion one more time, we will go back to the last stable version from 6 May and resolve linkrot issues as per WP:STATUSQUO." WP:STATUSQUO suggests until consensus is established, the status quo article should remain. The last stable status quo article was May 6 and consensus has not been established, which is why I suggested it.
• The articles do not promote his workshops or business. They merely establish notability and background information, which is very relevant in a South African context. If there are any links/references that are overpromotional, then let's discuss them on the talk page. I am very willing to work with you to remove anything promotional or advertising. I just disagree with your assessments so far, so let's discuss it on talk.
• After a review of all links on the page for retyped versions, I can only find one that is a reference [african-shaman.com]. I have found a independant archived version at [26], so the retyped version can either be verified or relinked to pressreader if it is a stable source. So if that is your primary concern, then it is very easily rectified instead of all this blanket deleting
• South African media sites have a lot of problems with link rot and instability, which is probably why these articles have been archived on his site.Mycelium101 (talk) 02:51, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

If John Lockley is notable in Africa, and/or Internationally, why is this en-wiki article the only one about him? As noted above by @Tiptoethrutheminefield:[27], [28] and myself:[29], I think the lack of notability issues here are clear. I propose Lockley is only notable to a rather small group of English-speakers who frequent the type of workshops Lockley offers. Do folks think we can agree on a merge/redirect here or should we take this to AfD? (And yes, I know I could just go ahead and do this, but as Mycelium has been contentious and prone to revert-warring in the past, and almost no one pays attention to the article in question, I am seeking consensus as long as we finally have a few people looking at it now :) ) - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 17:06, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

I didn't say he was definitely not notable, I said I felt the current content doesn't show evidence of notability. Even if he is a notable figure or personality in certain places or amongst certain people, suitable sources must exist that reveal this notability before he becomes Wikipedia notable. An AfD might force the emergence of such sources if they exist. SO I'd go down the AfD route. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 19:06, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

As TTTTMF says, this conversation is now off-topic for reliable sources and the correct procedure should be followed, via AfD if there are no COI concerns, which I have raised elsewhere. Mycelium101 (talk) 19:55, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

heritage-india.com

Is heritage-india.com (a commercial book site) a reliable source? I found a newly created page Ranadeep Bhattacharyya and Judhajit Bagchi which cited a number of sources from this website so I want to check if we can accept it as reliable or not before going for a cleanup also the article says Ranadeep also regularly writes on heritage and culture for Heritage India Magazine and same with Judhajit Bagchi, isn't it pointing to WP:RSSELF. Thank you – GSS (talk) 08:54, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Having 11 citations to support the innocuous "Ranadeep also regularly writes on heritage and culture for Heritage India Magazine & the award winning Maharashtra Unlimited magazine" appears excessive and actually indicates possible OR. But "Award winning" is editorializing and peacock because there is nothing to suggest it is "award winning" due to the actions of the subject of the article. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:32, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Tiptoethrutheminefield, Yeah! true and since the website also sells magazines "Award winning" sounds like promotional to me. GSS (talk) 16:50, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

The website just mentions one obscure award it got, so it would be too much to say "award wining" even for an article (if one existed) about the magazine. It (the Heritage India magazine) seems to be a genuine magazine based on the contents within them, though it is curious there are no circulation figures, or advertising department. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 19:10, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Source on the Pleistocene lakes of Bolivia (resurrected from archive)

I have a question about the reliability of http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1414-753X2015000100011&script=sci_arttext&tlng=en for a limnographical claim, a paper that involves the lakes of Bolivia and Peru. I came across this paper when scraping Google Scholar for sources to use in my draft User:Jo-Jo Eumerus/Lake Tauca, about a prehistorical lake there. The paper says Paleolimnological studies from around the southern lake segment, Wiñaymarka (a Putina/Aymara word meaning "place of eternity") indicate that in the time of the earliest human settlements in the area the lake level was much higher-- about five meters above current levels, and that the Altiplano had a sea covering perhaps ten times the area of Lake Titicaca. This primal, late-glacial sea, Lake Tauca (43000 km2), covered what is now Lake Titicaca, Lake Poöpó, Uru-uru and the various remaining salt lakes on the high plain which is not a claim I have seen before - in the sources I've read so far - a minority mind you - it has been claimed that Lake Tauca was separate from Lake Titicaca but encompassed the salt lake, Lake Poopo, the salt flats and probably Uru Uru Lake as well. If Tauca was indeed 10 times the size of Titicaca it could conceivably encompassed Titicaca as well given the geography - but Titicaca is larger than 8000 km2, thus "ten times the area" would be over 80000 km2, not anywhere close to 43000 km2 claimed (which may be too small to encompass Titicaca as well, moreover). In other words, I wonder whether that source is reliable enough for information on the size of the lakes. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:55, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: No, she's not an expert on this and we need to use sources that are. Eg [30] and perhaps [31]. Doug Weller talk 14:50, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Rescuing this from the archive. I've found a lot of disagreement between various more pertinent sources thus the sandbox now cites several different sizes. The next question would be whether http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.280/full is a reliable source for the claim that Mataro (...) constituted the largest recorded expansion of Lake Titicaca, overlapping much of the Altiplano and the corresponding map. Concern being that while the Mataro lake cycle is not much discussed (probably little research exists) such a size is a strong claim, especially given that some sources in the sandbox (the ones associated with Titicaca's lake level decreases) imply that a higher sill between the Titicaca and Altiplano basins may have confined such a lake to the Titicaca basin. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:11, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Crash Override Network

Crash Override Network (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Gamergaters want to include information on this page which is sourced to a rightwing political rags The Washington Examiner and Heat Street.

[32]

jps (talk) 12:17, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Reliability does not appear to be a factor. The Washington Examiner is a reliable news source; and reliability is not affected by source bias or position on political spectra (per WP:BIASED). If it were we would have very few sources available at all. Opinion pieces published on Heatstreet.com are reliable for attributed opinion (per WP:RSOPINION). See also the section earlier on this page "Is Heatstreet a reliable source for attributed opinion?".
Of course, verifiability does not imply inclusion, but the other aspects which might exclude this information or affect how it is included, are best handled on the article Talk page. I would also caution that it is not WP:CIVIL to refer to editors in good standing as Gamergaters. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 12:36, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

I find your statements troubling jps as you are using political affiliation as justification to deny facts from being added the page. If that were the case, I would have to agree with Ryk72 and agree that very little information would be usable on wikipedia at all. The heatstreet article is written by someone who used to be in those chat rooms that verified that the leaked logs are indeed valid, which has been further been validated by other members of the group either confirming out right or disappearing all together. Just because you do not agree with the facts does not mean they are any less factual. In fact, you have two telegraph.co.uk articles where one is citing the other on the same first sentence of the article no less. References #3 is using Reference #5 as a source, so you can get rid of Reference #5 for example. Also, while we're on the subject of what is opinion, reliable, and not. If you go by WP:QUESTIONABLE most of the references in the article would be thrown out since no fact checking was done except by Reference #14 which issued an update to the article. If you still want to pursue this, I can go through each reference with a fine tooth comb and issue a redaction for the ones that fail to meet the standards of a reliable source with detailed documentation. I would suggest you put your personal bias aside. 2601:140:8100:BC7C:6944:B648:F326:FB9F (talk) 14:10, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

A biased source like Washington Examiner can be used for some things, but it depends on the context. Simply being biased doesn't mean it's unreliable, but for some sources (like both of these), that bias is prioritized such that the publications do not have a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" and take to publishing WP:FRINGE perspectives. For contentious subjects that tie in with a given bias (this qualifies), it should be considered reliable only for the opinion of the author, not as established fact, and would not alone carry sufficient WP:WEIGHT to merit inclusion. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:38, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Can you elaborate on that bias is prioritized such that the publications do not have a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy"? Are you saying there are instances of inaccuracy and lack of fact-checking or that their bias is strong enough that a reputation for accuracy is irrelevant?

If that article does espouse FRINGE positions they're not represented in our article; here's the current text:

An August 2016 leak of chat logs among members who would go on to found the group suggested some participated in doxing and harassment of Gamergate supporters.[13] Ian Miles Cheong says he was a member of the chat group and that the logs are genuine.[14]

The claim we repeat from the article is uncontroversial - supported by primary documents, confirmed by a participant. As far as I'm aware no publication has countered the article's interpretation or offered an contrary interpretation. James J. Lambden (talk) 17:56, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Are you saying there are instances of inaccuracy and lack of fact-checking or that their bias is strong enough that a reputation for accuracy is irrelevant? - Not the latter; more or less the former. The promotion of WP:FRINGE perspectives is part of what calls their reputation for accuracy into question -- I didn't mean that particular article did so. They do not have a good reputation for fact-checking and accuracy in the way they report on contentious political topics (including social topics with a conservative/liberal angle, like gamergate). Doesn't mean it's precluded from use, but if the only sources for a particular claim are sources that are those with a bias relevant to that claim, it's considered fringe. I'm talking more about use of these sources in general than this particular instance btw. (i.e. I'm more reacting Ryk72's comments than jps's). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:22, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Respectfully, I'm not finding support in either policy or guidelines for if the only sources for a particular claim are sources that are those with a bias relevant to that claim, it's considered fringe; nor evidence that this is a generally applied principle. Nor am I seeing anything in the history of this noticeboard which supports a consensus that the Washington Examiner promotes WP:FRINGE perspectives. I think it's clear from our use of news sources generally that bias is not a disqualifier. More on this to follow, below. If there are supporting policies, guidelines or discussions demonstrating consensus, it would be appreciated if diffs to these could be provided. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 00:03, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Tell that to those who are predisposed to want to include rightwing muckraking in Wikipedia articles, I guess. [33] jps (talk) 16:09, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Rhododentrites, While The Washington Examiner has an obvious political bias, I respectfully disagree that is rises to the level at which we would disqualify the source or consider it WP:QUESTIONABLE. Were we to do so, then, to be fair and equitable, we would need to re-examine our use of sources with similar levels of political bias, such as The Guardian. As for WP:WEIGHT, while this is better discussed at the article Talk page, it is worth noting that there is a particularly small pool of reliable, secondary, sources for this organisation; particularly post-creation; it does not, therefore, take much to warrant inclusion. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 18:26, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Woah there, in what world do the Guardian and the the examiner have "similar levels of political bias"? One is a major newspaper of record which has been around (and been widely respected) for decades, the other is... not. The sources we're discussing here are both badly and obviously biased, especially when it comes to this subject/topic. Way to little weight to include this, even as an attributed opinion. If these are really the best sources out there then I'd say it's obvious the content should not be included. Fyddlestix (talk) 19:13, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

The Guardian has a well-recognised bias in it's ideological & political viewpoints with influences it's editorial & journalistic processes. This is not unusual. The same is true of many or most newspapers. The Washington Post has such a bias that a presidential candidate from a major political party has banned it from campaign events. Murdoch owned media has a well-known bias internationally. In Japan, both the Yomiuri Shimbun (right) & Asahi Shimbun (left) have well-recognised political biases. In Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post has a bias towards supporting mainland China. For our Antipodean friends, The Age & The Australian are generally openly supportive of the Labor & conservative parties respectively. All of these biases are well understood; none are disqualifying of those publications for use as a reliable source. The issue which was raised here was one of bias. Bias alone cannot be disqualifying. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 00:03, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

It so happens we have a reliably sourced section on The Guardian's bias. Also: The Washington Examiner#Political stance. Rhoark (talk) 19:38, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

The idea that The Guardian is a reliable source regarding anything directly or indirectly related to the gamergate controversy is utterly laughable. Editors at The Guardian went as far as to tell their writers not to cover it until Leigh Alexander, an individual at the center of the controversy had the opportunity to propagandize their staff and dictate the narrative. Meanwhile people are arguing that a primary source that has personally verified the validity of the documents is unreliable. What a joke. 24.84.155.22 (talk) 00:39, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The Washington Examiner's reputation is pretty far from that of The Guardian. That's not a statement about the extent of their respective political biases; that's about their reputation as a reliable source (reputation for fact-checking and accuracy and all that). If you do not find The Guardian to be a reliable source for certain topics, you're welcome to open that discussion. More to the point, however, if you had aimed a little lower, going with e.g. Counterpunch, Crooks & Liars, or Daily Kos, I would agree that they are not reliable sources for contentious political topics and that if they're the only ones publishing a particular position, it should be considered fringe. But all of that is a separate discussion. We're not trying to be fair, we're trying to stick to an WP:NPOV. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:22, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

The Guardian was chosen deliberately, because it is so well-recognised as having a political & ideological bias; and yet so clearly considered reliable. The issue which was raised here was one of bias. Given that we recognise sources with well-known, acknowledged bias as reliable, bias alone cannot be a disqualifier. The only use of "fair" in my prior comments was to suggest that we should be consistent, even-handed & non-partisan in our application of policies and guidelines; I am not certain whether it was the intent, but, to suggest that this would be a WP:FALSEBALANCE is a clear misunderstanding of that policy, and deeply disturbing. An invitation to clarify is extended. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 00:03, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I think the point here is fairly clear. There are a number of factual claims being made sourced to the Examiner:

1. There exists genuine chat logs among members who would go on to found CON
2. Said logs suggest some participated in doxing and harassment of Gamergate supporters.

Both of these points would need a fairly strong source to verify. The Washington Examiner is liable to simply repeat something they heard on the internet one day as they have done in the past. Additionally, we have the following opinion sourced to Heatstreet:

1. Ian Miles Cheong says he was a member of the chat group and that the logs are genuine.

This is at least properly couched as an opinion rather than a fact, but how do we know Heatstreet has faithfully and reliably reported that this opinion was proffered? jps (talk) 20:04, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Cheong is the author. Rhoark (talk) 20:37, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

I guess my point is that he is something of an unreliable narrator even when it comes to his own opinions. jps (talk) 21:54, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Are you being serious? Perhaps you'd be a better fit at RationalWiki. 24.84.155.22 (talk) 00:42, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I'm totally serious. The person routinely disavows opinions he admits to having in the past. jps (talk) 10:12, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Last I checked, disavowing opinions one freely admits to having in the past is just a condescending way of saying that somebody changes their mind over time, which is (last I checked) a natural part of the human experience. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 14:09, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Not really. Changing your mind is 'I did think that previously, I now think something different' - its admitting you previously thought something and now longer do. Disavowing former opinions is 'No I never said/thought that, you misheard/misreported/misunderstood me'. Some people (eg presidential candidates) tend to do this quite often where the opinion is so (or turns out to be) controversial as to require complete denial they ever had it. To answer the original question: By themselves I would say neither are reliable enough to consider inclusion. However one is a primary source which states 'yes these logs exists, I participate in them' which is not unreliable unless you consider they may be lying. It couldnt be used for commentary on other participants per the BLP. The Examiner has never been found to be unreliable when discussed before, its always 'well it depends on what you are using it for'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:24, 12 September 2016 (UTC) Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:18, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

If that's what JPS meant, then I may have misinterpreted his statement. I parsed "admits to having in the past" as "acknowledges that he previously held those beliefs, but doesn't believe them currently." The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 14:30, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Ah, I read it as 'He disavows opinions that he (in the past) admitted to having.' Which, without straying into BLP territory, would not surprise me in the slightest in this topic area. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:34, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

It is indeed hard to decide which is which in this topic area, and it is way beyond the scope of Wikipedia itself to try to disentangle this. We have in the past gotten into problems in Wikipedia including opinions of people who have a documented history of changing their minds. (I am reminded of an instance where Virginia Heffernan was quoted praising a particular climate denial blog and then she changed her mind on her verified twitter account which led to all sorts of contortions about how we should describe the state of affairs. The end result was to omit her opinions on the blog entirely.) As it is, I think this discussion is probably best left to the talkpage. jps (talk) 14:45, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

What utter hypocrisy, I could strike out half the citations in any gamergate related controversy page by your own standards. You're POV pushing. 24.84.155.22 (talk) 22:19, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

You might find a way to state the same without the pugnacious language. Would you like to try again? Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 22:58, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm replying to an individual who opens up his POV pushing campaign by calling anyone who disagrees with him "gamergaters". I think my comment is factual and I will let it stand on it's own merit. I'm not an editor, just someone who is more interested in documenting history rather than pushing narratives via proxy wars about the political leanings of websites, not the authors themselves. I will state it again, the hypocrisy of this argument is overwhelming when you consider the currently used citations in related articles. 24.84.155.22 (talk) 00:37, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I find this line of "how do we know that that's his real opinion?" reminiscent of first year philosophy epistemology classes; not least in that it doesn't even rise to the level of sophomoric. We're not verifying the content's of Cheong's heart (now, earlier, or at sometime in the future); we're verifying that which he wrote, and which was reliably published by Dow Jones in HeatStreet. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 15:52, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm honestly struggling to believe this farcical claim that Cheong "misremembered" his membership of the group in an attempt to bring his reliability as a primary source into doubt. Unbelievable. LCrowter (talk) 16:46, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia is supposed to be descriptive, not proscriptive. An article that includes details about a controversy that exists only in the writings of two contentious sources is the epitome of proscriptive writing. Our mandate is not to put this information out there as soon as we get it, but to wait until the information is important to the subject of the article before including it. Right now, this is claimed to be true in wikivoice which is absolutely unacceptable, whether we find these sources reliable or not, whether this is true or not. It takes a lot more than two opinion articles of contentious reliability to establish a claim well enough to be stated as fact in wikivoice.

Even if this is true and the sources deemed reliable, how does it help the article? The second paragraph states clearly that they engage in "white-hat hacking", which any reasonable person would expect to include getting personal information about individuals. So it's not really adding anything except an utterly unnecessary example that paints the subject in a bad light. It's certainly not a major controversy, or else it would be covered by other sources.

All I'm seeing in defense of inclusion in this thread is people pointing out that some of the arguments against inclusion aren't that great. Imagine if I argued that the sky must be blue, because blue is a cool color and there's a cool breeze outside. Does that make the sky red? What about orange? Neon pink? Hell no. The sky is still blue, no matter how crappy my argument for it being blue is. The parties advocating inclusion need to demonstrate that this is reliably sourced (not done), that this is not undue (not done), and that inclusion improves the article (not done). I'm not saying these things can't be done, I'm just saying that so far, they haven't been. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:38, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Those who normally cover these types of topics are known to have extensive personal bias on the topics, several have stated they simply refuse to cover this story outright. These are the same outlets and publications that are often used in gamergate related articles. Meanwhile we have a primary source verify the legitimacy of a primary document which undermines a large amount of what is currently written on the gamergate controversy topic at large. Wikipedia is allowing POV pushers to create revert wars, and game the system in concerns to what does or does not qualify as a "reliable source", without consideration for specific individuals. Just because The Guardian allowed some freelancer blogger to post on their domain suddenly their opinion piece becomes a reliable source? In this modern media age the idea that a brand gives reliability to an article is extremely naive. 24.84.155.22 (talk) 17:52, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

"So it's not really adding anything except an utterly unnecessary example that paints the subject in a bad light" Painting the subject in a bad light is literally the entire premise of the Gamergate controversy article as it stands.

Continuing to claim that Cheong, a confirmed and verifiable member of the group is a contentious source is EXACTLY the reason why people are having a hard time believing that the discussion of inclusion is being carried out in good faith. LCrowter (talk) 18:35, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Has it ever occurred to either of you two that maybe people are concerned about Cheong's reliability because they actually doubt his reliability, instead of pretending to be concerned for the sake of pushing a POV?

Furthermore, I'm still not seeing any arguments for how this claim improves the article, why the complaints about Cheong are unfounded, how the Examiner article is in any way reliable or any concession to putting these claims (properly) into source voice, even if we accept the reliability of the sources. In short, while the exclusion case may contain some fallacious arguments, your case consists of nothing but name calling and incredulity that the other side doesn't take Cheong at his word. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:52, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

So what you're saying is we need at least one other primary source to verify the legitimacy of this primary document? More? I really should just stop wasting my time, it's pretty clear you're not interested in having an article that reflects reality, merely an idealized concept of reality. I guess it's your job as an admin to determine whether or not a primary source is lying and you've made that call. Do me a favor and go look at some the citation people currently use, what a joke. 24.84.155.22 (talk) 18:58, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

<sarcasm>Yes, I'm sure that if you can just cast enough aspersions on me, I'll suddenly turn around and admit you were right all along, no actual arguments required.</sarcasm>

In all seriousness, I think you've inspired a good idea; getting an admin involved in this thread. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 19:05, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

It depends on how you view "improving" the article. If attempting to include a claim, confirmed by a verified primary source and reported on by a secondary source is not the best way to go about creating new content on an article then we may as well all pack up and head home now, because this dispute is clear evidence that it's a waste of time.

The arguments pitched against Cheong are that he is:

• Prone to changing his mind on things.
• Writing on a site which allegedly engaged in "tabloid"/"right wing" behaviour

The first isn't an argument at all, he is entitled to have any opinion he likes and it doesn't change the fact that the claim he makes of being a member of the group can be verified with the evidence he refers to.

The second is also a moot point, Heat Street is not exactly a well known name, but given that it was founded by a former British MP as part of a multinational news company I think that it fits the right criteria for inclusion. Much more so than Gawker or the Mary Sue, which are widely cited on the main Gamergate controversy page despite a history of poor editorial/ethical standards.

The wording of the statement as proposed by James seemed to be a fair and reasoned edit based on the information that the sources provide. The rest of the article, which goes to great lengths to talk about the work being done by CON to an almost advertorial extent, provides more than enough balance to ensure that we continue to meet a Neutral POV. LCrowter (talk) 19:34, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Please read Argument from fallacy. You can utterly destroy every argument against inclusion, and still not make the case for inclusion. You need to make a positive argument for why we should keep the material. Also, your argument about Heat Street applies just as well the breitbart.com, one of the biggest non-RSs there is. A sources reliability is not determined by the success level of its founder, but by its reputation for fact checking and accuracy. Also, there would be nothing to say about the group if the article did not say what the group does. That's the thing with group of any sort, from your local D&D group to multinational corporations to charities: the most important thing about them is what they do. Disparaging the article for describing what CON does is like disparaging an article about a film for having a plot summary. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 19:44, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

The reason why it must be included is clear for anyone with a sense of objectivity. Please refer to the post by 73.13.28.182 where he goes into detail, but really, it should be obvious with the slightest bit of background on the topic. 24.84.155.22 (talk) 19:53, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Once again, we're pack to accusing others of POV pushing... For the record: I have absolutely no dog in this show. At the end of the day, I don't care whether this group gets dragged through the mud, lauded as heroes, or utterly ignored by the rest of society. In short, I have no preference for either outcome, but your side has so far, completely failed to convince me of anything except your inability to abide by WP's behavioral guidelines. The second IP editor is the only one to even attempt to make a case for inclusion. My advice to you and to the 24.84 IP editor are to shut up and let the 73.13 IP editor discuss this for you. You're only hurting your cause with this "accuse everyone who doesn't agree with me of POV pushing" tact. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:09, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Why would anything I say affect the outcome of this discussion? The evidence is before us and it can stand on it's own merit, I'm simply directly you to look at it. I'd rather not shut up and simply continue to return us to the point: what will it take? So far the hecklers vote has brought us to a editing stand-still with no recourse beyond an admin unlocking the article so we can resume our revert war between "nothing happened" and "here's some accusations that come along with this mountain of evidence and a primary source backing it up". 24.84.155.22 (talk) 20:28, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

@LCrowter: Much more so than Gawker or the Mary Sue, which are widely cited on the main Gamergate controversy page Just a note that isn't a true statement. The Mary Sue is cited once, and it's being used for the attributed opinion of Wu's and even then it's only being used as a primary source and backed up by a secondary source. Gawker is cited for a statement about Gawker saying they lost money. And Kotaku a Gawker publication is used in three places, once as an example of the "Death of an identity" article and twice for statements about Kotaku directly. — Strongjam (talk) 19:51, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

My apologies. You'll have to excuse my lack of awareness as I don't participate actively in editing the Gamergate controversy page. I feel my point stands that I don't feel the inclusion is compromised by any deliberate misgivings on the part of the websites in question. LCrowter (talk) 19:59, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree, name-calling and casting aspersions isn't helping anyone. Since you asked, the information improves the article by documenting that CON was conducting many of the same toxic conduct that they purported to oppose, directly in contrast to their mission statement. Unlike most of the actions attributed to Gamergate, there are primary sources showing that doxing, harassmnent, and covert intimidation tactics were done by the members and founders. Also unlike Gamergate, the sources show that they were done with the Network's full knowledge, consent, direct encouragement and assistance. Cheong himself should be considered a reliable source, as he's been the most forthcoming about the actions of CON. The logs also align with the statements made soon after leaving CON months ago- that the group wasn't living up to their values and engaging in the same behavior that they claimed to oppose. Furthermore, the Washington Examiner article presents an objective description of the log's contents that we can see match the primary source being covered. So far there has been no debate over the accuracy of the article's contents, nor has there been any proposal to cite any of the article's more opinionated statements. 73.13.28.182 (talk) 19:20, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Well that's better. An actual discussion.

Since you asked, the information improves the article by documenting that CON was conducting many of the same toxic conduct that they purported to oppose, directly in contrast to their mission statement. I see two problems with that. 1) Allegations against 'social justice' types are a dime a dozen. The internet is full of them. I'm sure there are allegations that Zoe Quinn has raped someone out there, somewhere. 2) Even if they are true, they serve as nothing more than an example of the "white hat hacking" the article already identifies the group as engaging in. Hacking is, by definition, the retrieval of private information, an act which accomplishes nothing if that information is not used somehow. Doxing is, by definition, the release of private information. It should be apparent enough from the mention of white hat hacking that doxing would be in their repertoire.

Cheong himself should be considered a reliable source, as he's been the most forthcoming about the actions of CON. That looks like a non-sequitur to me. How does Cheong being vocal (you used the word "forthcoming", but that word presumes he is already considered reliable) about CON make him more reliable? Generally speaking, in my experience, the most vocal critics of any group or person are usually the least trustworthy. I have a niece who is the most feminist person I know, and she thinks that all men are rapists by nature. The fact that she won't shut up about it doesn't make her views any less ridiculous.

The logs also align with the statements made soon after leaving CON months ago- that the group wasn't living up to their values and engaging in the same behavior that they claimed to oppose. That's something worth considering. Can you provide some sources where he said this soon after leaving CON?

Furthermore, the Washington Examiner article presents an objective description of the log's contents that we can see match the primary source being covered. While Cheong's endorsement helps, I find it to be insufficient, given the nature of this issue. I think there needs to be some independent affirmation that the logs are genuine, such as a current member of CON who is a participant attempting to 'explain' the logs, or to justify their use of such tactics. Barring that, we should not claim the logs are accurate. If we can find some coverage elsewhere, however, I'm open to keeping this claims, re-written to be in source voice. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 19:44, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I see two problems with that. 1) Allegations against 'social justice' types are a dime a dozen. The internet is full of them. Thank you for the detailed reply. This is true, but allegations against anyone are common on the internet. We're not citing a 4chan post, these aren't third-party "allegations" but a direct documentation of the group's inner workings, verified by a primary source. The Washington Examiner article mostly just repeats what is already documented.

In regards to "white hat hacking" being a sufficient descriptor, it's an umbrella term used to describe a variety of actions, with their unifying attribute being that they are done "ethically". When in doubt, it's better to be more specific than vague, which is why most of the same actions attributed to Gamergate are not described as "white hat hacking". And the new sources cast serious doubt on the group's self-asserted ethics, as they seemed to be mostly acting in defense of their own reputation, and out of revenge against individuals who took no part in any doxing or harassment.

That looks like a non-sequitur to me. How does Cheong being vocal (you used the word "forthcoming", but that word presumes he is already considered reliable) about CON make him more reliable?. He's been the most honest about the group's inner workings, whereas no other members will confirm or deny the logs (besides whoever leaked them, and the leaker is clearly not comfortable with making themselves known). In the past he stated that he joined because he believed in the purported mission of CON, but grew disillusioned upon seeing that they were seeking to create more victims of doxing/harassment instead of supporting them. I'll need a moment to find his past statements, but he's talked about it at length in a blog post or two, without leaking specific chatlogs. Also unlike the current members of CON, Cheong no longer has a personal or professional stake in the group's reputation. He's also not the "most vocal" critic, just the most forthcoming. His recent verification of the logs was the most he's spoken about the group since announcing his departure. Aside from that, current members of CON have commented on the release of the logs, CON member Randi Harper was present in the logs and publicly attempted to justify her actions in a section. Specifically, the act of deliberately antagonize Gamergate members on twitter for the purpose of "distracting" them from a recent discovery that one CON member was an outspoken pedophile and child porn distributor in the years prior. The only sources for this are primary ones, so I shall not name the CON member in question. Source for Randi's verification of the logs: https://archive.is/h9Xfp 73.13.28.182 (talk) 20:59, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Can you please confirm the link that you've made for the verification from Randi. It appears that there's a manual redirect page set up. LCrowter (talk) 21:21, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

The archive.is link works fine (which I consider a legitimate archiving service in case that comes up) but Randi hasn't deleted the post so it's live as well: https://twitter.com/randileeharper/status/769662582890168320 24.84.155.22 (talk) 21:28, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

The Mary Sue is cited three times on the main Gamergate Controversy page, actually. Gawker is cited 6 times. There are no less than 3 papers behind paywalls cited as sources; do we expect people to pay to read these sources, or are they just to assume that they say what they are said to say? There are dozens of opinion pieces sourced. There is a BBC article written by Quinn sourced. As has been mentioned, though, all the sources follow a strict narrative and POV-- and, in some cases, the sourced items are written by people friendly with Quinn and her crew of friends. If you can, by chance, explain why those sources are considered reliable, when many of them are opinion pieces or are from sources, like The Mary Sue, that do not pass the 'known for fact checking' paradigm being pushed here, I'd love to hear it.173.61.17.77 (talk) 21:50, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

(In response to this comment by 73.13.28.182.) We're not citing a 4chan post, these aren't third-party "allegations" but a direct documentation of the group's inner workings, verified by a primary source. The Washington Examiner article mostly just repeats what is already documented. If you sprinkle the word "allegedly" a few times in that quote, I would agree with it entirely. As it is, that's the point of this discussion: we're discussing whether this claim is accurate, whether the sources are reliable, and whether the claim is WP:UNDUE. Stating your preferred conclusion on two of those issues is not an argument for that conclusion.

He's been the most honest about the group's inner workings, whereas no other members will confirm or deny the logs (besides whoever leaked them, and the leaker is clearly not comfortable with making themselves known). Again, stating that he's honest is not an argument that he's honest. Without a prior reputation for integrity, the only things we know about him are that he makes the claims he makes. For all we know, he only joined the group to dig up dirt on them, failed, and decided to type up a fake chat log instead, then 'leak' it to the Examiner, an outlet he knew would be sympathetic. Now, I'm not suggesting that's the case. I'm just looking for some evidence that fits less with that hypothesis than with the "Cheong is the one telling the truth" hypothesis. So far, the evidence could go either way. And since this is a BLP issue, that means we should leave it out. (This doesn't matter if this controversy gets picked up on by other, good sources. At that point, the allegations themselves will be notable enough for inclusion.)

Now, assuming the twitter link and the archive.is link (I can't access the latter, whether because I'm at work or due to the same problem LCrowter had) are the same thing, I have to say that while that's a good start, that's not the confirmation of their accuracy you claim it to be. Sure, Randi might be suggesting "Yeah, we said those things, but that was long before we started CON," or he could just as likely be saying "The person who made this up couldn't even get the date right." MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:54, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I do know that Randi's claim about the logs being dated 4 months prior to CON's founding is only partially true. A part of the log dates back to that, but continues up until about two weeks prior to the public launch date. A former client and professional blogger wrote about his experiences in getting support from CON prior to their launch, and that the network was operating privately weeks before that. Also, Randi further justified her own actions in the logs in other tweets. Sources:

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2015/01/17/the-social-justice-illuminati-is-real-and-its-an-anti-hate-task-force

http://i.imgur.com/31GDVbe.jpg

https://twitter.com/randileeharper/status/769020828193292288

98.115.22.9 (talk) 22:45, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

So we're now back to where unless Zoe Quinn affirmatively verifies these logs. I feel like this a moving goalpost, as long as Crash Override Network has even a shred of plausible deniability we're not even allowed to mention it full stop. It doesn't matter we have the anonymous leaker, the chat logs, the trello logs, one person in the logs verifying the legitimacy and now additional primary source acknowledging validity of the leak and attempting to provide additional context. Where is an admin? Are you an admin? Like this is getting crazy. 24.84.155.22 (talk) 22:03, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I'll say this one time. I'm not an admin and never claimed to be. Get over it. I've asked for an admin to come take a look at this, mostly at the fact that you've edit warred over your own personal attacks to keep them on the page despite three other editors removing them. If you want anyone, let alone me to actually engage you, you're going to need to drop this "everyone who disagrees with me is a POV pusher!" attitude, put on your big boy pants, and engage like an adult. Until then, I'm done responding to you. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:09, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Don't really care about this whole thing, but gotta say that considering the verbiage used at the -very- start of this section, complaining now about others calling people POV pushers is quite silly. Arkon (talk) 22:14, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I asked you previously why your name was green, I'm obviously new to wikipedia (at least in this context) and you never answered. I continue to ask, what more does it take? We have the primary documents and we have 2 primary sources acknowledging their validity and origin. Do I need to bribe some Forbes contributor to get an article run that ultimately cites the exact same stuff? You're clearly filibustering and being a disruptive force to wikipedia. I don't normally edit Wikipedia because I don't normally want to deal with this stuff but clearly the normal editors of these pages are not of the correct competence level. It takes some idiot rando on the internet to come in here and tell you the sky is blue, all you gotta do is look at it (which you clearly have a vested interest in avoiding). 24.84.155.22 (talk) 22:17, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

So as long as an active member of CON doesn't actively verify the chat leaks we'll just pretend none of this ever happened? By the way in concerns to CON there's no real activity to speak of and from my understanding most CON members intentionally kept unlisted so you're basically saying until Zoe Quinn herself talks about it we should just ignore it. Are you an actual admin? why is your name green? I have a hard time believing you speak with authority by the way you speak.

I should also point out the concept of CON is flimsy at best and most of the information is self-cited without a shred of evidence. Yet it's all reliable, good faith and all. 24.84.155.22 (talk) 20:57, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

24.84.155.22 (talk) 20:55, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Reliability of the Washington Examiner

Taking a look at the Washington Examiner editorial board and staff. There are several experienced journalists and editors there. I don't know what kind of fact checking it does generally. Looking at the article cited, we see that the writer (Ashe Scow) is listed as a "Commentary writer". I don't know what exactly this means, but perhaps it is similar to a columnist or opinion writer. The claim for which it is supposed to be a source is "suggest some members participated in doxing and harassment of Gamergate supporters while part of the group". That's a rather strong claim and has possible BLP implications. I would not use a sole source like the cited article for this claim. The Heatst source is probably fine with attribution: whether it should be included or not is to be decided on the talk page. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 22:30, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

If we're talking about the author in particular, she is listed on the site as part of the "opinion" staff. She worked previously for the Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action for America. Even if this were a mainstream newspaper, which it is not, an opinion column is rarely an appropriate source for a contentious claim (although I recognize I'm replying to someone who agrees with this). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:53, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

The two comments above mine are pretty much silver bullets to this discussion. The article is an opinion article, because the author is an opinion contributor. The author has no reputation for fact checking, and an apparent reputation for pushing a particular ideology (which is biased enough that we should consider that bias when coming to a decision here). The other source itself is an opinion piece. So no, these are not reliable sources. If the claims published within then are addressed elsewhere (in other words, if the claims themselves are notable enough to be considered prominant viewpoints) then we can include them in the source voice. But we should never include them in wiki voice. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:58, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

if the claims themselves are notable enough to be considered prominant viewpoints -- Sure, but that "notable enough" would have to be established by better (or at least more mainstream sources) to include the voices of these authors. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:07, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, that's exactly what I meant. Sorry I wasn't more clear. If a handful of RSs start writing stories about this claim (or at least bringing it up in more than a passing way in articles about this site or gamergate or something else closely related), then we can include it in source voice. Not before. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:26, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't see the current opinion from WE as notable enough to include in the article (although it certainly did encourage a few anonymous IPs to participate in discussing it.) Should I, at this point, remove the statements sourced to it and the related opinion article from Cheong, or simply rephrase entirely as opinion? Given that the source is accusing named people of engaging in harassment, I'm wary of including it given that it is purely opinion. PeterTheFourth (talk) 21:29, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Remove? No; Rephrase? Propose something on the Talk page. Notability and Reliability are not congruent; nor is there any consensus, here or otherwise, that one affects the other. The article text does not (other than Cheong, who self identifies as having been involved) name any persons. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 22:07, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Simply put: No reason to include 'opinion article from opinion contributor' if it's not a notable opinion. PeterTheFourth (talk) 06:29, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Surely I've missed something here. Cheong's statements have been noted; by the Washington Examiner. And really, I'm not sure where this idea that we only include things that are notable comes from - WP:N covers determining which topics should have their own articles; WP:NNC makes it clear that it doesn't cover content. If we're requiring independent verification of everything that an expert or primary source says then we're not really going to be able to include much at all. I don't wish to fail WP:AGF but this ex-policy requirement does seem indistinguishable in effect from moving the goalposts. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 15:52, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) From WP:IRS:

When taking information from opinion content, the identity of the author may help determine reliability. The opinions of specialists and recognized experts are more likely to be reliable and to reflect a significant viewpoint

The author has reported on this topic, accurately and in depth for over a year. That bolsters her credibility.

Policy recognizes the distinction between fact and opinion and that both may exist even in the same article. You're arguing for a much stricter standard where if an author is primarily known for opinion pieces any piece she publishes (whether identified as opinion or not) counts as an opinion piece. I see no support for that argument in policy or in past discussions.

The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content.

This is a rare example where a journalist can "show their work." We have the original logs, with published verification by a participant, supporting the author's claims. That against bolsters credibility. Is anyone in fact arguing the claims are in doubt? No RS has challenged them or published a contradictory interpretation of the source material.

The article in the Examiner may not meet the standards you've set but I'd argue none of the current article's sources meet those standards; they all offer opinions, and the reliability of some (Destructoid) are even more questionable. It not likely sources meeting our highest standards will report on this or any other development with this organization so the standard you've outlined (which I do not agree is required) is effectively unattainable. James J. Lambden (talk) 21:36, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

If WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, you are free to ask for the article to be deleted. I probably would !vote to delete. My interest right now is the rumormongering that seems to be allowed because a single opinion columnist from the Washington Examiner published a claim which has, as far as I can tell, been picked up by literally no one else in the mainstream media. jps (talk) 11:08, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Given your contribution elsewhere on this page that "Gamergaters want to include information on this page which is sourced to a rightwing political rags The Washington Examiner and Heat Street" (emphasis mine) I think there's a bit more to this than just an interest against rumormongering.

In any case, as James has already stated, the logs are backed up by a primary source (Cheong) who can verify the contents of the logs in question due to his direct involvement. This has then been reported on by Schow, who has done so regularly on the GamerGate controversy for the Examiner. Given the contentious nature of the topic in question, I find it unlikely that the Examiner would risk allowing blatantly untrue accusations to be published irrespective of the seniority of such a reporter or their politcal alignment. As far as I'm aware, the Examiner, unlike Breitbart, has not been ruled out explicitly for biased or poorly fact checked works, so I remain to be convinced that it should be the case in this instance. LCrowter (talk) 14:04, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be any clear and obvious implication of what "commentary writer" means for reliability. I agree that saying someone engaged in harassment is a judgement call, and there isn't enough backing to say that. I do think there is a case to be made for including claims that are not opinions per se, particularly the paragraph, For example, the group discussed trying to contact the superior officer of a Purple Heart recipient who had expressed support of Gamergate to try to silence him. The group also discussed contacting Google in an attempt to get Justine Tunney fired after she also voiced support for Gamergate.. Unlike the interpretation of whether or not it was harassment, this is not an opinion of Ashe Schow; it's in the logs or it isn't. Rhoark (talk) 16:24, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I would agree that specifying certain events which can be positively verified by the logs would be preferable over making accusations of harassment. LCrowter (talk) 17:03, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

The initial wording was mine but you're right: specifics are better supported by policy and I think address some of the objections presented. I am somewhat concerned to see an admin edit the article through protection, to remove the content on debatable BLP grounds. James J. Lambden (talk) 18:00, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

The hypocrisy is overwhelming, shit like this is why I don't volunteer my time to be an editor. This shit needs to come under control real quick because I think this revert war is going to become a controversy in itself. Make no mistake, the inclusion of these logs in the Crash Override Network would cause ripple effects throughout all related gamergate articles. These two sentences essentially throw doubt at the majority of existing citations on the topic. What type of citation does this require? Do we need additionally primary sources to verify the document? Do we need all participants? Do we just need some freelance blogger at The Guardian to mention it? 24.84.155.22 (talk) 18:09, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Well the logs do show they had a number of wiki editors on speed dial. It wouldn't surprised me if that includes admins. 107.77.223.81 (talk) 18:15, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Recommend everyone cool their jets a bit and remind themselves of WP:NPA and WP:ASPERSIONS here. Fyddlestix (talk) 18:25, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry is there a rule about referencing known meat-puppets who have a long history of gaming the system in the exact same way? Hecklers veto and sourcing nightmares, the truth doesn't matter, the bureaucracy matters. How long are we gonna play this game? Will it take until everyone forgets about this whole mess before an even half-hearted attempt at a NPOV article is possible? Let's get back on topic and figure out what exactly the requirements for referencing a primary document that has been verified by a primary source in an article. I'm still not sure where the consensus actually is. Unfortunately the hecklers veto as succeeded in locking down the article without the new additional information. 24.84.155.22 (talk) 18:34, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

You're so stuck on this "freelance blogger" and here I am trying to figure out what article from The Guardian you're even talking about. clpo13_(talk) 18:13, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

What's your point? I'm attempting to point out that freelance bloggers in online news media is now the norm. The very first citation in the Crash Override Article is a op-ed by a freelancer at The Guardian who you could reasonably debate is an individual at the very center of the gamergate controversy. 24.84.155.22 (talk) 18:18, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I thought there was a different article you were referring to. clpo13_(talk) 18:23, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I wasn't referring to any specific article, it's just a meme in these discussions. Like The Guardian is the standard for what is a reliable source. I didn't even know what the first citation on the Crash article was unlike I just looked. Looking at the gamergate article I can see at least 6 citations by freelancers at The Guardian, a large amount of which were written by another individual who you could debate was at the very center of the gamergate controversy. I'd personally argue The Guardian is an extremely biased source on this specific topic, we're not talking about Greenwald and Edward Snowden. We're talking about a very incenstous and cliquish group of bloggers trying to spin their own personal conflicts. 24.84.155.22 (talk) 18:49, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Some perspectives that might help ground the assessment:

• About the Examiner: CJR Heresy on the Right CJR The Oklahoman distributes a hit piece on Obama Poynter Institute Why NASA's Muslim Mission Was Newsworthy to the Washington Examiner NYTimes Now In Print: To Catch a Fugitive The Federalist Can the Right Displace the Established Media? It Already Has
• Use by others: CJR Schooling the President CJR It's the second term, stupid! Poynter Institute Washington Post denies Jeff Bezos sways coverage BBC Rolling Stone apologizes for Virginia rape story WSJ Trump and the Hack USA Today Johnson, Feingold clash on college costs

Rhoark (talk) 21:06, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

• Comment. Opinion content is largely reliable as a primary source for the opinion of the author. Primary sources must only be used with care on Wikipedia, in part because it is difficult to assess their WP:WEIGHT. But in this case, the content is being cited for facts, not opinions. Generally speaking, opinion content is not reliable for facts. If facts are verifiable, typically they will have been reported by other sources that have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. A supposed "fact" being only reported by an opinion column, without a follow-up in more factually grounded kinds of sources (like news reporting), is clearly a red flag, that should be a clue that better sources are required. Also, I should point out that WP:BLP does apply to the allegations made in the proposed edit, which generally demands sources of a very high quality. Sławomir Biały (talk) 21:02, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Just another IP editor here: These logs are demonstrably authentic if one simply compares what primary sources have said. Surely Wikipedia policy must have some remedy for this situation. It feels rather "cheap" to simply use the "reliability of secondary sources" as a proxy to suppress this document. 73.151.125.24 (talk) 10:36, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Considering this it'd make sense to delete the entire crash override network article, the majority of claims are unverified and arguably reads more like an advertisement. It was promoted for deletion but it was kept for some reason, I imagine due to the historical meatpuppetry and admin abuse surrounding this topic. Granted with this new information the inclusion of Crash Override Network becomes a lot more relevant since it has severe implications on the gamergate controversy at large. 24.84.155.22 (talk) 21:05, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I'd push for Washingtom Examiner to be a valid source in this special case. The arguments put up here (its an opinion piece! But, its not. What is your definitiion of opinion piece versus other sourced articles?.) aren't very convincing. The article is about a small, rarely heard about, twitter safety council which is why its not being reported on by various outlets. Fangrim (talk) 13:42, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

It's clearly editorial commentary as opposed to news reporting. Ashley Schow is listed as a "commentary writer". Moreover, her former affiliation is with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, rather than news. Finally, the paragraph

"There's much more in the leaked logs, which Ian Miles Cheong has been documenting over at Heat Street, and I encourage you to read it. The point I want to make is that members of CON, including Quinn, have spoken out against online bullying before the United Nations, and have also worked with Google and Twitter allegedly to stop online harassment, all while engaging in the very same harassment."

is immediately disqualifying. One would never see a reliable news source address the reader in this way. Sławomir Biały (talk) 15:03, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Aside from the personal statements ("I encourage/the point I want to make"), Those all seem like objective claims, supported by the primary sources. It's an observable through these primary sources that the logs were leaked, there's more of them, Cheong is documenting them at Heat Street, that CON has spoken out against forms of online bullying before the United nations, that they have worked with google and Twitter on these issues, and that they've engaged in the same behavior they've denounced. Although, if directly addressing the reader is a disqualifier, then there are one or two sources on the Crash Override page that should be removed now. 73.13.28.182 (talk) 22:45, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

If they engaged in such behavior, and it can be proven to a degree that news organizations with a reputation for fact-checking can corroborate, then I'm sure we'll be reading about it soon in higher quality sources. But the Wikipedia rules don't allow us to reference poor opinion sources like this for making controversial claims about living persons, period. Furthermore, based on the primary sources of the leaks I have seen, I do not believe that they alone support the statement as added to the article. An uncomfortably high amount of reading-between-the-lines and interpretation is required to convict Quinn et al of doxing and harassment, which is what the proposed edit to the article purports to do. Sławomir Biały (talk) 00:13, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

@73.151.125.24: Let's assume for the moment that the logs are authentic. They should then be used as any primary source is. One way in which they can be used is when they have secondary coverage; we can then cite the secondary coverage as to how these other sources characterize the primary source, which parts are important and which are not and so on. In the absence of widespread sources in the latter category, primary sources are generally used only with attribution. (There are plenty of bad articles on Wikipedia which don't follow this practice, but that's a separate matter). In addition, one also has to determine the WP:WEIGHT - here there's no right and wrong, but the case has to be argued - and it is a uphill battle if there's little secondary coverage. Sometimes a topic is just too recent and/or too controversial that good sources with enough weight aren't available, or there's too much heat/light ratio. In that case, one has no choice but to wait for better sources to be available. Wikipedia already has too much "breaking news" dross, imo, but I digress. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 13:45, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

One gets a very different impression of things reading the actual logs than what is expressed in these opinion sources. The logs themselves are not cite-able, and the opinion sources are just that—opinion. Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:53, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Filibuster Waiting Room

We should probably break up this disgusting thread with a new section, it's hard to read. Now that there's nothing more to be said and we're simply waiting for everyone to forget about this article before pretending like nothing ever happened maybe we could play a game? Maybe we could do that thing where we all say a sentence and try to make a story out of it. What do you guys even normally do on this page? is this just where citations go to die? 24.84.155.22 (talk) 04:30, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

This is just an informal discussion page where random good samaritans give their viewpoint. Whether the sentence is included or not is decided on the article talkpage. The best way to handle impasses/deadlocks it is to open an RfC, imo. Just give a sentence and ask people yes/no. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 13:48, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Where do the formal discussions happen where intelligent humans talk about reality, as opposed to circlejerking about their favorite websites? I'm not a wikieditor and as such I'm more interested in the truth rather than naively believing a domain name lends reliability to an op-ed written by a freelance blogger. As someone interested in the truth I find it disturbing that no one seems interested in it. Reminder: We have 2 primary sources verifying the legitimacy of primary documents of extended length and verifiability. 24.84.155.22 (talk) 20:49, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

1) Wikipedia is not in the business of "the truth", 2) Primary sources are not necessarily enough for exceptional claims, 3) if everyone is against you, maybe you should reevaluate your position. clpo13_(talk) 22:57, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Moving forward

The instructions at the top of this page are clear. Applying them here, this information needs to be provided:

• Source. For an online source, please include links.
• Content. The exact statement(s) in the article that the source supports. Please supply a diff, or put the content inside block quotes. For example: <blockquote>text</blockquote>. Many sources are reliable for statement "X," but unreliable for statement "Y".

Note the last sentence.

As this is a very contentious topic, expect things to proceed slowly as debate takes place. This debate needs to be free of snark, aspersions, or attacks. Editors not adhering to this requirement should expect arbcom enforcement blocks. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 18:14, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Did you hear that two different people in the primary source documents have verified the legitimacy of the documents? How many more people in those logs need to come forward and verify them?

We're not even talking about the content of the article, we're simply trying to get the concept of the existence of the leaks allowed, full stop. So far we have two different individuals who are heavily featured in those leaked logs acknowledging them, one of which who went into detail to verify it while the other acknowledged the legitimate origin. Those two people are Ian (and his heatstreet article) and Randi Harper (who commented on the chronology of the logs on twitter).

Should we be allowed to acknowledge that these things happened (in our current timeline of reality)? 24.84.155.22 (talk) 21:13, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Additionally I recommend reading what has already been written, most of your requirements have already been fulfilled. Again, we cannot attempt to make a draft because we haven't even got past the idea that we can acknowledge the leaks in any form at all. 24.84.155.22 (talk) 21:25, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Content The disputed text is in this diff:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Crash_Override_Network&diff=739238356&oldid=739214608

Sources The primary sources are linked from here:

• a leaked chat log of the Crash Override Network's internal communications
• CON's leaked Trello incident board

Secondary sources include Ian Miles Cheong who was a member of the Crash Override Network:

• http://heatst.com/tech/chat-logs-expose-crash-override-network-as-online-bullies/
• http://heatst.com/tech/new-leaks-reveal-crash-override-networks-online-harassment/

A report by Ashe Schow:

• http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/when-the-harassed-become-the-harassers/article/2600558

William Usher is self-published but has followed the subject closely and any of his claims can be double checked against the logs:

• http://www.oneangrygamer.net/2016/08/chat-logs-reveal-zoe-quinn-admitting-to-sabotaging-polaris-game-jam/10429/
• http://www.oneangrygamer.net/2016/08/crash-override-network-members-supported-randi-harpers-attempted-dox-on-gamergate-supporters/10500/

Hope that helps. 50.196.177.155 (talk) 21:24, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Also here's Randi Harper confirming the origin of the leaks (note: the logs cover an extensive period of time): https://twitter.com/randileeharper/status/769662582890168320 I just assumed you would have already read what was written and didn't need it spoonfed, sorry my mistake. 24.84.155.22 (talk) 21:26, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Nope. The sources are not reliable for making the claim made in the above diff. See my reasons in the previous section. Sławomir Biały (talk) 21:42, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

I guess we should just pack up and leave, at least one editor said the idea of any referencing of the leaks at all is too icky for them. So how many more primary sources need to come forward and acknowledge these leaks? No one has said they're faked, and two have acknowledged them as real. Do simply need to bribe a freelance blogger to pitch a story to a domain that is on your reliable sources whitelist? How do we proceed? 24.84.155.22 (talk) 21:45, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Whilst I understand your frustration, please try to remain civil. LCrowter (talk) 22:40, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Note for editors. [34] --NeilN ^{talk to me} 22:38, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Luisa Piccarreta

I have some questions about the reliability of the following sources used in the above article:

• EWTN - looking at the homepage, it seems to be actively prosletising (e.g. mentions of missions and donations on the home page), which makes me wonder if it can be WP:RS.
• Divine Will looks straightforwardly promotional of Luisa Picaretta as someone to be venerated, and makes no attempt at being a WP:RSa
• Everett Crawl Space Blog mentions crawl spaces, but not the subject of the article as far as I can find.
• This is another link to EWTN - as first item.
• luisapicarreta.co seems to be openly lobbying (e.g. "Contact your bishop").
• bookofheaven.org.uk fails to load for me, however the URL resembles the name of Bookofheaven, who has been blocked for using the account for purposes of promotion.

Granted, religion is a very sensitive area for many people, but am I right in thinking that most of these sources fail WP:RS? Autarch (talk) 14:46, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

How is reliability defined ?

With Wikipedia:Ignore all rules, the definition of reliable sources has become a mess of confusion.

• Would a biography be considered reliable source for Wikipedia ?
• Would a autobiography be considered reliable source for Wikipedia ?
• Would a Convenience link(eg. youtube.com, archive.org, etc.) be considered reliable source for Wikipedia ?
• Would a video documentation be considered reliable source for Wikipedia ?
• Would a third-party (eg. Amazon) distributed book be reliable source for Wikipedia ?
• Would a 'Leak' such as a document released by Wikileaks be considered reliable source for Wikipedia?
• Would a political magazine be considered reliable source for Wikipedia ?
• Would a Minister/Representative/Senator statement be considered reliable source for Wikipedia ?
• Would a presidential statement be considered reliable source for Wikipedia ?
• What source & licence can be used for a political party's flag ?

I would like to know the answers to these, so I can add/remove respective content in Wikipedia articles, as per answers written here. More specifically, New World Order (conspiracy theory), Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, PRISM (surveillance program), Windows 10, Aam Aadmi Party, Democratic Party (United States), etc.

Thank You --Ne0 (talk) 16:36, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

90% or more of this is already answered at WP:RS and WP:IRS. EvergreenFir (talk) 16:38, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

“definition of reliable sources has become a mess of confusion”: to be more precise, the answers there are confusing at best, illegible at worst. And, I was personally directed here from those pages. --Ne0 (talk) 17:01, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

• WP:IAR states that we ignore rules when they prevent us from improving the enclyclopedia. For example, imagine a medical research team publishes the results of an experiment that show that eating eggs and hashbrowns every morning will make your IQ increase by an average of 20 points over the course of a decade, and over the next year or so several other papers publish the results of experiments which confirm it exactly; 20 IQ points over 10 years. In such an obvious case, it is extremely unlikely that someone would publish a review, as such a review would essentially be an extremely long winded version of "all the experiments that agree with each other agree with each other. I don't know what else to write here, la de da, please publish this, I need tenure!"

However, WP:MEDRS tells us to wait for a review of experiments on the effects of IQ in groups that eat eggs and hashbrowns for breakfast. WP:IAR is our way out of this conundrum: We don't have to leave out this important information simply because we can't check all the tick boxes at MEDRS.

WP:IAR is not a way to argue that any source of information that might be accurate can be used, however. There is quite a bit of accurate information that should be left out of WP, because it is not reliably sourced. The key here is that everything on WP should be both accurate and verifiable. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:06, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

So, from what I understand, I can use WP:IAR to bypass WP:MEDRS, and revive this article as common knowledge. Am I right ? --Ne0 (talk) 01:32, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

I think this relates to the talk page subpage up for deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Talk:New World Order (conspiracy theory)/13 Secret Families. Doug Weller talk 20:06, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

I am tired of good faith constructive edits being trampled by rejection/deletion[35][36][37][38] due to some obscure excuse of reliability/sourcing/licencing. Maybe it is time I go deletionist on the unsourced, unreliably sourced, non-free contents. Well, the answers here would give me a reason to continue being constructive, or (or no answer) to become destructive. Also, I believe Wikipedia user-growth depends on DEFINED & DEFINITE Reliability/Sourcing/Licencing policies, as I suspect this frustration probably isn′t just me[39]: “Wiki-idiots are the editors who have been editing the website for years and have formed their own little bureaucracy that dictates what guidelines are enforced and which ones aren’t.” --Ne0 (talk) 22:26, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

OK, so you think Wikipedia is broken because we don't report, in the article on ISIS, that Donald Trump says that Obama was the founder of ISIS? You are probably not competent to edit that article. Trump's delusions are significant in the article on Trump, and probably nowhere else. Guy (Help!) 22:45, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Good job pushing your POV ! Now, are you going to give some sources proving that NSA/CIA isn't involved in supplying weapons/vehicles/training to al-Qaeda in Libya/ISIS, or are you going to be a Wiki-idiot saying "It is my view" --Ne0 (talk) 00:09, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

I read the first diff. Three guesses as to its lead-off source, though you'll only need one. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:24, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

User:Ne0Freedom I strongly suggest you read WP:POINT. Doug Weller talk 09:28, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

I'll plug my own essay, WP:APPLYRS. Rhoark (talk) 02:58, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

• Peer-reviewed scholarly sources are the most reliable sources. News reports are reliable for news (i.e., current events). The rest are all opinions that must be attributed to the authors/sources, provided those sources are notable. (Notability is not the same as reliability.) Grey areas occur in some cases. If journalists/commentators/public figures write analytical works published as books or reports, and they are widely accepted by the relevant communities of reliable sources, then we treat those works themselves as reliable. This is "WP:RS in a nutshell." -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:45, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

@Ne0Freedom:So, from what I understand, I can use WP:IAR to bypass WP:MEDRS, and revive this article as common knowledge. Am I right ? No. Not even remotely. I gave an example where a broad spectrum of empirical data all points to a very specific claim being true. You can't go from that to "replace MEDRS sources with common knowledge to make a new article". There's a huge gap between empirical data and 'common knowledge'. The former is un-debatable, the latter is almost always just plain wrong.

Seriously, you should probably read WP:POINT because you really seem like you're trying to complain about WPs policies more than you're trying to understand them. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:23, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

MjolnirPants I did cringe when I read "However, WP:MEDRS tells us to wait for a review of experiments on the effects of IQ in groups that eat eggs and hashbrowns for breakfast. WP:IAR is our way out of this conundrum: We don't have to leave out this important information simply because we can't check all the tick boxes at MEDRS.". mmmmm no. We do wait for a review, especially something like the example you give where confounders are so likely and something as fuzzy as IQ is the thing being measured. No conundrum there at all; primary sources in the biological literature are notoriously unreliable and we don't treat their conclusions of data as accepted by the field until a review tells us they have been. Our mission is to communicate accepted knowledge. Jytdog (talk) 03:35, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Reliability of Mail & Guardian from South Africa

Is South Africa's Mail & Guardian reliable for Wikipedia? 173.67.106.134 (talk) 03:33, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Please provide context: what article? what proposed text? what source (reference)? No reference is reliable for all things. Johnuniq (talk) 04:01, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

The Mail & Guardian is a mainstream national weekly newspaper, take a look at our article, it seems to be well regarded. However, as Johnuniq has said, each individual reference must be evaluated on its specific merits, so please give us more details. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:25, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Should we be using Germar Rudolf's holocaust denying VHO.org?

I see it's used in a number of articles.[40]. Besides any issues about using such a site as a source, this (Redacted) per WP:COPYVIOEL seems to be a copyvio download of a book still in copyright. Doug Weller talk 10:08, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

You are right: this is a dangerously bad source. It would usable only as a source for what denialists might think, and even then I would not use it, I would rely on independent third-party sources that describe its content. Guy (Help!) 10:21, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

I am not familiar with the website, but, based on the comments above, share the concerns that it should be used appropriately, if at all. Looking through the list, I see links to 11 mainspace articles - the remainder of the links are in Talk, Wikipedia & other spaces - so it seems like the editing process is working as intended. On first inspection, many of the article links appear to be to copyvio copies of books; these could be easily substituted out for Google books refs. I am happy to look through the use of these links in those articles over the next few days, and amend, adjust or remove as required. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 11:58, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

And thanks again User:Ryk72. Your offer is appreciated and accepted. I'll add that it is my opinion, and I think shared by others involved in copyvio issues such as User:Moonriddengirl, that sites that hold copyvio material should be avoided entirely. Doug Weller talk 14:01, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

@Doug Weller:, Understood. I think it likely that almost all of the links will be removed. I am not sure about those on Germar Rudolf and other pages where we are discussing the site itself. Certainly all of the actual copyvio will be gone from mainspace; as well as anything which doesn't meet WP:RS. Do we also need to remove links to copyvio from Talk and Talk page archives? - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 18:34, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

User:Ryk72 Interesting question. Not from this page, as it's being used as an example. But yes, I think from almost every other page where it is being used as a source. But I don't know what practice actually is on this. I don't do nearly as much copyright work now as I did before I stumbled into being an Arb. Doug Weller talk 18:43, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

We're down to 4 articles now. (I think 11 may have been an underestimate; I feel sure I removed more):

John G. Schmitz (used as primary source for an obit of the article subject),
H. Keith Thompson (used as a primary source to show article subject is a writer for the Journal of Historical Review),
Geoff Muirden (used as a primary source to show article subject is a reviewer), and
Germar Rudolf (used as a primary source for article subject's experiments on "cell phones in airliners").

None of these appear to be links to copyvio. There are also 72 other links in Talk, User talk, Wikipedia namespaces. I'll raise the question about WP:COPYVIOEL in these namespaces on WP:ELN. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 07:36, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Germar Rudolf, a disgustingly biased article that casts aside all notions of npov, but probably well protected against improvement. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:48, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

That said, I agree that all the url links to copyvio material should go, whenever and wherever they are found. But a rule that "sites that hold copyvio material should be avoided entirely" is unsustainable given that Google holds a rather large amount of it! Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:58, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Removed all links to .pdf files; each one a copyvio. Will look at the .html next; removing where the linked page is a copyvio. Have also asked for an addition at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist, covering .pdf only. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 14:39, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Birth date of John Penn ("the American")

Our article John Penn ("the American") currently gives his date of birth as February 29, 1700 (which necessarily is in the Julian calendar, since the Gregorian calendar does not have such a date). The source is Norris Stanley Barratt(1913), specifically a caption to a photo. I have viewed the Google Books scan and verified the statement.

Another source cited in the article for the date of death is Howard Malcolm Jenkins ed. (1903). I have viewed that source in Google Books too, and find that on page 374 it gives the birth date as "Jan. 29, 1699-1700". The dual year indicates the Julian calendar combined with the convention in England, Wales, and the American colonies that the year began in March. So the full meaning of the notation is the year 1699 of you follow the calendar in force at the time, which started the year in March, or 1700 if you follow the modern convention of the year beginning in January.

The source I have the most confidence in is four images obtained from Ancestry.com. The citation for the collection is

• Ancestry.com. U.S., Quaker Meeting Records, 1681-1935 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

The collection has both text extracts, as well as images of the hand-written originals. The four images I found all state the birth date as month 11, day 28, year 1699/1700. The Quakers didn't use the pagan month names, numbering the months instead. There are other entries that follow the same convention, of indicating a double year for dates the eleventh month if the year was before 1752, the year the British adopted the Gregorian calendar. This must be interpreted as the eleventh month of 1699, counting March as the first month, that is, what a modern writer would call January 1700.

My inclination is to regard the Quaker meeting records as the most reliable of these sources, and revise the birth date in the article accordingly, but to create a footnote describing the conflicting values in the other two sources. I seek others' opinions on this. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:56, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Shaiju Mathew and chaiwithshai.com

A curious issue this, but I've encountered this guy adding a review to a film article, citing "eminent author and critic Shaiju Mathew" and his blog chaiwithshai.com. I very strongly suspect a COI between the contributing editor and the "eminent author and critic", beginning with the homophone between Shai and Shy, but I also note that many of this user's edits seem to revolve around Shaiju Mathew, like this edit (sorry, only Admins will be able to see it) where we learn that Arjun Mathew and Shaiju Mathew are the same person. (And that he couldn't make it in the world of song in part because of his "laid back attitude"...)

Anyhow, I'm digressing for entertainment purposes.

The question is this: Should we consider his blog a reliable source? Shaiju Mathew has an article, so he is presumably notable. The article claims Mathew is "a well known movie critic and writes extensively for various newspapers and magazines". As I poke through some articles found through the Indian news search, I don't quickly find anything that suggests he's a known critic. That doesn't mean he's not, only that I can't find anything. He might very well be a writer, he might very well be notable, but would we consider his blog a worthwhile source for film critiques? Thanks. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 17:36, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

The claim is unsourced, so why not tag it for sources. Opinion wording like " well known" and "writes extensively" cannot be justified if it is only him on his own website claiming it. Also, the Kay Kay Menon comment seems off topic - there is a 14 year age difference so there is no real correlation that can be made by saying they both went to the same school. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 20:43, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

United Kingdom European Union referendum, 2016 (Sources which claim that Referendum not legally-binding may be questionable)

The claim that the results of the Referendum of the United Kingdom on the Membership of the United Kingdom in the European Union (2016), are "not legally binding", is tainted, or, is put into doubt by the fact that it was NEVER actually widely made (and was certainly never made on THIS article, here, on Wikipedia, and cited) BEFORE the (provisional) final results were announced and confirmed by the national chief Returning Officer from the Electoral Commission, in Manchester, based in one of the premises of Manchester City Council, sometime on June the 24th..

One of the last "clean" versions of the article, and the last version dated June the 23rd..

When a ""non-binding" claim" source (conveniently dated June the 24th., AFTER the all-UK national provisional final results) started to get specifically reinstated, on the same date.

This question is in fact not first raised by me, but by Peter Lilley MP (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Conservative), who said (Hansard: House of Commons; 5 September 2016; Volume 614), by his speech in the debate (regarding the e-Petition Number 131215; relating to EU referendum rules ),

"The final argument I want to deal with is that the referendum was only advisory. I debated daily with remainers—sometimes three times a day—but not once did a remain opponent say to the audience, “Oh by the way, this referendum is just advisory. If you give us the wrong advice we will ignore the result and remain in the EU anyway or perhaps call another referendum or vote against application of article 50 and the referendum result until we get the right result.” Did any Opposition Member say that to an audience and can they give me chapter and verse of them saying that they would treat the result as advisory and ignore it if they did not like it? Not one of them did. Now they are pretending that the whole thing was advisory. I forget which hon. Member said that was made clear during the debate.

"On the contrary, the then Foreign Secretary, who introduced the Referendum Bill, said that it was giving the decision to the British people. When launching the campaign, the Prime Minister said:

""This is a straight democratic decision—staying in or leaving—and no Government can ignore that. Having a second renegotiation followed by a second referendum is not on the ballot paper. For a Prime Minister to ignore the express will of the British people to leave the EU would be not just wrong, but undemocratic."—(Official Report, 22 February 2016; Vol. 606, c. 24.)

"It was spelled out at the beginning of the referendum debate and again and again during it that this was a decisive choice for the British people. If we ignore that choice now and treat the British people with contempt, we will undermine their respect for democracy and prove how little faith we have in it."
Hansard transcripts
Recordings of proceedings in audio and video, or Audio-only
Recordings of proceedings (Audio-only)

David Lammy MP (Tottenham) (Labour) had indeed, on the same debate, cited the Briefing Paper issued by the House of Commons Library. He, however, erred, in that he either omitted by oversight, or he conveniently, for his own purpose, deliberately ignored and omitted the disclaimer, at the end of the document, which clearly states, at the end (Page 33 of 33 pages according to the Printers), that,

"Disclaimer - This information is provided to Members of Parliament in support of their parliamentary duties. It is a general briefing only and should not be relied on as a substitute for specific advice. The House of Commons or the author(s) shall not be liable for any errors or omissions, or for any loss or damage of any kind arising from its use, and may remove, vary or amend any information at any time without prior notice."
Bill documents — European Union Referendum Act 2015 (2015 c. 36)
European Union Referendum Bill 2015-16 (Briefing Paper) (Number 07212, 3 June 2015) (summary)
(in full) (.PDF)
(cached) (Google)

Essentially, the cited Brief Paper cannot be used or otherwise cited as an acceptable or reliable legal advice. -- 87.102.116.36 (talk) 00:12, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I think you are confusing the general and specific meaning of "reliable source" here. The House of Commons Library's Briefing Papers are certainly worthy of citing as an RS on a relevant topic, even if other sources are in disagreement with them. Martinlc (talk) 09:53, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Agree with Martinic. Parliament is never bound to pass any legislation. The government can only act if it retains the confidence of parliament. A referendum itself does not change any laws or treaties. What Lilley means is that the "No" side acted as if they would vote according to the outcome of the referendum and would be dishonorable if they did not. That of course is his opinion, which may be right or wrong, but he is not saying that legally they must do that. In some U.S. states, referenda actually change the law and the courts will enforce changes, regardless of the legislature and executive. TFD (talk) 10:05, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

The creator of this post appears to have breached WP:FORUMSHOP since they started an identical discussion thread here. I have commented there as has another editor. This is Paul (talk) 20:42, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Buzzfeed

Hello,

I'd like to know if there have been any discussions about whether we can use Buzzfeed articles as sources. I notice that Buzzfeed is being used on various pages, but I'd like to know if there is any clear policy about it. Of course, by "Buzzfeed articles", I mean actual articles by real writers, i.e. legitimate content, and not clickbait pages. Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 14:28, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Depends on the subject, the writer and the claim. I wouldn't blink an eye at seeing it used at The dress, but I'd take a closer look at a science or medicine article if I saw it cited, and especially if it was cited in a BLP for a contentions claim. Somewhat surprisingly, they actually have a pretty good investigative journalist team. — Strongjam (talk) 14:38, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Strongjam : that's precisely the point. If they have "a pretty good investigative journalist team", does that make them reliable for this subject ? I'd say the author of the article has done some actual journalist work on a somewhat obscure subject, which happens to be some kind of viral meme like "The Dress" but is also about a living person. You'll see the controversy here. Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 14:42, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I've reverted the re-addition of the material, under WP:BLPDELETE; pending formation of a consensus. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 14:51, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

What I would like to know is whether or not the material is to be considered "poorly sourced", given the obscurity of the subject which is unlikely to be covered elsewhere : if Buzzfeed's team of investigative journalists is considered "pretty good" (per Strongjam) can the source be considered poor ? Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 14:57, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Looking at the article it's attributed so I don't think reliability is an issue here. It's more of a question for WP:BLPN whether it's WP:UNDUE weight. Personally I'd be inclined to leave it out unless another source picked it up. At the moment it just looks like it's WP:BLPGOSSIP since it's all "was possibly the artist" and other people's confirmations. — Strongjam (talk) 15:02, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

That's why I attributed the viewpoint. Another problem is that the association with "A. Wyatt Mann" is probably the main source of Bougas's relative notability (so I don't think WP:UNDUE is an issue here). I even suspect it's the reason the page was created by Neptune's Trident in the first place.

As I said, I'm not even sure the subject is notable enough without the mention of that association. Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 15:05, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Bougas is absolutely noteworthy enough for an article, sans whatever speculations or histrionics are associated with what may be his earlier cartooning. He was a fairly well known counter-culture figure during the 80's and 90's, you can reference his IMDB page for examples. FactsAndHonesty (talk) 00:52, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

There are no "histrionics" here : if he was indeed notable, then the "speculations" about the connection are all the more interesting or, shall we say, intriguing. The main issue is the reliability of the info. I also think Grayfell's opinion here should be taken into account. Also, I find it a bit odd that a website considered a "reliable source" should not be used for a biography of a living person. Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 07:21, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

A Pew Research poll found BuzzFeed came in last of all the listed sources in terms of how trusted it is by the public. [41] It was the only one distrusted across the whole political spectrum. That said, it's still "RS". I just wouldn't use it for BLP, medicine, WP:REDFLAG, 2016 elections, etc. Rhoark (talk) 19:12, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

The Good Spy: The life and death of Robert Ames, By Kai Bird and Rene Ruiz

My question is whether I can use this source on the matter of mysterious disappearance of Musa al-Sadr. I ask this because what is mentioned in the source on this page is very counter intuitive in that it claims the famous Shia figure Mohammad Beheshti conspired his death with Qaddafi.--Kazemita1 (talk) 12:22, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Well.... books are not usually very good sources because they are often not fact-checked very rigorously or at all by a second party. So you are thrown back on the reputation of the author, basically.

Kai Bird has an article. He's won a number of important awards and he sure looks solid. His published corpus is such that he certainly has standing such that "According to author Kai Bird, such-and-such occurred..." would be allowable. Whether we want to make the leap to directly stating "such-and-such occurred..." and sourcing it to Bird's book is the question.

I'm not sure why you think that Mohammad Beheshti and Qaddafi being involved in his assassination is "very counter-intuitive". It's not like "Well, but those two would never hurt a fly or be involved in byzantine plots" comes to mind right off.

Here the New York Times calls the book "authoritative" (not that they actually checked his facts) and I'm not finding material right off where Bird is accused of playing loose with facts. All in all... I don't like to see books used a refs, and you're talking about Middle East politics and spycraft, which is probably a hall of mirrors... I think that using this book to ref a direct statement of fact (""such-and-such occurred...") would meet our usual standards... but in this case, for my part, "According to..." would be preferable. Herostratus (talk) 12:56, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Herostratus is correct.It's solid RS, but as always, though in this case it is not obligatory, you may flag your concern by using attribution, as H himself suggested.Nishidani (talk) 13:12, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Miriyam Aouragh as a source for the views of Gilbert Achcar

At Gilbert Achcar

• Epson Salts added Matthias Küntzel reviewing Achcar’s book negatively (he was criticized in that book)
• Epson Salts removed Miriyam Aouragh reviewing Achcar’s book positively.

• Aouragh is an Arabist, an anthropologist, a Leverhulme Research Fellow who teaches at University of Westminster.

The editors opposed to Miriyam Aouragh’s inclusion support the retention of Matthias Küntzel. I support the retention of both. She is an Arabist, qualified formally in the topic area: he has no technical background in Middle Eastern studies, no knowledge of Arabic, and is strongly criticized by German Arabists as incompetent. For those who cannot read German, the German wiki states he is a 'publicist' and several of the most prominent German Arabists dismiss his books, published by such distinguished publishing houses as Elephanten Press and Telos Press. One even summed his tirades up as 'grotesk verzerrt' (grotesquely distorted'). He's not cited in the serious scholarly literature on Islam, as opposed to be frequently cited in the polemical literature.

(a) wiki policy on RS does not appear in my view to be applied neutrally here, since the criteria being applied vary according to the position taken by the scholar in question: an Arabist with a university post is excluded, a non-Arabist with a university position is accepted, from a section dealing with Achcar's views and their reception. (b) All that concerns me is to hear from neutral third party experts here whether or not Miriyam Aouragh, used already with attribution, is a reliable source for a review of a book by Gilbert Achcar?Nishidani (talk) 19:21, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Here [42] is Aouragh's profile. As you can clearly see she lacks any expertise in this particular subject (which is Arabs and the Holocaust). Her opinion was published in a self proclaimed group blog with an ideological bent.

Here [43] are some of Kuntzel's relevant publications. His review was published in CISA.

Contrast and compare. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 21:07, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

His status as a scholar in this field is reflected by the fact he has a tenured part-time position as a teacher of political science at a technical college in Hamburg, Germany. This, on the other hand, is Miriyam Aouragh's updated profile as a university fellow and lecturer in Arabic studies, including teaching Cyber Politics of the Middle East at the Oxford Middle East Centre. Achcar's whole book is about the politics of spinning Arabs in western reportage, right up her alley.Nishidani (talk) 21:39, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

News organizations collaborate to improve online news

An AFP report with the incredibly optimistic headline "Facebook, Twitter join coalition to improve online news" lists several news organizations as users of a third-party fact-checking service:

• The New York Times
• Washington Post
• BuzzFeed News
• CNN
• ABC News of Australia
• ProPublica
• AFP
• The Telegraph
• France Info
• Breaking News
• Le Monde's Les Decodeurs
• International Business Times UK
• Eurovision News Exchange
• Al Jazeera Media Network

Be aware that reports from these organizations may no longer have sufficient internal fact-checking, and factual errors may propagate throughout the entire network. 50.196.177.155 (talk) 20:19, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

wow did you misread that press release. it doesn't make any statements about those organizations' internal fact-checking processes. The parties are going to 'share information on best practices for journalism in the online age" and "will develop training programs and 'a collaborative verification platform,' as well as a voluntary code of practice for online news.". again, just oy. I have changed the misleading header. Jytdog (talk) 00:38, 15 September 2016 (UTC)