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RfC: Reliability of theaerodrome.com

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

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Which of the following best describes the reliability of theaerodrome.com?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable

The website theaerodrome.com is currently referenced in over 500 1500 articles chiefly related to World War I aviation ([1] search), including articles assessed as GA-class (e.g. Friedrich Ritter von Röth). It has been previously discussed on WP:RSN twice, first here and later (very briefly) here. A recent attempt to establish local consensus at WT:MILHIST was closed with instructions to discuss the topic here. -Ljleppan (talk) 15:01, 13 November 2021 (UTC); upd. reference count 07:55, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

NB: I'm new to both RfCs and WP:RSN, so please let me know if I have made any procedural mistakes, if this is not the proper format/forum, or you have a suggestion on how to better phrase the options above. -Ljleppan (talk) 15:01, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

• Note that 80 of the cites are actually to the website's forum (see theaerodrome.com/forum  ) which should be removed regardless of whether the main website is deemed reliable. The forum cites are on my list of sites to remove. FDW777 (talk) 15:15, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) The website appears to be a WP:SELFPUBLISHed resource, with an anonymous editorial team (i.e. the contact email is simply webmaster@... and there is no page listing the editorial staff). The website's main content consists of pages for individual aviators and aircraft models. Notably, the pages for individual aviators and airplanes do not contain by-lines (e.g. [2] and [3]). As such, this main content is effectively anonymously authored. In addition to the general anonymity of the editorial team, there is no indication of what the editorial or fact-checking processes related to the published content are. Some of the website's subpages list more general articles, which are hosted on the website's forums (see e.g. section "Articles" on this page). This publishing method blurs the line between user-generated content and staff-authored editorial content. While these articles contain by-lines, at least some of them appear to be copies of content published originally by 3rd parties in unrelated venues, e.g. this article being this report also available at Project Gutenberg and these articles being scanned copies of books/booklets. I have not investigated whether any of these constitute WP:LINKVIO. Some general articles appear to be original content and are published with by-lines (e.g. [4]), but there is no indication that the same authors are behind the unattributed pages related to the individual aviators, aircraft or medals listings -Ljleppan (talk) 15:27, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Note that of the two scanned books/magazines, one is a US book published in 1919 and so is OK to link to as it's public domain (how useful it is as a reference is a different matter), while the final one is a copy of a 1990 magazine and so most definitely isn't ok.Nigel Ish (talk) 15:50, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3: Not a reliable source -- a self-published resource by a non-expert; no indications of a reliable publishing process or fact checking. The site appears to be someone's personal project. --K.e.coffman (talk) 15:41, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
• I followed a few links, and what we have here is another hobbyist site, with authors like "Dan San Abbot" and "John". No evidence of an editorial board that offers oversight, etc. Option 3: not to be used. Drmies (talk) 18:30, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3. This is a non-professional self-publishing exercise, AKA a fansite. So, generally unreliable. It could be primary-source reliable for certain things, e.g. an interview they publish with an aviator might contain some WP:ABOUTSELF statement, and the interview would likely be good enough for that. But it's not a reliable source for general claims about the world, like airplane specs or someone's achievements.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:48, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3. Tweaked version from my contribution to the Milhist discussion. I don't think that this website meets the requirements of WP:RS. All three (author, publisher and source) need to be reliable. If one argues they are rarely wrong about a detail, if that is accurate, that only meets the third requirement. We still need to know about the author and the publisher, and I can't see anything above that says that the authors (obviously they vary, but only a couple of them are published aviation authors) and the website as publisher (reputation for quality copy-editing, fact-checking etc) are reliable. I recommend that it is considered unreliable and deprecated. If the website has list of sources used for a given article on a pilot (which it does in some cases), then examine those listed secondary sources (assuming they themselves are reliable) and use them to source the article. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:58, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2. The main criticisms aired above stack up. Also, there are idiosyncracies in the Glossary, such as; "Barrage balloon: A small spherical captive balloon raised as a protection against aeroplanes." where aerodynamically-shaped kite balloons were also used, "Airship: A motor-driven balloon of elongated form; should not be applied to "heavier-than-air" craft." where the use of "airship" to describe a large aeroplane was common enough up until the WWI period, or "Fin: A fixed vertical plane generally fitted in front of the rudder..." where (when fitted, often not the case in WWI) it is more usual to put it the other way round and say that the (fixed) fin provides a mounting point or hinge for the rudder. So even if the claims of respectable oversight are true, their peer review process leaves much to be desired. Nevertheless, it is a useful site and should be acceptable to support and expand on content cited from other, more reliable sources. In other words, it is a source where any given citation must be taken on its individual merits; does a byline identify the author, is the context for the cited factoid appropriate, etc. The forum, of course, is off-limits, and so too should the Glossary be. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:06, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your comment, Steelpillow. Just to clarify your position, does your statement the forum, of course, is off-limits extend to the articles linked from the "Articles" box of e.g. this page? Note the addresses of the individual articles are .../forum/.... -Ljleppan (talk) 09:12, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

    In general, just because a url includes a certain file path, or a certain piece of authoring software is used, this does not define the status of the destination page. These articles are locked out of the forum discussion and logically form part of the static site, which indicates at least a degree of sanity checking by an admin. But a trustworthy author's byline is still necessary. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:12, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

    • Of the authors listed in the "articles section, Frank Olynyk is a published author in aviation history, who is a co-author with Chris Shores et al on the multi-part History of the Mediterranean Air War 1940–1945 and would count as a trustworthy author, while the contemporary personal accounts are just being hosted by theaerodrome.Nigel Ish (talk) 23:03, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

• Option 3 - I see the site as "generally unreliable", per the comments above. While the site may be useful for finding some information, as well as citations to the same, those citations (when reliable themselves) should be examined and used for in-line verification of content instead of using this site.--John Cline (talk) 08:41, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 - I have visited the site, no author, no "about" sections, it makes me feel that the site is n't build by experts. Cinadon36 05:53, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3, there is no indication that this website is reliable. There is no listed author or team of editors.RCatesby (talk) 10:51, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Blocked sock. --Blablubbs (talk) 13:43, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

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

Is Peakbagger.com a reliable source?

Is Peakbagger.com a reliable source?

1. Source: Peakbagger.com (description page here, terms of service here)
2. Article: Crypt Peak (as a test-case, and maybe 5,104 other EN Wikipedia articles)
3. Content: Primarily the prominence and elevation of various mountain peaks, also appears to be relied on in some articles to substantiate a WP:GNG pass.

FOARP (talk) 14:21, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Background (Peakbagger.com)

Peakbagger.com is used on a large number of articles regarding various peaks, primarily to substantiate the height of them above sea level and their prominence relative to the surrounding terrain, but also in at least some cases it appears to be only source that actually talks about the feature specifically (other sources being about the climate or geology of the area in which the peak is, but not about the peak specifically).

I have discussed the reliability of this source with Ron Clausen, who has created a number of articles using this source, in a discussion that can be seen here, and we both agree that it would be useful to get some feedback from the RSN community about it's reliability. FOARP (talk) 14:21, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Survey (Peakbagger.com)

• Unreliable under any circumstance - Based on the contact page appears to be a self-published hobby project, a lot of the data is apparently simply copied from GNIS with all that entails but other data has no clear origin and may have been submitted by individual climbers or comes from the author themselves. The terms of service page tells us that "Information uploaded to Peakbagger.com by site users, including ascent information, trip reports, provisional peaks, GPS tracks, and photographs, all becomes part of the master integrated Peakbagger.com database" meaning that the database is to an extent crowd-sourced. It also literally tells us that "The master Peakbagger.com database of peaks and associated content has thousands of errors in it, and text content, trip reports, and GPS tracks from the site's administrators and users are subjective and not necessarily authoritative" (my emphasis) - it straight up tells us that it is not a reliable source. Even if it were a reliable source for the height/prominence data, simple statistical entries in a database don't amount to significant coverage of the subject such as is needed to pass WP:GNG, and it would amount to a WP:PRIMARY source. For GNIS or other gazetteer data, the original gazetteer should be referred to directly.

I'd like to highlight that I think that most of Ron's work is OK and I like these articles about peaks, this is just about the sourcing in a lot of articles about peaks (not just his). FOARP (talk) 14:21, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Instead of making assumptions by using the word "appears", why don't you contact the webmaster to get the facts on the sources. Assumptions = unreliable, which is worse than the argument you are making. Interesting that you now encourage using GNIS data, but on my talk page you didn't.Ron Clausen (talk) 22:16, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

We have the website managers own words telling us not to use it, seems enough, no? And it's worth remembering that once a source is challenged the burden is on those who want to use the source to prove it's reliable, not the other way round - if you want to email them, please feel free to do so. As for GNIS, we have a consensus on here that certain pieces of data on it are unreliable (i.e., the feature classes) and it should anyway not be relied on to support a WP:GNG pass because it is not significant coverage. FOARP (talk) 08:17, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• Where does the webmaster state not to use it (whatever you mean by "it")? Ron Clausen (talk) 04:35, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

• Unreliable By their own statements, this is a crowd-sourced, unchecked, and admits to having numerous unfixed factual errors. This source, as useful in general as it might be to hikers, is not an appropriate source for any information at Wikipedia. --Jayron32 14:45, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

• Peakbagger.com is frequently referenced by reliable books and magazines: [5] The data which I use from the site is not crowdsourced. Ron Clausen (talk) 00:55, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• Unreliable for factual information - Appears to be the classic hobbyist/WP:SPS website with no sourcing on the few pages I randomly sampled and no indicia of a reliability-establishing editorial policy. That, alone, seems sufficient for "unreliable" even if we interpret the "thousands of errors" statement as a generic "we take no responsibility if you hurt yourself because of our info" disclaimer. Seems to also contain trip reports, which might theoretically be used per WP:RSOPINION/WP:SELFSOURCE with the usual disclaimers, but I'm not familiar enough with either the site or the general topic to say whether that's a realistic prospect. -Ljleppan (talk) 15:04, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

• Peakbagger.com is frequently referenced by reliable books and magazines: [6] But thanks for declaring it unreliable when you state that you are not familiar with this subject. Ron Clausen (talk) 00:55, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• Reliable when framed as "according to" etc.. it often receives notice in other reliable sources as being a significant source:
  • "Greg Slayden, founder of www.peakbagger.com, a national climbing registry where baggers can record their conquests." The Mercury News
  • "A website called Peakbagger.com, a major arbiter for the country’s “high pointers,” made the change to its database. As far as Peakbagger was concerned, Jackie Jones Mountain was now supreme."The Daily Beast
  • "He had read about Baker Mountain on peakbagger.com, a storehouse for people looking to summit prominent mountains. " The New York Times
  • "Before the advent of peakbagger.com, climber.org, and summitpost.com, climbers sought information about routes up peaks in guidebooks, in newsletter reports, and by word of mouth, still all good sources. "Sierra Club
  • "If you want more information and maps of these peaks, a good source is peakbagger.com." Elko Daily News

• Peakbgger.com is frequently referenced by reliable books and magazines: [7]

-- GreenC 17:17, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

These point to it being a useful source for Peak-bagging hobbyists, in a similar way to how Wookieepedia is a useful source for Star Wars fans and Memory Alpha is a useful source for Trekkers. It does not make it a reliable source for an encyclopaedia article. FOARP (talk) 08:30, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

You failed to take note of the last bullet: Peakbagger.com is frequently referenced by reliable books and magazines: [8] which is a Google search result showing all the reliable published books that reference Peakbagger.Ron Clausen (talk) 10:19, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Just because a book appears in a Google Books search does not mean it's a reliable source. For example the very first search result for me is "Stargate SG1 Compendium" published by PediaPress. If you actually search for "peakbagger.com" with quotation marks, you'll see a significantly reduced amount of hits, less than 50 based on my quick count. Some of the hits, e.g. The Mountain Encyclopedia, appear to simply list it in a large list of general websites related to the topic, rather than using it as a source or even making any explicit claim about its reliability. Others, such as 'The Making of Modern Baseball, Sports Nation: Contemporary American Professional Organizations, Indiana Courthouses - Southeast Edition and Planning Support Systems and Smart Cities are in so wildly different domains that they really can't be used to establish reliability here. To establish that multiple highly reliable sources view peakbagger.com as a reliable source, you'd need to provide clear examples rather than just linking to a Google Books search. -Ljleppan (talk) 10:35, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• Unreliable, at best its a group blog edited by Greg Slayden but you have to squint really really hard to see that... Its a high quality hobbyist site but even the best of those are generally not WP:RS, especially for obscure hobbies like peak bagging. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:22, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable There are no errors in the data for peaks. The peak data comes from USGS data. Anything related to user contributed climbing information is not used on Wikipedia.Ron Clausen (talk) 22:01, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
  • How did you determine that the peak data comes from USGS? I can't find any indication of that on the website. Does that source also extend to peaks not in US? If the data comes from USGS, why not cite the original source of the data? -Ljleppan (talk) 22:19, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
    • The webmaster states "I added peaks by hand, or from large public-domain databases like the GNIS and BGN gazetters." GNIS and BGN = USGS. https://www.peakbagger.com/Contact.aspx As for why? Convenience, and parameters such as Prominence and Isolation data are not provided directly by from USGS, but derivations thereof. Prominence and Isolation are not something found in "published" sources, but can be obtained at these websites. I don't use Peakbagger or LOJ for peaks outside the US.Ron Clausen (talk) 23:07, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

• That does say "by hand", though... not particularly reliable if you ask me. Surely there are reputable sources that would compile this information. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 00:07, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• Again with the assumptions. Please tell us your reputable sources that compile Prominence and Isolation. Ron Clausen (talk) 00:19, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• The GNIS database is public domain and freely accessible. It also isn’t clear which data on Peakbagger comes from there and which doesn’t and instead comes from another source. And just to emphasise this: the website itself says not to trust it. If data cannot be reliably sourced, the answer is not to use an unreliable source, the answer is just not to include that data at all. FOARP (talk) 08:10, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• No, it doesn't say "not to trust it". It says there are thousands of errors in the site, a site which he says has millions of data points. Every data base and reliable source is going to have errors. If Peakbagger's elevation value for a given peak matches what's on the USGS topographic map, we know where the information came from.Ron Clausen (talk) 09:00, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• Sorry Ron, but it literally says right in the terms of service "The master Peakbagger.com database of peaks and associated content has thousands of errors in it ... there is no guarantee of accuracy". That's them right there telling you not to rely on their data, for the very good reason that it is not an authoritative source and is transcribed from other sources and/or provided by users (and it is not clear which is which). Now you're saying "don't worry, it's only thousands of error amongst millions", but how many thousands? This is a very useful source for hobbyists, but that doesn't make it a reliable source for an encyclopaedia article. As for it matching USGS data, if that's so then why don't you just refer to the USGS data directly? And if you can't access the USGS data then how do you know this?

Let me take the opportunity again to say that I like your articles on peaks, especially the photos, and I think they're a net value-add for Wiki. I just think this specific source (and LoJ, though that's much-less-used) shouldn't be used. FOARP (talk) 10:13, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• Sorry, but you sliding down a slippery slope if you expect "guarantees of accuracy" from all reliable sources. Please provide a link to that Wikipedia policy requiring sources to guarantee their accuracy, and also a list of sources that you are aware of which do meet such a requirement. I can't recall ever seeing a publication which did. Ron Clausen (talk) 10:40, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• I'm not requiring that they give such a guarantee, I'm requiring that they don't literally tell us that they can't give such a guarantee because of all the errors they have. FOARP (talk) 10:44, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• Can you provide a link to the Wikipedia policy that requires that? Ron Clausen (talk) 11:08, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• See WP:RS#Overview and WP:SOURCE: Articles should be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. (emph. added). Are you claiming that a source that literally states it contains thousands of mistakes has a "reputation for accuracy"? -11:28, 20 November 2021 (UTC)Ljleppan (talk)

• Thousands of errors in millions of data points. We don't know exact numbers, but for the sake of simplicity let's say 1000 errors for every one million data points. That works out to 99.9 percent accuracy. In my book, that's pretty accurate, reliable information. And that site is aware of the errors and fixes them (according Peakbagger, and my personal dealings with them when I pointed out an error. Ron Clausen (talk) 11:45, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• So what you're telling us is that you've found errors on there (more than once?) and they corrected them when you told them. Which sounds an awful lot like user-generated content. "Thousands" can mean many more than 1,000, they clearly don't know how many errors there, just that there are a lot. FOARP (talk) 12:04, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• You're missing the context. Thousands of errors in millions of data points. He doesn't say tens of thousands of errors, nor tens of millions of data points, so the numbers must be between two and ten. Let's take the worst case example that favors your side: 9,999 errors in two million data points. That's 99.5 percent accuracy. On the other hand the math for the flip side has 2,000 errors in nine million data points. That's 99.98 percent accuracy. Ron Clausen (talk) 21:34, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, over the last five years I found an error there. Coordinates for a peak were wrong, only because USGS had within the past year corrected a USGS error, and Peakbagger originally used that erroneous data from USGS, and the change was not caught by Peakbagger. All websites that I checked were still using the erroneous USGS data. Case in point: Pectols Pyramid. A quick search now and I found mapcarta.com and topozone.com and peakvisor.com all still using the erroneous location. Ron Clausen (talk) 12:49, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• I don't understand: if USGS has more accurate data, and updates it more frequently, why aren't you just referring to USGS directly? Moreover you only know about this error because USGS is there as a reliable source. It seems that whilst the maths needed to calculate prominence/isolation are simple, determining what data to use is non-trivial and we shouldn't be relying on Peakbagger.com for it. FOARP (talk) 15:35, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• Who claims USGS has more accurate data and updates it more frequently? If you don't understand, it's because you haven't paid attention. As I stated in my Talk page to you: "I have found plenty of stuff in "published" material that is flat out incorrect, and would not use. And stuff can be found in communities such as Summitpost that is excellent and correct (but I don't use). So the balancing act is to be accurate, which means using best data where it's found. GNIS is good for coordinates, but terrible at elevations, so that's where Peakbagger comes in." Ron Clausen (talk) 21:09, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• Unreliable. It's probably fine for an external link but I don't see how we can use a source that is at least partially user-generated, otherwise curated by someone whose subject matter expertise has not been established (WP:SPS), and that by its own admission contains errors. I sympathize with Ron Clausen's position that 99.9 is pretty great accuracy, but the difference between this source and a reliable source is that we have no way to verify the reliability--we have no idea which data is accurate. I do have a question about "Prominence" and "Isolation"; I'm unfamiliar with those terms and their importance. Ron notes above that these are "derived", are they derived from the USGS data, and is this a mechanical calculation, or is something more involved? Mackensen (talk) 12:22, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• Topographic isolation and Topographic prominence simple calculation, based on USGS data. Ron Clausen (talk) 12:49, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

I would beg to differ about prominence: one has to identify the key col to compute the prominence. That is a calculation, but involving a graph of elevations. For a description of the algorithm, see [9]. I would not characterize it as simple. Wikipedia editors cannot perform prominence calculations under WP:CALC: it would be a violation of WP:NOR. We have to rely on Peakbagger for prominence and isolation, or use an alternative site. There are not that many of them. — hike395 (talk) 19:55, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

• Reliable as the person is an expert in his field so can be used in Wikipedia as per the guidelines on SPS and blogs. No significant problems with using this source have been put forward and carrying out simple calculations is fine for such an expert on the subject, in my view Atlantic306 (talk) 01:10, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Could you expand a bit on how you determined that the editor behind the website is "an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications", given that others below seem to have reached different conclusions? -Ljleppan (talk) 09:02, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable for quantitative information: elevation, coordinates, location, prominence, isolation. Not reliable for ascent and travel accounts. To my mind, Peakbagger is the authoritative source for some of the quantitative information about mountains, and a secondary reliable source for other quantitative data. That doesn't mean there aren't errors on Peakbagger, but all "reliable sources" have errors and discrepancies.Smallchief (talk)
• Reliable per Smallchief and others for hard data such as prominence, isolation, elevation, coordinates and location. Likely to be more accurate and up to date than some official sources e.g. Ordnance Survey. Bermicourt (talk) 21:20, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable While FOARP, Ljleppan, Jayron32, and A. C. Santacruz are correct that Peakbagger does not pass WP:RS under the usual criteria for self-published primary sources, there is another way to establish reliability: via usage by other sources. In the small field of publications on orometry (e.g., elevation, topographic prominence and topographic isolation), the following papers treat the data in Peakbagger as "gold standard" data to incorporate or compare against:

  Arundel, Samantha T; Sinha, Gaurav (2020). "Automated location correction and spot height generation for named summits in the coterminous United States" (PDF). International Journal of Digital Earth. 13 (12): 1570–1584.

  Kirmse, Andrew; de Ferranti, Jonathan (2017). "Calculating the prominence and isolation of every mountain in the world". Progress in Physical Geography. 41 (6): 788–802.

  Kelso, Nathaniel Vaughn; Patterson, Tom (2010). "Introducing natural earth data-naturalearthdata.com" (PDF). Geographia Technica. 5 (82–89): 25.

  Wiens, John J; et al. (2019). "Climate change, extinction, and Sky Island biogeography in a montane lizard [sic]". Molecular ecology. 28 (10): 2610–2624.

Aside from WP:UBO, the 10+ years of WP usage of quantitative data from Peakbagger has uncovered no systematic biases or serious accuracy problems. — hike395 (talk) 02:35, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for these references, I only had time to check the first this morning, but made some quick observations. Notably, the study clearly acknowledges that peakbagger.com is not a provider of high-quality data: "Ideally, results would be compared to a higher-accuracy dataset. Unfortunately, such reference data are unavailable. As a result, for a reality check, results were compared to the following: nearby National Geodetic Survey (NGS) control points, where they exist, spot elevations manually collected from historical 7.5-minute USGS topographic maps, values published by Peakbagger (peakbagger.com), a mountain climbing website, and values by Topozone (topozone.com), which offers value-added USGS topographic data." It later notes that "Many tested summits were missing from the Peakbagger lists" and "Topozone values corresponded more closely to snapped summits than did Peakbagger values, but the difference is unclear because both products use basically the same source data, although Peakbagger contains some values derived from amateur Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) devices." I'll check the other references later today. -Ljleppan (talk) 08:01, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Continuing to check the references, Kimse and de Ferranti refer to peakbagger.com in a few ways. First, on page 790, they simply state that it exists as part of their description of previous works. Second, on pages 792-793, they refer to it for peak height data. They go on to note that the peakbagger.com height data seems to disagree with their other data in some cases, discussing in detail how their analysis/computation is affected by this disagreement. They present no argument why they hold the peakbagger.com data to be more accurate, only making a vague gesture at "accurate surveys". The third mention on page 798 is, in my view, the most notable a it suggest a conflict of interest between the authors and peakbagger.com, as the authors describe their own contributions to the database. Tangentially related, I found the following sentence on page 791 interesting: "Many voids were filled with samples from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer global DEM (ASTER GDEM), although a review of its properties showed that it has too many artifacts near water bodies, clouds, and high mountains to make it suitable as the primary database for our analysis." This appears to be a tacit admission that they are not confident in their underlying data for the whole globe. It's not completely clear to me from the paper whether this statement applies only to "norther parts of Scandinavia and Russia" or to a wider area.

The third reference (Kelso & Patterson, 2010) simply states they use peak name and height data from peakbagger.com in a single sentence. I believe it's notable that despite stating their website is intended for a mountain cartographer audience, they do not use any other data from peakbagger.com.

The fourth reference (Wiens et al., 2019) similarly only uses peak height data from the peakbagger.com.

In total, the references appear to contain one that acknowledges that peakbagger.com is not of very high quality, and three that only employ peak heights. Of the three height-only papers, Kimse and de Ferranti have a potential conflict of interest and also acknowledges that the peakbagger.com data disagrees with other data available to them. Based on this analysis, I don't think the references support a WP:UBO argument outside of peak heights, and even for peak heights it seems somewhat iffy. -Ljleppan (talk) 10:53, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

If the four articles cited above use Peakbagger data to one extent on another, then that is a recognition that the data is either reliable, the best available, or not available elsewhere, isn't it? If, in the four cited articles, only some Peakbagger data is used and some is not that is not an indication that the unused Peakbagger data is bad. It just means that Peakbagger data about, for example, prominence wasn't relevant to the author of the article.

Peakbagger is cited as a source on Wikipedia thousands of times. Let's look at just one article: List of the most prominent summits of the United States. Peakbagger is the source most cited for information about all 200 mountains on the list. Dozens of other articles about mountains use Peakbagger as their main source. Are we going to delete these articles not because they are inaccurate but because we have declared that Peakbagger -- often the only source or the best source -- is not up to Wikipedia's bureaucratic standards? Instead see: "Wikipedia has guidelines and policies -- not firm rules." To delete articles from Wikipedia sourced from Peakbagger would be counter-productive and destructive -- and would not make the encyclopedia one whit more authoritative. Our task is to compile and improve the encyclopedia not impose a rule that would do the opposite.Smallchief (talk) 13:32, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

The reliability of peakbagger.com has been questioned, and the comment I replied to acknowledged that it does not pass the usual criteria for self-published primary sources. It was then suggested that it might be considered reliable through another criteria, and evidence for this position was presented. I argue above why I believe this evidence fails to establish reliability for all factual information, and at best establishes reliability for a minor subset of the data on the website. If you believe I have misread or mischaracterized the proposed evidence above, please let me know how and I'll happily reconsider my position and correct any mistakes I might have made. The fact that the source is currently referenced a lot in Wikipedia is immaterial for this discussion. -Ljleppan (talk) 13:53, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

So, what is your remedy? Shall we delete all the articles that use Peakbagger as a principal source? This is not just an intellectual discussion. A problem should be in search of a solution.Smallchief (talk) 14:23, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

This is neither the time nor the place for those hypothetical discussions, the need for which is dependent on both the result of this still ongoing discussion and the content of each individual article. -Ljleppan (talk) 14:33, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

@Ljleppan: I believe your summary does not accurately reflect Peakbagger nor my UBO argument:

• Kirmse explains the details of his prominence analysis here. Kirmse clearly uses Peakbagger as a ground truth source of data to compare his output to. It is the best alternative.
• Kirmse uses DEM data which is contaminated with trees (DEMs find the height of object at scan time, rather than true ground level, a well-known problem in remote sensing). This causes Kirmse's height data to be less reliable than Peakbagger. Again, see Kirmse's explanation here.
• Quoting "many tested summits are missing from Peakbagger" is not a strike against Peakbagger. Because Peakbagger is curated, it cannot have as many summits as Kirme's system. The simple fact that Kirmse (a reliable source) used Peakbagger as gold-standard data should count in favor of Peakbagger.
• I cannot find any guidance in WP:UBO that specifies that specific data (e.g., prominence) be used, as far as I can tell. It just asks us to analyze whether the source is used by other reliable sources.
• I also cannot find any guidance about "conflict of interest" in WP:UBO. If Kirmse donated data back to Peakbagger, why is that a negative? Instead, wouldn't that show that Kirmse thought Peakbagger was a worthwhile source? If it were truly unreliable (e.g., like The Daily Mail), Kirmse would be less likely to give it data, not more. — hike395 (talk) 00:35, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

@Hike395: Thanks for the link to Krimse's personal website/blog, I didn't see it linked from the peer-reviewed article. I'm afraid I'm still not too convinced by the way it's discussed on the page, see e.g. "In some areas, especially in Indonesia and Africa, Peakbagger's peak locations were very far off, enough to generate incorrect values even for ultra prominent peaks". In general, looking at all the various sources, I'm getting the impression that its data tends to be fairly accurate for the areas highly frequented by climbing enthusiast, but less so for elsewhere. Such data quality uniformity issues would be expected for a hobbyist source, and are one of the main reasons why I'm extremely wary of using these kinds references: it's going to appear accurate based on the things people will naturally check, but that deduction is not necessarily extensible to all data, nor is it possible to know for certain where that "uncertainty horizon" lies in the data.

Regarding the specific data aspect, I do concede might be reading the "for similar facts" part of WP:UBO rather closely (also, I'm not too familiar with how this has been interpreted historically), but I don't think my reading is unreasonable. I do find it notable that of the linked articles, the one that would have most expected to use e.g. the prominence data (the one providing a mapping service aimed at a mountain cartographer audience) does not do so. This might be simply resulting from the limited amount of prominence data available on the site prior to Krimse's contribution. Did the site contain prominence data in 2010s?

Regarding the conflict of interest, my point is that since the argument is about [[WP:UBO|use by others], does Krimse count as an other? In my understanding, the underlying UBO argument is essentially "there are verifiable reliable independent sources that hold peakbagger.com as a reliable independent source". I'm not convinced Krimse is "independent". -Ljleppan (talk) 07:10, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

@Ljleppan: I believe some of the assumptions you're making are incorrect:

• Wikipedia has been using Peakbagger as a source of prominence data at least since 2005, possibly before. See this diff, and the corresponding archive link. It has been a stable and durable source.
• The main editors of Peakbagger were Edward Earl (until 2015) and Greg Slayden (after). If you look at the history, Kirmse wanted to adapt their code to run at Google in 2014, and started to share his data back in 2015. Peakbagger had prominence data for at least 10 years before that.
• It seems to me that you cannot have it both ways. If Kirmse was a major participant in Peakbagger, then it would pass WP:RSSELF due to Kirmse's domain expertise. Instead, by his own web page, he was only tangentially involved starting in 2014. Hence the need for a WP:UBO argument, which I believe still stands.
• It's well-known that the published topographic data for mountains in the Global South tends to be imprecise. See, e.g., the uncertainty expressed at Cordillera Paine, which took a fair amount of investigation by WP editors. Or this discussion about the highest point in Indonesia. The accuracy of Peakbagger is limited by the accuracy and precision of the topographic data that they use. Claiming that they are a hobbyist site based on this is not warranted.

Thanks for being so thorough! — hike395 (talk) 15:10, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

@Hike395: And thanks to you for being so patient, especially considering that I lack much of the background knowledge etc. that others more familiar with the domain possess. I've thought about this for a few days now and have essentially two points I'd like to bring up. First, I don't believe Wikipedia's historical use of peakbagger.com is of significance for this discussion. Second, regarding "having it both ways", my position is essentially thus: Kirmse themself appears to be a reputable author, and if they were in editorial control over peakbagger.com, I'd be open to considering it an expert-produced WP:SPS. However, they are not in (sole) editorial control, and I'm not convinced the "editor-in-chief" fulfills the requirements in the same way as Kirmse does. At the same time, Kirmse is clearly affiliated with peakbagger.com. While this does not wholly invalidate their judgement w/r/t it's reliability, it does cause me concern regarding their impartiality in assessing the situation. Working in a rather niche field of academia myself, I'm sympathetic that this is made more difficult by the nicheness (is that a word?) of the topic: it's hard to make a very solid WP:UBO argument if the field of relevant "others" is very small. Its clear that you and others who are well-versed in the topic truly hold peakbagger.com to be a reputable site. But demonstrating that reputability is clearly an issue in this case. In general, given that the indicia of reliablity overall is so low, I'm still hesitant about any kind of blanket statement along the lines of "all factual data on peakbagger.com is reliable". On the other hand, I'm not sure what a suitable more limited statement would be. Frankly, I'm rather annoyed by the lack of citing sources on the site; if they attributed clearly where each peace of information came from, I would find this significantly easier. -Ljleppan (talk) 19:48, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

• Reliable per Smallchief. That is to say, "for quantitative information: elevation, coordinates, location, prominence, isolation. Not reliable for ascent and travel accounts." The disclaimer for inaccuracy is very likely referring to ascent and travel accounts, and if not, it's a disclaimer highlighting the very very few errors in a very large dataset. Any dataset is prone to having a small percentage of errors, that doesn't make it unreliable. Being made by one person does not make it unreliable, it appears to be an authoritative resource, and wikipedia should treat it as such... except for the travel accounts, which are user provided and not reliable any more than some web forum post somewhere would be (that is to say, possibly useful as a primary source if the user commenting has some claim to notability). Fieari (talk) 02:24, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
• Comment @Smallchief, Fieari, Bermicourt, and Hike395: - I understand your position regarding the accuracy of statistics on this website. How do you see it's listings in terms of WP:GNG, does a listing on Peakbagger count as significant coverage in your view? FOARP (talk) 17:11, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I'd say it's a reliable source in terms of data, but obviously the blogs/comments are not. So it counts towards general notability. But we could also, by consensus, agree notability for mountains and hills based on a set of criteria such as height, prominence, etc, and only those that fall outside of that would need to pass the GNG test. Bermicourt (talk) 17:28, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I would say that the relevant notability guideline is WP:GEOLAND, which states "Named natural features are often notable, provided information beyond statistics and coordinates is known to exist." Peakbagger can only reliably provide statistics and coordinates: nothing else. Therefore Peakbagger cannot be used to establish notability of mountains, ranges, etc. — hike395 (talk) 00:55, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Agree. Peakbagger does not establish notability (nor, in my opinion, does a single source ever establish notability). However, Peakbagger, as stated many times here, is a reliable source for elevation, prominence, and other statistical information.Smallchief (talk) 01:18, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Basically this. I have nothing to add, Hike395 said it right. Fieari (talk) 06:36, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Different kinds of data in Peakbagger

FOARP is saying that Peakbagger is not reliable, because the terms of service says so. But peakbagger has multiple kinds of information in it. It has subjective trip reports, and it has quantitative data about the prominence and isolation. AFAICT, the terms of service are warning users that the subjective trip reports are filled with errors: people who climb mountains should take care not to overly rely on other climbing reports, because climbing is a risky activity. But Wikipedia editors are not using peakbagger for the subjective trip reports (which are clearly unreliable).

The main question, I think, is whether the quantitative data is reliable and accurate. There are very few sources for mountain prominence and isolation. Members of WP:WikiProject Mountains have been using Peakbagger's prominence and isolation data for many years, and have not found serious systematic errors (unlike GNIS feature data, where I was aware of the errors back in 2010, but got shut down). That's not a guarantee of accuracy by the website, but an empirical validation.

I also think there are two different issues being mixed together here:

• Should peakbagger be the basis of creating new articles, and used to check WP:GNG?
• Should peakbagger be considered a reliable source of prominence and isolation?

For the first question, we've had serious problems in creating articles based on geographic databases (FOARP has been extremely helpful in a major cleanup involving thousands of articles based on incorrect data in GNIS). I would be skeptical about creating new articles purely based on Peakbagger + ListsOfJohn + GNIS.

I would suggest that the discussion here analyze the reliability of Peakbagger for prominence and isolation. Either:

• Peakbagger is considered a reliable source of prominence and isolation, or
• We have to consider removing many of the prominence and isolation data points from WP.

Given this restricted question of reliability about prominence and isolation, what do other editors think? — hike395 (talk) 19:48, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

We are still fundamentally discussing a WP:SPS. Where does the data, for, say this page come from? What is the editorial policy that ensures it is correct? How about this page which states "this peak was submitted to the Peakbagger.com database by <name>"? I've seen nothing in this discussion that would have made me reconsider my original assessment of unreliable for factual information. If the result is that that Wikipedia needs to re-reference a lot of stuff, that is unfortunate, but that amount of potential work is completely immaterial for the reliability question. -Ljleppan (talk) 20:12, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

• "this peak was submitted to the Peakbagger.com database by <name>" was merely a suggestion/request by a user that the peak be added to the database, not that the user added the data. The webmaster is always the only one to add the data. The user generally wants the peak added to they can add it to their list of personal ascents.Ron Clausen (talk) 20:42, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Ron is correct: there is an editorial process from turning a user-submitted "provisional" peak into a peak in the full database, see here.

My issue here is: checked how? Checked against USGS information? And if that's the case, again, why don't we refer to the USGS directly? I'm not sure prominence and isolation really are so trivial to calculate that we can safely leave this in the hands of what appears to be an amateur website: the maths involved are relatively simple, but the choice of input data to use does not appear to be. FOARP (talk) 09:06, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

@FOARP: USGS does not provide prominence or isolation, so we cannot refer to USGS. As I've said below, there's no governmental source for prominence or isolation anywhere.

You're right, the computation is not trivial. I've found a peer-reviewed paper about running the computation at scale, by Andrew Kirmse, previously a Distinguished Engineer at Google who managed Google Earth. The results from the paper are provided in a website. Kirmse provides more details about the computation here. That detailed web page is worth reading. A few things to note:

• Kirmse refers back to both Peakbagger and ListsOfJohn as tests for his computation
• Kirmse's computation matches Peakbagger within 5% error 90% of the time. Kirmse seems to attribute the errors to problems in his own data.
• Kirmse based his algorithm on WinProm code by Edward Earl, published in Helman's book. Earl ran Peakbagger until 2015, when he died in a mountaineering accident. Peakbagger has the original (although less scalable) WinProm code. Because Earl came up with the prominence algorithm, I would not characterize Peakbagger as a "amateur website", but as a primary source for prominence and isolation data.
• Kirme's data is innately less accurate than Peakbagger. Kirmse (like GNIS) bases his computation on digital elevation maps, which are less accurate than Peakbagger, which bases the computation on the best point elevations provided by governments. In mountains where there are high spatial gradients, DEMs are definitely inferior.

Here's my conclusion. Peakbagger is a self-published primary source. The editors of Peakbagger do not appear to pass the bar of published subject-matter experts. Kirmse's paper appears to be a reliable peer-reviewed publication by a subject-matter expert. Kirmse is a secondary source for Peakbagger.

I don't want to propose any major changes to 5,000+ mountain articles without having other mountain editors participate in the discussion. @Droll, RedWolf, Volcanoguy, Buaidh, and Jo-Jo Eumerus: The reliability of Peakbagger has been called into question (see above). What is the best way to reliably source prominence and isolation data? — hike395 (talk) 15:40, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

I entirely sympathise with not wanting to make changes to lots of articles. Indeed, I'm OK with leaving these articles generally as-is and filling them out slowly with information from e.g., newspapers to make them full notability passes. What I will say is we have a general problem with many thousands of GEO articles being written solely on not-very-reliable database data (primarily GNIS and GNS) and it is more important to make sure that we don't generate thousands more problematic articles and make the problem worse. FOARP (talk) 09:38, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

It strikes me as a bizarre thought that once a prominence figure has been published in a newspaper (a reliable one, I hope) we can give it a full notability pass[es]. First, surely we are not discussing notability (are we?) but verifiability. Second, where do we suppose the newspaper reporter obtained their data? Is our increased reliance because we believe that if what they publish is wrong they may be criticised, sued or forced to a retraction? Thincat (talk) 12:03, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

FOARP If your goal was to prevent non-notable articles being made from geographic databases (which I heartily agree with), we didn't need to have this discussion. WP:GNG says that notability should be established by secondary sources. Geographic databases are primary sources: there is no analysis, just data. WP:GEOLAND says that if only basic statistics about a natural feature are known (as in a database), then the subject is not notable. We should not start articles purely based on Peakbagger and/or ListsOfJohn and/or GNIS.

By determining that Peakbagger is not a reliable source, we have to either throw out prominences and isolation on 5,000+ articles, or figure out an alternative reliable source. It's frustrating that Kirmse's prominence data is more "reliable" (according to WP:RS), but less accurate than the curated data in Peakbagger (according to Kirmse himself). I realize that WP:IAR shouldn't apply to this large number of articles, but I believe deprecating Peakbagger will make Wikipedia worse. I predict other editors at WikiProject Mountains will agree with that. — hike395 (talk) 13:03, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

From where does Peakbagger get its information? --Jayron32 13:13, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

As far as I can tell from Kirmse: Greg Slayden (the editor at Peakbagger) uses the WinProm program to determine the key col and nearest higher point based on a digital elevation map. He then uses USGS benchmark data (if available) or topo map data (if not) to compute the prominence, verifying that any benchmark corresponds to the named feature. Slayden does not appear to be a published subject-matter expert (by WP's definition). — hike395 (talk) 13:23, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

If that is the case, then his information is not reliable under WP:RS definitions. He is not an expert, his work is not checked by experts, and there's no review or editorial process for the information he posts. The information from the website should not be used at Wikipedia, and should not have been used at all. The "5000+ articles" issue is a problem caused by using an obviously unreliable source to begin with; if someone had been following the rules years ago those 5000+ articles would already be in compliance. --Jayron32 13:47, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

hike395 - I agree with you that it should be possible to address the problem of the creation of large numbers of GEO articles based on dubious sourcing at AFD. This is, however, not my experience at AFD. AFD is always far too late (often by a decade+ given how many articles were created circa 2008) to actually address the problem of article-creation based on purely statistical data. The many thousands of GEO articles sourced purely to GNIS/GNS, and created at a rate of 2-3 a minute in article creation campaigns, being the most obvious example.

Nobody said that these 5,000 articles would have to edited at once. We already have so much more dubiously sourced information, in such a large quantity on Wikipedia, that those 5,000 articles will not be a priority. What we need to stop is adding any more dubiously-sourced information. Ultimately, we do not have to have such data - hobbyists (who are the ones that this data is of interest to) can always just refer to Peakbagger directly. We can instead have more encyclopaedic information about the topic (e.g., it's history).

As a final point, if Kirmse's calculations don't match Slayden's, that points to these calculations being non-trivial to do given that if Slayden is a subject-matter expert then so surely is Kirmse. (EDIT: also entirely second what Jayron32 says - the 5,000 articles thing is an WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument) FOARP (talk) 13:40, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree with FOARP and Jayron32 above, especially the point about hobbyists. Santacruz ⁂ Please tag me! 13:58, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Subsection questions

I am going to add subsection questions below. It would be helpful, I think if those 'in the know' answer them with cites or links if possible Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:29, 21 November 2021 (UTC) : Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:29, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Why does prominence matter?

Topographic prominence is an objective measure of the "peakiness" of a peak. Many mountains are massifs, with many subpeaks. Prominence is a measure of how far down you need to walk from a subpeak before you go back up to the next main peak. Subpeaks with low prominence (e.g., 100 feet (30 m) are not considered significant peaks, and don't make it onto peak lists. See USGS link — hike395 (talk) 20:59, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Topographic prominence is related to how much climbing is required to reach a peak from a point that is higher, specifically from its line parent. In Colorado, 4352 meter Grays Peak has prominence of about 844 meters from its line parent Mount Lincoln. On the other hand, the only slightly lower 4349 meter Torreys Peak has a prominence of only about 171 meters from its line parent which is nearby Grays Peak.  Buaidh  talk e-mail 23:51, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Who does prominence matter to?

Readers of mountain articles may wish to know prominence, in order to tell whether the peak is a true peak, or simply a bump on a larger mountain. — hike395 (talk) 21:00, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Since prominence is somewhat related to the difficulty of a climb, it often matters more than elevation itself to climbers and mountain nerds like myself.  Buaidh  talk e-mail 00:06, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Are there national or international organizations, who deal with it?

I've been editing mountain articles for >18 years now, and I know of no governmental or international or standards bodies that compute either prominence or isolation. — hike395 (talk) 21:01, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Government agencies are not concerned with topographic prominence, although they provide the elevation and topographic data required to calculate topographic prominence. Most mountain climbing organizations rely on other sources (e.g, peakbagger.com and Wikipedia) to calculate topographic prominence for them. The Sierra Club and the Colorado Mountain Club have historically only been concerned with summit elevation, although topographic prominence has more recently become a concern. If a climber or organization finds a discrepancy with a calculated topographic prominence, hopefully they will let us know.  Buaidh  talk e-mail 00:53, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Why does isolation matter?

@Buaidh: you have added isolation data and lists to many articles, do you wish to answer this? — hike395 (talk) 21:27, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Topographic isolation is also known as radius of dominance, an apt description. Isolation is the minimum distance you would need to travel to reach a point of equal or greater elevation. In mountainous regions, isolation may be short for any but the highest summit. In relatively flat regions, the highest summit may have a very long isolation.  Buaidh  talk e-mail 00:02, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

@Buaidh: Why is topographic isolation something an encyclopedia needs to cover? Not seeing the argument for this being important without dedicated coverage. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:31, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

An encyclopedia doesn't need to provide any statistical information about a mountain, but topographic elevation, prominence, and isolation are considered the three most significant measures of a summit.

Topographic isolation is discussed at the following:

• Topographic isolation on Wikipedia
• World Peaks with 1000 km of Isolation on peakbagger.com
• 25 Most Isolated Peaks In The World on mountainjourney.com
• Calculating the prominence and isolation of every mountain in the world at sagepub.com
• Visualize Prominence and Isolation of Mountain Peaks at wolfram.com
• Oregon's Most Prominent and Isolated Peaks at glassmountains.com
• Topographic Prominence-Isolation Concepts at cohp.com

Yours aye,  Buaidh  talk e-mail 20:22, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Who does isolation matter to?

High isolation summits present a wonderful challenge to climbers in regions that are not overrun with folks who try to collect as many high peaks as they can in as short a period of time as possible (e.g., the Southern Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada.)  Buaidh  talk e-mail 00:16, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Are there national or international organizations, who deal with it?

Government agencies are not concerned with topographic isolation, although they provide the elevation and horizontal position data required to calculate topographic isolation. Most mountain climbing organizations rely on other sources (e.g, peakbagger.com and Wikipedia) to calculate topographic isolation for them. If a climber or organization finds a discrepancy with a calculated topographic isolation, hopefully they will let us know.  Buaidh  talk e-mail 00:54, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Is there documented custom in the relevant off wiki community for reliance on educated amateurs for this?

I think "educated amateurs" may be a biased way of describing it. As far as I can tell, there is a small community of GIS people who compute prominence. A history of the term is described here: [10] The USGS acknowledges the term, but does not offer its own computation. Mathworks (the company that makes Matlab) offers a library to compute prominence (and isolation, too).

One of the main people in the community is Alan Dawson, who published, and participated in creating Peaklist.com. An important book on the topic is by Adam Helman About the community, Helman states, "The community of prominence theoreticians, list builders, and climbers have reached a critical mass --- one that finally suggested the elaboration and publication of a book dedicated exclusively to the subject."

As far as I can tell, here is a list of websites that actually use the software and publish the results:

• Peakbagger.com
• Peaklist.com
• The Database of British and Irish Hills (http://www.hills-database.co.uk/)
• ListsOfJohn
• County Highpointers Association (www.cohp.com)

Trafford Publishing (Helman's publisher) is a well-known self/vanity-publishing imprint. I can't find any information that would substantiate TACit Press (Dawson's publisher) as an established imprint or not (EDIT: based on this, it looks to have been an amateur operation EDIT2: though based on this they were able at least to give ISBNs and the sourcing/editing/checking doesn't appear bad, though the book is essentially just a pamphlet for hobbyists). FOARP (talk) 09:06, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

References

RfC: tghat.com

Question: Which of the following best describes the reliability of tghat.com?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Less than generally reliable
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Reliable for their own opinion only
• Option 5: Other, please specify

— Platonk (talk) 20:23, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Option 4 added by Mathglot (talk) at 19:47, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Background (tghat.com)

The tghat.com website is being increasingly used throughout Wikipedia and is currently used in 143 articles since it was created just one year ago. Its use has engendered edit wars with several editors removing content sourced by it (as non-RS), and a few editors reverting the removals. There was a two-day discussion on RSN in July about tghat.com that discussed, though didn't resolve, the issue. As recently as five days ago, tghat.com has been added as an external link and asserted as a reliable source for a citation. The website's earliest Wayback Machine copy on December 10, 2020 shows it as a blog titled "Chronicling the War on Tigray". The website shows no sense of who is publishing the content. There is a Wikipedia article for Tghat which seems constructed with name-dropping rather than indications of notability. Other news media frame the website in terms of advocacy, not a news organization with an editorial staff, such as:

• "Tghat, a group of anonymous Tigrayans reporting on the damage done within Tigray during the current conflict"
• "Pro-Tigray Tghat"
• "Tghat was founded ... by concerned Tigrayans to chronicle and document the war"
• "News site Tghat, which is run by a group of Tigrayan activists living abroad"
• "Tghat, a news site run by pro-TPLF activists"

Examples of how tghat.com is being used in Wikipedia:

• 143 articles contain "tghat.com".

• 117 articles contain "A compilation of the verified list of civilian victims from different sources", a database/table which has a "source" column predominantly linking to Facebook or Twitter posts, other tghat content, and personal accounts. According to AP News the database is compiled by a single man and only contains deaths of ethnic Tigrayans, but not ethnic Amhara victims.

• 2 articles contain a blog post which is a google translation from an article published by Norway newspaper Bergens Tidende. This is probably a copyright violation.

• 9 articles contain "A Leaked Document: Delegation of the European Union to Ethiopia" (a blog post). This doesn't appear to have a "document" in it, and it was used as a citation in order to insert Tigray War information into the articles of 9 "places/locations".

• 6 articles contain A graphic footage of the Debre Abay massacre: What do we know about it? a blog post. This was added to two "location" articles where it doesn't really belong.

• 3 articles contain What happened in Aksum? My personal account (blog post). This was added to one "location" article where it was used to insert information about the Tigray conflict.

The above is not intended to be a comprehensive list of uses in Wikipedia, but is a subset showing the various ways tghat.com has been used.

(As a side note, though still deserving mention here, according to AP News the compiler of the civilian/non-combatant Amhara casualties is the Amhara Association of America, which doesn't have a Wikipedia article, nor is their website amharaamerica.org mentioned at all in Wikipedia mainspace, and yet the Amhara also have numerous civilian casualties during this conflict. I haven't found any Amhara 'massacre' articles in Wikipedia, while finding over a hundred Tigray 'massacre' articles. ADVOCACY or a NPOV/weight issue?)

— Platonk (talk) 20:23, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

• Update: The above counts have changed because 25 articles were recently deleted at AfD, most of which contained a link to tghat.com, and making the counts go down. Platonk (talk) 10:44, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Survey (tghat.com)

• Option 4 reliable for their own opinion only. This implies use of WP:INTEXT attribution; e.g., "..and according to a member of Tghat, some-opinion-or-assertion-about-something." Mathglot (talk) 20:10, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4: agree with Mathglot's reasoning both above and in the discussion below. Santacruz ⁂ Please tag me! 22:28, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1: Generally reliable and attribute to Tghat when in doubt or Option 2: less than generally reliable per WP:USEBYOTHERS. The RS guidelines mostly evolved for rich-country sources without tight internet and telephone blockades. Wikipedia has a fundamental problem in working out how to cover knowledge encyclopedically, avoiding demographic bias, while still using good sources. There is no magic solution, but pedantic interpretation of guidelines will not help in evolving reasonable solutions.
  In this particular case, as can be seen by the text and sources in the current version of Tghat, Tghat has been used by multiple Western mainstream media and academic sources, both preprint and fully peer-reviewed. This is not "name dropping"; it's recognition that Tghat has gained a reputation as a sufficiently reliable source.
  Side issues on neutrality (1): while there is an LATimes claim that Tghat is "pro-TPLF", this is not very credible from looking at the site itself, which includes, for example, press releases by anti-TPLF political parties (clearly labelling them as such).
  Side issues on neutrality (2): massacres of Amharas. This is only related in the sense of whether we want to purge Wikipedia of all sources that might help overcome our demographic bias favouring rich-country sources. We do have Benishangul-Gumuz conflict, in which several cases have victims identified as Amharas; in Oromia Region: Gawa Qanqa massacre, Abo church massacre. Having more sources for these would be good, and the AAA site looks (based on an initial quick look) like a good source for articles such as these. In fact, it appears that among the currently known list of Amhara organisations, the articles that exist so far, Amhara Mass Media Agency and National Movement of Amhara, were both created by me, based on the best sources I could find. I wasn't aware of AAA at the time. There are quite likely some sources like these that we should rate "generally unreliable" or "Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated", but having a mix of sources that generally seem reliable and come from a mix of the different ethnic groups of Ethiopia is more in the interests of Wikipedia than refusing to use these sources. Boud (talk) 23:25, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

  Added 'or Option 2', as per WP:USEBYOTHERS as pointed out by Alaexis below, and keeping in mind that the editorship is reported on other web media rather than on the website itself. Boud (talk) 23:54, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

• Option 3: Generally unreliable Tghat is not reliable because it has verifibiliaty issues. Thgat claims to be a news site reporting on current events, not on psuedoscience, the proper context should be given, and not all biased opinions belong in Wikipedia. It heavily relies on social media, and is not independent from the subject it reports on. Reliable sources have used language to describe Tghat as being partisan, compromising it as independent source. As a new site it doesn't appear to have editorial oversight. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 00:32, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4/5 and describe as being run pro-TPLF activists when summarizing it; the LA Times describes it as such. It is obviously WP:BIASED and, beyond that, definitely not usable for facts, but it shouldn't really be used for opinion either, since it seems that would be plainly WP:UNDUE. I'm not seeing any evidence of a reputation for fact-checking or accuracy (or even any assertion that they do any fact-checking or have any editorial controls); and they appear to be a personal website of no significant notability. Coverage is not WP:USEBYOTHERS - is there any indication that any reliable sources treat this list as reputable or reliable? Without that, the only place where it is like to be due is in an article specifically about the site. I would in particular strenuously object to citing it in any context discussing casualty figures - WP:RSOPINION is meant to be used to establish notable strands of opinion, not to introduce unverified facts to random websites that present them with no fact-checking. Demographic bias is real, but there are actual news sources, academics, and other high-quality sources that can be used for this. Simply creating a website and listing death totals on it doesn't make someone's opinion significant enough to include in an article - when it is included, it ought to be cited via secondary sources rather than cited directly. Also, dismissing the LA Times (a high-quality source) describing it as being run by activists based on "well I looked at the site and it looked neutral to me" is absurd; that is not how we evaluate sources. Unless someone can find an equal or higher-quality source disagreeing with the LA Times description, any WP:RSP entry absolutely needs to mention that specific bias. --Aquillion (talk) 05:34, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2 per WP:USEBYOTHERS. The Associated Press checked some of their reporting and found it accurate. France24 were able to verify the video they posted. The information published by Tghat has been used by scholars. Not fully reliable due to concerns regarding bias and the editing processes raised earlier. Alaexis_¿question? 08:37, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3/4 doesn't seem to be a reliable news or similar organization as much as an advocacy group. That kind of group has their place, but generally not as a reliable source outside of independent confirmation or their own opinions. SamStrongTalks (talk) 19:36, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 - For reasons of being a self-published, anonymously-run, and biased website. The website itself gives no indication of its ownership or editorship. Most of the blog posts are posted by the anonymous user "tghat", who posts no credentials and doesn't use any citations in their articles. Even if a blog post has a seemingly real world name on it, there is no verified-account indicator to ensure it is that person, and that they are a subject matter expert. The victim list is self-published by a single person (whose name we've known only since 10 days ago). Option 4 is worthless as there is nothing an anonymous source is going to say WP:ABOUTSELF, and everything else they would publish falls under WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims and is thus unusable. Ultimately, Wikipedia guidelines for reliable sources are there to make verification possible. Anonymous and self-published make verification impossible. Platonk (talk) 10:47, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (tghat.com)

Starting with WP:USEBYOTHERS, its estimation of the number of victims has been mentioned by the LA times [11]. They describe it as "a news site run by pro-TPLF activists". Alaexis_¿question? 20:31, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

No it doesn't. Where do you get that? The LA Times article you cited doesn't mention Tghat's victim database or information. It mentions Tghat in the sentence following a victim count by organization Seb Hidri, but doesn't tie the two together. Neither does the Wikipedia article Tghat, nor does the WP article Seb Hidri, nor even the website Tghat.com. Tghat.com has two articles mentioning Seb Hidri but even those articles don't tie the two together. Platonk (talk) 02:13, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Reliability and verifiability are certainly issues. The victim list appears to be a personal victim memorial. I can find no editorial oversight. References to Facebook, Daily Mail, and Twitter as sources are not appropriate. The site appears to be an advocacy for a cause that tilts the balance with a false validity.

Following a link such as UN Commissioner for Human Rights Owes Tigrayan Victims an Explanation I cannot verify who Teklai Gebremichael is, apparently a regular contributor. The link Is it a sin to be a Tigrayan? A graduating Tigrayan university student‘s lamentation contains an unknown editor's note: "The following message is written by a graduating student", identified as K. These are not reliable sources nor acceptable as an "External link". -- Otr500 (talk) 04:28, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Platonk, you are right about the victim count. The article says "Tghat, a news site run by pro-TPLF activists, reported on the Bora killings Jan. 12, along with another massacre that reportedly took place in an area called Debre Abay." Note that the Bora killings themselves are not in doubt, the same article reports them as facts earlier. So basically they say that Tghat reported on it 4 days after it happened. Alaexis_¿question? 06:30, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Alaexis, I think you're really stretching the imagination about what LA Times thinks about Tghat based on this single sentence. Please look again at WP:USEBYOTHERS: "How [they] use a given source ... The more widespread and consistent this use is ... established views of sources..." LA Times' single sentence, in its context, is not an endorsement of Tghat's veracity or accuracy. Platonk (talk) 07:47, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm not saying that the use is widespread but it's not zero either. Are there reliable sources which explicitly call them unreliable or found inaccuracies in their reporting? By the way the absence of reporting on Amhara casualties is irrelevant. The sources can be biased or have a limited scope and still be useful. Alaexis_¿question? 09:31, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Without commenting on Tghat's reliability or lack thereof (I'll do that in a separate comment), asking whether there are reliable sources that call Tghat's reliability into question is backwards logic. There is no "presumption of reliability until disproved". There are thousands of activist groups, opinion writers, and individuals publishing their thoughts on blogs and websites, and The Guardian and The Times don't have departments paid to sit around investigating and writing evaluations of every person with an internet connection and an opinion. Mathglot (talk) 19:43, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Mathglot, you're completely right. The reason I'm asking is that if, by any chance, they are described as unreliable by reliable sources it would be a very strong argument for classifying them as unreliable here. The opposite is not true: if they aren't described as unreliable we would still need to establish their reliability. Alaexis_¿question? 20:08, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Aha, thanks for that clarification. With that understanding, I fully agree with you. Mathglot (talk) 20:15, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

@Alaexis: & @Mathglot: WP:IS is clear on biased sources, it still needs to be independent from the subject, the reliable sources descriptions of Tghat clearly tells they are not; a news site run by pro-TPLF activists, run by activists living abroad. A site run by activists siding(pro-TPLF) with a party to a conflict is advocacy and clearly show connection to the subject. Being called pro anything by reliable sources, already compromises Tghat as a independent/reliable news source in that context. Another concern is the reliance on social media, and after searching the site they have little or none reporting, that is not in some way related to the conflict in Ethiopia. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 21:15, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

You are misreading that. It's true that it needs to independent from the subject in order to be considered WP:INDEPENDENT (one of the attributes of fully reliable sources), but it does not need to be independent from the subject or unbiased in order to be used in citations at Wikipedia in certain contexts. See WP:BIASEDSOURCES: "Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context"; and: "Bias may make in-text attribution appropriate". If the specific context is "the opinions of Tghat activists", then the WP:BIASED source Tghat *is* reliable for that, and may be cited for their own opinions, per the WP:RS guideline previously cited. Mathglot (talk) 21:29, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Nope, not misreading that and it's again mentioned in WP:BIASEDSOURCES: When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering. Does Tghat as a source meets the normal requirements? Independence from the topic is very shaky, what about the rest? Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 21:55, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Flat-earthers are WP:BIASED sources that are citable at Wikipedia articles on what Flat-earthers believe; Moon hoaxers are reliable for what moon-hoaxers believe, and Tghat is reliable for what Tghat believes, and needs no independence, editorial control, or fact-checking for that. The fact that they may be unreliable for all basic assertions of fact does not negate that, and that's what the rest of the guideline you quoted is about. Mathglot (talk) 22:21, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Incomparable contexts and WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, editorial oversight matters for a news site claiming to report on current events, level of independence matters. There is a long list of opinions from news sites marked as unreliable in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, biased sources can still be invalid through other aspects, such as verifibiliaty, also see WP:SUBSTANTIATE. Tghat is also WP:NOTRELIABLE for it's reliance on WP:NOTSOCIALNETWORK. There's are serieus reliability issues with this news site, comparison with Psuedoscience does not fit this context. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 23:32, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

You continue to misconstrue. Even articles marked "generally unreliable" or even as bad as "deprecated" at Perennial sources may *still* be cited nevertheless, as the guideline supplement you quoted very clearly states, and which agrees with all the others regarding WP:RSOPINION. I have no wish to debate you anymore; !vote your opinion based on your best interpretation of policies and guidelines, and hopefully everyone else will do the same. Have a nice day! Mathglot (talk) 23:49, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

We disagree and that's fine, have a nice day. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 00:32, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

• If the argument is that RS use tghat means tghat is RS, I don't see why one couldn't use forgo including tghat altogether and just cite the reputable sources covering the content. Tghat does not seem to be reliable. Additionally, this conflict is quite recent so we should be patient and remember that if tghat is the only site covering a massacre, it will be covered later in news and even later in academia if it is notable (WP:NODEADLINE). But back to the reliability topic, no I don't believe tghat is reliable based on how their content is created. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 21:43, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - (Re the argument presented above about a scarcity of "rich country" media coverage and how we must bend our Wikipedia rules in order to allow Tghat as a source to reasonably cover the Tigray conflict.) A brief look in the Reference sections of Tigray War and Timeline of the Tigray War, finds such usual reliable sources as:

• Reuters, Al Jazeera, BBC News, New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, The Guardian

There are also numerous Africa-centric and Ethiopia-centric organizations mentioned in the citations, including:

• Europe External Programme with Africa: Belgian-based NGOs "involved in human rights issues particularly in the Horn of Africa and North Africa."
• New Business Ethiopia: "Founded by an award-winning journalist, Andualem Sisay Gessesse" (since 2009)
• Foreign Policy: "American news publication, founded in 1970 and focused on global affairs"
• Fana Broadcasting: "a state-owned mass media company operating in Ethiopia"
• African Arguments: "a pan-African platform for news, investigation and opinion." Editor and deputy editor named. Editor is an experienced journalist and editor.
• Ipi Global Observatory: "provides timely analysis on peace and security issues by experts, journalists, and policymakers. It is published by the International Peace Institute." Personnel are named.
• Addis Standard: "an Ethiopian monthly social, economic and political news magazine." registered, info given

There are also seemingly lesser-reliable websites used for citations, including:

• Ezega News: "the premier Ethiopian portal that provides the Ethiopian community at home and abroad information and data". (no names given)
• Eritrea Hub: Blog format, no about-us page. "Information about Eritrea and the Horn of Africa."
• Ethiopia Insight: "coverage of Ethiopian political and economic issues". No names.

There are dozens of other sources I didn't recognize and didn't click on. And this list is from just looking at less than 5% of the citations. My point being that we have a plethora of sources available to us that we can denote as reliable sources, and renders moot the argument that we need tghat.com and need to bend the reliable source rules because of alleged "demographic bias".

— Platonk (talk) 03:12, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

A lot of your sources are located in Addis-Abeba and some are government-affiliated so we should expect to get only one side of the story from them ("media coverage has become a “very sensitive” topic for the government, said Befeqadu Hailu, an Ethiopian journalist imprisoned for 18 months by the previous regime."[12]). It is well known that journalists are not welcome in the zone of conflict now ("Within hours, the internet in Tigray was shut down and journalists were blocked from entering the region."). It doesn't follow from this that we need to bend our rules but the argument that there are plenty of RS coverage is spurious. Alaexis_¿question? 06:35, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

@Alaexis: You cannot infer anything based on "Platonk's tiny sample". I did not select a sampling based on their physical location, but on the presence of citations in the references sections of the two main Wikipedia articles for the Tigray conflict. I just scrolled and picked the top few, then grabbed a couple others. When I had looked at enough to make a small list, I quit looking further. Go look at the references section yourself. I'm sure not going to spend hours combing through the over 600 references just to convince you of anything. My original point still stands: we have numerous international, American, European, African, and Ethiopian sources already being cited. I remind you that Wikipedia is not a newspaper, we are not journalists, and Wikipedia does not need to cover every little aspect of the Tigray conflict as it unfolds. No one is going to die because we don't use tghat.com here in Wikipedia. Platonk (talk) 07:10, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

You prepared this list as a response to the comment about the scarcity of data sources. My point is that this list in no way proves there is no scarcity, for the reasons listed in the NYT article I linked. Alaexis_¿question? 07:48, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

That wasn't its purpose. My point was that with over 500 editors having edited the two main articles [13] [14], that they have already found and cited sufficient RS sources without needing tghat.com. There are 784 citations in the Tigray war article and the timeline articles. Only 13 citations point to tghat-hosted articles and 15 to the tghat victim list. Comparing that to the other 756 citations — yes, I can confidently say there is no shortage of reliable sources such that Wikipedia editors would need to resort to using an anonymously-published website. Scarcity of reporters on the ground in the region is irrelevant to this specific RfC, unless one is trying to make the argument that somehow tghat.com writers are filling that role while no other reliable sources are. Platonk (talk) 11:32, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

The Tigrayan diaspora activists do not name themselves on the website itself, but Meron Gebreananaye and Gebrekirstos Gebremeskel are both named publicly on a website that publishes a variety of views by Ethiopian intellectuals. So the adjective "anonymously-published" is inaccurate. The lack of knowledge on how to make a website "look professional" with a "Who we are" page of key people does not make it anonymous.

As for Ethiopian sources of information, the number is small. Looking at two main articles alone does not seriously cover the topic; Template:Syrian Civil War has about 425 articles for a civil conflict in a country of 18 million people. This case risks extending across a country of 110 or so million people, in which federal government control of the international media and national media is getting tighter and tighter in the areas outside of the TDF-OLA controlled regions. The internet/telephone blockade and control of communication devices at border controls makes reporting from inside the Tigray extended region difficult. Reports on the Axum massacre with victim counts ranging from 100 (Ethiopian Human Rights Commission) to "thousands" (Associated Press) took about 40 days to reach the outside world. Adigrat University lecturer Getu Mak's early February testimony, about 70 days after the event, published by Tghat, was one of the first reliable reports that was consistent with later reports (e.g. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch).

So yes, there is a scarcity of sources for this field of knowledge as a whole, and the WP:USEBYOTHERS of Tghat information shows that generally, though not always, Tghat provides reliable information. Saying that the source is not needed because it's confirmed by others is reversing WP:USEBYOTHERS. Boud (talk) 23:48, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Just a small comment on the "40 days" issue: there is no rush to add content to this encyclopaedia (WP:NODEADLINE), especially about contentious topics. Yes, it is important to have up-to-date information. But if major news outlets with long histories of reputable reporting are delaying their news items about certain events, it is probable that those events are highly complex and hard to get accurate information for. Therefore, WP should not jump the gun and use less reputable sources just because major reputable ones haven't published yet. Additionally, saying that because Tghat is RS because its report was then consistent with reputable reports is a post hoc fallacy. Finally, the idea that +600 sources is too few sources such that the use of tghat is necessary is almost probatio diabolica as the burden of proof for Platonk to provide even more than that or analyze all those 600 sources just to show tghat isn't absolutely necessary is an inordinate requirement when it is much simpler to prove or disprove whether tghat is RS period. Santacruz ⁂ Please tag me! 00:20, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

We don't have to jump the gun and there's no deadline, but we have had en.Wikipedia coverage of recent news become generally accepted since the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that affected the south-east Asian economic tigers. We do have to make reasonable efforts to balance against our known demographic bias and the dominance of Western rich-country mainstream media. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia about the world, not an encyclopedia about how the West sees the world. Given that we do have generally reliable sources such as Tghat, there's no reason to restrict ourselves to a circular argument about the Western mainstream media being reputable because what they do is reputable. Post hoc fallacy is not an argument against WP:USEBYOTHERS; there's no claim that Tghat had a causal effect on later reports; the question is whether later reports agreed with Tghat's information. See WP:USEBYOTHERS for the details.

The 600+ argument is mostly an apples and oranges argument. Boud (talk) 02:00, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

@Boud: Even if Tghat.com incorporated as an NGO, published bios of their main personnel and leadership, and was older than its current one year age, they would still be an advocacy organization and we would be limited in how we could use what they publish. The man who runs the website (Gebrekirstos Gebreselassie or Gebrekirstos Gebremeskel or however he spells his name today) presents himself as the manager of a website, a researcher and an activist — no credentials mentioned of being a reporter or an editor, or even an academic. And he isn't even located in Africa so one can't give him points for "boots on the ground and eyes front". A dozen brief mentions by reputable sources do not make tghat.com a "reliable source by proxy". Platonk (talk) 10:33, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

References

GEOnet Names Server (GNS)

Unarchived from archive 359 for further feedback/proper close

Which of the following best describes the reliability of the US's GEOnet Names Server (GNS) database?

• Option 1: The source is recognized as being generally reliable.
• Option 2: There is no consensus or additional considerations apply.
• Option 3: The source is recognized as being generally unreliable in most cases, though it can be used under certain circumstances.
• Option 4: The source is recognized as being not reliable at all and should be deprecated.
• Option 5: The source is:
  • Generally reliable for Locations/Coordinates
  • Generally unreliable for Feature Classes, particularly "Populated place"
  • Does not satisfy the "Legal recognition" requirement of WP:GEOLAND.
• Option 6: Same as Option 5 but including Toponyms in GNS as generally reliable.

FOARP (talk) 15:56, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Background (GNS)

Ten or more years ago, thousands of geographic articles have been created on English Wikipedia by importing database entries directly from the GEOnet Names Server (GNS). For example, a search for the phrases "by opening the Advanced Search box, entering" and "can be found at GEOnet Names Server" (i.e., instructions telling the reader to search the GEONet Names server for the ID code for the location the article is about) on Wikipedia returns more than 43,000 results. These largely refer to populated locations. Some of these articles have been expanded using other sources into full articles, others remain as stubs for which GNS is the only source. GNS's location classifications are assembled using substantially the same methodology as the GNIS database which was the subject of a previous RFC. Its classification of locations, especially as "populated places", therefore suffers from the same issues.
Additionally, a 2008 study of 26,500 South Korea toponyms uncovered around 200 Japanese names (see page 199 here), apparently as a result of using 1946 US military maps as a source (the Japanese-pronunciation names had apparently never been used on Japanese maps going back to 1910, so the US military - likely due to use of Japanese assistants in compiling their maps - are ultimately the source of these errors). The same study also noted that "There are many spelling errors and simple mis-understanding of the place names with similar characters" (see page 198), and also uncovered some very random English toponyms still present on the database but never commonly used. Therefore, at the very least, it appears that place names on GNS should ideally be confirmed in other sources, as it may for some countries have imported systematic errors from the old military maps that GNS is typically based on.

I have therefore adapted the previous GNIS survey (GNIS is the corresponding US-operated database for locations within the USA) to exclude toponyms from Option 5, but also added an Option 6 including GNS toponyms as generally reliable. FOARP (talk) 15:56, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Survey (GNS)

• Option 5 as Nom (EDIT: and also Option 2 for locations / coordinates per Aquillion). The classification of locations in GNS is essentially the same as that of GNIS and as such the same analysis applies - it is inaccurate as to whether a place was ever populated and cannot anyway be used to justify claiming that a place has legal recognition, not least because it does not come from an authority in the country concerned because this is a US database for places outside the US. As for topnyms, the reported error-rate (~1% Japanese names in South Korea, and a unknown number of additional erroneous names from misunderstandings etc.) is hard to balance so I'd prefer just to leave it as an open question. At the very least, with toponyms, people should be aware that these were compiled mainly from old US military maps and in some cases systematic errors may have been introduced. As far as I've ever been able to determine the location data on GNS is accurate (EDIT: but is a primary source). FOARP (talk) 16:02, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• I'm going to say the same thing I said last time for GNIS: "generally reliable for information about place names of any kind, but cannot be used to determine notability for stand-alone articles in any way, even if it calls a place a "populated place"" In determining if a place is a valid topic for a stand-alone article, we need reliable, sufficiently indepth, sources. The fact that a place exists is not sufficiently indepth. We can generally trust the GNS (as much as any source), since it is a simple database of places and names, but we should not be creating articles that cannot be expanded if sufficiently in-depth sources don't exist. --Jayron32 19:36, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option 5 disagree with the above comment because if a populated place the size of a village or larger can be verified through reliable sources such as an official census then it should be included to fulfill Wikipedia's role as a gazeteer regardless of the lack of indepth sources. This is particularly the case for villages in countries with limited internet coverage, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 03:44, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

  If that is the case, from where do you get the information necessary to write a sufficient article about said place? --Jayron32 13:17, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Jayron32 - I think it is important to remember that Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia and the ultimate goal here is to write encyclopaedia articles. There has never, ever been a consensus that Wikipedia should suddenly become something other than an encyclopaedia when covering geographical features. At most, it has been described as having "features of ... gazetteers" in WP:5P, which is an essay-level document, a phrase that was added as a un-discussed BOLD edit in 2008 and has never been substantially endorsed since as far as I've been able to determine. WP:GEOLAND refers to this section of WP:5P, but this is odd because WP:5P is supposed to be summary of the guidelines/policies, not a basis for them, meaning that this is essentially a circular reference. Having "features...of gazetteers" is anyway met by including the typical infobox information alongside encyclopaedic content - it does not require that we turn WP into a gazetteer. Anyway this is me getting a long way OT so I'll stop here. FOARP (talk) 14:45, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Having features of a gazetteer can mean "naming a populated place on a list of populated places". I've never said, and I will never say, that information about such populated places needs to be stricken from Wikipedia entirely, but having a stand-alone article should be reserved for topics that can support a stand-alone article. If all we can say about a place is that it exists and nothing more, it is sufficient to mention that it exists elsewhere. We don't have to give it a stand-alone article. --Jayron32 14:55, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Agree 100%. FOARP (talk) 15:10, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Oh, and one thing I would also add to my response to Atlantic306 is that census's are not generally reliable sources for whether a place is legally recognised unless they plainly state that a place is legally recognised by, e.g., stating that a location is a kind of legally-recognised location (e.g., that it is a type of location with e.g., a town council or mayor). We have had far too many situations in which someone has assumed that every location mentioned in a census was a legally recognised populated place when they were instead e.g., farms, pumps, factories, neighbourhoods, railway sidings, marshalling yards, railway stations, bridges, fords, wells, springs etc. etc. etc.. And even with that evidence, the goal is still to write an encyclopaedia article, because WP is an encyclopaedia and does not suddenly become something else when the topic is geography. FOARP (talk) 08:47, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately you ignored the part of my comment that referred to the size and designation of the place as being at least a village. From most government census' there are at least two paragraphs of information available regarding population, education, occupations, number of families, local government and so on. Also, I believe you are out of step with current practice that is to include stubs on villages and towns regardless of depth of coverage providing they are reliably verified however disappointing that might be for deletionists, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 00:40, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

I've just read your essay Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a gazetteer which is interesting but I don't think that all census' should be dismissed because of some poor ones, rather a case by case evaluation would be more accurate. Also i've seen senior editors and admin making the case that Wikipedia does have a role as a gazeteer, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 00:51, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Atlantic306 - I agree that gazetteers and census data should always be evaluated case-by-case. There's a continuum in both cases from single-line statistical data about a location to 1-200 word or more descriptive coverage, and there's things they're good for and things they're not good for. Most GNIS and GNS data is from the lower end of that spectrum. I think a very basic but passing article can be written based on data from the high end of that spectrum, but that many, many articles on Wikipedia at present are from the lower end of that spectrum. The reason they are kept is because of the idea that Wikipedia is a gazetteer and that any geographic location should get an article, which is something no consensus on here has ever determined. Even mentioning gazetteers in 5P was simply the result of an undiscussed BOLD edit. Anyway, I'm going OT again so I'll stop. FOARP (talk) 19:00, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

• Option 2 for locations / coordinates, Option 5 otherwise. The most important thing to recognize about this source is that it is essentially always going to be WP:PRIMARY, which is the reason it can't be used for anything that would imply interpretation or analysis. This is also something that needs to be taken into consideration even when using it for locations or coordinates; they can't be used in any way that would carry unsourced implications or which involve interpretation or analysis. It can be used to fill out simple uncontroversial coordinates on articles, of course, but there needs to be caution about using it for anything else. --Aquillion (talk) 10:06, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
• option 6 as its primary purpose is to record toponyms. That said, my experience with it has not been positive. It seems to have a habit of copying from whatever maps might be available, and for instance when we were going through Somali villages, we found numerous cases where there was nothing at all at the spot given. Any use of GNS has to be checked against other sources. Mangoe (talk) 02:24, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Mangoe - Probably imported from some 1960's or earlier US military map. At least with GNIS the locals are more likely to try to get obviously-wrong information fixed, but who's going to complain in Somalia? FOARP (talk) 09:02, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

• I am absolutely with Jayron32 here. Geonet should never be a sole source for a standalone article. We recently had a disaster with Iranian localities imported from GeoNet which had in the end to be mass-deleted since there were serious doubts as whether those exist or ever existed. Geonet can be used for coordinate (and to be honest it is not better than Google Maprs, and certainly not better than the OpenStreet Map - yes, sure I am aware of how the OpenStreetMap is organized and that it is not a reliable source by any means). However, there is no way it can justify creation of a standalone article.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:26, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option 5, and this is a demonstration of exactly why we should not have permastubs on "populated places" when there is not a substantial quantity of reliable, independent reference material about them. The "gazetteer" function could be fulfilled by lists when all we have is some basic database information about a place (coordinates, population, etc.), such as "List of populated places in Example County, Somestate" in the US, or by similar administrative divisions elsewhere. We can say "Yes, we should include gazetteer information about such places when we have it", and do so, without these masses of permastub pseudo-"articles". Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:05, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

It should be noted that nowhere presently on Wikipedia is it said that Wikipedia necessarily has a gazetteer function, nor has there ever been any consensus of any kind expressed anywhere that I've been able to identify saying it should. The term "gazetteer" was added to WP:5P in an undiscussed bold edit in 2008 and has recently been replaced with "reference works" after a talk-page discussion there. We include elements of reference works (a term that includes gazetteers) within encyclopaedic articles, and this includes lists of smaller communities within a larger community, but we are an encyclopaedia and do not simply become something else when writing about geographical locations. Even WP:GEOLAND#1 doesn't necessarily require that bare gazetteer listings be included as articles - instead it is assumed that a legally-recognised populated place will have enough sourcing for an encyclopaedic article to be written about it. FOARP (talk) 09:00, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Well, certainly, only the notable ones should be standalone articles, and we've always made a mistake trying to make the non-notable ones into individual permastubs. But I don't have any objection to a list for a particular administrative region, with the non-notable ones being simple list entries—population, coordinates, area, whatever data it is that is always provided in a census or the like. But I think people confuse "We should include this information" and "We should include this information in a standalone article." This is a case where I agree with the first, but not the second. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 12:11, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Absolutely. The problem is that there are a lot of users trying to inflate their created article count, so the articles get created anyway, and then it is vertually impossible to redirect them to lists, every discussion would at best end up as no consensus.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:35, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Well, people thought the fiction cleanup was hopeless for ever getting done, too—until it happened. So don't give up just yet. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:34, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

• Option 5 with the caveat that GNS sometimes was pulled from old, problematic sources, such as old war maps made by people not familiar with the area. GNS should be ignored if there are no sources from the area in question actually verifying that the places exist. Hog Farm _Talk 17:11, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option 5 per all above, and emphasizing that it is a primary source, and should never be the sole source for a stand-alone page. Levivich 19:52, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2 whether it is RS depends on context; or option 5. So it seems official, and reflecting maps... but the map is not the territory (nor notability) and perhaps the United States spelling is Connaught while Britain spells it Connacht. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 13:30, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
• Option 5 - Wikipedia is not a gazetteer. Databases in general are primary sources which can be used as sources for population, coordinates, etc, but significant coverage in secondary sources is needed in order to establish notability. –dlthewave ☎ 20:25, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
• Option 5 Would be happy to see any mass-produced articles sourced solely to GNS deleted. Reywas92^Talk 15:04, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3, just a bad database with frequently incorrect coordinates. Users will point to it in disputes as if it was the last word. I wouldn't even mind if Option 4 was the consensus. Abductive (reasoning) 03:39, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
• Option 6, though I agree with Hog Farm's caveat. Like all tertiary sources (which it is; someone called it a primary source, but it doesn't actually qualify as one), it is only as reliable as its own source material. I can't go with option 3, since "has some mistakes in it" doesn't translate to "generally unreliable".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:43, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
• Waffling non-vote Years ago I used this database in conjunction with creating entries for all habitable locations in Ethiopia, so I am very familiar with this source. What I found was that this database was full of duplicates, had mingled settlements, mountains, & other geographical locations -- such as isolated churches. (And I suspect its entries are drawn from sources of different levels of reliability.) Cross-checking its entries against other databases (such as the Ethiopian national census, which did list towns & villages it recognized), I often found the names it provided did not match with other sources. In short, I had to use it with care.
  That said, I did find it a help at times verifying these smaller settlements, & sometimes providing a clue to identify a community known by several dissimilar names, but I wouldn't trust its information without independent corroboration. Unfortunately, for some parts of the world GEOnet will be the best source we can expect. -- llywrch (talk) 20:55, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

(good humored 'dig') Oh, so it was you who created all that stuff I'm having to clean up! Platonk (talk) 21:16, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

• Option 6, generally reliable for these purposes. MB 16:10, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (GNS)

Notified: [[centralized discussion]]. FOARP (talk) 10:25, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

gotquestions.org and tektonics.org

I seek the deprecation of gotquestions.org and tektonics.org. See MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#gotquestions.org. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:48, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Reason: they're WP:SPS. What we won't do is quote amateur theologians who play hide and seek with their religious affiliations. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:21, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Kino-teatr and AlloCine

Hello, I would like to find out if the website https://www.kino-teatr.ru/ is considered a reliable source? As well as https://www.allocine.fr/, Thank you

About La voce Delle Voci, again

This Italian-language news website ([15]), although sells conspiracy theories ([16] (in Chinese)), and I had asked that it be deprecated (cf. Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 359), no other Wikipedians responded, meaning this website is still not deprecated, despite some articles use it as a "credible" source (e.g. Camouflage passport & International Parliament for Safety and Peace). In here I made the same proposal again. Hope that Wikipedians who are proficient at both Italian and Chinese can verify my claim that it is unreliable thus should be deprecated and discuss whether or not to deprecate it. Thanks!😁--RekishiEJ (talk) 15:10, 30 November 2021 (UTC) fixed capitalization a bit and added the URL of the official website of La voce Delle Voci 15:32, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Politico update?

Due to the complexity related to WP:PIA, should there be there be changes to the WP:RSP listing of Politico similar to Fox News and Newsweek?

Below are a few proposals:

• Proposal 1: Create a note of a potential bias with current listing
• Proposal 2: Create a listing similar to the current Fox News listing specifically for Israel-Palestine topics, e.g. WP:GREL Politico (American politics) and WP:MREL Politico (Israel-Palestine topics)
• Proposal 3: Create a listing similar to the current Newsweek listing for the overall reliability of Politico, e.g. WP:GREL Politico (pre-2021) and WP:MREL Politico (2021–present)

Thanks for any support or comments ahead of time!--WMrapids (talk) 06:34, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (Politico)

Comment: Opening an RfC as recent changes could pose potential issues for WP:PIA related articles that have been subject to arbitration, requiring the community to take a look at updating an existing WP:RSP listing.

Knowing how controversial WP:PIA articles are, I do not even participate in them. However, the recent acquisition of Politico by Axel Springer SE has raised concerns about the company's journalistic objectivity. Haaretz has said that a "pro-Israel policy" now exists at Politico while FAIR wrote that pro-Israel advocacy was introduced and its parent company has "No semblance of objectivity".

Currently, I made an edit recognizing this new distinction of a possible pro-Israel bias.--WMrapids (talk) 06:34, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

• These are concerns about possible bias rather than reporting on actual biased material, so I think it's too early to add such clarifications. FAIR, being a media bias watchdog, criticise everyone which does not mean we should add their every comment to the WP:RSP. As an example, should we say that the NYT is biased towards billionaires based on this? Alaexis_¿question? 06:57, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

• @Alaexis: You are missing the point. The alleged support is not only sourced by FAIR and is more than a simple bias, it is now company policy. As Haaretz notes, Mathias Döpfner says that support for Israel, a "united Europe" and free market economics "are like a constitution, they apply to every employee of our company" and that workers who do not comply "should not work for Axel Springer, very clearly".--WMrapids (talk) 22:19, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

• Worth noting that Haaretz's source, the WSJ, phrases it in a slightly more nuanced manner, as "support for ... Israel's right to exist", rather than "support for Israel", with the former appearing to be much more limited than the latter. On the EU and free market economics, though two match, although the WSJ phrases the later as "support for ... a free-market economy". BilledMammal (talk) 09:12, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

• If there are RS stating that politico is biased in one field, then it should be mentioned at "perennial sources". Cinadon36 07:06, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

• @Cinadon36: Well, Haaretz, currently recognized as generally reliable, has described Politico as "pro-Israel", which is why it is currently mentioned. Are you agreeing with proposal 1?--WMrapids (talk) 07:30, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

• Yes @WMrapids: I am for proposal 1. Apologies for not making that clear in my previous comment. Cinadon36 07:34, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

The Haaretz itself marked as biased regarding the conflict Shrike (talk) 10:26, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

• The Haaretz source references an interview in the Wall Street Journal, where Springer CEO stated that he expects "Politico staffers to adhere to Axel Springer-wide guiding principles include support for a united Europe, Israel’s right to exist and a free-market economy, among others." If we are to consider them biased on any one of these topics on this basis then we must consider them biased on all - but I don't believe that this is sufficient evidence for doing so. I would also note that FAIR (1 2) was a controversial source a decade ago; I don't know if things have changed since then? BilledMammal (talk) 07:55, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

• @BilledMammal: Thanks for bringing up the background on FAIR. It looks like one of those discussions was regarding a singular opinion on FAIR's website? Since there are multiple sources involved with the description of Politico and we are not using WP:OR, should there be less issues with this? Again, this discussion was created as a collective effort to make decisions on how to describe Politico as a source (especially in the context of WP:PIA), with this decision being based on descriptions from reliable sources.--WMrapids (talk) 22:43, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

• Bad RfC. What is your brief and neutral statement? Make the case for the change in the discussion, not in the same section that you're introducing the RfC question. This should be procedurally closed if the RfC prompt isn't cleaned up. — Mhawk10 (talk) 08:12, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

• I would think the discussion should also ask whether a note should be added to the RSP entry, rather than starting with a note added and asking if we should go further - particularly as the note says "recognized as", rather than the softer terminology used in the RFC statement of "possible". BilledMammal (talk) 08:35, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

• @BilledMammal: I can agree with the softer terminology and thank you for noting this. @Mhawk10:, not too familiar with RfCs and this was my best attempt of bringing up the issue at hand while trying to remain neutral, but I can move the details to this discussion section.--WMrapids (talk) 22:03, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

• News Sources should not be used by encyclopedias I'm going to keep harping on this but I don't think news sources, like Politico, are relevant to an encyclopedia project. As such, on the basis of it being a news source, I'd recommend against its use on Wikipedia. Period. Simonm223 (talk) 13:35, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
• Bad RfC as above. RfC isn't for general discussion. As for not using news sources, that makes no sense to me. A large number of our articles are of necessity heavily based on news sources. Doug Weller talk 16:55, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

• @Doug Weller: This is not just for general discussion, this is about changing a WP:RSP listing that was already determined through a previous RfC. --WMrapids (talk) 22:31, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

• @Doug Weller: I am very consistent in my opinion that any article that depends on newsmedia to have "reliably" sourced entries is probably subject to far too much WP:RECENTISM to be treated as encyclopedic in scope. I am sure you will recall this is far from the first time I've decried the use of newsmedia to bulk up Wikipedia's vain attempts to be a news aggregator. Simonm223 (talk) 14:57, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

• Elaborate on how it is WP:BIASED but otherwise wait and see. While the current version says a "small number" of editors consider it biased, this obviously changes that and we ought to discuss it and elaborate a bit on, more specifically, the ways that the new policy biases it - it seems hard to interpret an outright policy setting rigid ideological expectations any other way. But beyond a note about potential bias, that alone isn't enough to affect a source's reliability. We should come back later once there has been time for secondary sources to discuss the actual impact that this policy had on the accuracy of their reporting before we do anything beyond elaborating on their bias. --Aquillion (talk) 05:36, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

• @Aquillion: Not trying to put words in your mouth, but are you implying that you support Option 1? And did you mean "reliability" instead of "notability"?--WMrapids (talk) 20:51, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Oops, yes, reliability. And the current version already notes bias concerns, but I suppose I'd say 'option 1 in terms of expanding that note, since clearly this makes the bias concerns more significant; it just needs a few additional words per [17] mentioning that they have potential bias stemming from a controversial statement of guiding principles that requires support for a united Europe, Israel’s right to exist and a free-market economy. It's important to note that the ideological requirements to work at Politico under the new management go beyond just stuff about Israel. I'd also note that while some people say we should wait and see to even note the bias, we do have coverage indicating that the policy changes introduce bias - we need to wait and see for more information about their reliability, definitely, but when a source openly declares their bias and says that people who don't share those views shouldn't work there, there isn't really anything left to debate or to wait and see on. --Aquillion (talk) 21:02, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

• Bad RfC As per others. Also "Israel right to exist" is shared by every respectable newspaper on the right and on the left so I don't see any real bias issues --Shrike (talk) 17:19, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
• Bad RfC. Provide a statement that describes the situation in as neutral tone as is possible. This isn't optional, it's part of the RfC process. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:56, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
• Comment: @Shrike: @Shibbolethink: Can you explain how the updated proposal is not neutral? This is easy to change without dismissing the proposals entirely. How else would you make a proposal more neutral when you have to raise an issue like this? Shrike, no one is arguing about Israel's "right to exist", this is about reliable sources discussing a possible pro-Israel bias, with one RS writing that "New Politico Owner Says Will Enforce pro-Israel Policy". So let's not move the goalposts on this. Notes of bias are present throughout the WP:RSP listings; an example of this would be the the WP:RSP listing for the Anti-Defamation League ("Some editors consider the ADL a biased source for Israel/Palestine related topics that should be used with caution, if at all").--WMrapids (talk) 20:40, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

  I would want to see an overall landscape of how different sources view Politico, not just the negative criticism. That is one way I think it could be improved if it were reopened. At this point, I agree it is A) likely premature and B) not likely to achieve a lasting consensus on this issue. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:56, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

  The point is the premise of "Israel right to exist" is not sign of any bias as it supported by almost by everyone Shrike (talk) 05:37, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

• This RFC is premature at this point and I believe it should be closed. If actual problems arise in the future we can revisit the issue then. Calidum 20:47, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

• Just to be clear, while I can understand waiting and seeing in terms of reliability (which is more about their long-term reputation), when it comes to WP:BIAS, we already have several pieces (like the WSJ) describing the statement of principles requiring support for a united Europe, Israel’s right to exist and a free-market economy. If that isn't sufficient to consider a source biased, what sort of coverage are you waiting on? (ie. what would convince you, in terms of what we should wait for before running a second RFC?) Because AFAIK we have normally taken overt statements of intent from a company to cover particular topics in particular ways, coupled with secondary sourcing covering those statements, as sufficient to describe them as WP:BIASED in those areas. --Aquillion (talk) 21:10, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

• I suppose it will come down to the question of whether these positions are "extraordinary" and indicate bias. Their full "Principles and Values" as of October 2021 are as follows:

1. We stand up for freedom, the rule of law, democracy and a united Europe.
2. We support the Jewish people and the right of existence of the State of Israel.
3. We advocate the transatlantic alliance between the United States of America and Europe.
4. We uphold the principles of a free market economy and its social responsibility.
5. We reject political and religious extremism and all forms of racism and sexual discrimination.

To me, none of these come across as "extraordinary", and many of them align with editorial guidelines issued by other organizations, such as the BBC on racism; it comes close in a few areas ("united Europe" and "transatlantic alliance"), but even there I don't feel the principles themselves cross the line, and so I would want to see the implications of that in practice before we rule on whether it is biased in such areas. BilledMammal (talk) 22:22, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

While it seems unusual to me to have an explicit editorial line like that at the level of the parent company, it is not really all that much different from a newspaper stating its editorial line outright. The Guardian describes its parent as a safeguard to its “liberal values”, for example, while the opinion pages of the WSJ are run under the banner of support for “democratic self-government and the freedom of individuals to make their own economic choices.” If Politico’s news content is shifted in after its acquisition by Axel Springer; then there might be ample concerns about WP:BIASED. But, such bias does not appear to be showing up thus far. — Mhawk10 (talk) 14:26, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment Yes, we usually want RfC's to have more specific bullet points than this, but stepping back from the procedural nitty-gritty, I'd say it's pretty clear that we should note the owner's stated intent to push an ideological line. XOR'easter (talk) 17:05, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

  Do they plan to do this mainly through opinion pieces, or will this affect news coverage? If it is the former, then is it really unlike the British quality press? — Mhawk10 (talk) 23:15, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Vox revisited

I'm concerned that Vox does not clearly distinguish fact from opinion. For example, this recent article opens and closes with an opinionated statement about invasive species from the author's perspective (including the headline), although it presents attributed opinions from others. There are other examples, but I don't have the time to seek them out. The main page of this website also does not segregate op-eds, as other mainstream news sites like The Guardian do. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 16:48, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

That is correct. Vox should be treated as analysis or opinion source, which means that generally it should be attributed. It does not even pretend to be news, rather than "explanatory journalism".

In your example the author uses first person singular: "I posed this question to ..." The author is not introduced in their profile and does not seem to have any other articles under their belt for Vox.

Another random example, from the front page: "I will conclude by reiterating a point I've made several times before; that the most important question in Dobbs is not whether the Court writes the magic words "Roe v. Wade is overruled."[18] Millhiser does not seem to have strong journalistic credentials: before joining Vox, they wrote columns for Thinkprogress. And so on. Politrukki (talk) 22:42, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

My concern is that this is not mentioned in the website's WP:RSP entry. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 06:13, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, this a problem and should be reflected in the RSP entry and color. WP:RSOPINION is toothless if people can just get around it by using outlets like Vox to recycle opinions as fact. Right-wing outlets that mix fact and opinion like this are considered unreliable, as are some left-wing ones, and that should be applied here too. Crossroads ^-talk- 08:53, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

What specific text in which specific Wikipedia articles is that Vox piece being used as a citation? --Jayron32 14:45, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

While I enjoy reading Vox, it is, by its own admission (see its about us and ethics pages), "explanatory journalism", which I like and value, but I also recognize is something different than straight news journalism. It's opinion/analysis. I'm not sure they do any actual news reporting or even real investigative journalism. I could be wrong about that, I haven't read everything they've published of course. But we shouldn't be citing to Vox analysis for statements in wikivoice. I agree it shouldn't be green at RSP, and the RSN threads linked there are old (2014, 2017, 2020) and/or don't really grapple with general reliability (especially the 2020 one). I don't think those linked RSN threads support a green listing as it stands now, but would support an RfC and would probably !vote to mark it yellow (use with attribution only). Levivich 14:58, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree Vox tends to wear its opinions on its sleeves, but when you distill out the facts, they are still reliable and engage in proper editorial practices. As more and more sources take this type of accountability journalism approach, I think we can't rule out their reliability, just know when the writer is speaking in a subjective voice versus an objective voice (eg per WP:YESPOV). We need editors to be fully aware of how to use such articles, not only from Vox but other sources in the future. --Masem (t) 15:03, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Do you think it should be yellow to alert editors to this? I fear if it's green, editors will just adopt it in wikivoice without question, and any editor who questions that will be told it's green at RSP, end of discussion. Levivich 15:21, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Given that what's happening with Vox is indicative of many other nominally reliable sources, I don't think it should change as the source is still good, but one just has to be more careful of what's included in wikivoice. --Masem (t) 16:05, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Vox is exceptional in mixing opinion and fact, and does not even purport to do otherwise. Many editors are of the mindset that an opinion in a green-listed source becomes a fact that we can state in wikivoice, and this leads to laundering of POV into fact. I support Levivich's proposal. Crossroads ^-talk- 20:10, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Heartily seconded. It's position on https://adfontesmedia.com/ is not impressive, but I actually think it's overly generous. EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 22:58, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Masem (and others), not always proper. Vox has edited this 2020 analysis several times. It has issued maybe four editor's notes, but hasn't actually corrected the article, except for some details; a poor journalistic practice that is sadly becoming a norm. The Washington Post reported on this (calls Vox "explanatory news site"). The Vox analysis was cited in this discussion. Has the piece ever been used in mainspace? No idea, but it could have caused a major blunder. Some editors in the discussion argued that Vox is a reliable source specifically because RSP says so.

I wish people would stop citing RSP like it's some kind of kind of religious document. I cite Vox sometimes, but rarely for stating some in Wikipedia's voice and never before careful consideration. Mainstream papers like The Washington Post publish pieces that are blogs or news analysis. We consider them less reliable for facts than news articles even though the publisher is the same. Politrukki (talk) 16:19, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Unless I am misreading, those updates reflect changes to the scientific consensus that happened after the article was published. Updates and corrections like that are laudable and are signs of a WP:RS, but it's especially absurd to blame them for not being able to see the future. --Aquillion (talk) 21:29, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Some language was softened, but editors did not do – and have refused to do – major corrections. Barclay asserted as fact something that was not established as fact. Barclay opined that "We'll need to be patient for Chinese investigators to get to the bottom of how the virus made the jump from animals to humans." That's just naïf pandering to China, which contributed to making it more difficult to get to the bottom of finding origins. Politrukki (talk) 11:55, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

WP:HEADLINE has us well-covered here. Once you're past the headline, I don't see any issue with this one article. "Explanatory journalism" is not a reason to say a source is less reliable. Firefangledfeathers 15:55, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Vox is more of an opinion magazine that also publishes news, rather than a news magazine that also publishes opinions. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 17:35, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

@力: I agree. This is an apt description. In full fairness, some well-trusted papers such as the Economist do publish a large number of editorial articles, but in that case the paper’s impartiality and factual accuracy is highly regarded - not to the same wide extent in the case of Vox. thorpewilliam (talk) 12:32, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

The headline is just covered by WP:HEADLINES. I don't agree with the argument that Vox largely publishes opinion, and especially with the argument that it leans more towards publishing opinion than most other online news sites today, which is simply wrong. See eg. the discussion of their data-driven explanatory news approach here. Nothing there, in their mission statement or articles indicates that they are primarily about opinion, and they have significant use by others that treats them as factual, nor has anyone actually presented any reason to think that beyond "it just reads to me that way", which isn't grounded in anything and which I certainly disagree with. Having a bias is insufficient to treat a source as opinion (though they are not unusually biased; eg. [19] puts them in the same category as the Washington Post, the New Yorker, NBC News, and so on). And in the absence of any other real evidence, some of the arguments above, by saying "it reads as opinion to me", are basically saying "I disagree with their analysis and the conclusions they make, therefore it is mere opinion and not staid factual analysis." That isn't how it works - their articles go through a rigorous fact-checking and editorial process comparable to those at other high-quality news sources, and are therefore appropriate to cite for facts in the article voice. It's also factually incorrect to say that they do not segregate opinion - they have a First Person section for that. In terms of WP:USEBYOTHERS, see [20][21][22][23]. The New York Times describes Vox as a site known for explanatory journalism and podcasts. The Washington Post describes it as a digital-news site. I'm not seeing any particularly compelling arguments above to question these usages and assessments. --Aquillion (talk) 21:29, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Do you understand that your argument "are basically saying 'I disagree with their analysis and the conclusions they make, therefore it is mere opinion and not staid factual analysis'" can be turned against you? I.e. you are simply treating Vox as straight news because you agree with their viewpoints. That's not how this works. You didn't address the usage of first person singular: if a Vox writer says "I", do they refer to Vox as a person? Has Vox shared their pronouns?

Take a look at this editorial: It's Not Just Jennifer Lawrence: Women In Pop Culture Are Under Attack by VanDerWerff. It's not labelled opinion/editorial, which it obviously is. I haven't even read the article, yet I know it's an opinion piece because smarter people have said so. In this paper the author explicitly calls it an editorial: "Similarly, the editorials connected the privacy needs of the victims and the privacy needs of "regular women." In Vox, ... VanDerWerff wrote". The Los Angeles Times editorial that is mentioned next is properly labelled opinion. (Another Vox editorial included in the study is mentioned by name only.)

What is "Evaluating the scale, growth, and origins of right-wing echo chambers on YouTube", the source you are citing? Preprint? Has it been published in some academic journal? Have you or A. C. Santacruz and XOR'easter who cited you read the source? It's some kind of research about Youtube channels. You say it "puts them in the same category as the Washington Post, the New Yorker, NBC News, and so on", but Vox Youtube channel is also in the same box with "Drunken Peasants", The Grayzone, "The Jimmy Dore Show", "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert", and "The View" (apparently refers to The View (talk show)). In the same source BuzzFeed News, The Intercept, and ProPublica are labelled "far left". The authors didn't come up with the labels, but rather picked them from other sources. [23] used Ad Fontes Media and Media Bias Factcheck, [20] apparently labelled Vox per Media Bias Factcheck, though it's not 100% clear to me at this juncture.

Columbia Journalism Review published a piece that covers "best and the worst of recent works of data journalism". Tanveer Ali picks a Vox piece and obviously treats it as an example of the latter. Ali writes "The Vox author seems to be banking on the reader having preconceived notions of life in Tehran rather than explaining what qualities it shares with the St. Louis suburb. ... the reporting and evidence is sorely lacking in the Vox piece to tie the cities with this piece of data ... Other than clickbait, we don't see any reason for the Vox story to exist. [24]

In Information Today (Oct2014, Vol. 31 Issue 8, p17-18. 2p.) Mick O'Leary writes "Overall, Vox's explanations work well. The staffers are adept at breaking down extensive news stories into easily comprehended short pieces ... Vox is noticeably left wing. There is more than one way to explain a controversial story, and Vox's interpretations lean to the left. This is fine by itself, but people of different political persuasions may identify Vox as a leftwing site that's to be avoided". (Some of O'Leary's criticism that I have omitted is much outdated: missing "About" page, lack of editorial policy, the dominant role of Ezra Klein, etc.)

In Reason, Bobby Soave largely criticises the analysis of Vox's David Roberts: "It's also true that Vox, The New York Times, CNN, et al are closer to neutral than Breitbart or Fox News. But let's not pretend these outlets have ever been very interested in playing nice with conservatives. And in cases where they were willing to humor a conservative perspective, they are often punished for it.

Sometimes Vox publishes two pieces that largely cover a topic from two different viewpoints. For example in 2016 Matt Yglesias wrote a piece critical of a Associated Press story. A day later Jeff Stein criticised Yglesias: "On Tuesday, my editor Matt Yglesias argued that that [sic] there's an 'absence of any clear evidence of actual misconduct.' ... By some criteria, Yglesias is certainly right ... But the money in politics experts argued that these aren't the only standards of wrongdoing by which we can or should judge Clinton."[25] So the question is, which of these pieces, if any, we as Wikipedia editors should treat as news? I would say neither and to me this and similar incidents indicate that Vox is not consistently partisan.

By the way, Yglesias was smoked out from Vox for unrelated reasons. The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf writes in an editorial that Yglesias's "absence as a staffer ... will make the publication he co-founded less ideologically diverse at a moment when negative polarization makes that attribute important to the country".[26]

I don't think anyone is saying or should be saying that Vox never labels opinion pieces. LaundryPizza03 said "does not segregate op-eds, as other mainstream news sites like The Guardian do", which is true. The fact is that the type of Vox articles that are most commonly cited in English Wikipedia – and I'm not talking about "Recode", "The Verge", and such – are opinion/analysis articles that are not labelled such. Levivich wrote that "use with attribution only". I don't subscribe to that. My view is that editors should assume that Vox is publishing analysis/opinion and carefully consider whether a piece can be cited, not rely on a "green" RSP listing. If the answer is yes, then decide whether content should be attributed per NEWSORG, WP:RSOPINION, NEWSBLOG, and WP:BIASED. Politrukki (talk) 11:02, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Like Aquillion, I'm not seeing particularly compelling arguments to change the status quo in a significant way. On a case-by-case basis, it might be appropriate to cite a Vox item as attributed opinion, but that's really just business as usual. Concerns that "it's green at RSP" could end a discussion seem disconnected with how discussions actually happen around here. XOR'easter (talk) 21:55, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Concur. Vox is fine. Attribute if you're particularly concerned. A few editors here think that if they can claim "bias" then factual reliability doesn't hold, and that's not how anything has ever worked here - David Gerard (talk) 02:09, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Disagree. "Vox is fine", "A few editors here think that if they can claim "bias" then factual reliability doesn't hold, and that's not how anything has ever worked here". https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/vox/ grades Vox as Hard Left bias, as "Mostly Factual", as it has failed two major fact-checks, while only publishing one retraction. "In review, Vox looks at the issues from a progressive liberal perspective, and there is also an anti-Trump tone in their reporting. Therefore, the majority of stories are pro-left and anti-right. Further, Vox publishes stories with emotionally loaded headlines." - EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 21:10, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Status Quo. Agree with @David Gerard here. All news is biased. What matters is their reputation for reporting facts accurately. And nothing about that has changed wrt Vox. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 19:00, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Disagree. "All news is biased." Actually, not it isn't. The wire services aim for pure objectivity and get the closest (AFP, AP, Reuters). Vox is in nowhere near the same category of these venerable institutions. "What matters is their reputation for reporting facts accurately" - their reputation for that is poor, graded as "Mostly Factual" by https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/vox/ - EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 21:10, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Encyclopedias shouldn't be news aggregators while I concur with @David Gerard that Vox is no more or less reliable than any other journalistic source I also am of the opinion that journalistic sources are inappropriate for an encyclopedia per my usual complaint regarding newsmedia and the proliferation of WP:RECENTISM - however I would make sure it's understood that I would say the same thing about the Guardian, the CBC, CNN or China Daily as sources. Simonm223 (talk) 17:01, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Aquillion's reasoning above. Don't see any compelling reason to reassess Vox. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 23:44, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Comment. Concerned with some of the language used here, such as "Vox is no more or less reliable than any other journalistic source". C'mon, we're better than that, surely? AP, AFP, Reuters, BBC - these are much more fact-based news outlets than the likes of Vox. I was excited when Vox rolled out, with its manifesto of "explanatory journalism", and I knew Ezra Klein's work. Thus I felt equally betrayed when it turned out to not only be below-par when it came to fact-checking, but more importantly fell into the same, safe, lazy NY/DC bubble of received opinion - for all the millions that was invested and all the talk of a new type of online journalism, turns out it's basically a re-hashing of what one can already expect to read on the NY Times opinion pages... but with only the left liberal pieces. I don't know what it is about the USA (being non USAianese myself), but the mainstream media just seem incapable of creating a news outlet that doesn't play party politics, and just, well, does what Vox was supposed to do, explain sh*t to people! Rant over! Vox sux. EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 22:56, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Concur with the rest, the status quo is fine. The presented article has two sentences at the end that can be described as the author's opinion, if anything this is restrained, most news publications publish similar articles in line with their individual editorial standpoints. Headlines in general are not reliable, which is already covered at WP:HEADLINES. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 10:53, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: At the very least, the listing should be updated to mention that Vox does not always distinguish fact from opinion in line with evidence provided, and that editors should determine whether an article is fact or opinion before using it. BilledMammal (talk) 21:53, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Absolutely not; nobody has presented any evidence beyond "it reads as opinion to me." Compare to eg. The Atlantic ([27]) - whose RSP entry currently simply says they are "generally reliable" - that is a source with much more serious problems distinguishing fact and opinion, especially their ideas page, which many editors insist on trying to treat as news; but even the rest of their coverage has a tone essentially similar to the articles that have some people's heckles up above, eg. [28]. If we're going to accept editors just making general readings like that and are going to write them into RSP entries, then a lot of existing RSP entries need to be re-evaluated - and that's a decision we should make as a general policy so as to avoid situations where editors just lash out at statements they disagree with and accept eg. the Atlantic ending articles with stuff like In the age of climate change, in other words, the beaches must remain a playground for the rich—now more than ever to provide the author's opinion on someone's comments. --Aquillion (talk) 22:21, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Every news article has to be parsed for fact/opinion distinction at the granularity of individual claims. That remains true whether or not it categorizes articles as news or opinion. For example, if a source says, "It rained on December 10, and that was terrible," the first part necessarily has the character of a fact, and the second part the character of an opinion. Sennalen (talk) 02:31, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Discogs -- material backed by photos (typically discographies, track listings, and some credits)

Executive summary: the listing for Discogs at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources is way off base and needs a serious update, regarding material backed by photos.

---

So, Discogs is listed at "Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources" as "Generally unreliable" ("Outside exceptional circumstances, the source should normally not be used... Even in cases where the source may be valid, it is usually better to find a more reliable source instead. If no such source exists, that may suggest that the information is inaccurate"), and the blurb is "The content on Discogs is user-generated, and is therefore generally unreliable. There was consensus against deprecating Discogs in a 2019 RfC, as editors noted that external links to the site may be appropriate."

This is entirely accurate and correct as far as it goes.

HOWEVER

The discographies and track listings, when backed up by photos (which is usual), are extremely reliable. The photos are 100% legit and what could be more reliable than a photo. Of course the labels could be wrong, but so could title pages of books etc. -- vanishingly rare. And track listing etc. are the primary, or anyway a major, use of the source.

For instance, here is the track listing for The Who Sell Out. I don't know who writes those, but they could be made up or just sloppy I suppose. However, if you click on the "more images" link, you'll come to a photo of the labels on the vinyl disc, which backs up the written track listing (essentially 100% of the time) and also gives, usually, songwriting and producing credits and the catalog number etc. (There isn't a separate URL for the photos.) I haven't yet seen any record which doesn' have photos like this.

The back cover is sometimes shown too, which back covers are 100% reliable for their contents ("According to the liner notes, it was recorded at sea") and >99% for their statements ("It was recorded at sea") which is plenty reliable.

So, the rating and blurb is not true. 'We need to update the listing at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources I would say.

Exactly how I'm not sure. Since half of Discogs is essentially useless and half is really reliable, I'd split it into two lines. Not likely as we're hidebound here, so let's assume one line. We'd want to rewrite the blub ("...except for material, such as discographies, track listings, and credits, when backed by photographs") or whatever. Then the icon... probably should be changed to, I don't know, "Generally reliable in its areas of expertise", it' "areas of expertise" being record labels and jackets. There isn't an icon for "Half the material is essentially useless, and half is very reliable", so that's closest I guess.

Yes? Herostratus (talk) 19:24, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

So I agree there's an issue here. Discogs is (1) a wiki made of user-generated content; (2) near-infallible in my experience, and a vastly more useful and trustworthy discography source than almost any edited redigestion. I'm not sure how to resolve this - David Gerard (talk) 19:28, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Isn’t this kinda how Wikipedia is, though? I don’t see an exemption for us citing our own good (or even featured) articles, for example, even though they have gone under peer review. Likewise, I don’t see a way around the problem of the reliability of sites that are user-generated with limited editorial oversight. — Mhawk10 (talk) 19:59, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

well, precisely. OTOH, citing listings from photos on Discogs is basically citing the sleeves as sources, which we do - David Gerard (talk) 20:07, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

However, if you click on the "more images" link, you'll come to a photo of the labels on the vinyl disc, which backs up the written track listing Ok, so the source here is the labels on the disc and other information present on the album cover (the "liner notes"), and Discogs happens to host a picture of this source. Even though liner notes are a WP:PRIMARY source, I guess they are the most reliable source for information about an album. IMO a rough proposed amendment could be "Although the information on Discogs is user-generated content, Discogs often hosts pictures of an album's liner notes, which can be used as a source". JBchrch talk 20:15, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Sounds not-bad to me. "as a WP:PRIMARY source" - David Gerard (talk) 01:39, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Heh. The division of sources into primary-secondary-tertiary was lifted partly from academic practice; we're a serious publication but not an academic one, and a pretty unique one, and it's not especially useful to us, and counterproductive to the extent that it's hammered into editors' heads that primary sources are bad. Herostratus (talk) 03:36, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

If Discogs gets its content from its images of the album covers, labels, and liner notes, why cite Discogs as the source? The info may be cited directly from the albums using {{Cite AV media}}. Discogs is just being used as an image provider, and the image may linked directly with |url= (Discogs includes a "Permalink" for the actual image[29]) and identified with |via=Discogs for those needing proof. —Ojorojo (talk) 15:58, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

This is pretty much the argument I'm making. What do you think of adding these instructions in a footnote to the proposed text? JBchrch talk 19:39, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Oh dang I didn't see the permalink thing. So yeah that would be OK. Whatever works best. For my part I'd rather link to the Discogs page, because for one thing who is going to know about the photos (I didn't), and for another the Discogs page is formatted to be pleasing to humans (in theory anyway), while the photos aren't as easy to read. And the human-readable text is backed up by the photos.

But As long as we fix it that's all I care, I'll go along with anything. If you all want to recommend citing the photos directly, fine, whatever we can get agreed to and written up at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources under the Discogs entry. I'm tired of people being like "You can't ref stuff to Discogs". Herostratus (talk) 03:36, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

In my experience, Discogs is very good for primary information: the stuff which can be lifted from a label or sleeve. For want of anything better, I imagine it's OK for details of parallel releases; though as I've never seen the need to use those, I've never checked. My concern is about Discogs hyperlinks, e.g. for songwriters and personnel (which, as a DABfixer, is what I usually find myself looking at). They generally seem good; but there's no guarantee that, say, the John Smith credited on a recording is actually the John Smith (57) or whoever at the other end of a hyperlink, and I prefer to have confirmatory evidence if I can get it. I treat biographical information as pure UGC, and never touch it (though it can be useful as confirmatory evidence). Narky Blert (talk) 06:27, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

No, just cite the album jacket directly. Don't cite user generated photos/uploads. Sergecross73 msg me 14:04, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

• Per Sergecross73, the citation is the album jacket itself. Discogs is a nice resource to find pictures of album jackets, but it should not be cited anymore than you would cite "Google Books" for a scan of a book, you cite the original work. --Jayron32 14:06, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes (yes!), but that means we also need a sea change in perception of discographical information. I can't tell you how many times I have seen people tag or blank discography sections for being "unsourced" - because people do not think of albums as published works (which they are) or things that act as sources of their own existence and content (just like a bibliography section). It is absolutely silly for us to have a line in a discography that reads "Foo Album (Foo Records, 1800)", and then an in-line citation to "Liner notes, Foo Album, Foo Records, 1800." But novice users find it absolutely irresistible to cite Discogs when this information is (typically frivolously) challenged in that way.

Another note, sort of following on David Gerard's comment above: all of this puts us in the unenviable position of telling people to look at Discogs all the time for basic discographical information (just as they would look at Google Books or a library catalog for bibliographic information), while also telling them they can never use it as a reference. That's a bit of Wikipedia pretzel-logic, but I suppose it will be consensus. Chubbles (talk) 14:17, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I would argue Discogs is a means to verify any claims whenever liner notes are mentioned as a source. Users are providing scans/shots of published works. It's a self-published source in a way where caution is stressed on its reliability. – The Grid (talk) 02:49, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Discogs is very useful, and where I always begin when I start album articles, but I agree with the previous discussion, consensus, etc. I generally cut and paste the song titles, for example, and then confirm via the images, and so often--or often enough--things are misspelled, out of order (even when accounting for specific releases/countries), missing symbols, etc. Or the song lengths don't match up to the images, so there's the discrepancy of the images being "correct", and the linked page being "wrong". Minor stuff, but I don't think it's any kind of burden to continue to cite the AV way, if necessary, or for Discogs to be under the external links, but am open to the discussion. To add a somewhat related wrinkle, I've come across a few times where the Discogs images are quite poor, or not there, and yet the eBay ones are great, ha... Caro7200 (talk) 14:10, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

R to JBchrch: Yes, it's basically the same point. I use Discogs and several other sites for their images and don't find them difficult to read. I believe it's preferable to cite the actual album notes as the source and remove any doubt about the accuracy of an unknown user gleaning the details themselves. As long as Discogs allows other info to be included along with the basic album note material without any idea of where it comes from, it cannot be considered a RS. There is also the problem of the large amount of advertising and unofficial video links that are potentially copyvio.

Maybe clarify your proposed amendment with something like "Discogs images of album covers, liner notes, etc., may be used for details about the release, but Discogs itself should not be cited as the source, since it includes other user-generated material". This may seem like nitpicking, but some editors feel that any use of UGC sites should be strongly discouraged.

—Ojorojo (talk) 14:42, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Alright then, in the interest of a unified front, count me in too with instruction to cite only to the photos. It already warns about Discogs so the second sentence isn't necessary. We want to be both succinct and comprehensive, so I'll suggest that we just add something short like "...except for photographs" in the main body, then a Cnote link to a note at the bottom of the page where it lays out the details... how we are mostly talking about pics of covers and labels, how to use the the permalink button in Discogs, a recommendation of using the CiteAV template, a link to this discussion, and anything else needed. This is done often enough on rules pages.

Note that there's no requirement to cite track listings etc. We don't have to express an opinion on that one way or the other. If an editor is of the mind "I don't need a cite as the work itself is a cite", fine. IMO you're taking that chance that someone will come along and tag or delete the material as uncited but you can if you want. Discogs is there for if you want to cite. Herostratus (talk) 17:51, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Implementation (Discogs)

It seems like there is consensus that pictures hosted on Discogs may be used as primary sources, using the appropriate templates. I've boldly edited WP:DISCOGS the RSP entry for Discogs to reflect this: [30]. Feedback is welcome. (I have not added a link to this discussion since, as I understand it, this will have to be done once this discussion is archived.) JBchrch talk 19:43, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Is Discogs in the "auto-reject" bucket of any of the spam-fighting bots? We should change that if so. Chubbles (talk) 19:54, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

It might even be possible to have most of the existing citations "repaired" (e.g., to use {{Cite AV media}} with a |via= to Discogs) by bot or AWB. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:19, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Before making such changes, there's another issue to consider: WP:LINKVIO. Does Discogs have the right to host these images? Nikkimaria (talk) 03:34, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Discogs removes copyrighted images. JBchrch talk 03:42, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

It may well. But there appear to be a significant number of images that are potentially still covered by copyright yet still posted there. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:46, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

That's entirely possible, but I would argue that if a website takes a commitment of this kind and creates a dedicated channel to report copyright infringement, we may assume that it's not hosting copyrighted material, and that LINKVIO is respected. Otherwise, links to Twitter, Facebook and Youtube—any UGC, really—would have to be nuked as well. JBchrch talk 04:12, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Er, no, we really can't assume that. See YouTube's entry at RSP - it would make sense to add something similar to its third sentence for Discogs. Nikkimaria (talk) 11:43, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, yes, of course Discogs is hosting copyrighted images - tons and tons of them. But they are not doing so in violation of copyright, and the dedicated channel noted above is part of their obvious good-faith effort to respect copyright law. Chubbles (talk) 12:02, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

On what basis do you believe they are hosting tons and tons of copyrighted images but are not in violation of copyright? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:06, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Discogs is (principally) an informational site and its use of copyrighted images is permitted by fair use/fair dealing provisions. It's perfectly consistent with copyright law for information sources to host a great deal of copyrighted content and still comport with copyright. Chubbles (talk) 18:29, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes it is, but it takes more than just being an informational site to get there, and direct linking as proposed is potentially problematic. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:32, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes it does, but Discogs's use is consistent with it; users are informed of intellectual property requirements at the time of upload of images, the claim of fair use in the images is explained in that process, and as noted above they have a means of contact for rightsholders to address issues. What, specifically, is potentially problematic such that Wikipedia should be circumspect? Chubbles (talk) 02:15, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

All of those things are AFAIK also true of YouTube - why should this site be treated differently? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:41, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

To be honest, the wording at RSP about YouTube should probably change, since, as you correctly state, YouTube (now) informs users of its rights requirements and aggressively enforces corporate copyright controls. But that's another RfC entirely. If the worry is that linking to Discogs might run afoul of contributory copyright infringement...that seems awfully remote - about as likely as it would be for linking to copyrighted websites hosted at the Wayback Machine. Chubbles (talk) 13:59, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

The problem with we really can't assume that is that this line of reasoning would lead us to prohibit links to Commons, because Commons hosts a lot of copyrighted content for sure. JBchrch talk 16:21, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

No one is proposing a blanket prohibition, just caution along the lines of what we've got for YouTube, and a bit more consideration around how we approach citation. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:32, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

I guess the consensus is moving towards a Youtube-like disclaimer. Since you have reverted my edit [31]: is there anything else that's you oppose about this addition? JBchrch talk 00:23, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Given this issue, I have concerns about the proposed citation method, unless what was intended was more along the lines of what Jayron suggested? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:27, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

• See, you don't link, or even need to mention Discogs at all. If you're looking at a picture of the liner notes or track listing on Discogs, you cite the original liner notes. We don't cite "Google Books" if we're looking at a Google Books scan of a book, we cite the book itself. Same deal here. --Jayron32 13:06, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Right. Anyone who has UGC or potential copyvio concerns doesn't need to add the permalink link to Discogs nor mention it in via= (books are cited all the time without links/mentions of google). —Ojorojo (talk) 14:27, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Yeah the copyright thing is a good point. Regardless of what uploaders sign off on, I can definitely see the point that using an entire album cover (front or back) as a bridge too far.

Album labels are quite different I think. They are almost always mere mechanical listings not really works of significant craft, they have no real commercial value, and the label (unlike the cover) is an insignificant part of the whole package so for Discogs to publish it under fair use is legit (I would think). I'm not even sure that labels specifically are copyrighted, altho I suppose they would fall under under the general rubric "everything here is copyrighted"

As to the need, I don't know, but should we be really be writing body-text passages like

"In 1963, Smith released the LP Songs From All Over (Paul Morris wrote the track "Heart of the Night" which was released as a single), but in 1965 was back as lead singer with the Monotones on the double-LP Little Bit of Loving. Smith wrote most of the songs, including "Where Do I Get Off" which ran over 14 minutes and took up all of side 4. Smith, along with Allison Smith, were the producers for that song; Lloyd Wingate produced the rest of the album."

With no references whatsoever (on grounds that the records themselves are the source), and standing on that if contested?

I just don't think that's going to fly with some people. Like it or not. You're going to get tagged, your material is going to get deleted. As a fact on the ground books and films are treated differently I guess. Can't help that but it is what it is no use denying it.

So, what I'm thinking is: 1) DO make a note that disc labels (only) from Discogs are fine. 2) Do NOT imply that they are required to use, they are there for anyone who WANTS to use them. (If necessary, clarify this.)

By using "only", we're indicating that disc labels but not record jackets etc are in play. I'm saying this because we want to get everybody on board here. I think (hope) that most of us would agree that the disc labels are trivial fair use, but the record-jacket thing is contested. Even if you personally think that record jackets at Discogs are ok to ref too, in the interests of compromising to get consensus, let's put them out of play shall we? Perfect is the enemy of good enough. Herostratus (talk) 20:48, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't understand the "no references" point. If you're citing the record-jacket, you should cite the record jacket. If you're citing the disc label, you should site the disc label. You should provide enough details in you references that other are able to work out what you're citing. For example, since the details may vary in between different releases, you should specify which release you're referring to. But there's never any need to a link to the source, sources do not have to be online, or even easy to access and the absence of a convience link doesn't make the source invalid.

Although Jayron32 has already pointed this out, there seems to be remaining confusion about what editors are actually citing here. If discogs is simply hosting photos or scans of disc labels or record-jackets, they're not being used as a source. They are simply a convience link for the actual soruce which is the disc label or record jacket. Of course editors need to have actually seen the source in some way to be able to cite it, and generally they should be able to help others e.g. with a copy if needed to aide verification.

Google Books was already given as an example but this confusion arises in a lot of cases. For example with YouTube unless it's content specifically released on YouTube then most of the time YouTube is irrelevant. If the content appears to have been YouTube without the copyright holders permission e.g. a documentary, then the YouTube link is out. But if the documentary is reliable then it's fine to cite it without the YouTube link.

A few months ago someone was asking about a newspaper scan or photo on some user generated site which seemed to lead to similar confusion. As IIRC I pointed out at the time, if the newspaper was a reliable source than if there was sufficient information on the newspaper, date etc the article could be cited. The fact that the user generated site was not a reliable source was mostly irrelevant. The only relevance was if this scan was the only copy anyone on Wikipedia had ever seen, given we had no real idea of the providence of this scan, then possibly it should stay out until someone can independently verify the scan was accurate. Either way possibly the convience link of the scan would need to stay out, but that didn't make the source invalid.

This is perhaps the only issue where discogs seems to matter when it comes to reliability issues. Do we trust the process discogs uses enough such that if the only place an editor has seen the alleged record jacket is via an image on discogs, this is acceptable? I have no idea, but whatever we decide, although this touches on the reliability of discogs to some extent, discogs still isn't the source we are citing, it's still the record jacket or whatever.

Note that while we do not allow link to sites violation copyright, we generally do not forbid editors from citing a source just because they likely violated copyright to obtain it. E.g. we won't be linking to content from Sci-Hub and I don't think we should even be encouraging editors to use it in any way but if someone has I don't think this makes their citations invalid since despite the murky nature of Sci-Hub, it seems unlikely that they're modifying content. We don't generally ask editors how they obtained access to a source anyway, there's actually a fair amount of trust built into the system and ultimately editors do need to use their judgment on whether they can be sure the copy they obtained could have been modified in some way or even is simply fake.

Nil Einne (talk) 09:15, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

@Herostratus: If an explicit footnote in running prose is needed to an album jacket/liner notes/track listing/disc label or other paraphernalia alongside sound recordings, there's no reason not to do that. I can see where something like the track listing would be implicitly referenced to the track listing on the disc label, and wouldn't necessarily need a footnote, but in running prose if it needs one, just add one. For example, consider the GA-level article Kind of Blue. That article has citations to numerous versions of the album, and a lot of the running prose is cited to the 1997 CD edition. You can do it just like that. --Jayron32 17:35, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, right. I mean, I wrote a good article on the Dellwoods -- decent article, a few paragraphs, probably meets WP:NBAND with two major-label albums -- but it was PRODed and then nominated for deletion partly on grounds that the Discogs refs (to the labels, albeit indirectly) in the running text were no good. Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources says "Don't use Discogs, period", and its hard to fight against a written rule.

The objection to Discogs was that, even if it were reliable, it's just faithfully reproducing the album tracklisting themselves, which in no way satisfies WP:GNG. It's neither independent (since the source is a work by the band itself) and it's not sufficiently in-depth (a listing of songs and albums is a trivial mention of the band). The article certainly wasn't deleted (well, redirected) because it cited discogs, but rather because it lacked any meaningful other sources. --Jayron32 04:44, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

What's the copyright position on linking to photographs? EddieHugh (talk) 20:02, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

See the last para of WP:LINKVIO. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:32, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Although album covers and liner notes are usually copyrighted, the labels on the records (often showing songwriters and durations) usually aren't. The WP upload info for the "Good Rockin' Tonight" image used below states that it's in the public domain (no copyright marks, etc.). I suspect that many singles images used in WP articles are also PD, but were identified as copyrighted to play it safe. —Ojorojo (talk) 16:07, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Concrete suggestion (Discogs)

So here is my suggestion. In the main rule we currently have

The content on Discogs is user-generated, and is therefore generally unreliable. There was consensus against deprecating Discogs in a 2019 RfC, as editors noted that external links to the site may be appropriate.

For the main rule here's my suggestion (bolded text is to show changes, not to be put in the actual text):

The content on Discogs is user-generated, and is therefore generally unreliable except for photographs. There was consensus against deprecating Discogs in a 2019 RfC, as editors noted that external links to the site may be appropriate. A 2021 discussion permitted the use of photographs^{[Note 1]}

.

Then, way at the bottom of the page, in smaller font, pointed to by the "[Note 1]", we can stretch out as much we want. So something maybe like:

By current consensus, photographs hosted by Discogs are considered reliable representations of the work in question. Generally, audio recordings do not need citations, as the citation is to the work itself (e.g <ref>''The Who Strike Out'' (1968 Decca edition), liner notes</ref>). However, as a convenience for the reader, a reference pointing to a photograph of a record/CD/tape label (only) hosted on Discogs may be included (although never required). Photographs on Discogs of anything other than labels should not be linked to directly, as there's no consensus that Discogs is necessarily hosting them legitimately. {{Cite AV media}} is the usual and recommended template for references any photographs, including photographs hosted on Discogs. (N.B. Discogs provides a "permalink" button for referencing individual photographs directly.)

Example of photograph of a record label, which may be linked to. This particular photograph is considered sufficient proof for the existence of the record, the performer, the (official) songwriter, the length of the performance, the record company and its location, and the record company's catalog number for that record

I think that ncluding a photo would help, for instance as show here. Not sure if footnotes can include image files.

I tend prolix, so maybe my suggestions are too long, and improvements welcome, but we do want to be clear about what we're talking about. You know how some people can ruleslawer. Any changes, fine, count me in, let's keep moving. Herostratus (talk) 19:56, 10 December 2021 (UTC) Edited and cut it down some. 04:51, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

This is a bit confusing. Upon first read, I thought that it was condoning the use of images hosted on Discogs as images, but what we're really condoning is the use of information contained in the images. Therefore, something like this would be better imo:

The content on Discogs is user-generated, and is therefore generally unreliable. However, images of album labels and liner notes hosted on Discogs are reliable sources of the information contained in them.^{[Note 1]} There was consensus against deprecating Discogs in a 2019 RfC, as editors noted that external links to the site may be appropriate.

[Note 1] would be what you wrote above, I think it's good and doesn't need any changes. Mlb96 (talk) 09:05, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

• I think this proposal is too technical and that few readers will understand what exactly can be linked and/or referenced, unless we draft a dedicated guideline, which I would oppose anyway per WP:CREEP. I think we need to either 1. make a clear-cut decision as to whether linking to pictures hosted on Discogs is allowed per LINKVIO or 2. just add a Youtube-like disclaimer and brief footnote about {{Cite AV media}} and {{Cite AV media notes}}, but no more. JBchrch talk 21:24, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

• I'm really not seeing that any of the above proposals are an improvement; I think they will considerably increase confusion and rules-lawyering. Nothing presented has been better than the present RSP listing, rather than worse. The reference for the contents of the labels and sleeves is the labels and sleeves themselves; Discogs itself does no work at all here. The present RSP listing notes that external links are not forbidden. Nor do I see that there is actually a consensus for changing the listing - David Gerard (talk) 21:12, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

OK, but I mean, a lot Wikipedia editors won't accept references to a work for music, as they do for books and films. They just won't, is all; I don't know why, but you can't make them. But there's proof in Discogs (and frequently nowhere else). But RSP says "Never use Discogs for anything, ever". So that's out. I mean I had a nice article on a band, band probably meets NBAND and all, nominated partly on grounds of containing several refs to Discogs. I explained the situation, but the response was basically "The rule is the we are not allowed to use Discogs, period, and you are not going to change my mind". And the article was indeed destroyed. So Discogs is out, it's toxic. No refs in running text is not going pass muster. So the only way around this is to not write articles about musicians, which I, having written several, will now do. I'm not up for working two days on an article just to lose it. How this is a win I can't see, but whatever. Herostratus (talk) 05:17, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Could you please link the AFD in question, so we can see the discussion you're talking about? - David Gerard (talk) 12:01, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Dellwoods. Herostratus (talk) 03:18, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

OK - so your characterisation of the AFD consensus is bizarrely hyperbolic. The actual objections are that the sources are self-published blogs and user-submitted Discogs, and nothing else. Looking at the version through the AFD, this appears to be the case. The trouble is a lack of RSes, not the use of Discogs per se - your characterisation of this dispute is obviously inaccurate just looking at the actual AFD responses and the actual article text that was nominated - David Gerard (talk) 16:13, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I think we can probably establish a consensus that Discogs entries do not establish notability, and are not reliable secondary sources, but the images are reliable primary sources for basic publishing information on discs and recordings, and so may be used to populate the content of discography sections. That summarizes how I would treat Discogs links in an AfD; the main rub here seems to be over whether we should link directly to Discogs or use Cite AV when there is a dispute over content. Chubbles (talk) 13:12, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

I think I'd still like to see the original AFD at issue first; I'm reluctant to draw a claim of consensus on an issue of which we have no actual examples - David Gerard (talk) 13:55, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• Close with no changes - the actual dispute at hand was grossly mischaracterised by the nominator; there is no substantive issue here that warrants a change to the RSP entry - David Gerard (talk) 16:15, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

There's no need to be insulting. The question at hand was a general point, I mentioned a particular AfD in passing deep in the text, you consider it important, but its not. The question at hand is a general one, whether photographs hosted on Discogs can be linked to, as a convenience to the editor and the reader. I'm seeing enough people saying "no" that it's not likely to become allowed, and fine, that's not excellent IMO but it doesn't come up that much to be very important I suppose. Herostratus (talk) 16:48, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

If you can think of a way of phrasing the fact that you grossly misrepresented the single example you were, eventually, able to give at all that you'd like better, then by all means give a phrasing. But you did, in fact, grossly misrepresent it, this is the key point regarding the proposal at hand, and there is no evidence of a substantive issue here that warrants a change to the RSP entry - David Gerard (talk) 19:03, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Times of India is not that pro-government as mentioned ?

There are many articles printed and created by TOI which are not pro-government., as:

Manipur woman's Ujjwala gas connection 'taken away' for joining Congress rally

Why BJP’s choice of Karnataka CM is being questioned

Is India staring at stagflation?

Hindutva will push Covid failures to background in UP polls

BJP arm-twisted Sirsa to join party, feared arrest: Sukhbir Singh Badal

Hypernationalists hyperventing over comedy riffs on India do great disservice to the country

Why campaign against 'halal' meat reeks of bigotry

The arrest of two HW News journalists for ‘instigating communal tensions’ is among a series of steps the police has taken, along with slapping UAPA, to crack down on people who wrote about the unrest

How to win foes and get reforms through? Learn from past PMs

The lawyer-activist spent three years in jail without trial

The way India’s ‘pro-poor’ democracy works empowers middle strata of society at the expense of those who are at the bottom of the heap.

Ex-armyman Mohammad Latif — who was given a bravery award in 2005 for killing a militant with his bare hands — wants justice for his son, Amir Magray, who was killed in an encounter in Hyderpora last week

A morality tale starring MSP and you

They have dedicated cartoon series printed on their newspapers which mocks all parties, politicians, celebrities, situations.

https://twitter.com/CartoonistSan/status/1465871969614581761

https://twitter.com/CartoonistSan/status/1464425829425815555

https://twitter.com/CartoonistSan/status/1463698407772491785

https://twitter.com/CartoonistSan/status/1461524450352922626

I have read the past discussions linked at WP:TOI.

Times Of India tries to cover almost every state, and not all of their work is done by their best journalists. There are some articles, news which appear only in TOI, so it might seem they publish non-notable news. But when they give coverage to some crime in a small unknown village, some interview by some local MLA, new upcoming actor, regional film producer, they are trying to cover maximum areas.

Those who have some experience reading TOI, they know which are reliable and which are not that important articles.

The articles where the name of the journalist is present and mentioned TNN are always created properly with verification.

Some of their sub-sections are not that reliable. Like regional non-Bollywood entertainment sections of Assamese, Odiya, Bengali, Punjabi, regional TV gossips, city sections like Agra, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, and many other small cities. Even in these cases, all can't be termed as non-RS, as if the article is detailed along with the name of the journalist or interviewer being mentioned.

However, if it's related to serious crime, then they don't copy-paste from vernacular media but do their own investigation. TOI is not responsible for police', the witness' and victim's family statements, if they are found wrong due to fake complaints, wrong arrests by police. Knight Skywalker (talk) 12:40, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Knight Skywalker, if you want to change the entry at WP:TOI you will have to start a new RfC. Though, I am fairly certain that it's not going to end up much different and could possibly get it downgraded further. I'll point out some things about the examples though, as they are not representative of TOI's usual coverage; most of these are from TOI Plus which tends to have relatively better editorial quality, a significant number of them are just op-eds from guest author, some of these aren't even "not pro-government" and one of them is from the Mumbai Mirror which is not covered by the entry. It doesn't appear too pro-government compared to some of the more blatant news outlet which have gone off the far end, but you'll still find it occasionally reproducing what the government says, without attribution and accepting it as fact, even when they might include verifiable falsehoods. Personally, I think more than its pro-government tilt, its propensity towards sensationalism and undisclosed paid news is much more problematic. The most recent discussion on it highlighted a case where they copied from Wikipedia without fact checking, which is a citogenesis concern. That said, at present it can still be used, though largely for uncontentious information, I would not recommend it for things like serious crimes. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 18:45, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

• A couple of months ago I found a story in TOI that seemed to exaggerate the number of attendees at an anti-Pakistan protest in Toronto. TOI claim "over a thousand", whereas local Canadian media reported "dozens". See diffs and more explanation here.VR _talk 04:40, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

All are human end of the day: Here is an example, might help to draw parallel and give some food for good thought if wished. The Edit dif @ the article Forced marriage#United States it is attributed to one news reporter Nancie L Katz of New York Daily News.

The earlier sentence in the article said "..Estimates are that hundreds of Pakistani girls in New York have been flown out of the New York City area to Pakistan to undergo forced marriages;.."

In the above mentioned edit dif it has been updated by User:Vice regent (VR)"..According to Nancie L Katz, thousands of Pakistani girls have been flown out of the New York City area to Pakistan to undergo forced marriages;..", with edit summary "...source says "thousands" not "hundreds"..".

The same reporter has used word "thousands of" like a phrase in earlier paragraph. Where crowds can not be counted any reporter gets opportunity to be subjective and guesstimate. Even on best of publications editorial boards too would have limitations. I have one academic study which accuses many prominent news publications of US and UK of bias to whom Wikipedians routinely consider reliable.

In case of forced marriages of Pakistani girls in U.S. some one had applied own mind and rationalised figure from thousands to hundreds. Do we have a problem of labeling in black and white like, Biblical inerrancy read inerrancy of so and so and errancy of so and so. Try to establish errancy on some sources for ever, and absolve some sources for ever. Because we (Wikipedians) believe in 'application of mind by Wikipedians' as 'encyclopedist' to the least. Such Wikipedia rules itself have got status of Biblical inerrancy.

Just simple good faith and application of mind without religious and political agendas can address the issues but some how..less said the better.

Anyways IDK, how much this discussion platform has been succeeding in developing wise tools catering to core encyclopedic objectives and how much succeeding in indirect blanket censorships.

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 06:45, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Can someone start a new RFC, only on TOI Plus, not TOI? TOI Plus articles should be considered reliable. I want to start RFC, but don't know the process. Knight Skywalker (talk) 04:29, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

RFC Only on TOI Plus. This RFC is not on TOI. TOI+ only

I have seen that TOI Plus has better language, work, editing than regular TOI articles. Since their websites are same, a separate RFC should be done only for TOI Plus articles. Knight Skywalker (talk) 07:49, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose redeeming TOI. I will allow TOIPlus however; checked a few of their articles from Google Cache and they appear to be better than their usual rubbish. TrangaBellam (talk) 11:49, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Reliability of protothema

How should protothema.gr be classified?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable

Currently, protothema.gr is being used 201 times through en.WP [32] Cinadon36 12:15, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Survey (protothema)

• Close/withdraw. RSP-itis again. This noticeboard is for discussing reliability in context, and these RfCs should only be for "perennial" sources. If there are specific content questions, then just raise them. Alexbrn (talk) 13:49, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Oh, I didn't know @Alexbrn:, what is the the relevant venue? I asked at "Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources" but I was told it was not the appropriate page. Cinadon36 09:20, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
    • At the top of this page it says "be sure to include the following information, if available ...". You haven't done that. If there are WP:V problems arising from this source not being sufficient WP:RS for some Wikipedia content, then tell us where. If, after some years, this kind of query becomes a pattern then maybe an entry in WP:RSP might be worth considering. So far, there's no evidence of an actual problem that needs fixing. Alexbrn (talk) 09:27, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
      • I haven't met any dispute regarding protothema.gr in en.WP, I removed it from various articles, I didn't get any reverts or other issues. As I see it, this is the best available noticeboard to discuss the issue and notify other editors to use it rarely.Cinadon36 10:19, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
      • @Alexbrn: after having a second thought, I suppose withdrawing the proposal makes sense. The trajectory of my line of thought, would end having multiple unnecessary fights on this noticeboard, for no practical reason. (as if we do not have already).Cinadon36 06:49, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
• Agree with Alexbrn. -The Gnome (talk) 11:07, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (protothema)

I am re-posting what I have posted earlier in this noticeboard, but got not replies.[33]

Proto Thema is not a reliable source in my opinion. It can be found 205 times across en.WP [34] There is sensationalism, lack of accuracy and their fact are not regularly checked.

• A report for European Commission, posted by prof Anna Triandafyllidou (see also here) is devastating for ProtoThema. You can download the report from here
• Media Bias Fact Check has a small essay on protothema.gr that supports the above view. [35]
• Fact checking site Ellinika hoaxes has 188 entries on protothema.gr. [36] Ellinika Hoaxes is the sole Greek fact-checking org listed on WP:IFCN's signatories list
• Another report (on greek media coverage of covid pandemic) shows the inadequate verifiability of protothema articles (see page 9 and esp page 14 use of links [37])

Worth noting that Protothema ranks among the biggest news portals in Greece in terms of articles posted per day and traffic. (see discussion here [38])

Poor fact checking plus sensationalism means does not stand against WP criteria for RS. I think it should be included at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources with the indication "Generally unreliable" Cinadon36 12:15, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Having reviewed all of the material you present, I am unable to get a grip on what they do wrong. The report from Triandafyllidou doesn't demonstrate a lack of fact checking and accuracy. Specifically, it is only about immigration, and while it makes it clear the paper is biased, and does not " reflect migration related diversity and promote migrant integration," that's not relevant. Media Bias Fact Check is terrible and I have not reviewed it, because it is worthless. I cannot read greek - if there is a specific hoax they are accused of hoaxing, that would be relevant data. Reviewing pages 6 and 14 of that subreport, the mentions of Protothema include them not taking the Coronavirus seriously... In January of 2020, and that they used... hyperlinks in Feb of 2020. Hipocrite (talk) 14:30, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Per the above, MBFC is not a reliable or well-respected fact-checking service in the journalism world. Legitimate journalism organizations don't think too highly of it, and we should not either. See WP:MBFC. --Jayron32 17:37, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Jayron32: exclude MBFC, other citations indicate poor fact checking, and there is no indication pointing that it is reliable or accurate. @Hipocrite: regarding fact checking, Triandafillidou marks the site as "medium". It relies on official reports and does not regularly cross check data. Is that enough for WP? I think not. Moreover, rest of the report shows that professionalism is lacking. Anyway, fact checking site ellinika hoaxes has many entries on protothema.gr. There are 188 articles/hoaxes regarding protothema.gr. Report on Covid pandemic, I think it could be ok not taken seriously back in very early 2020, but misinforming on vaccines indicates lack of accuracy. Cinadon36 08:19, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

• Having looked twice now, I am not seeing any actual claim of fake news. Could well be an issue but unless OP can provide specific links to specific instances, not really sure there is anything actionable here. Slywriter (talk) 17:29, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
  • @Slywriter: I thought I provided a link but I now see it does not really works, so here:
  • it was reported that 1 million ppl in Gr has been vaccinated, but it was not true
  • photos of horses during a fire in Greece, they were photos from California and Australia (but it was not stated in the article)
  • four foods that can exterminate SARS-Cov-2, but the study was not even conducted in guinea pigs
  • illegal immigrants take down a Greek flag, but in reality, they were French students visiting the island
  • 11 month old baby dies of marijuana overdose, but that was not the case, even though there was a temporal relationship.
  • Talibans decapitated female volleyball athlete member of the national team but she was not decapitated, and she was not a member of the national team
  • There are ~261 fake news spotted at Ellinikahoaxes. Should I post more? Cinadon36 20:19, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
    • For at least one of those, volleyball, a look at the live page of the website shows they corrected the record and stated were mistaken [[39]]. Corrections are a good thing, so I am not sure they merit such drastic action as being deemed unreliable. A second look, vaccinations, shows the live article does not contain the one million vaccinated language [[40]]. Honestly, I find the source of these concerns, Elinnikahoaxes, to be a troubling as their claims seem to be snapshots that do not reflect if corrections are made. Slywriter (talk) 21:19, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
      • Regarding the death of the volleyball player Mahjabin Hakimi, notice that protothema does not admit that it published an article containing fault facts. Yes, Ellinikahoaxes uses snapshot to prove the validity of their claim. I do not think that they shouldn't be doing so.. The overall argument is that protothema.gr does not fact check the claims/facts it publishes. Ellinikahoaxes has many examples, and Triantafillidou makes a similar case. I think the case for considering protothema as unreliable, stands strong. Cinadon36 22:00, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
        • But it does, twice. Once in the body saying previous reports of beheading were wrong and italicized text at the bottom that says "this article has been corrected...". Slywriter (talk) 22:08, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
          • It doesnt say "previous reports". It says "Ενώ αρχικά είχε μεταδοθεί ότι αποκεφαλίστηκε, αυτό δεν ισχύει." meaning "While it was initially announced that she was beheaded, that is wrong" It doesn't clarify by whom it was initially announced. Last line is "Το άρθρο έχει διορθωθεί σύμφωνα με τι πολιτικές του Facebook" meaning "the article has been corrected according to Facebook policies". Doesn't clarify which article. And what Facebook has to do with it? Strange wording. Nowhere does it says "our article was wrong" Cinadon36 22:14, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
            • Let's try a different approach, can you point to an article on wikipedia where the site is being used to support a false statement? Slywriter (talk) 13:37, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
              • I haven't reviewed that part; I tend to believe that it is irrelevant. Anyway, I remember once that I read somewhere in WP, that during a confrontation of Greek and Turkish navy, the greek islanders sang a psalm to God, and that forced the Turkish ship to flee. I checked the source (protothema) and it was there! Hilarious.[[41] (See paragraph/section under the title "Έτρεψαν τους Τούρκους σε φυγή με ...ψαλμούς" translating-->"They made the Turks run away using...psalms") Also, look here[42], in 2018, protothema copies el.WP (diff of inserting the text in 2011). So, since we have reliable evidence that there is a fact checking problem, why shouldnt we proceed to classify protothema as unreliable? Cinadon36 07:36, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

De-deprecate CounterPunch

Currently this left-wing magazine is deprecated for spreading conspiracy theories, yet it should not be for two reasons: (1) A Wikipedian claimed that it denies the existence of Holodomor (cf. Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_355#CounterPunch_and_Al_Bawaba), yet that CounterPunch article does acknowledge that a famine occurred in Ukraine in 1932-33 (2) Novaya Gazeta spreads global warming conspiracy theory, yet it is still not deprecated.--RekishiEJ (talk) 14:47, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

CounterPunch was not deprecated for a single false statement, but rather for a long and repeated history of publishing false information. --Jayron32 14:59, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

This, even a broken clock is right twice a day.Slatersteven (talk) 15:14, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Denying the Holomodor was one charge (relating to one article) in a pretty vast list of dodgy articles. If you want to get Novaya Gazeta deprecated, start a discussion about that. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:02, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Have you seen the 2021 RfC? The reasoning there appears to remain solid. It is notable that a handful of editors there have been struck as socks post-fact, though, but their actual impact on the conversation seems to have been very marginal to low anyway. --Chillabit (talk) 16:36, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Novaja Gazeta is an independent newspaper that specialises in revealing corruption in Russia. It happens to be one of the few reliable newspapers in Russia. Russia Beyond is a pro-Kremlin publication. Let's assume that what says about Gazeta is true and not taken out of context. Would you deprecate a newspaper over one quote? It's a fact that The New York Times has promoted conspiracy theories. Let's assume that it has happened only once. Should NYT be deprecate over that one incident or would you say that NYT is still generally reliable? Politrukki (talk) 13:05, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

What has got to do with it?Slatersteven (talk) 13:18, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

What with what? Politrukki (talk) 14:31, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

• There was a lot of sock participation in that RFC (in addition to the struck ones, User:Inf-in MD was recently banned as a sock), which you could theoretically use as a rationale for a new RFC, but given how lopsided it was you'd probably also want to have an answer to some of the arguments made there, especially to the argument that it publishes fringe viewpoints preferentially - ideally one that wasn't presented at the time. "It publishes true things sometimes" isn't really enough unless you can somehow show that the overwhelming majority of what it says is accurate - otherwise, it's a "your honor, look at all the people my client didn't stab" sort of argument. You have to demonstrate that the things people took issue with were aberrations, not just that articles exist contradicting them. --Aquillion (talk) 06:12, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Geez, tag me if you are going to reference my edits. The piece by Grover Furr is not any evidence that the magazine is reliable in the slightest, nor does this actually address the things that concerned some editors (me, for example) the most. That, of course being the plethora of (the-Jews-did-9/11 level) conspiracy theories that it has preferentially published. There was a pretty clear consensus in that discussion, even if you take be arguments made by socks away, based upon the analysis that several editors (including me) provided regarding the source’s dubious-at-best editorial practices. Making another RfC for this sort of source is probably not wise unless you believe you have a strong argument in favor of the site being one with editorial control, editorial independence, and a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (c.f. WP:BIASED).— Mhawk10 (talk) 22:31, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

If anything, the Furr piece is actually evidence that the magazine is unreliable. Furr is a medievalist whose contributions to the field of Soviet history amount to absolving Stalin of any and every wrongdoing, and no publication worth reading would even consider asking him to contribute. I mean, honestly, the man believes that the USSR didn't invade Poland. There are cranks, and then there's Grover Furr. Sceptre (talk) 23:14, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I would agree; Furr's writings on the Soviet Union are absolutely bonkers. — Mhawk10 (talk) 18:10, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

The discussion on Counterpunch was nonsensical from start to finish. Users took a website that never made any claim to editorial control and then decided that their editorial control was lacking. They presented an incredibly distorted picture of the website, using articles from 9/11 truthers as though they were what the website was all about but ignoring the large number of articles there saying that 9/11 truthers are insane conspiracy nuts (eg [43], [44]). It also ignored one basic truth here, nobody ever ever ever cited a Counterpunch article not written by an expert in his or her field. Nobody had ever cited any of the articles that were brought forth as though they were some great problem here. It was a very effective exercise in controlling the narrative at the start of the discussion with strawman arguments about what the site is used for. It was absurd, and it ignored the countless actual undisputed experts in their field who write on Counterpunch. A new RFC is needed, but I dont think questioning the close of the last one is productive. And now we have editors removing actual experts from our articles (David Price being author of Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI’s Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists, published by Duke University Press, and writing about the FBI surveilling an activist academic.) But because it hosts material that some users find distasteful, while also hosting the opposing viewpoints, we should not use the work of actual experts. nableezy - 23:13, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

nobody ever ever ever cited a Counterpunch article not written by an expert in his or her field. Really? That's quite the claim. For an extraordinarily mundane example, let's look at radical centrism.

"Beware the Radical Center", is given prominent weight in the article. It is used to support the statements In 2017, in a 1,700-word article for CounterPunch entitled "Beware the Radical Center", Canadian writer Ryan Shah characterized radical centrism as a just-in-time "repackaging" of neoliberalism meant to sustain the political, economic, and social status quo.[139] He warned that political leaders such as Europe's Emmanuel Macron and North America's Justin Trudeau were creating a false image of radical centrist programs as progressive, and urged leftists to develop "genuine" policy alternatives to neoliberalism such as those advocated by British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Was this piece written by an expert? No. It was written by an undergraduate university student at McGill. I don't think any of us are questioning CounterPunch as a primary source for its own writing, but the way it's used in this article implies that the random piece has weight that it doesn't have and it's extremely fluffy. The reference to the article was added in this 2017 edit by someone who had made over 1500 edits at the time.

I don't see the value in claiming that nobody ever ever ever cited a CounterPunch article not written by an expert in his or her field. It's fiction, full stop. I don't see evidence that somehow editors have been particularly and extraordinarily squeaky clean with using CounterPunch (even in one of the more mundane politics-related articles). And honestly, the guidance that we should pick and choose from the source what is good and what is garbage was brought up during the discussion that took place and was generally discarded along the lines of WP:DAILYMAIL. — Mhawk10 (talk) 18:47, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Then remove that one. Nobody is arguing a random person should be cited. The example I posted above of an editor removing an established expert however is not that. And pretending that is not what the bulk of the removals by any of the banned editors socking to remove it, or the users in good standing like Shrike doing so on patently partisan grounds, is silly. nableezy - 21:10, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

@Nableezy: a few things. First, if you feel like an editor is WP:POVPUSHing by removing citations to a deprecated source, then you should make that accusation at the appropriate noticeboard or at a relevant user talk page, not here. Second, you've previously argued that nobody ever ever ever cited a Counterpunch article not written by an expert in his or her field. Do you still believe that to be the case? Third, I'm not making any claims regarding the majority of source removals; I haven't actually done the digging on that nor is it obvious to me how to conduct a systemic review. But if the vast majority of these removals that you see are coming in an extremely politically contentious field, then perhaps editors in that area should be striving to use more reliable sources rather than relying upon a magazine that has published multiple Jews-did-9/11 conspiracy theories (see points one and two of my bolded !vote in the deprecation discussion if you disagree with my characterization). Fourth, I agree that not every single reference to a deprecated publication should be purged; as WP:DEPS notes that citations to deprecated sources should not be removed indiscriminately, and each case should be reviewed separately. Fifth, if you're going to challenge David Gerard's closure, there is actually a mechanism to do so. That mechanism is outlined in WP:CLOSECHALLENGE, and involves a challenge on the administrator's noticeboard. An informal discussion on RSN is not capable of overturn the community consensus on the publication's reliability established in a request for comment about two months ago. — Mhawk10 (talk) 17:50, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes I very much disagree with the charecterization that CP has published multiple Jews did 9/11 conspiracy theories, and the only thing you claim in your comment in the RFC is that one column references dancing Israelis or that one article in your view "seems to endorse the view" (note that it does not). I already said I do not think challenging the close makes sense, but that a new RFC is needed, hopefully one in which people are not fed some hysterical BS about what is actually on the site. Sure, some CP articles on WP are not written by experts. They should be removed. A ton of CP articles are written by established experts. They should be retained. nableezy - 19:55, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Really? The quote was More, the model of the Reichstag fire false flag has been readily replicated, not least in the 1954 Lavon Affair and, most spectacularly, in 9/11 (whence the five dancing Israelis at Liberty Park?). Practice makes perfect with false flags. Add extra-judicial murders made to order. Are you saying that the person writing this is not conveying the belief that the "dancing Israelis" were conducting some false flag operation on 9/11? I certainly hope not; that would be absurd.

The quote from the other piece was "In the Western World, Corporatism has become ‘subject’ to Zionism and in consequence Capitalist Democracy has been usurped by the power of a concentrated accumulation of resources – and this- no mere product of ‘happenstance’ – but rather part of a systemic scheme whereby the rich are to get richer and the poor to get poorer? When 2.3 Trillion Dollars can ‘go missing’ from an Economy and disappear down a ‘memory hole’ as part of a historical revisionism aka denial; when the very day after the gone missing is ‘announced’ and the Rabbi Dov Zakheim as Comptroller is not held to account because it ‘happens’ there is an attack on the Twin Towers (also WTC 7) and the Pentagon which becomes the focus of attention and a casus belli for war then something is seriously wrong – and psycho political abuse is in operation? Let us also not forget the ‘weapons grade anthrax’ – such the ‘memory hole’?" Are you saying that the author is not trying to connect Rabbi Dov Zakheim to the 9/11 attacks in the context of Zionism?

I strongly disagree that a new RFC is needed at this time. You were able to make your arguments in the RfC that happened two months ago; the fact that the community (and the closer) found them rather unconvincing does not mean that we need to rapidly run another RfC where the same base arguments are going to be made. — Mhawk10 (talk) 06:06, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Im also aware that CP has published articles very specifically disclaiming any such theory as plausible (eg [45], [46], [47] [48]). But, again, nobody is arguing that we should be using CP as though it confers any reliability. What you continue to completely ignore however is the actual scholars that write there, whose work is beyond reproach. Pray tell, what exactly is your argument for why Sara Roy writing in CP should be considered unreliable? Because thats something that actually has happened here. Did anybody cite Evan Jones for anything at all? Or is that just the first in the red herrings to distract people from the fact that actual scholars are published there literally all the time. Given the, in my view, absurd to the point of being deceptive framing of the RFC, and the sustained sock participation (Icewhiz for example voted four times in that RFC, care to guess which way?), I disagree with your view on if a new RFC is needed, and there seems to be healthy disagreement below as well. nableezy - 23:09, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

References

• The prevailing argument was that articles by unquestioned experts can be discarded because the place that published them also published rubbish by other writers. That so many editors thought that is a logical argument is a sad reflection on this place. It is a fact that a large fraction of mainstream publishers, even some academic presses, could be subject to the same treatment. Zero^talk 04:34, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

  I wonder what proportion of the editors that advocated deprecation actually understand the difference between deprecation and just calling a source unreliable. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 04:51, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

• My question is, if CounterPunch is willing to publish 9/11 conspiracy theory bollocks, can it be seriously considered to have any editorial control or fact checking at all? The claims by people who support CounterPunch are essentially stating we should ignore it as a publisher and simply rely on the credibility of the author of the piece in question, effectively making it no better than if it had been a self-published blogpost. If a post by an expert on CounterPunch by an SM Expert is equivalent to it being a blogpost, then it is unusable for claims regarding living persons per WP:BLPSPS. Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:58, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

I dont think any of the people who think CounterPunch should be usable disagree with anything youve written there. Ive always treated an article on CounterPunch as being the equivalent of a blog post, usable only if it is by an actual established academic expert. But a huge number of CP articles are exactly that, and theyve been excised in an honestly absurd way. nableezy - 05:27, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, you've recently added back CounterPunch to the Edward Said article [49] despite it being deprecated. The paragraph you were adding it back to was clearly about living people, so therefore if it is equivalent to a self-published blog post then it is a violation of WP:BLPSPS. Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:31, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

The only living people in that paragraph are Barghouti and (perhaps) Dadak, neither of whom are mentioned in the CP article. Zero^talk 05:54, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Of course there is, Said himself. The claim that Said was spied on by the FBI is a claim regarding a living person. BLPSPS is very clear: Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article. Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:58, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Thats a curious understanding of what living means. I restored an unquestioned expert writing in the exact area of his academic expertise. About somebody who died some 18 years ago. nableezy - 13:36, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Are you kidding? Look at the first sentence in the article. Zero^talk 07:44, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

New RFC or not, unless we are taking the view that CP has massaged authors' contributions and I have not seen any evidence that they do things like that, in effect they are just a hosting for contributions, good and bad, and editorial judgement should be used as regards which one it is. Afaics, there is nothing wrong with the way the Said material is being used.Selfstudier (talk) 11:15, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

No we shouldn't use material from deprecated sources if these material is WP:DUE then it should appear in other sources and if it does we should use them Shrike (talk) 12:54, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

There is nothing in DUE that supports anything you just wrote. nableezy - 13:36, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, they don't host articles indiscriminately; they select which articles they wish to host. This makes them worse than a blog, as they choose to publish false information, including outright conspiracy theories, which reflects negatively on any article that they choose to host. BilledMammal (talk) 15:30, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Do you seriously hear yourself? Newspapers publish crackpots all the times as op-eds, we just dont cite those crackpots. That such a basic fallacious argument is the consensus view of this page right now reflects negatively on Wikipedia. People are seriously arguing that people like Neve Gordon ([50]), or Dean Baker ([51]), or a huge number of literal scholars writing in the area of their academic expertise where they are widely cited are somehow tarred for writing for CP. CP is cited in a ton of academic journal articles, are they likewise negatively viewed because of their association with the boogie man? You cant dismiss the views of scholars because of some other thing that appears on a website. It is antithetical to what used to be the purpose of this place. nableezy - 16:11, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Beat me to it. Blogs also publish crap so that's neither here nor there. This is simply about whether a given contribution is usable within our policies and some are.Selfstudier (talk) 16:16, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Deprecated is too harsh, given that it has occasionally contributors who are experts on the subject they're writing about. I support changing the RSN listing to WP:MREL. RoseCherry64 (talk) 17:33, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

WP:DAILYMAIL sometimes publish information by experts should we de-depreciate it too? Shrike (talk) 18:08, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Can you give an example of an expert like Neve Gordon or Dean Baker (as mentioned above) writing an article published under their names for the Daily Mail with very little or no editorial influence, where the style of writing is the same as you would find in articles by them published by outlets unanimously considered reliable? My argument isn't that they have published "information" by experts, they have published articles written by experts and those are fine to cite and I've not seen a convincing argument where those articles should be considered deprecated for citing due to the publisher. RoseCherry64 (talk) 18:54, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

During the RfC, BilledMammal wrote that the work, the creator, and the publisher all affect reliability. In this case, that means we have to take into account the fact that these sources choose to write a particular article for a publisher who regularly publishes false and fabricated information and not a more reliable publisher. I'd echo this view here—the publication does impact reliability, which is something that WP:SOURCE says, even if the author might also publish elsewhere. Good editorial oversight makes for good writing, even among experts, while shoddy editorial oversight degrades the quality of the work. (That's the whole point of peer review in the academic world, or the employment of fact-checkers in newsroooms). — Mhawk10 (talk) 19:04, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

@Mhawk10: if I'm understanding you correctly, are you saying that if an author "choose[s] to write a particular article for a publisher who regularly publishes false and fabricated information" that reflects negatively on the author's reliability? So authors who write for sources we've deprecated are not reliable even if they write for more reputable sources or simply their own blog? VR _talk 20:01, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

No, that is not at all what I am saying. What I am saying is that when an author decides to publish a particular work in a publication not known for fact-checking, that the published work is less reliable then when it is published in a publication known for fact-checking. The argument here is that because this particular publication has limited editorial oversight and preferentially publishes fringe/conspiratorial opinions, that the sorts of articles that authors might choose to run in the publication would tend to be more fringe/conspiratorial. WP:SPS material, even from experts, is generally not great for anything contentious anyway—but seeing that a work was published in CounterPunch makes the source less likely to be reliable for facts than works of the same author published elsewhere.— Mhawk10 (talk) 20:45, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Self-run blogs have no editorial oversight, yet are perfectly acceptable to use per WP:SPS which says Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. Your argument is directly refuted by our policy. nableezy - 21:10, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Articles published in CounterPunch are not self-published. BilledMammal (talk) 02:47, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I have literally no idea what that is a response to. nableezy - 02:55, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

To make an example, there are U.K. freelance journalists who have written for both WP:DAILYMAIL and The Guardian as a freelancer. Even though the author might have pieces in both publications, one is deprecated whereas the other is considered WP:GREL—even if the subject is something as mundane as crime beat reporting—because of the differences in editorial integrity between the two publications. — Mhawk10 (talk) 20:50, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

These are not "freelancers", these are established academic experts. Scholars. Who create scholarship. That is an asinine comparison. Neve Gordon is author of books and peer-reviewed journal articles in the topic of his expertise. He is a distinguished professor, a scholar invited to the top universities on the planet. But you seriously compare him to a freelance journalist writing in the Daily Mail. Hey, here is Sara Roy being removed when she is cited for what she is likely the worlds foremost expert on, the economy of Gaza. But no, she is basically a freelance journalist writing in the Daily Mail. Not one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet on the topic of Gaza's economy under Hamas. That is the level of argument here. nableezy - 21:10, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

@Mhawk10: a simple question for you. Suppose an academic expert X writes content Y and publishes Y in (a) CounterPunch and (b) on X's personal blog. Would you agree that both are about as equally reliable? If so, then would you agree that if an academic expert writes in counterpunch that is similar to WP:SPS? VR _talk 02:07, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

This seems to be arguing against deprecation as a concept; "CounterPunch" in your question could be replaced with most deprecated sources. And the answer is the same for all of them; an article published by a publisher independent from the author can no longer be considered self-published, even if it is mirrored on a blog or similar; in such circumstances we continue to consider the publisher to be CounterPunch, the Daily Mail, or RT. BilledMammal (talk) 03:07, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I'll re-ask my question: is an article published by a deprecated source more, less or equally reliable as an article published by the author themselves? My answer is "equally". If your answer is "less", please explain why.VR _talk 03:13, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

If I have understood your rephrased question correctly: less. Per WP:SOURCE, the publisher impacts reliability, and so an article from an otherwise reputable journalist that is published in, for example, RT is not reliable, because in the case of RT and other deprecated sources the publisher has a negative impact on reliability.

If I have misunderstood the question: equally. Once an article has been published by an independent publisher, it is no longer a self-published source, even if it is mirrored on a blog or similar; if it is unreliable in RT, it is unreliable on the authors blog. The opposite is also true; if it is reliable in NYT, is it reliable on the authors blog - although citing the blog rather than NYT would not be best practice. BilledMammal (talk) 04:19, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I'd argue that the exact nature of the source's unreliability matters. For example, in the case of The Daily Mail, there were instances of them doctoring their own archives, i.e. they aren't even reliable for what they themselves say (and therefore are not reliable for much of anything). In the case of Counterpunch, there's been evidence provided that they do not fact check submissions and print fringe perspectives, but not that they deceptively misrepresent themselves or the authors published there. There's no substantive reason to treat an SME printed in Counterpunch worse than when they're self-publishing. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 06:11, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I would disagree, as articles are not independent of the publisher they are written for.

A principle from WP:SPS seems appropriate here; if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent, reliable sources. If the only place we can find information is in a source such as the Daily Mail, RT, or CounterPunch, then it is probably not suitable for inclusion on Wikipedia, regardless of the credentials of the author. BilledMammal (talk) 08:34, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

The Said article actually has two Counterpunch sourced refs, the other being an article by Said himself (url dead, http://web.archive.org/web/20070930023922/https://www.counterpunch.org/said2.html to see it). You would say that Said writing about himself is no good because he wrote it in Counterpunch?Selfstudier (talk) 11:03, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Per policy at WP:V, deprecated sources can be used for WP:ABOUTSELF statements. BilledMammal (talk) 11:14, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree the the exact nature of the source's unreliability matters but think this description -In the case of Counterpunch, there's been evidence provided that they do not fact check submissions and print fringe perspectives, but not that they deceptively misrepresent themselves or the authors published there. - doesn't catch the arguments made in the RFC about the exact nature of Counterpunch's reliability. The problem clearly documented through a large number of examples there was not a simple failure to fact check submissions, but an editorial policy of - an active preference for - actively publishing material that challenges mainstream reportage, and therefore includes a considerable amount of dubious, fringe, conspiracist and disinfo content, including dangerous anti-vaxx material as well as antisemitic content. It is this that many editors considered pushed it from generally unreliable to deprecated status. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:31, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

The deprecation judgment, when not a pretext for nationalist POV pushing by suppression of contrarian material, has become an excuse for laziness. See CounterPunch cited? Strike the source on sight, without even analysing who wrote it. This is how Shrike reads this. His objection seems to be to elide anything from that source which reflects negatively on Israel’s occupation. CounterPunch, which has a long history as the fav target for ‘pro-Israeli’ socks at RSN, covers the I/P conflict closely, with details rarely reported in the mainstream press, and many of its authorities are academic specialists, or Israelis or Jews. That is discomforting ergo, as Nableezy noted, following that, to me, erratic discussion, we now have systematic removalist abuse at

• Gaza City they removed Sara Roy because she wrote in CounterPunch. I’ve actually read Roy’s monographs. They are recognized as authoritative in that field.
• At Edward Said Shrike removed a reference written by Edward Said himself for Counterpunch.
• Then removed David Price, an authority on FBI surveillance history, from the same article, because Price’s article was carried in CounterPunch.

Where does this censorious opportunism lead, of exploiting a debatable conclusion about CounterPunch to set up a Pavlovian reflex of cancellation at sight of anything, regardless of quality, associated with that webzine?

I wrote a good part of the article on Raul Hilberg – in my view one of the greatest historians in that trade since the year dot, and a personal hero. So I cited

• Norman Finkelstein, "Remembering Raul Hilberg". CounterPunch. 22 August 2007.
• Michael Neumann. "In Memoriam: Raul Hilberg", CounterPunch. 15 August 2009. (I even posted at RSN about this. No one objected. No one replied.)

In the way this deprecation judgment is being read, anyone can mangle articles like that on Hilberg by erasing Finkelstein or Neumann for writing their commemorations of that historian for Counterpunch.

The founder of CounterPunch was hostile to conspiracy theories, antisemitism, nutters of whatever description, as is its present editor, but as the editor of, not a ’ left-wing magazine’ (above), but a libertarian webzine that hosts views ranging from the Republican right to the heterogeneous left, including at times crap I scroll past. Like many who have had occasion to cite it here, I look at the quality of the piece and who wrote it.

As the deprecation is being manipulated, we can expect that wikipedia will slowly be shorn of trenchant and highly focused reports by Alexander Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn (the latter a widely published authority on Iraq), Uri Avnery, es:Gary Leupp (brilliant on the orient), Melvin Goodman, (incisive and with a deep professional grounding in American security doctrines) security, Ralph Nader, Andrew Levine, Winslow Wheeler (works from Capitol Hill- knows everything about congressional budgets),Naomi Klein, Brian Cloughley, Mark Weisbrot, Serge Halimi, Norman Pollack,Neve Gordon, Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, Michael Brenner, Sheldon Richman, Ramzy Baroud, Vijay Prashad, Robert Fisk, Gareth Porter, Mel Gurtov,Henry Giroux, Rodolfo Acuña, Ray McGovern, Deepak Tripathi, William Quigley, Michael Neumann, Michael Hudson, Tom Engelhardt, John Feffer, Jeremy Scahill, William Loren Katz, Andrew Bacevich, Edward Said, Tariq Ali, Bruce Jackson, Sam Bahour, Marjorie Cohn, Russ Feingold, Andre Vltchek, Lawrence Davidson, Lawrewce Wittner, Stephen Soldz, Lenni Brenner, Karl Grossman, Frank Spinney, Paul Krassner, Gabriel Kolko, Stan Goff, Diana Johnstone etc.etc. That implication, that these, for Wikipedia, if they choose to write for Cockburn's webzine, are personae non gratae, following on deprecation is dazzlingly obtuse.

So, ladies and gentlemen, can we wake up to the potential damage, and tweak the deprecation badge of shame, so that as commonsense dictates, that doesn’t become an enabling excuse for people with a POV drum to beat to cancel, erase, eviscerate scholars and writers of the quality listed above, and, by giving editors a warrant for gutting indiscriminately numerous pages of even uncontroversible material, allowing them blindly to throw the babies out with the barfwater?Nishidani (talk) 15:07, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

@Nishidani: Having a hard time comprehending what you wrote here but some parts of it look important. Is the issue you raise that the deprecation was inappropriate, that the deprecation is being misused, that deprecation as a concept shouldn't exist, or some combination of the above? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:17, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks and my apologies. I had an urgent appointment for an afternoon of swilling slops at the local pub, and was rushing. I don't follow much wiki technical policy arguments. I opposed deprecation for the simple reason that far too many eminently quotable scholars, journalists of distinction, choose on occasion to publish there. The analogy with the Daily Mail collapses simply there. And yes I object to editors leaping at the deprecation in order to remove at sight (I suspect without even reading the articles or recognizing the qualifications of whoever writes them) any references to that webzine. In this case, I cited, for lack of time, just a few examples of abusively deleting Counterpunch references when their authors pass our strongest RS tests, and the deletions are simply POV dislike (WP:IDONTLIKETHAT. That's why so many I/P socks have militated over several discussions going back to 2008 to get any use of it banned.Nishidani (talk) 22:02, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Nishidani, your list, which I commented on in the previous RFC (11:55 am, 28 September 2021, Tuesday (2 months, 23 days ago) (UTC+1)), includes a number of names of genocide deniers and conspiracy theorists, among some significant writers. I argued for generally unreliable rather than deprecate because of the experts published, but the fact it has promoted so many antisemites and denialists is not a good argument against deprecation! BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:39, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

No Bob. I don't think you commented on my list in that RfC. My list mentioned 52 writers/journalists/thinkers. You said 5 of them- Gareth Porter; Ray McGovern ; Tariq Ali; Lenni Brenner; Diana Johnstone – had in their long careers once or twice published what you consider suspect material. Ray McGovern compared 9/11 to the Reichstag fire. So what? Check it out. Is that cranky? Nope. Lenni Brenner is cited also by antisemites? So? As we all know from Antonio’s crack in the Merchant of Venice, 'The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.' - that is a cheap rhetorical trick of guilt by (unwanted) association; Gareth Porter, like Seymour Hersh and Theodore Postol, challenged a general consensus here and here. Maybe he’s wrong. But the articles are strongly reasoned and documented: Diana Johnston? Sure, I disagree. She has a record of excellence blotted by excess polemical zeal on at least two occasions. I don’t read widely to find, as your remark in that RfC assumes, confirmation of my own views or some ‘mainstream’ consensus. And Ali, Porter and Johnstone weren’t being cited from CounterPunch.

Disinformation is regularly disseminated by a large number of states, from the US, Australia and Israel to China and Russia and scores of others. Contrarian webzines like CounterPunch exist to query and question the mainstream. They may and, undoubtedly have at times, host stuff that proves decidedly wrong. They also publish eminently good exposes that time has proven to be correct (numerously with regard to the slanting of the New York Times on the Middle East).

You of course place your trust in what strikes me as a glaring partisan pseudo-analysis of CounterPunch by a blogger, i.e. a certain Elise Hendrick, 'CounterPunch or Suckerpunch?', Meldungen aus dem Exil, 2015, who, contradicting the impression by numerous wikipedians commenting on Counterpunch at RSN on several occasions, managed to conclude (certainly not by analysing all 55,000 articles it had printed from 1999 to 2015, but simply a minor sample), that Cockburn’s website ‘mainstreams a far right, white supremicist’ ideology. Interesting. That counts as a conspiracy theory, since it implies that unknown to most of its readers, it deviously turns leftists into suckers for the very ideology they find abhorrent. I completely, like most other readers, missed this, despite reading it desultorily for nearly two decades. Diligent research means reading a wide range of views, not narrowing one's focus to sites, newspapers, or writers within one's comfort zone. Nishidani (talk) 15:47, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• This discussion seems to really get to the heart of "what is deprecation" and how it has been used. I'm not a fan of how deprecation is often used. In most cases it seems to be used for sources that we decide we really don't like vs the Daily Mail case which was a special case where it was argued the source was both changing their own articles without notice and was falsely reporting things like quotes. Basically there had to be something that set the Daily Mail apart from run of the mill bad sources like Occupy Democrats and Infowars. I would suggest that only sites that have clear histories of inventing quotes/facts or modifying their previously published articles without notice should be considered for deprecation. Other sources may be unreliable because they have poor fact checking and a strong partisan bias etc. That makes them an unreliable source. Not one that should be deprecated. In context of this discussion, and without verifying the claims of others, it sounds like CounterPunch acts mostly as a publisher of the opinions of others with little editorial oversight. That makes them an unreliable source/one who's weight/reliability should be treated as if it were a self published work by the author. That doesn't mean it should be deprecated in my book. Again, I'm basing this on the claims of others made above. Springee (talk) 18:24, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Occupy Democrats is currently depreciated and Infowars is not just depreciated but actually blacklisted so it can't be added anywhere. That said, my recollection of the argument for the first depreciation during the Daily Mail discussions was that it is for when there is universal agreement that a source is basically, broadly unreliable to the point of unreliability while also having a number of people who continue to try and use it in clearly-unusable contexts, making a firmer statement against using it necessary. The key point of depreciation was not "extra-secret-super unreliable" (although it it's only for articles at the most extreme end of unreliable by definition), the key point was that it was a measure for when a broad enduring consensus that a source was generally unreliable had failed to keep it from being used. This leads to a paradox where the sources we depreciate are often not the most obviously unreliable (because there is no dispute over those at all and therefore no need to resort to depreciation), but the ones that are broadly agreed to be unreliable but which may appear reliable to some editors at first glance, necessitating the "hey, this source is unreliable, are you sure you want to use it" warning. --Aquillion (talk) 20:24, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

• Agree it should not be deprecated. For the most part, the articles are the same as articles that appear in major mainstream media and the authors are the same. The difference is that while the first publishes articles from writers across the policial spectrum, but mostly from the center, CounterPunch specializes on writers from the Left. Since the articles are mostly if not entirely opinion pieces, they would in any case be subject to the same standards as if they were published in any other publication, i.e., as self-published. TFD (talk) 19:46, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• What facts are we unable to source without CounterPunch? What viewpoints are we unable to summarize? What articles are we unable to write? We shouldn't use a source unless its reliability is more or less unassailable, at least relatively speaking; there's no need to dip to the bottom of the barrel, we should be offering our readers the best sources. For what content is CouterPunch among the best sources? There are more scholarly and highly-reputable journalistic sources that cover history, politics, and current events, than we will ever be able to read and summarize; more is written every day than we summarize here. So why do we need to spend time debating CounterPunch, or any similar source? Levivich 07:14, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

  I doubt anyone is arguing that CP is at all reliable (they don't actually produce anything afaics) but that deprecation is inappropriate because it knocks out all the good stuff at the same time. The latter may or may not be available elsewhere, I think that is not the point. I have said in one or two other places that I think we are a little too quick to deprecate, that should be reserved for egregious cases like the Daily Mail.Selfstudier (talk) 10:03, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

We shouldn't use a source unless its reliability is more or less unassailable-</ref>

That sounds fine in theory,-it would waste, if applied, 90% of articles on Wikipedia- and personally I try to adhere to that rigorously, meaning in the IP area for one, most of the facts on villages I am familiar with are not reported, because they don't attract much, if any coverage, in the mainstream press. By that standard The Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post and Ynet should not be used because no one would claim that their reliability is unassailable' - it's a real test of patience to figure out the facts in their coverage of major incidents. No one is arguing that CP is reliable, but that many authors there have proven subject matter competence, and therefore shouldn't be prescriptively erased. Reliability in these cases should be relevant to the author not the vehicle they choose to publish for, and I gave over 50 names of important commentators who contribute to that webzine all of whose work, if cited from Counterpunch, is threatened with automatic excision. Winslow Wheeler's analysis of congressional budgets - he works there in that capacity - would be flamed etc.etc.etc., while we use persistently third-rate tabloids (Algemeiner Fox News etc., quite liberally) gave readers here examples of what deprecation and bots or editors could automatically remove from say Raul Hilberg: two important articles by scholars who knew him who wrote obituaries for him for Counterpunch. Nishidani (talk) 21:07, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Sally RooneySara Roy is such an unassailable source on the economy of Gaza. David Price is such an unassailable source on the US government surveillance of academic activists. Those two are literally the best sources for that material. nableezy - 20:59, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

@Nableezy: I don't think that Sally Rooney is who you are referring to. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:04, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Youre right, sorry, mixed up articles. Fixed. nableezy - 21:14, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• CounterPunch should remain deprecated. The fact that experts publish on it sometimes is a case where WP:SPS applies. It has to do with the fact they're experts, not because of any

evidence that CounterPunch editorial has some quality or peer review process, unlike WP:RS. The fact there are experts is nowhere apparent from the fact they're writing for CounterPunch. So articles using CounterPunch shouldn't automatically have their references removed, but it does likely mean we need to explicitly state who we're citing, as an authoritative subject expert. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 11:11, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• Provided the exception you just outlined there is made clear, then I have no objection, since that is my only reason for arguing against deprecation ie using that status as an excuse to erase or dispute valid (and attributed) sourcing.Selfstudier (talk) 16:11, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

But deprecation is used to erase or dispute attributed sourcing, and to make a a misleading warning appear for discouraging anyone who tries to restore. Some facts -- that deprecation merely means disapproval according to primary dictionary definiton, that closers of Daily Mail and Breitbart RfCs made clear that any opinions not just aboutself are allowed, that even the "no moratorium" closer ToThAc acknowledged there was a consensus that there should have been prior discussions or WP:RFCBEFORE -- have been ignored or misunderstood. I'm happy to see that a Counterpunch cite has been restored on the Edward Said article, Wikipedia needs more such. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 20:37, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

articles using CounterPunch shouldn't automatically have their references removed This is what deprecation implicitly does. Deprecation means that a bot automatically revert any edits which add references with the website URL from IP and recently registered users. counterpunch.org is on User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList.

You argue for deprecation but what you describe seems to be more like WP:GUNREL. Most self-published aggregator sources like arXiv, Blogspot, Medium are GUNREL, not deprecated and they do not get automatically removed by bots when added by new/IP editors. RoseCherry64 (talk) 20:39, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

victimsofcommunism.org

victimsofcommunism.org is a website of an educational and research foundation with an academic council with research and education programs. It was previously discussed here, but just because people think it has an anti-communist bias (which it obviously does) isn't a valid reason to reject it as completely unreliable, per WP:BIASEDSOURCES. It certainly is a reliable source for it’s own views on communism, however biased some think that is, and the usage context in Mass killings under communist regimes is to present their attributed view: ”In 2016, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation made an effort to compile ranges of estimates using sources from 1976 to 2010, and wrote in its Dissident blog that the overall range "spans from 42,870,000 to 161,990,000" killed”, where the linked article Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation makes clear in the first line of that article it is a ”non-profit anti-communist organization”. --Nug (talk) 03:44, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• It seems Nug forgot to mention that this source has been recently a subject of the RSN discussion. Nug is perfectly aware of the previous discussion, so I have no clue why he never mentioned it.

In addition to that, the problem with this source not its reliability. It is closely affiliated with the US authorities: It was established by the Act of Congress, and is currently lead by Andrew Bremberg, a former director of the Domestic Policy Council in the Trump's administration. In addition to this source, the article cites three other sources that are closely affiliated with the US federal authorities of with VoC. That creates a serious bias, for Wikipedia is not supposed to reflect official position of any state.

In addition,this source provides desperately obsolete data for the USSR, so it is unreliable for the USSR and for the total figure. The highest figures available from modern data (e.g. Rosefielde) are at least three times lower.

In addition, the link to this "source" is a dead link. This information is available only from some web depository, and it is not at the official site any more. Therefore, there is no proof that these figures reflect a current position of VoC. No matter if this source reliable or not: it does not say that anymore, so, strict;y speaking, it is not a source. Paul Siebert (talk) 04:34, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

?? I did link the previous RSN discussion above. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also closely affliated with the US government and was established by an Act of Congress and is led by political appointees. --Nug (talk) 05:12, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

My bad, a blue colour is barely visible on my monitor.

However, your summary of previously expressed opinia is somewhat deceptive. Yes, majority of users pointed out that it is an extremely biased source, however, many of them noted its poor reputation in fact checking and accuracy, and their tendency to exaggerate figures.

WRT CDC, do you claim that CDC as a source is independent from the US government?

In addition, the main goal of VoC is not a study of Communism, but "educating Americans about the ideology, history and legacy of communism." In other words, this is not a neutral research institution, but the organisation that pursue some ideological goals in accordance with the policy of the US administration.

And, finally, you carefully avoid an answer to my criticism: it is no evidence that VoC figures reflect a current point of view of this organisation: its web site contains no such figures. I pointed your attention at that fact previously, why you restore a dead link? Paul Siebert (talk) 05:22, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

The Foundation is a bi-partisan non-profit, the Act of Congress that created the Foundation was signed into law by Democrat Bill Clinton. Regardless of your personal politics, the source is acceptable per WP:BIASEDSOURCES, and usage in this context is appropriately attributed to them. There are no policy issues against using Wayback machine, even Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Notes and Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#References uses it. Nug (talk) 05:44, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

BIASEDSOURCES say that biased sources may be reliable in the specific context, and that is exactly what I say: it is reliable for the views expressed by organisations that have close ties with US administration, but not for figures themselves, and that is a proper context for its usage.

WRT Wayback mashine, the main link is not dead in your example. Paul Siebert (talk) 05:57, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

The CDC also has close ties with the US administration, so this argument is nonsense. And the claim that it has a “poor reputation in fact checking and accuracy” is totally without any evidence what so ever. The Academic council is comprised of these scholars, many of them specialists in communist studies: Peter Rollberg (chair), Peter Boettke, Jonathan Brent, Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Paul A. Goble, Paul R. Gregory, Hope M. Harrison, John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, Mark Kramer, A. James McAdams, Sean McMeekin, Aaron Rhodes (editor of Dissident), David Satter, F. Flagg Taylor IV and George Weigel. --Nug (talk) 06:22, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

I share Paul Siebert's concern that the figures are not on the website anymore. JBchrch talk 06:35, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• If the figures compiled in 2016 are not on the website anymore, it appears as though the VoC memorial foundation doesn't stands by them anymore. The sentence should thus be removed from Wikipedia, especially if we identified methodological errors in the calculation. Mottezen (talk) 07:51, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Bias is not an issue and never is. I think this is usable with attribution.Slatersteven (talk) 10:13, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

They have stated that they include the entirety of the end-total global death toll resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic (which now stands at over five million) as part of their tally of historical victims of communism: 1 2 3 (see their executive summary for link 2, in which they make clear they are talking about the end total no matter what that is). Their TL;DR reason for this is "China and the W.H.O. lied, people died, it was all communism". You can make of that what you will, but it has made me rather skeptical of their judgement. I will grant that they haven't repeated this line since last year, though, to my best knowledge. Probably prefer better academic sources where possible. --Chillabit (talk) 12:55, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

OK and pushing Covid misinformation is enough for me to say no it is not an RS, it's political get in the way of factual reportingSlatersteven (talk) 13:23, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, that's enough reason to not take them seriously. Chuck 'em on the unreliable pile. XOR'easter (talk) 16:53, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Two notes. Firstly, if the source being used is currently a dead link, we cannot be sure the organization stands behind the opinion presented, and phrasing their support in the present tense is problematic. Further, if they attribute the entirety of COVID deaths to communism, I question the value of including deeply polemic sources in our articles. Is there no better source for the information you want to include? This one seems deeply dishonest. Hipocrite (talk) 13:26, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Due to the dead link and their COVID-19 misinformation and politicization, without any reliable source giving secondary coverage to that article and not being a good tertiary source on its own in light of all this, it is undue and not a good tertiary source. Attempting to merge it with other more reliable U.S. government sources, which has been Siebert's argument for using this and similar sources, would be too close to OR/SYNTH without a secondary source doing it for us. All of this may be worth to mention, including their fringe COVID-19 Communist death toll, at Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation as their own views but not anywhere else. Davide King (talk) 16:09, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation is an advocacy organization, and it should be treated as such. Use in-text attribution, use secondary sources to ensure due weight, and be cautious with WP:EXTRAORDINARY claims. MarioGom (talk) 18:20, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• Advocacy organizations are not reliable sources. Use scholarship. Levivich 03:06, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

  I am not in favor of using this website, as expressed above, but sometimes advocacy organizations can be reliable, such as WP:SPLC. JBchrch talk 03:20, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

• This idea that dead links no longer contain reliable information is incorrect. Because every link dies eventually. Links can be taken for many reasons that have nothing to do with reliability or "standing by" the data, it's the nature of online media. Otherwise we do we bother with archive links, delete ever citation when the link dies. -- GreenC 03:18, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

  This is true, but when an organization dedicated to anti-communism removes from its website the number of victims of communism, we might need to think about why that may be, and consider that it might not be just linkrot. (My personal and uninformed opinion is that it's probably because they don't want to host information that contradicts the "100 million" figure that they display prominently.) JBchrch talk 03:31, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

This is not the first time when this source is discussed here, therefore, in makes sense to collect all arguments in one place, to avoid their repetition. I checked the archived copy, and I found the "Works Consulted" section.

It is natural to conclude that these are the sources that were used for the final figure. Below, I analyse the quality of the sources from this list.

• Brzezinski, Zbigniew. Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 21st Century. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010.

Actually, this book was published in 1993: Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 21st Century. New York: Collier Books, 1993. ISBN 978-0684826363. I see no evidences that the figure of 60,000,000 million is a recent addition to the 2010 edition. Therefore, this book is the old source. In addition, the author mentions this figure in passing, it is highly unlikely this figure was a result of his own research.

• Courtois, Stéphane, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartošek, and Jean-Louis Marolin. The Black Book of Communism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.

This is a very controversial source, which was the subject of several RSN discussions ([52], [53], [54], [55]), and the figure of 85-100 million is the most criticised and controversial statements in this book.

• “Cambodians Recall Massacres.” AP, May 22, 1987. Per WP:NEWSORG, reliability of this source depends on context, and, since it is not clear what exact invormation VoC took from it, no judgement about its reliability can be made. The source looks desperately outdated.
• Fitzgerald, Mary Anne. “Tyrant for the taking.” The Times (London), April 20, 1991. Per guidelines, this source is reliable for the author's opinion. It is outdated too.
• Katz, Lee Michael. “Afghanistan’s President is Ousted.” USA Today, April 17, 1992. A piece of outdated news, which may or may not be reliable.
• Li, Cheng-Chung. The Question of Human Rights on China Mainland. Republic of China: World Anti-Communist League, 1979. What Is That Outdated Trash?
• Panin, Dimitri. Translated by John Moore. The Notebooks of Sologdin. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976. This is an outdated estimate of Soviet death statistics. ALL researchers who study USSR, including even Conquest, reconsidered their old data in light on freshly discovered archival documents that became available after fall of the USSR. This source is never used by serious modern historians.
• Rummel, R. J. Death by Government. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1994. AND
• Rummel, R. J. Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1990.

these two sources use the same data summarised by Rudolph Rummel. Rummel was a subject of the RSN discussions too ([56], [57] (this may be relevant too)), and a conclusion was that he is not reliable for figures. Some fresh source that supports this conclusion is Karlsson

"... there have been major differences between the results presented by radical spokespeople for the different paradigms. While Jerry Hough suggested Stalin’s terror claimed tens of thousands of victims, R.J. Rummel puts the death toll of Soviet communist terror between 1917 and 1987 at 61,911,000. In both cases, these figures are based on an ideological preunderstanding and speculative and sweeping calculations. On the other hand, the considerably lower figures in terms of numbers of Gulag prisoners presented by Russian researchers during the glasnost period have been relatively widely accepted."

I believe noone can question reliability of Karlsson.

• Tolz, Vera. “Ministry of Security Official Gives New Figures for Stalin’s Victims.” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Report. May 1, 1992. (The figure of seven million direct executions under Stalin, given by a member of the security services heading a commission for rehabilitation, may be taken as an absolute baseline figure to which should be added the many deaths suffered by labor camp inmates and the deaths preceding and following the Stalin period.) - Again, that is a desperately outdated piece of news.
• “Top defector says famine has killed over three million Koreans.” Agence France Presse, March 13, 1999. - the same.
• Vickery, Michael. Cambodia 1975 – 1982. Boston: South End Press, 1984. Actually, Cambodia is the only non-controversial piece of information. Interestingly, it is so uncontroversial, that the state that stopped this genocide was Communist Vietnam, and the state that started a propaganda campaign explaining the scale and horrors of this genocide was Communist USSR (while US provided Pol Pot with a tacit political support). That is arguable the only reliable source in this list.
• Zucchino, David. “’The Americans … They Just Drop Their Bombs and Leave.’” Los Angeles Times, June 2, 2002. - again, WP:NEWSORG.
• Matthew White’s website Necrometrics provides a useful compilation of scholarly estimates of the death toll of major historical events. - This is especially interesting. This source was authored by a self-described atrocitologist (who can explain me what does it mean?). However, what is interesting, this source takes information from: (i) Rudolph Rummel, Stephane Courtois, Zbigniew Brzezinski, i.e. the authors that are already named in this list.

Frankly, this desperately outdated sources that pick information from each other may be a reason why VoC removed this statement from their web site. The figures are outdated and unreliable.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:25, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

No one is claiming their figures are up to date and reliable, it is just a mention of their attempt to estimate it in 2016 "In 2016, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation made an effort to compile ranges of estimates...". Given it was made back in 2016, web archive of it is entirely appropriate. Regardless of your personal politics the VoCMF is a significant and notable organisation, their view ought to be presented regardless of your personal opinion of it. How would WP:NPOV be achieved if all right-wing views are removed from a politically charged topic. That why we have WP:BIASEDSOURCES. --Nug (talk) 01:28, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

You are actually advocating citing a source you acknowledge is outdated and unreliable in order to achieve 'WP:NPOV'? I suggest you read the first sentence of that policy: "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." WP:NPOV is achieved through citing reliable sources, not unreliable ones. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:41, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

You seem to have a poor understanding of policy. Read WP:BIASEDSOURCES: "Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. " Even if you think the view of Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation isn't objective, it can't be excluded if you want to achive NPOV. --Nug (talk) 01:54, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

That is not how NPOV works. Achieving NPOV doesn't require citing this source (or any source, see WP:NPOV#Bias in sources: This does not mean any biased source must be used...), and we certainly don't include biased sources in order to counterbalance other biased sources. We don't cite think tanks or advocacy groups because they are not reliable sources, because they are not independent of the subject they are covering (unlike scholarship and journalism). It's not about bias, it's about independence, and though WP:BIASEDSOURCES is part of WP:RS and not WP:NPOV, let's not forget the rest of what WP:BIASEDSOURCES says: When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering. This source does not meet the normal requirements for reliable sources because as an advocacy organization, it has a low level of independence from the topic. Levivich 02:15, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

The American Heart Association is also an advocacy organization, advocating heart health through its educational programs. I already pointed to the fact that VoCMF has an academic board, it has a research and educational program, what evidence do you have that is doesn't have a reputation for fact checking, apart from your personal opinion? --Nug (talk) 03:33, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

That's not the same kind of "advocacy". While the AHA might "advocate" for heart health, there is nobody on the other side advocating against heart health. Levivich 03:48, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

I won't comment on the rest of the RSN as I'd rather not involve myself with the whole communism assessment effort in the last few weeks (bless all of you with the patience to do so). I do want to comment that I am increasingly annoyed by marking all groups of people that hold an opinion, professional or otherwise, as equally guilty of advocacy. Advocacy groups have different characteristics, goals, and methods and they are not all the same. At this point I'm almost expecting to read someone say that the Arsonist Lobby Group (fictional) and the legislators of the US fire code are both advocacy groups and neither should be trusted. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 13:11, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

No, Nug, I do not have a 'poor understanding of policy'. You, on the other hand, seem to, given your apparent belief that 'balance' is to be achieved by selecting sources for their political perspectives, rather than for their compliance with elementary tenets of said policies. Frankly, I'm astonished that a contributor with your experience could have such a fundamental misunderstanding of such matters. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:38, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

NPOV means summarizing the available RS without distortion. If the available RS lean to the right, so too will the article content, probably, and likewise if they lean to the left. (For example, if the only places a book has been reviewed are the Wall Street Journal, the Economist and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, our article is going to read differently than if the reviews had been in the Guardian and the Daily Beast, and that's just how the cookie crumbles.) We don't aim for false balance by shoving mediocre sources under one side of the fulcrum. "Neutrality" doesn't mean saying one positive thing for every negative thing, or one left-wing thing for every right-wing thing. Sheesh. XOR'easter (talk) 03:16, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Oh, okay, so you are advocating removing any viewpoints by Kristen Ghodsee, a frequent contributor to Jacobin, a leading voice of the American left, with respect to MKuCR? --Nug (talk) 03:55, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

XOR'easter is correct. Of course, Nug avoided to mention in their fallacy that as an anthropologist, ethnographer, and specialist in former European Communist regimes, she is used for her speciality in memory analysis, that being a leftist is not considered to be an indictment to reliability in academia, that she is backed by other scholars like Neumayer, and she is used to say uncontroversial things about the use of body-counting and criticism. So that is indeed a strawman and false balance on their part. Davide King (talk) 11:58, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Nug, please, keep in mind that that is a "Reliable Source Noticeboard". Whereas neutrality considerations are still important, the primary issue that we are discussing here is reliability of the sources, which includes a reputation of fact checking and accuracy. To cite NPOV in a discussion about WP:V is disruptive.

During this discussion, we must come to a conclusion if this source uses a fresh and recent information or an outdated and unreliable one, and if it treats this information correctly. After that, we may decide (here or elsewhere) if this source can or cannot be used in some concrete context.

Do you have any objections to the statement that it uses obsolete data and is heavily based on the (highly controversial) Black Book figures and (even more controversial) Rummel's data? Do you have any rational objections to that?--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:04, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

You seem to be labouring under some kind of misconception that the total death toll is some kind of precise number, but as you know, it can never be a determined beyond an estimate, and there are many different estimates. As Harff states "That is in fact an inevitable problem for those seeking reliable data on mass casualties. Few perpetrators make accurate counts of their victims. Estimates diverge widely … I fully understand what it takes to collect reliable, unimpeachable global data. It is impossible. … Over time I have become more critical of country experts who challenge systematic empirical studies. Case studies are scarce, of dubious accuracy, or non-existent for some episodes of mass death, and estimates vary greatly. Some episodes dating back to before say, 1918 happened in countries that no longer exist or in countries that did not yet exist. Colonial authorities in Africa and Asia kept scarce or no records of birth or death rates. Perpetrators seldom keep records of their misdeeds and if they do, as in Nazi Germany, death estimates often are greatly underestimated or attributed to circumstances rather than deliberate policies.". I already pointed to the fact that VoCMF has an academic board, it has a research and educational program, what evidence do you have that is doesn't have a reputation for fact checking, and are less reliable than say, William Blum? --Nug (talk) 03:33, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Nobody is expecting an exact figure for a death toll, but there are such things as really bad estimates. As for the rest, well, the Discovery Institute has a board and claims to conduct research and educational programs. The existence of such things doesn't say very much at all. XOR'easter (talk) 03:53, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

But we still cite the Discovery Institute as to their view on Intelligent design. --Nug (talk) 03:59, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

The difference, of course, is that we are using secondary, independent reliable sources to summarize their views, not the Discovery Institute themselves, which can only be reliable for uncontroversial "About" stuff. We have no such secondary coverage about this Dissident blog article, which makes it undue, especially when several of the sources they cite, we already mention them. Their 40–160-ish range estimates have not been picked up by any reliable or scholarly source, and considering they said that they are going to add COVID-19 deaths to the body count, it is moot; it shows their unreliability, and went into fringe territory and misinformation. Davide King (talk) 12:08, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

@Nug: you are just unfamiliar with sources. There is a consensus among scholars that the number of Great Purge victims is about 1.2 million. There is some uncertainty, but it is minimal. There is a consensus that the number of GULAG deaths is in between 1.6 and 1.8 million, and the amount of people who passed through the GULAG system is 18 million, although if we include broader categories, the number of deaths may increase to 2.7 million. Even such an old school anti-Communist as Conquest recognized that. These are consensus figures, and to say otherwise is tantamount to claiming that the Holocaust killed, e.g. 10 million Jews. Only freaks may claim that.

A consensus figure of Great Purge deaths (including executions and camp deaths) is 1.2 million. Rummel says it was 4.3 million.

A consensus figure of GULAG deaths is 1.7 at most (ok, let's say 2.7, which may include deportation deaths). Rummel says that only post-Stalin camp deaths amounted to 6.8 million (according to all respectable scholars there were no GULAG in that time, and mortality in prisons was quite moderate, which means those 6.8 million were taken from this air).

A consensus figure for Soviet civilian deaths as a result of the policy of Soviet authorities during WWII (GULAG mortality, execution, etc) is ~1 million. Rummel says 13 million: that is bigger that all military losses and comparable with all civilian losses.

And so on, and so forth.

Note, I know the real figures, because it was me who added all (or a significant part of) this information to Wikipedia. I can prove that with sources. I can take (again) Rummel's "Death by government" from the library, and analyze each reference at this (or any other) Wikipedia page, and I can show that each source that Rummel uses the USSR is an obsolete piece of trash that is not recognized seriously by most (or all) experts in Soviet Russia.

I can do that, because I am familiar with sources, I know the present state of knowledge of this subject, and I want Wikipedia to be seen as a respectable informational resource, not a collection of various gossips and fairy tales.

In contrast, you can respond just with vague speculations that "noone can know for sure", and this your baseless assertion is the only justification of your persistent pushing of obsolete figures that discredits Wikipedia. Why are you doing that? Why are you not going to your library? Paul Siebert (talk) 05:37, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

They are RS for their views, not for those views being facts.Slatersteven (talk) 12:16, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Do I understand you correct that you said "VoC is a RS for the article about VoC, not about Communism"? If that is what you say, I, obviously, agree.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:54, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Not quite, what I meant is they are an RS for their views, not for those views being facts. So this would be more an issue of undue than RS. So we could say "according to...".Slatersteven (talk) 15:57, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

As I understand it, the 'views' they held regarding the specific issue being discussed are sourced to an archived webpage. Is there any reason to assume they still hold them? AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:02, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Irrelevant, they were pushing a conspiracy theory, that (to my mind) raises questions about impartially and fact-checking. Indeed if anything it makes it worse, as it (to my mind) implies they belived it when told to by their political masters, and now it's not being pushed by their political masters are no longer pushing it. That makes them a propaganda outfit, and thus need to be treated as such.Slatersteven (talk) 16:05, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Your argument is unclear. We can write "According to X, the Moon is made of blue cheese" only if there are serious reason to believe that the opinion of X is important and relevant to the article's topic. Therefore, we cannot put "According to VoC ... " at any article: we can do that only in a certain context, for example, in a context of anti-Communist propaganda, but not in a context of a neutral academic discourse.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:14, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Hence why I said "So this would be more an issue of undue than RS".Slatersteven (talk) 16:17, 15 December 2021 (UTC0

Clearly not a reliable source for the reasons given above. And if it isn't clear that they stand by a statement, we can't even use that with attribution. Doug Weller talk 17:03, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

In this one instance yes, I am talking about the wider issue of general reliability. I think it is clear they are far too biased to be used for statements of fact, about anything.Slatersteven (talk) 17:14, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• Unreliable, and the previous discussion concluded as much: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_329#Victims_of_Communism_Memorial_Foundation. Given the group's commentary on Covid-19, they seem to be approaching WP:FRINGE status. Should not be used in articles. --K.e.coffman (talk) 06:28, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
• Unreliable Arguments that as this organisation is "bipartisan" it is neutral are rather amusing! World politics exists between the Democrats and the Republicans, therefore if they agree something is true, it must be. In reality this source exists only to advocate a point of view that Communism is terrible and so cherry picks data to fit that pov. Things appear and disappear off its website but then come back in other places, it is not clear who writes which parts of its content and their qualifications. Its website is not organised enough to use securely, its official publications might be usable if prefixed with "anti-Communist advocacy group. the Victims of Communism memorial foundation states", but I would be very careful to find specific papers which have been cited by academics. Incidentally, I wonder why there is no Victims of Capitalism memorial foundation" in the USA? Boynamedsue (talk) 07:20, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
• Unreliable, per Doug Weller and K.e.coffman. Ought not to be used in articles. Vanamonde (Talk) 21:56, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
• Unreliable, per more or less all the arguments presented above, and per the previous discussion. Nothing in this discussion actually amounts to a serious claim that the source is 'reliable' per Wikipedia norms - instead inclusion of a clearly questionable source is being presented as as a means to make the article 'neutral' according to some imagined standard. That isn't how WP:RS works, it isn't how WP:NPOV works, and is fundamentally opposed to core principles of the project. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:10, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
• Unreliable. Putting aside the fact that they've pushed fringe views, there is no indication of any sort of fact-checking process or any degree of editorial controls on their website; they're not even purporting to make the basic effort that would let us start to consider whether a source is a WP:RS. They have no particular reputation for fact-checking or accuracy. There may be a few advocacy organizations that manage to pass WP:RS through these things, but the simple fact that something is an advocacy organization with a website obviously doesn't make them reliable. Similarly, I feel like people are turning WP:BIASED ass-backwards in discussions like these - bias alone does not disqualify a source, but bias alone certainly doesn't make a source reliable, either; some of the arguments above seem to basically say "the source is biased and you can't disqualify a biased source, therefore it is reliable!" The problem here isn't that the source is biased or even that they are an advocacy organization, the problem is that they are only these things, with no reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, editorial controls, or anything else outside of that that would make them usable as a RS. Also - and I am tired of belaboring this point, but it is necessary - WP:RSOPINION does not allow us to cite random unreliable sources just by slapping an in-text attribution on them; it is a subset of WP:RS. It defines sources that meet RS to an extent, but only enough for opinion; it is not something that allows RS to be ignored entirely, so some degree of a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy is still required. Otherwise, we could cite opinion to Reddit threads and random YouTube channels! The default standard for RSOPINION is eg. labeled opinion pieces in an RS, not just "is an advocacy org and has a website" - this is nowhere near that and is therefore a bad source even for opinion. --Aquillion (talk) 04:53, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• Additional considerations apply. VoCom is an anti-communist think tank. Like the vast majority of think tanks, there are some things that it produces that should just be ignored when writing an encyclopedia: VoCom's numbers on the Communist Death Toll suffer significant methodological problems and should not be used in WikiVoice. That being said, that topline death toll number is a very small amount of what they actually do; I'd strongly caution users against trying to use this discussion as a proxy for how they feel about the current state of mass killings under communist regimes. Personally, I would recommend ignoring everything written by a think tank that isn't actually written in a report or academic style (random blog pages, even from the Council on Foreign Relations, are not generally good things to cite). However, it would be very sloppy to label the foundation writ large with one broad stroke.

The area of the foundation that is most reliable is the academic research produced through its study centers. They break down into three silos: China Studies, Latin America programs, and Poland Studies. Each silo appears to operate without much overlap in terms of staffing. The China Studies and Latin America programs seem to be well-run. I have some concerns regarding the Poland Studies staffing choices.

The foundation's China Studies fellows are both well-respected and well-accomplished. Adrian Zenz, who is a world-renowned expert on the abuses in Xinjiang and regularly publishes peer-reviewed works on the subject in respected journals, is a fellow at the foundation. Ethan Gutmann, whose work on Organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China has been incredibly detailed and influential, is also a fellow in China Studies at the foundation. Matthew Robertson, the third China Fellow, is also the author of multiple peer-reviewed works on organ harvesting, such as this one published in the BMJ and this one in BMC Medical Ethics.

The director of Latin American Programs at the foundation, Carlos Ponce, is likewise a highly respected individual in the area of Latin American human rights work and has had significant experience at Freedom House before joining VoCom.

The Poland Studies fellows feel like a mixed bag. Chelsea Michta seems to be an expert on the Warsaw Uprising and memory politics following the fall of communism, and her thesis seems to be related to the topic area. Monika Brzozowska-Pasieka being in Poland Studies feels a bit odd; she appears to have most noted for suing Holocaust scholars for not being sufficiently pro-Pole. Anna Draniewicz seems to be an expert on the policial history of Polish-language films. seems like an expert on Polish history, while seems to be someone whose research on the Polish diaspora in the United States is respected. Maria Juczewska doesn't seem to have strong qualifications and her graduate research appears to largely have been biography writing on a notable Pole.

Many of the foundation's fellows are strong experts in their respective fields. This is particularly true for its China Studies programs, which are doing some of the most intensive research into the history of human rights abuses under the Chinese Communist Party's rule. That being said, there are definitely some odder characters in Poland studies and the methodology for its giant death toll figure is not rigorous.

Because of the above, I believe that there are some areas of the institution that are reliable and probably better than most WP:NEWSORG-level sources, while others are clearly unreliable. This leads me towards a classification that additional considerations apply, with the particular context of the source (the author, format, and relation of the content to the author's area of expertise) being something to consider when using it. — Mhawk10 (talk) 07:08, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Completely agree with your point about MKUCR. Regarding your points, I feel that if the academics are reliable experts and have published quality work in peer-reviewed journals, one could cite the work in the journals. Others above have mentioned concerns about the editorial process of the organization, and if this holds I don't see a strong argument for finding it reliable as there is no guarantee except trust in the authors that the work they publish is reliable, I think. Note this is a strong opinion weakly held, though. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 09:23, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Demote People magazine

People magazine copied the Daily Mirror on a story that was cited on Cate Blanchett#Personal life. Many other websites copied the Daily Mirror also. I found Wikipedia:Reliable sources that contradict that story. Demote People magazine. ... 0mtwb9gd5wx (talk) 05:31, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Are you talking about this article? And if so, what is the relevant Daily Mirror article? --SVTCobra 10:28, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• It is unlikely that a single error (even if it was an error) would lead to any source being demoted from its reliability status. I am also unclear on which information is an issue? There is a single cite to People Magazine, this one, and it itself cites the The Courier-Mail, a reliable Australian newspaper, and not the Daily Mirror. Can you be more specific over which citation you are challenging? --Jayron32 13:37, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• No. A publication should generally not be "demoted" based on a single small piece. MarioGom (talk) 18:16, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• I almost feel like that should be at the top of RSN somewhere - we keep seeing people coming in here demanding that a source have it entire status changed based on a single article from them that they find objectionable, without even any secondary sourcing backing up their reading or supporting the idea that it changed their reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. WP:RS doesn't mean "never makes mistakes ever", and it's particularly useless to try and evaluate sources based on a subjective reading of one article or an editor's personal argument that it was wrong with no secondary coverage. --Aquillion (talk) 23:31, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• It makes no difference; people who are that narrow-minded are unlikely to RTFM anyways; warning people not to do specifically idiotic things only reaches people who are non-idiotic enough to not do it in the first place. --Jayron32 14:17, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

India: A Country Study, Federal Research Division, Library of Congress

Source: Heitzman, James; Worden, Robert, eds. (1995), India: A Country Study (PDF), Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, p. 571

Statement in source: "There was some opposition to this move within the cabinet by those who did not agree with referring the Kashmir dispute to the UN. The UN mediation process brought the war to a close on January 1, 1949. In all, 1,500 soldiers died on each side during the war."

Discussion: Talk:Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948#6000 casualties figure

Statement to be supported: Result in infobox per this edit

Summary: This is a highly partisan topic and is subject to DS. The talk page discussion started by questioning Pakistani casualties quoted as 6,000 killed, citing Globalsecurity.org and a figure of 1,500 killed. There is no consensus as to the reliability of that source but it actually cites India: A Country Study (the subject of this post). The Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948 was initially fought by proxy until the ultimate engagement of both national militaries. It is unclear from the other sources cited precisely what they are reporting as casualties (ie national military casualties v total combatant casualties). The other sources are not great, in that they are largely Indian in origin. The subject edit would add the 1,500 figure to both sides. However, the reliability of the source (India: A Country Study) has since been questioned, citing WP:CONTEXTMATTERS.

Question: Is the subject source (India: A Country Study) sufficiently reliable to support the edit made to the infobox in respect to casualties.

Cinderella157 (talk) 11:16, 13 December 2021 (UTC) I have no ties to either country.

Comments (India: A Country Study)

• Not a reliable source for the purpose.

• That being said, what is the end-game? A majority of men employed by Pakistan were irregulars supplied with arms-stashes and money; who had recorded those casualties? There is a reason why even semi-official histories (see Shuja Nawaz et al) skips mentioning casualty-counts. TrangaBellam (talk) 11:47, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• The time of the event is around late 1940's. This makes it very difficult to gather enough information on the casualty figures. Wikipedia was earlier quoting an indian figure which seems to have no official source and was not reliable enough. The 1,500 casualty figure estimate is the most neutral source on the internet neutral source at page 571 and is quoted by global security.org . It is also cited in some university work. No concensus can even be reached on global security.org not being suitable for being quoted. It has been cited in over 25,000 articles and also by Reuters and new york times as well as Washington Post which are considered reliable sources and its citation in some 25,000 articles on Google Scholar. It is only logical to quote both the 1,500 and 6000 figures as an estimate. Going by what TrangaBellam, that would mean removal of all the casualty section as this argument will even apply for the 6000 figure, which also it not a sure shot reliable source. Truthwins018 (talk) 13:49, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• Not reliable for the purpose, as I already said on the article talk page. It looks to me that somebody sitting in Washington DC just made a wild guess. The Indian History of the War says the following:

During the long campaign, the Indian Army lost 76 officers, 31 JCOs and 996 Other Ranks killed, making a total of 1103. The wounded totalled 3152, including 81 officers and 107 JCOs. Apart from these casualties, it appears that the J & K State Forces lost no less than 1990 officers and men killed, died of wounds, or missing presumed killed . The small RIAF lost a total of 32 officers and men who laid down their lives for the nation during these operations. In this roll of honour, there were no less than 9 officers. The enemy casualties were definitely many times the total of Indian Army and RIAF casualties, and one estimate concluded that the enemy suffered 20,000 casualties, including 6,000 killed.

So, the Indian casualties were in excess of 3,000 and the Washington estimate misses it by a wide margin. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:16, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

The India country Study states 1500 Indian soldiers died, so it's off by 397 from the Indian History of the War. However, it's unclear whether it includes the J&K/AJK/GB/Chitral forces for either side and if it does, it would indeed be off by a wide margin. Cipher21 (talk) 20:40, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

There may be some confusion of terminology. Casualty is killed+wounded. It's apples and oranges to compare 1,500 killed with over 3,000 casualty. -- GreenC 03:47, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

• This source doesn't rule out that the 1,500 figure is wrong. The 6000 Pakistani casualty figure and 3000 indian casualty figure still turns out to be an indian claim. The 1,500 comes out to be a seperate estimate of casualties, not related with }}. No official pakistani casualty figures were released and thus the source cannot be ruled out. Your source only suggests thats the indian killed figure be changed to 1,500-3000 and Pakistani be kept at 1,500-6000. Truthwins018 (talk) 19:03, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
  • The question that is being discussed is whether it is reliable for the purpose. I gave evidence that proves that it is not. The best you can do is to quote it verbatim in the body. It is nor reasonable to split it up into pieces and format it in whatever way. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:44, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• For the sake of including a neutral perspective I agree with using it. Currently, the article cites Indian figures. Cipher21 (talk) 20:40, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• I agree with including it, as a range. The source is widely cited by other reliable sources as noted by Truthwins018. Furthermore reliable sources are not required to cite their sources to be reliable. A research division within the Library of Congress is not faultless, I doubt any numbers are definitive, but it would require more than Wiki editors disagreeing with the numbers to exclude it from the article, particularly when given as a range. -- GreenC 03:37, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

References

• Unreliable for the purpose. The source which is India: A Country Study is clearly not widely cited. The assertion that it is, is based on a different website called globalsecurity.org quoting it. The website globalsecurity.org which looks like a group blog, is the one being used as a source for an opinion in one NYT article and produces 25k+ results on google scholar (every result after the 8th is from the website itself). This is very marginal use in RS, not to mention its use is irrelevant to the actual query here. Searching for India: A Country Study itself produces similarly barebone results. The subject of the source is an overall profile of India and is not specific to the military history of the Kashmir Conflict. The topic area needs specialist academic sources, especially for things like casualty estimates. On a sidenote, looking at the infobox of the article, every single source without exception, that is cited for the casualties is similarly problematic in some respect or the other. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 08:06, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

• Wide citation of global security.org has already been mentioned by SpicyBiryani on the talk page of 1947-1948 indo-pak war.The founder of the website is John Pike. John Pike is one of the worlds leading expert on defence in the world and more can be read about him in the sources cited.Global security also has a reputed range of staff with wide experience in the field of defence.Global security has been cited in Reuters by an article worked upon by Reuters Staff. It has been cited in CNN . It has been cited in Washington Post here, here ,here. It has been cited by NYT [58], [59]. Some of the book citations are:

• Fair, C. Christine. Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014 ,ISBN 978 0 1998 9270 9.
• Cordesman, Anthony H. Al-Rodhan, Khalid R. Gulf military forces in an era of asymmetric wars. Westport, Conn. : Praeger Security International ,2007.
• Anthony H. Cordesman, Martin Kleiber, Iran's Military Forces and Warfighting Capabilities: The Threat in the Northern Gulf

All the book citations may be viewed here. It has been cited in numerous books on National Security. [60]

As for the subject issue, The book does concentrate on one of the participants of the war. The killed figures are given in a seperate National Security section. We till date are not equipped with accurate figures of the casualties from the war. An indian version of figures are available. A neutral version is established from this source. It is only wise to continue with an estimated range of casualty figures which gives all the figures Truthwins018 (talk) 10:09, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

• I see merit in the arguments of those who esteem the source unreliable for the purpose for which it is being used on the main page. There is hardly any correlation between the reliability of a source and the magnitude of hits it gets on a search engine. The tangible criteria are enumerated and enunciated at WP:RS and there is no indication that this source, which uses a broad-brush to coalesce the two countries' casualties under a single sentence with unwarranted brevity, measures up when the yardstick of WP:RSCONTEXT is applied. Kerberous (talk) 12:27, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

References

• It definetely fulfils on the criteria of WP:RS. Your opinion WP:OR is irrelevant in the present criteria. The source directly cites the material and its under a seperate section of Natural security. Vaious citations of globalsecurity.org does increase its reliability especially by already considered reliable sources and none of the discussion was aimed at " magnitude of hits"Truthwins018 (talk) 14:03, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Afghan Chronicle

I would like your thoughts and opinion on the source that I am about to discuss. I came across this source on couple of articles related to Durrani Empire Emperors. Here is the link to the entire book/source. [61]. At first glance, I didn't pay much attention but when I started reading it for verification, I found the book to be written with great prejudice against non-Muslims (calling them Kafirs and infidels), bias, exaggerated, and has misrepresentation of facts. So it led me to read the introduction of book where details about the author and the history behind the book is given and this is where I realized why this source is highly unreliable as the book was politically motivated. This book was written on the order of Emir (King/Emperor) of Afghanistan, Habibullah Khan, by "Afghan Court Chronicle", Faiz Mohammed Kateb Hazara, who was originally a copyist and was hired by Emir Habibullah Khan as a scribe and copyist. Here are some details directly from the introduction that proves its unreliability.

1. The book was Amir’s idea for commissioning a history of Afghanistan and his choosing Fayz Muhammad to produce it. (xxxii). We will probably never know why the Prince (before becoming Emir) settled on this Hazarah Shiʿi (talking about Fayz), who was then in his late thirties or early forties, as the best candidate to write the history of Afghanistan. It seems on the surface an unusual choice. (xxxiii)

2. Reason behind commissioning a history book: Hasan Kakar has written that it was in part disgust at the “licentious life” of the amir that gave rise to a brief and abortive constitutional movement in Kabul. But Habib Allah Khan was also a very canny politician and it was sound political instinct that led him to commission a history of the country, in part to create a story of the past that gave meaning to his father’s brutal attempts at forging a nation, and in part to validate his own tenuous position as absolute monarch. All we really know for certain about Habib Allah’s plan are his own words, as recorded by Fayz Muhammad, at the beginning of the Sirāj al-tawārīkh. (xxxiv)

3. The amir expected to have full control over the finished product and to review the work in progress. We know with reasonable certainty how this control was exerted in the case of the third volume of the Sirāj. The Tuḥfat, however, and the first two volumes of Sirāj were reviewed, edited or censored, and sent back for revisions somewhat differently. (xxxvii)

4. In the case of Tuḥfat al-Ḥabīb and the first two volumes of Sirāj al-tawārīkh, it appears that Fayz Muhammad submitted the volumes entire and in a final draft and these were what were read and edited by the amir and others and by copy editors whose specialties were the Arabic and Persian usages. (xxxvii)

5. Unpleasant truths were systematically eliminated. (xcvi) An attempt would be made to control not just his output but the very sources to which Fayz Muhammad had access.(xxxviii)
Given the scope of the work and Fayz Muhammad’s proximity to people at court, he probably also received many more solicited and unsolicited anecdotes and much advice as he worked. (xci)

6. Biased Sources: These may also have been the same men Amir Habib Allah assigned to keep an eye on the work and its progress. Fayz Muhammad names three of them “and others.” The three named were Sardar Muhammad Yusuf Khan, the nineteenth son of Amir Dust Muhammad Khan; Qazi Saʿd al Din Khan, son of Qazi ʿAbd al-Rahman Khan; and Sardar Nur ʿAli Khan, the son of Sardar Shayr ʿAli Khan Qandahari. All three were Barakzaʾi Durranis. The first and third were of the Muhammadzaʾi branch of the Barakzaʾi and the first and second had already been involved as supervisors of the Tuḥfat al-Ḥabīb.

7. The reader should be aware that Fayz Muhammad always had some one looking over his shoulder as he worked. These included the people that have been identified above as well as others not identified, no doubt including the official(s) in charge of the archives and any number of kibitz ers and courtiers who might have thought they had something to add or some change to suggest as Fayz Muhammad’s work progressed. (xcvi)

8. The amir himself would have been obliged to read more carefully for errors of commission or interpretation. (xcvii)

9. Example of censorships by the Amir when reviewing the draft: The first of these substantial deletions is worth repeating here because of the consequences it had on text that followed. While he (ʿAbd al-Rahman Khan) was on the march a letter from Griffin reached him saying, “Come to Kabul as quickly as you can and adorn the throne of authority.” In reply to this letter, he wrote, “I have high hopes of the English government and I sincerely offer my friendship. Yet the people of Afghanistan consider it one of the habits and tendencies of the great (English) government that the words of a person whom they don’t know negotiating about their wel fare (those words) often bear no fruit. The people who are with me wanted to know before allowing a response to his [Griffin’s] emissary six things: first, where will the borders of Afghanistan be? Second, will Qandahar be part of Afghanistan or separated from it? Third, will an Englishman reside in Afghani stan? Fourth, will the English government expect me to take up arms against her enemies? Fifth, what benefits will the English government promise me and the people of Afghanistan? Sixth, in return for such benefits, what services does the English government expect that the answer to these questions will impose on my fellow tribesmen and co-religionists as obligations so that I can obtain their trust to the extent that will make it possible to fulfill these things. Then I will seek the approval of these terms which are possible to fulfill and although the English government is not so in need (now), one day when the necessary occasions arise I will serve that government along with my people. The end. By the time Amir Habib Allah Khan was reading the text, it may have sounded far too solicitous of English interests. He did not want his father to appear to have been willing to bargain away border claims, hint at a willingness to give up Qandahar, or worst of all, to show himself ready to fight with the English against its enemies (i.e. Russia). But having deleted this he then had to delete all the references that follow concerning Griffin’s replies to the six points raised by the letter. These are major deletions totaling some seven pages of manuscript and more than 1,600 words. (xcix)

10. Here is another example of censorship: We find a detail in volume two deleted for no explicable reason. (Again, the deletion is in italics.) “Meantime, Yar Muhammad, a merchant who resided at Tashqurghan, came to Sardar ʿAbd al-Rahman Khan with many splendid gifts, an act which caused the sardar to wonder, ‘Why, of all the people of that region would this person come to me bearing gifts?” Eventually, he discovered that Shayr Dil Khan Luynab, a former governor of Balkh, had entrusted a sum of money—four thousand Russian tillas, ten thousand Bukharan tillas, sixty thousand Kabuli rupees, two thousand balīt, each one of which was worth one hundred rupees, from government coffers (the treasury of Balkh) to this merchant and the merchant himself having informed the sardar of this, the sardar sent Faramarz Khan, a ghulam-slave of his, with the man to bring all the money from Tashqurghan.” What would have possessed someone to delete this section? Was it because he checked the documents and could not find these details? Or did the episode somehow reflect badly on Amir Habib Allah Khan’s father because the passage implies that he accepted a large sum of government money for his own use? This is a general problem with explaining the deletions. It is not clear what motivated the amir or the other readers to remove what seem often to be wholly innocuous passages while allowing to stand the long detailed sections on his father’s brutal mistreatment of the Hazarahs. (xcviii)

11. Drafting the Sirāj, presenting it for review, re-writing it to satisfy the reviewers and the amir, and then dealing with the typesetter would have kept Fayz Muhammad fully occupied. He was also assiduously collecting material for the projected volume four, the volume to be devoted to Habib Allah Khan’s reign. (xlix)

So based on some of the points that I provided directly from the introduction of the book, would you consider this source reliable or unreliable? MehmoodS (talk) 19:23, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• Unless I'm misunderstanding, the book you linked to is a translation of an early-20th-century text, and thus not an RS due to its age. Levivich 19:43, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

  It's not necessarily that simple, see comments at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_360#Age_of_a_history_book._How_old_is_considered_too_old_to_be_cited?. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:27, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Levivich Correct. Its a translation of an early 20th century text. Thank you for your input. MehmoodS (talk) 20:27, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

I am certainly not an expert on Afghan history (or pretty much anything else) but I think it would depend on how this book is used. Bias is not necessarily automatic disqualification. Nor is age. And if I am reading you correctly, the censorship was through omission and not addition of falsehoods. You don't give examples of how this book is used as a citation. But as concept, it is conceivable it could be used as a source. It might have some facts that are nowhere else to be found. If stacked up against better source which contradicts it, it should probably lose. It really depends on how it is used. --SVTCobra 02:47, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

• SVTCobra Censorship was by removing unpleasant views. See point number 5. Point number 9 is an example. The source is being used as reference to describe battle events as well as the number of strength and casualities. Of course, the events and the numbers have been overly exaggerated to make own community look impressive in the public view. That was the intention of the king anyways. Modern historians have provided realistic numbers for the same events. Such as in the book, it states that 30000 Indians were killed at a battle during the capture of Multan, but modern scholars such as Hari Ram Gupta and others say that it was 3000. So its a clear example of exaggeration when writing the book where the writer was overlooked by others in the Afghan court of the king. See point number 7 and 11 that I mentioned from the introduction pages. MehmoodS (talk) 13:26, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Eh? This is at the very best a primary source. The age is certainly a disqualifier, in this case there is not even an attempt at using any form of historiographical methodology but instead it's a non-independent court chronicle, i.e a piece of propaganda. Outside exceptional circumstances, this shouldn't be used at all. One should be relying on modern scholarship for historical topics not whatever junk that may be available. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 05:38, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Tayi Arajakate Agreed. Same thoughts. MehmoodS (talk) 13:34, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

MehmoodS, this particular source cannot be considered as reliable IMO. Thanks. Ekdalian (talk) 06:30, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Enciclopedia d'arte italiana

Is the Enciclopedia d'arte italiana a relibale source for biographical articles? The article we have on it says that Entries are edited by a scientific technical committee. It's website https://www.enciclopediadarte.eu/eng/info.asp says that In this contest artists are allowed to introduce their biography, photos of works with their quotations, reviews and events during the past years.Each artists could decide on his own the literature to publish. Vexations (talk) 12:06, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

I'd say no - sounds like a vanity publication. Might be acceptable for dates of birth, & such like. Johnbod (talk) 12:15, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Oh, yes: " Three possible admissions:

COMMON MEMBER – € 120 1^year - € 100 the following years

It offers 1500-character line equal to about 18 lines + 2 photos of works.Inside you can include biography, reviews, exhibition you attended, artistic characteristic and everything you desire to better define your own activity.It is very important to state personal reference: address, telephone number, e-mail and website if you have" Johnbod (talk) 12:18, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

The entry is written by the artist concerned, with no fact checking. We can not even guarantee the most basic biographical data as people may lie about all kinds of personal information for whatever reason. I would suggest it is only reliable for the artists' opinion of their own work. Having said that, the entries will likely be written in the third person, so we shouldn't really cite it as their opinion, as the EdAI article pretends it is written by a disinterested third party. Just avoid it. --Boynamedsue (talk) 08:40, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Query about new source for Prehistoric religion

I found this recently added by User:PSYCHREL: "However, reconstructions of ancestral character states using time-calibrated supertrees based on published phylogenetic trees and linguistic classification indicated that the earliest trait of religion, present in the most recent common ancestor of modern hunter-gatherers, was animism. Following the development of belief in an afterlife, shamanism and ancestor worship developed."

Besides the fact that you seem to need to be an expert to understand it (see Ancestral reconstruction for an explanation and a mention of its flaws and of course Phylogenetic tree) the only paper I can see discussing it is this[62] which doesn't mention the claim. Doug Weller talk 17:08, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi Doug,

Thanks for your comment. I can glady rewrite it as to make it more consumable.

Here are the sources in which the the results are identified:

Mace, R., & Holden, C. J. (2005). A phylogenetic approach to cultural evolution. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 20(3), 116–121.

Lewis, P. O. (2001). A likelihood approach to estimating phylogeny from discrete morphological character data. Systematic Biology, 50(6), 913–925.

Another source that is in-press is:

Basava, K., Zhang, H., & Mace, R. (2021). A phylogenetic analysis of revolution and afterlife beliefs. Nature human behaviour, 10.1038/s41562-020-01013-4. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-01013-4

Also, thank you for attaching the Dunbar (2020) article, I have not yet read it, and will do so now.

I will also attach the link to the Peoples et al. (2016) article that can be accessed for free: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12110-016-9260-0.pdf PSYCHREL (talk) Austin PSYCHREL (talk) 17:28, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

This strikes me as more in the nature of "interesting thought experiment" than it is "verifiable knowledge." But, of course, with infinite specialization, those lines can blur. I am going to try to dig in a bit, but my gut says probably not something we should be presenting as established fact. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 17:32, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

• I don't recognise the other authors, but the late Frank W. Marlowe was a distinguished cultural anthropologist[63] and the journal Human Nature seems perfectly fine. Ancestral state reconstruction is an accepted method of the cultural evolution school of anthropology, e.g. in studies of the evolution of kinship: [64][65][66][67]. So yes, I would say it's a reliable source, just not presented particularly accessibly and perhaps a little bit on the primary side for a broad-concept article like prehistoric religion (but with 142 citations according to Google Scholar, it shouldn't be too hard to contextual). – Joe (talk) 17:35, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

As the primary author of the article in its current state, I had the same assessment that the journal, author/s known to me, and methodology were acceptable, but that the statement was very...certain...for its context. I tweaked it to a more conservative claim that Psychrel tweaked in turn (in an edit that maybe shouldn't have been marked minor, but I give leeway to new editors for that and my watchlist shows minor edits anyway) to this, which I'm letting stand, although anyone is free to work on the wording further. (I also modified the cite style a bit, closer to that in the rest of the article, per WP:CITEVAR on keeping a consistent one in an established article.) Vaticidalprophet 09:58, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Since I read a lot about biology and anthropology: linking culture and biology has always been controversial and phylogeny generally means trees of sequence organism taxonomic groups (and there are whole books about that including about the limits of biology to explain culture). If phylogeny here is meant to suggest genetics, rather than only being a metaphor for sub-branches of culture, it should probably be avoided without secondary sources putting those in their theoretical context. If it is a metaphor for a sequence, it may have merit in the history of religion... There obviously was a point where the mix of symbolic thinking and factors like fear resulted in the development of religiosity (and animism and fertility cults are indeed considered to be very early expressions, before the development of agriculture and more organized religion). I can understand the "most recent common ancestor" in this context, but it's still strange to see that terminology used. I suggest to at least make sure that it is framed a context where phylogeny including its vocabulary are borrowed, to avoid suggesting genetic links. —PaleoNeonate – 11:36, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree with User:PaleoNeonate and appreciate the work being done to modify the wording. I an also wary of the term "most recent common ancestor" not just because it can be confusing and usually suggests genetic links, but because IMHO it implies a lot more certainty than is warranted. Doug Weller talk 14:49, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

References

Andrew Ford, In Defence of Classical Music, ABC Books

Any thoughts about the reliability of this source? (The published name is ... really unhelpful for my half-hearted efforts to determine if they're a serious outfit.) It's currently the only independent source being used on the BLP Ross Bolleter. --JBL (talk) 00:51, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

ABC Books is part of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (see also ABC Commercial). The ABC is Australia's national public broadcaster. One can be confident that this publisher is at least as reliable as any serious generalist publisher. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:17, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

The OP might want to consult Andrew Ford (composer). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:40, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Obviously the sourcing in that article is substandard (although the above seems to answer the OP with "the source is reliable"). However, the COI ("close connection") tag should be removed. The editor concerned made a small number of edits in April 2014 and has not edited since. That does not warrant a tag. Johnuniq (talk) 08:47, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks all for your feedback. My takeaway is that this article, despite all of its obvious problems, has one legitimate source and quite possibly meets GNG; so conceivably a good article could in principle be written about the subject. Since I (obviously) know nothing about the area, I will just leave it be. Johnuniq, you are of course welcome to remove the tag (the Who Wrote That? tool attributes to User:Rossbolleter roughly 1/3rd of the article, and the number of edits to the article since 2014 is small, but I am happy to defer if you think it's not a good reason to keep the tag around). [I am not watching this page, but will respond if pinged.] --JBL (talk) 14:50, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Are AP and CNN reliable for putting the allegation of the China COVID-19 cover-up in Wikivoice?

Several RSs, including AP, CNN, the BBC and PBS have documented evidence of a Chinese government cover-up of the early outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan. This evidence includes accidentally released and leaked documents from the Chinese government (threatening "harsh punishment" for any scientist sharing data), and secret recordings of WHO officials (like Mike Ryan). How much more evidence do we need in order to call this a cover-up in Wikivoice, like the American cover-up of Japanese war crimes, and to have a page on it as a notable set of allegations, like Allegations of CIA drug trafficking? This is a sister post of a complaint I filed in ANI about the Inappropriate closing of an MR discussion that sought to cover up the cover-up allegation on Wikipedia. Gimiv (talk) 15:22, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Well as CNN does not say there was a cover up, no (read wp:v).Slatersteven (talk) 15:29, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I should point out that Gimiv is forum-shopping because they don't like that I've called bullshit on the conspiracy theory cottage that they totally innocently and not suspiciously at all jumped straight into. Sceptre (talk) 22:16, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

There isn't much question about the reliability of CNN or AP. So I'm not sure if this is a question for RSN. Adoring nanny (talk) 16:21, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

• After glancing over those sources and the talk page discussion, I'm going to guess that the issue people have with the bit you're trying to add is WP:OR / WP:SYNTH and WP:V in general rather than WP:RS. The question isn't whether those sources are generally reliable, the question is whether you are summarizing them accurately and using them appropriately (ie. not in a way that implies things that goes beyond what they specifically state; with appropriate WP:WEIGHT for their focus, etc.) At a glance I'm not seeing them using the words "cover-up" or anything similar in the article text - the one that has the words there at all, the CNN one, specifically quotes them as saying that it was probably not an intentional cover-up. "You can never guarantee 100% transparency. It's not just about any intentional cover-up, you are also constrained with by technology and other issues with a novel virus." Articles saying that the Chinese government was initially secretive and slow to cooperate are not at all the same as articles saying there was some sort of cover-up - the latter implies something specific was being intentionally concealed and is therefore an WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim requiring sources that actually say that. I'm not seeing that here at a glance (but, again, it's a better question for eg. WP:NPOVN or WP:FRINGEN or other noticeboards that look at and evaluate what the sources actually say and how closely we're adhering to that in more depth.) --Aquillion (talk) 04:38, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, none of those sources state that there is a cover-up - Although Aquillion, I don't think the CNN source states the opposite; it quotes an individual stating the opposite, but it doesn't make the statement itself. BilledMammal (talk) 04:41, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

It is an awkwardly-worded quote (so I would be opposed to using it in the article for that reason), but in context I read it as being largely dismissive, ie. saying that China may have downplayed the severity early on even when they knew better but that this was part of a larger chain of failures by everyone involved across multiple nations. It absolutely is not talking about anything to do with the pandemic's origins, which is the article's focus, and would therefore be inappropriate or misused in that context. --Aquillion (talk) 19:47, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

It would be more accurate to say that these sources report allegations of a cover-up, rather than that they themselves allege a cover-up. They are clearly reliable sources so this is an issue of how they are used rather than of reliability and so this might be better addressed at a different noticeboard. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:53, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Others have covered the fact that these sources do not say there was a cover-up, but I want to raise another issue. There has been a proliferation of these sorts of WP:POVFORK articles, which look like they're written in order to give certain political views Wikipedia's imprimatur. They often cite real sources, but they weave them together in order to try to make an argument that's not clear from the sources. Anyone could write an article entitled, US COVID-19 cover-up, citing Trump's statement to Woodward that he (Trump) intentionally downplayed the seriousness of the virus ([68]). But should Wikipedia have such an article? -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:34, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

This is consistent with what I've observed since the beginning of the pandemic, —PaleoNeonate – 23:15, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I note we have an article Trump administration communication during the COVID-19 pandemic which accurately states that "Trump repeatedly uttered falsehoods regarding the pandemic". Perhaps this could be a model for our coverage in general? Of course, a key difference is that in the US system the state is much more plural, and the president's words often contradict those of federal agencies, those of other branches of government or those of state governments, for example, which is not the case with China. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:51, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

I think it depends on how large and notable the subtopic is. For example, we have Presidency of Richard Nixon and Watergate Scandal. The latter is effectively a cover up article and a subarticle of the Presidency article. By contrast, the article on Jimmy Carter contains a brief mention of "lust" and "adultery in my heart", but it is not a subarticle, presumably because it is simply too trifling. Adoring nanny (talk) 21:33, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

An article about sexual consent in Bollywood

Planning to refer article 'Rape Jokes In Popular Culture: The Violation Of Consent Is Not Funny In Any Context~ Jyni Verma ' in Sexual consent related articles.

• Discussion over here might be referred @ WP: Women related project talk pages.

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 03:26, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

This is a op-ed, as indicated by the content of the article (As a society, we tend to validate rape jokes and continue to give space for them) and the fact that its author is not a professional journalist. Per WP:RSEDITORIAL, it's not reliable for factual claims; it is only reliable for the attributed opinions of its author, provided that they are WP:DUE. JBchrch talk 05:15, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

The Wire

Source: [[69]] Article: Getatchew Mekurya biography musical artist passed away in 2016 Content: also see talkpage Talk:Getatchew_Mekurya#Contradicting_sources_about_what_he_played_first

The Wire comes with new information about Getatchew Mekurya in 2017, source is based on Terp label which he worked with, it looks reliable source. It claims Nobody in Ethiopia has really seen these pictures or knows about the whole history – just lack of media it contradicts on some points from earlier sources such as the NYT article [[70]] about his early life when he decided to take up the sax, what instruments he played. The Wire comes with new info that i have not seen in other sources such as being an actor in the 50's as a standout.

It's probably not contentious, if i just combine the new findings from Wire with earlier sources, it's just that some of the new findings is only mentioned by The Wire. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 07:30, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Update i would also add i couldn't find Amharic articles that mentions the new findings of The Wire (about alleged acting background, playing the flute, hearing the sax on the radio and then deciding it was the instrument of choice etc).Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 08:38, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

The Wire is a very high quality source on music itself, but for details like this that are contradicted elsewhere I might wonder a bit. I would assume the writer repeated what the source told them, but didn't investigate too much further. I'd state it with attribution if using it - David Gerard (talk) 13:07, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

The Wire is a highly reliable music publication. The claims in their article is not from their research, it comes from a label and a band that worked very close with the subject and I would assume it's more accurate than the NYT obituary given that it's from a source closer to the subject. RoseCherry64 (talk) 17:01, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

The wire is one of the highest quality music publications there is in general, but if two reliable sources contradict then best to use clear attribution and show what sources the reliable sources themselves use. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:11, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Reliability of IWMBuzz.com

Source: IWMBuzz.com – partial disclosure of funding here.

Past discussions:

• Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 261#Reliability Of IWMBuzz
• Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 1086#Reliable sources for Article
• Talk:Silsila Badalte Rishton Ka#About reference (iwmbuzz.com)
  • This discussion led to the source being depreciated at Wikipedia:WikiProject Film/Indian cinema task force#Guidelines on sources

A few examples for Articles/Content:

• Sonu Nigam lede: "recognized as one of the most versatile singers of all time"
• Atif Aslam lede: "he is often considered one of the best playback singers in the Indian and Pakistani music industries of all times"
• Maharshi_(2019_film) "it was featured on the various year-end best film charts."
• Urvashi Dholakia "The character was described by IWMBuzz as one of the most iconic characters on Indian television."
• Karn Sangini "After 30 episodes the show underwent a complete revamp in the story line.""
• Prashant Narayanan lede: "He was last seen in the Zee5 originals web series Abhay."
• Sanjeev Seth lede: "Currently, he is known for his role of Vishambharnath Maheshwari in Star Plus's Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai and its spin-off Yeh Rishtey Hain Pyaar Ke."

IWMBuzz.com is used in about 300 articles, sometimes for simple non-controversial verification (filmographies, ratings, awards given by the source itself) but other times for subjective PR-puffing statements for which they have a conflict of interest. I feel that a cautionary yellowlisting at perennial sources with links to the above discussions is warranted, to raise awareness of potential issues. Thanks. – Reidgreg (talk) 19:38, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Is Orlando Informer reliable

1. Source: Orlando Informer
2. Article: The article Woody (Toy Story) is the one im specifically talking about, but its used in articles like VelociCoaster, Universal Studios Florida, Mario Kart, and The Cat in the Hat
3. Content theme parks

― Kaleeb18^Talk_Caleb 22:21, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

It's hard to tell if the Orlando Informer is a one-person operation or not. There's no evidence of editorial control. They seem to make their money as an affiliate linking to ticket sales for Universal theme parks, which gives them a conflict of interest and thereby potential bias. So, no not really reliable. I would say other sources should be preferred. I could see them used as a source of last resort (no pun intended) for very basic facts. By that I mean, establishing that a ride exists in a particular park or perhaps which year a ride opened, but not much else. Basically on the level of an SPS or avoid if possible. --SVTCobra 00:04, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Gotcha ― Kaleeb18^Talk_Caleb 02:19, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Is Media Stinger a reliable source

1. Source: Media Stinger
2. Article It looks like it is not used in any articles yet, but im looking to use it
3. Content Video game and movie news

― Kaleeb18^Talk_Caleb 21:19, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Comment on The Daily Dot

WP:RSPSS lists The Daily Dot as "generally reliable for internet culture", and I would broadly agree. However, I still think that additional discretion is warranted when using the source.

As per the Wikipedia article for internet culture, the term is rather vague without well-defined boundaries which would make the statement "generally reliable for internet culture" to be somewhat problematic. The Daily Dot does sort their stories by category including by "Internet Culture", but the tag is also found in many articles that may not specifically be about internet culture (example 1 2) or where it merely touches upon it briefly and isn't the main focus. Secondly, while I agree that their straight news reporting on internet trends is usually good, a lot of their articles are highly opinionated without disclosure. Many of their features engage in heavy analysis and commentary (ex. attributing motives*, dubbing others "Karens" and things "cringeworthy" without quotes, etc.) without properly labelling such articles. They do have articles that are labelled as such, but many of them lack such delineation. They have also been mentioned in a previous discussion as well as the Wikipedia article to have a political slant in reporting. (*For clarity, I don't disagree with the accusations of being transphobic, but the article is also heavy on analysis/commentary as well as content that would pose BLP issues while not explicitly labelled as Opinion or Analysis)

While I don't think this means that it should not be considered "generally reliable", I still think that extra care should be taken when citing articles from The Daily Dot. They are great when breaking news about topics that are trending strictly in cyberspace, but I would generally take care to always default to attribution unless multiple sources are available - especially since they can be highly opinionated during reporting coupled with the fact they are often one of the only sources deemed reliable to cover certain niche internet topics.Dankmemes2 (talk) 22:24, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

I support the DD concerns here. I think many editors take "reliable for internet culture" to mean reliable for anything on the internet. So if DD says the ideas that a public figure shares on Twitter are "-phobic" then this must be due/reliable etc. If DD tells us there is a new trend on Twitter where users post pictures of planking. Sure, it's OK for that. However, the concerns regarding mixing opinion and fact, lots of subjective claims treated as fact etc is a big concern and the source should never be used for things like contentious claims about BLP subjects. It would be a terrible source for things like BLPs of Gamergate participants. Springee (talk) 18:18, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

David Price writing in Counterpunch in Edward Said

Counterpunch was deprecated in this RFC, a decision that is being discussed up above in #De-deprecate_CounterPunch. But at Edward Said, David Price is used in writing in about his finding FBI surveillance of Said. Price is the author Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI’s Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists published by Duke University Press, and he is professor of anthropology and sociology at Saint Martin's University and author of a number of peer-reviewed journal articles (see his ResearchGate profile for examples). This specific Counterpunch article is also cited in academic journals, for example this article in Third World Quarterly published by Taylor & Francis discusses Price's findings at length (page 753). The citation has been removed and then tagged as unreliable. Is this article by David Price, an established expert published on specifically the topic of the US government surveillance of academics, writing in Counterpunch a reliable source for his finding the FBI surveilled Edward Said in the article Edward Said? I would like to avoid the wider discussion on deprecation being right or wrong here, and focus on if this source is reliable in this context? nableezy - 21:24, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't want to discuss the deprecation of this particular source (in general I think we err on the side of deprecation too much) but I'd like to note that you can use other sources for this claim, for example The Nation, which is green now: [71]. Alaexis_¿question? 21:34, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, Price's findings are covered in the Nation as well, which references his Counterpunch article. Just like Third World Quarterly article. My question is if Price's article itself is a reliable source for Price's findings. nableezy - 21:37, 21 December 2021 (UTC)