Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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It's time to talk about biography.com generally

I know they are owned by A&E, which gives them an air of "truthiness," but they do not cite sources or list authors. In particular, the birthdates they give are very often in conflict with journalistic sources of high repute. For examples, see Fergie (singer) and Chadwick Boseman. I'm not convinced we should be treating them as reliable at all, especially when their information contradicts better sources such as interviews and journalistic mini-bios. Does anyone have any insight into their editorial process? Without that knowledge, I see no reason to assume they are doing anything but copying other websites. Krychek (talk) 16:37, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

This page (PDF bypass) hosted by CSU–Global Campus lists it under the section "INTERNET SOURCES TO AVOID". --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 16:51, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

along with us --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:55, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

A&E as in Arts and Entertainment as in entertainment. That's not a credential. Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:25, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Leaving aside whether one Joyce Ann Kievit at a college in Colorado finds Biography.com credible — and the website gives no reason or rationale whatsoever for its claim — a TV network lierally devoted to biography and biographical research, part of one of the largest media conglomerates in the country, with a professional staff of researchers and editors, is unquestionably WP:RS for biographies. --Tenebrae (talk) 15:52, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

We have no evidence that the website has a professional staff of researchers and editors. On the page of Fergie [1] it has a section saying "Fact Check" with the words "We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us!" written underneath. The contact page links to this [2] which as the bottom says "Send feedback, report errors and submit general questions to info@bio.com". Nothing about the about page shows anything about any staff. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 16:10, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Emir, you're a valued colleague with good judgment. In this case, I do have to say I'm surprised anyone would suggest that a TV network — Biography Channel having changed its name to FYI — does not have a staff.

Secondarily, the fact that someone, i.e., a staff, actively solicits feedback to help ensure that its articles are correct is a good and proper thing. --Tenebrae (talk) 16:17, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Also, and I know this is a personal claim and I can only ask that you consider me credible after our many collaborations, I was once interviewed in my capacity as a journalist for a Biography Channel show, and there was a Manhattan office filled with about a dozen people. --Tenebrae (talk) 16:19, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Meanwhile, I'll see if there's a staff directory available, and this Variety article may be useful background: "‘Biography’ Franchise Returns as Event Programming Across A+E Networks Channels (Exclusive)" by Cynthia Littleton, March 21, 2017. Rob Sharenow, exec VP and general manager of A&E and Lifetime, is interviewed. I'm sure there are people under him.--Tenebrae (talk) 16:24, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Four executive producers for the Biography franchise are Elaine Frontain Bryant, Shelly Tatro and Brad Abramson. As executive producers, they would have staff. --Tenebrae (talk) 16:27, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Hello Tenebrae. Sorry if I surprised you, but perhaps you misunderstood me. I am in now way making any claims about Biography Channel or program but rather just the website. This is not a case like a newspaper where the articles are published both online and on paper, but a site with over 7000 biographies. If someone can show a clear link between the program/channel and the website then I would look on this source more favorably. My point about the feedback was that is the only thing they list as fact checking, that people can contact them if they are incorrect. If they had their own fact checking process then their would be no need for soliciting feedback after being published. Even if you did not misunderstand me I am still grateful for you calling me a valued colleague, and I will still respect you even if we have a difference of opinion on this matter. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 16:42, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Absolutely. I work very collegially with many editors, some of them for many years now, and differences of opinion occur. I find discussion, compromise and calm help prevent hard feelings. And I'm always impressed with your care and meticulousness.

This might answer your perfectly reasonable question about whether the website and the network are indeed part of the same entity: Indicia at the bottom of Biography.com reads "© 2018 Bio and the Bio logo are registered trademarks of A&E Television Networks, LLC." The Copyright page at Biography.com goes to an A&E page beginning "A&E Television Networks, LLC and its subsidiaries and affiliates (collectively, 'A+E Networks' ...." From there, the Careers page doesn't break down A&E jobs into specific divisions (A&E, Lifetime, FYI, etc.), but there are listings for "Research" and for "Digital Media." So whether or not there are current open positions at the Biography franchise, we know there are research and digital-media staff positions, at least. --Tenebrae (talk) 17:00, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Hmm. This is a tricky one. I have added a do not archive tag so hopefully other people can give us some input. If dedicated researches are present then I would say it is an RS without a doubt, but the possible contradictions with other sources make me wonder if they are just honest mistakes or unreliable sources. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 17:17, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

• There is a missing question in this debate... “Reliable compared to WHAT?” In the absence of any OTHER source, Biography is probably “reliable enough” to use. But there are certainly lots of other sources that are way MORE reliable, and if there is a discrepancy we should certainly defer to those other, more reliable sources. Blueboar (talk) 17:32, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm actully not seeing where the suspicion of unreliability comes from. As a journalist, I've found Biography.com information to check out with other sources, such as interview subjects and public records. Nothing is 100%, not even Encyclopedia Britannica, but I've found this website to be reliable at a professional level. --Tenebrae (talk) 18:28, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

• Per this article, biography.com is operated by SAY Media, not the A&E television network. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 20:27, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
• Mostly reliable. Because the A&E Network is so prominent, they likely factcheck their work pretty well, but their work can still be challenged on a case by case basis. This is similar to citing Stratfor, the global intelligence company. Their articles often do not have citations or named authors, but it is well known they are one of the most reliable in their industry. See [3] Waters.Justin (talk) 00:40, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

I'd tend to agree. Per the article NinjaRobotPirate mentions, "Editors from both sites [Biography.com and a Lifetime site] are expected to move to Say, where they will report to Say editorial director Joyce Bautista...." So there are professional staff editors, including some from A&E, and an editorial director. By Wikipedia definition, this is WP:RS. --Tenebrae (talk) 00:25, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

• I never watch A&E except by accident, and even then I've seen plenty of nonsense on it. Then there's The History Channel; once in a while something on it attracts my attention, and each time I'm reminded what nonsense they peddle. Here's a great example: "Is there evidence to support the long-rumored secret Nazi device known as "Die Glocke," which was purportedly a wonder weapon or a time travel device?" Here at Wikipedia I've have many bad experiences with biography.com – frequent errors. Even if we assume they're reliable, I've never seen evidence they have anything that couldn't be easily found somewhere else. I'd use it, at most, as a provisional source for hard-to-get-wrong, uncontentious stuff. EEng 04:19, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

This sounds like WP:IDONTLIKEIT. You've personally had bad experiences. I haven't. Who's right? Also, I'm not sure what History Channel has to do with it.--Tenebrae (talk) 00:25, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

No, it sounds like WP:SOME PEOPLE ARE PAYING BETTER ATTENTION THAN OTHERS. Part of our job is evaluating sources, using our common sense. Are you seriously going to call reliable a source that asserts, with a straight face, that the Nazis might have had a time machine? EEng 04:49, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

First, that's the History Channel. It's not Biography.com. Second, Biography.com is a reliable source according to Wikipedia's definition. Finally, you're letting your personal feelings color your comments. You don't like the History Channel, and so you're condemning anything that appears in anything connected with A&E Networks.

Also, from your description, it sounds as if the History Channel was debunking myths and rumors. That's exactly what responsible historians do. --Tenebrae (talk) 23:11, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

First, the History Channel is part of A&E, like Biography.com. Second, whether Biography.com is a reliable source is what we're debating. Finally, my personal feelings have nothing to do with it, but my personal judgment (which is what we're supposed to exercise here) does; I'm condemning the reliability of A&E-related sources because they all, in my experience, are mediocre at the very best in their factual reliability.

And no, they were not debunking myths and rumors, they were presenting absurd ideas (like a Nazi time machine) with "some people have said"-type false balance. EEng 02:29, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

• I'm not sure I understand what part of Wikipedia's definition of "reliable source" would fit biography.com. It is definitely not scholarly, and I think it would be a mighty stretch to call it a news source. So to keep saying it clearly meets the WP:RS criteria -- as if that's obvious to everyone -- is disingenuous at best, when in fact this is the reason we are discussing it at all. Krychek (talk) 15:55, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
• Individual cases of error aren't enough; as we all know, there are times the New York Times published lies, and times the National Enquirer published facts, neither of which is enough for us to go on as a general rule. We need evidence that says it's generally reliable or generally not reliable. The fact that it's a mainstream documentary series on a TV network of some decades of longevity, that published thousands of relatively in depth biographies of well known people, tends to lean towards the reliable category. (There are oodles of sources that say the National Enquirer is generally not reliable.) One university web page that doesn't explain its reasoning for disliking Biography.com and History.com isn't sufficient. If you have specific cases where Biography.com conflicts with better sources, we can certainly consider using the better sources in those cases. If you have more reliable sources that say that in general Biography.com is not to trusted, please say. --GRuban (talk) 16:53, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

These are not "individual cases of error"; what I said is that I find errors on a regular, frequent basis whenever I dip into A&E's brands. We don't need metasources to tell us that a given source is unreliable, but quite the opposite: WP:Identifying_reliable_sources calls for sources to have a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". If you have such metasources re Biography.com, please pass them on. Otherwise we have to use our real-world judgment, including personal experience. Delving into their A&E's job postings is idiotic: National Enquirer has "research" staff too. EEng 18:10, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

We don't rely on our experience, that's called Wikipedia:Original research. We rely on the experience of Wikipedia:Reliable sources. You asked for some, which seems a very reasonable request. Here is a 5 minute web search.

Reliable sources recommending Biography.com in general

• A list of Online Reference Tools from the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/15/technology/circuits/online-reference-tools.html
• A (much shorter!) list of sites to visit to learn about People of the Millennium from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/xwords/19991202.html

Reliable Sources relying on individual Stories on Biography.com

• A story from a CBS Television station that quotes Biography.com, clearly treating it as reliable: http://wkbn.com/2018/01/15/remembering-martin-luther-king-jr-and-his-role-in-the-civil-rights-movement/
• Here is such a story from an ABC television station: http://abcnews4.com/news/local/meeting-street-academy-kick-off
• Here is a story from the Washington Post, that again, relies on Biography.com for information it clearly considers factual https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/07/17/yes-donald-trump-really-went-to-an-ivy-league-school/?utm_term=.072a7d949409
• Similarly, from The Columbus Dispatch, that, ditto: http://www.dispatch.com/entertainmentlife/20180104/almost-century-after-release-monster-movies-still-deliver-jolts
• Obituary of Whitney Houston from CNN, relying on Biography.com: http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/17/showbiz/whitney-houston-timeline/index.html
• Obituary of Oscar de la Renta from CNN, relying on Biography.com: http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/20/living/oscar-de-la-renta-death/index.html
• Here is another article from the New York Times that uses Biography.com as sources 3 different times: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/04/19/crosswords/CROSSWORDS-sports-names.html

If many respected mainstream newspapers and television stations consider Biography.com as reliable, I think we should too. --GRuban (talk) 18:45, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

WP:OR says This policy of no original research does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources, such as deletion discussions or policy noticeboards. right there in the first paragraph. Furthermore it seems you have ignored the comment of when the website began being operated by SAY Media, being reliable at one point doesn't mean you are reliable forever. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:50, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Oh, yes, OR on a guideline talk page is not forbidden as in article space - after all, my web search compiling its uses could be considered original research too - but we can take the opinion of one person on a college website and a couple of anonymous Wikipedia editors that don't think it's reliable ... or of the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and other newspapers and television stations, that pretty clearly do. I'm proposing that it's obvious which should have more weight. The SAY Media operation was February 2014? You'll notice most of the uses of Biography.com listed seem after that point. (The latest one is from yesterday, in fact.) --GRuban (talk) 22:13, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

If we ever declared something acceptable as a source of last resort, maybe this and other TV shows might qualify. In most if not all of the topics they cover, there will be other sources more clearly reliable which could be used instead and should be used instead. If such a program makes a negative claim about a BLP not supported by better sources, it might perhaps be removed. And, given it's status as a general entertainment source, I think they would be among the less optimal sources for determining comparative WEIGHT regarding somewhat sensationalistic aspects of the subjects' lives. John Carter (talk) 22:29, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and I'll just repeat what I said above: I'd use it, at most, as a provisional source for hard-to-get-wrong, uncontentious stuff. EEng 22:50, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

"10 Sports Names That Will Help You Become a Better Crossword Solver" from the NYT crossword puzzle section; another crossword-puzzle "learn more" list from 1999, for classroom teachers; "CNN Entertainment" stating that one of Whitney Houston's albums "earned her a Grammy but does not match the performance of her previous albums, according to Biography.com"; and a 2002 list of "Online reference tools" (for an unstated purpose or audience) isn't exactly what I meant by metasources telling us that Biography.com has a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". It's actually quite telling that many or most of your items referencing Biography.com added the qualification, according to Biography.com i.e. "don't blame us if this is wrong -- we got it from Biography.com". My favorite from your list is the Oscar de la Renta obit, which lists among its sources, along with Biography.com, the scholarly research journal Vogue; I think it's safe to say that's not an item researched at the Wikipedia BLP level of source quality. EEng 22:50, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Vogue is a perfectly acceptable source as well, and cited in hundreds if not thousands of our articles. Given it's "the world's most influential fashion magazine", if there were a biography of Oscar de la Renta that didn't cite Vogue, I'd find it highly questionable. And just as Vogue specializes in fashion, Biography.com specializes in biographies. We're not talking about botany or physics, mind you; coverage of modern biographies in scholarly research journals are few and far between. Relying on mainstream media is perfectly acceptable, and as has been shown, mainstream media relies on Biography.com. If you're proposing that only scholarly research journals be acceptable, we'd have to delete most of our articles for lack of sources. --GRuban (talk) 14:58, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

But if a biography of Oscar de la Renta failed to cite biography.com, you wouldn't bat an eye. I think that's a rather telling point. Also, if such a bio did cite both Vogue and biography.com, and the two sources contradicted each other, which would you be more inclined to believe? I'd pick Vogue in a heartbeat, because it has a reputation as a serious magazine about the fashion industry. Biography.com, on the other hand, is pure infotainment. There is no "biography industry," and no one is holding biography.com accountable when it makes mistakes. If Vogue screws up, however, you can bet there will be immediate repercussions. Krychek (talk) 15:30, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Correct. And in turn, if Vogue were contradicted by the NYT, you'd take the NYT. EEng 15:42, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

The "telling point" boils down to no one having claimed that Biography.com is "the world's most influential" biographical source, merely that it is an acceptable one for our purposes. There are good sources and better sources, but that doesn't mean the merely good ones are unacceptable. If The Columbus Dispatch that I cite above were contradicted by the NYT, I'd take the NYT as well, but surely that doesn't mean The Columbus Dispatch is not a Wikipedia:Reliable source. --GRuban (talk) 18:48, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

So can we agree that, in the specific case of birthdates (and possibly other purely statistical data), serious journalistic sources should be given priority over infotainment sites like biography.com? If I'm being honest, that's the main consensus I wanted to get out of this discussion. I don't mind at all if people use the site for anecdotes, as long as they don't contradict better sources, but in areas where we should be attempting to give definitive answers, I hate the idea of forcing a WP article to say, "Everyone except one weak source claims he was born in 1950, so we're presenting both years because we at WP don't know how to distinguish a reliable source from infotainment." Krychek (talk) 16:02, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Huh. I would have thought the opposite -- birthdates are easy to get right, but anecdotes can be made up shit. EEng 16:09, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

That is the point if something can't even get birthdates right then do we believe that they are a reliable source? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 16:12, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Intuitively, that seems true, but if it were so easy to corroborate a birthdate, this would be a non-issue. I'd just point to the One True Source of Celebrity Birthday Facts, and no one would ever try to cite biography.com again. Krychek (talk) 20:09, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

When reliable sources disagree, we have to take it on a case by case basis. In general, if multiple reliable sources differ on a fact, we give all the options ("Born in 1923 according to sources A and B, or in 1932 according to source C"). But that's in general, for specific cases there are so many possibilities that I can't even list them. For example, usually a person is a less reliable source than their birth certificate; but see our own Jimbo Wales#Early life. Or say that one source A says 1923, and another source B specifically says "unlike what it says in source A, she was actually born in 1932". Let's see the specific case. --GRuban (talk) 20:58, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

• And may I add to the list above that just the first three pages of a Google search results in a host of libraries, including college libraries, recommending Biography.com as a reliable research tool, and at least one book citing it:

• https://www.gcls.org/biographycom
• https://www.altadenalibrary.org/learning-resource-links/biographycom
• https://sonomalibrary.org/library-collection/biographycom-videos-0
• https://www.warwicklibrary.org/biographycom
• http://www.lib.jmu.edu/resources/more.aspx?id=2508
• https://libguides.southernct.edu/c.php?g=7304&p=35218
• Business Ethics: A Stakeholder and Issues Management Approach by Joseph W. Weiss, Berrett-Koehler Publishers; 6th edition (July 14, 2014). --Tenebrae (talk) 23:51, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Some local librarians saying that some people might find Biography.com useful, for some purposes, is hardly the kind of endorsement that helps us. Got any serious researchers or first-class universities? EEng 06:34, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Now this is getting ridiculous. You've been given multiple mainstream sources, including some of the most popular and respected sources, using and recommending Biography.com. You've been given libraries! You've been given universities! Plenty of perfectly reliable sources would struggle to pass such a test. And you are saying those aren't "useful" endorsements because the universities aren't "first-class"? You are demanding a shrubbery, if not already going straight for the tree and the herring. --GRuban (talk) 16:45, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm so glad you took the time to draw my attention back to those library "recommendations", because I see now that, for example, the Sonoma County Library link you so helpfully provided (and here it is again [4]) lists Biography.com as a resource for "School-Age Children (5-12)" (meaning grades 5-12 i.e. ages 10 to 17). Now I ask you again, do you have any sources recommending Biography.com as a resource for serious research, by grownups? EEng 17:42, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

While debating on their factual aspects, remember the other part of RS checking is if they have editorial control, and specifically, if they had made a mistake in a fact, have they corrected it and issued a statement to that degree? That's one of the reasons NYTimes is generally a top-tier source because they will correct if they were wrong and make statements to that effect. If the biography.com pages are edited behind-the-scenes without any statement of update, that's a bit troubling. --Masem (t) 16:58, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Recommendations:

• "The ten best reference websites" The Times: #2: biography.com
• "Selected Biography Resources" New York State Library
• "This extensive site is the perfect source for anyone looking for background or historical and biographical information." American Library Association

Usage: CNN:

• http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/03/showbiz/andy-griffith-dead/index.html
• http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/19/showbiz/james-gandolfini-obituary/index.html
• http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/01/showbiz/soul-train-founder/index.html

Los Angeles Times:

• http://www.latimes.com/tn-gnp-verdugo-views-guests-at-sanitarium-each-had-a-story-to-tell-20141105-story.html
• http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-women-leaders-0607-snap-story.html
• http://www.latimes.com/sfl-castro-timeline-story.html

Chicago Tribune:

• http://www.chicagotribune.com/ct-perspec-0808-things-20100806-story.html
• http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/ct-muhammad-ali-life-timeline-htmlstory.html

National Public Radio:

• https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/07/22/204548980/law-and-order-actor-dennis-farina-dies
• https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/11/27/366997584/british-mystery-novelist-p-d-james-dies-at-94
• https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/05/04/135985017/native-americans-offended-by-codename-geronimo-in-bin-laden-mission

Boston Globe Magazine:

• https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2016/10/28/massachusetts-women-through-history-who-broke-glass-ceiling/Ii9qOxdNX0fL6Kr4a9F8EI/story.html
• https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2016/03/25/cold-hard-facts-and-figures-about-world-figure-skating-championships/FjYU8k8rEpAlkPtOxcpuDJ/story.html
• https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2016/05/20/ralph-waldo-emerson-numbers/xuyZ5xJNjr8BPRSgUm3m5I/story.html

--GRuban (talk) 14:38, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

When are you going to get that when an article says, "According to biography.com...", they're not endorsing it as a source, they're distancing themselves from it? As for the ALA "Best Free Reference Web Sites 2002", well, um... that was twenty years ago. Is it on "Best Free Reference Web Sites 2018"? EEng 16:05, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

So you think it's a Catch 22 - if they say they're using biography.com, then they're doing it to distance themselves from it, and if they trusted it then they wouldn't say they're using it? It depends on how they write it. If they attach adjectives like "the tabloid" or "the controversial source" then they're distancing themselves. In the context above, they're using it as a reliable source, they're saying that they personally didn't research this fact beyond Biography.com, but they trust Biography.com enough to put the fact there. That's exactly how we want to use it. You now have something like thirty recommendations and usages from highly reliable sources and you're nitpicking the date on one of them. It's getting to where if Socrates himself were to come back from the dead and say that the source looked good to him, you'd be saying that was an outdated recommendation, and we don't really know whether Socrates was that important in the definition of truth anyway, we should ask Plato. --GRuban (talk) 16:59, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

You've missed the point. Being cited as a source does not make anything a reliable source. It only makes it a source. Reliability is established only when we have some idea of where they are getting their information, how that information is vetted, and how they handle corrections when errors are found. For established journalistic sources, we have reason to believe these things are internally monitored because of Journalism ethics and standards. Biography.com does not describe itself as a journalistic site, and there's no reason to believe they adhere to such guidelines. In fact, there's every reason to believe that that don't, as that would drive up costs. (And clearly, people seem to be taking them seriously for no reason other than that they are writing things down under the aegis of a well-known media conglomerate, so why should they bother investing in the credibility they enjoy for free?) Krychek (talk) 21:04, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Well, there are actually articles about how Biography.com does its work. But more importantly, our guideline WP:RS says: "Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. These qualifications should be demonstrable to other people." The fact that many if not most highly respected sources regard Biography.com as authoritative has now clearly been demonstrated. That suffices. Asking us to know their process in depth and detail is more than you are demanding for newspapers, since you're just assuming they must have one, since they're newspapers. Give the same credit to Biography.com, assume they must have one since they're trusted by those same newspapers (and libraries, and universities)... --GRuban (talk) 16:10, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

many if not most highly respected sources regard Biography.com as authoritative – This is just nonsense. What we've seen is sources distancing themselves from Biography.com, a small-town library recommending it as a source for children, and a list from 20 years ago. EEng 21:53, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

OK, now, if we're debating, let's keep things honest. This page gives a large number examples of source recommending Biography.com, not just "a small-town library." There are universities, magazines, newspapers, radio, cable news and other sources using it / recommending it. You don't like it or find it generally accurate. I'm a journalist who does find it generally accurate. Who's right? Who's wrong? All that matter is that it is a staffed resource whose literally only job is producing biographies, and that reliable sources use it and recommend it.--Tenebrae (talk) 22:16, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Also, you've just linked two stories about how TV shows (i.e., Infotainment) are made. The channel's shows are not the website, and none of this has anything to do with the fact-checking process (or lack thereof) at biography.com. Furthermore, you have at least two people here telling you that you have not sufficiently demonstrated the site's qualifications. Most tellingly, you have grossly mischaracterized my faith in newspapers. There are plenty of newspapers I would never cite, and I think you know that. I do not believe a publication's reliability stems from the mere fact that it is a newspaper; it stems from the newspaper being an established, reputable journalistic source. Biography has done nothing to become reputable where facts are concerned -- quite the opposite, their site is riddled with errors that they have made no effort to correct, and if you go to the trouble of directly inquiring into the nature of their editorial process, or even just ask them where they got contradictory information, you will hit a brick wall. Reputable, reliable sources will go out of their way to clear up discrepancies; they would never just flat-out ignore such inquiries. Krychek (talk) 22:04, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

OK, let's try it the other way. We've given thirty or so highly reliable source links recommending (like The Times) or outright using Biography.com. What similar sources can you show recommending against using Biography.com? --GRuban (talk) 16:27, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate the discussion here. I wish this was easy, and it certainly is not.

I think it's far better than most of the celebrity biography sites available, but that's not saying much when it comes to what we're striving for with sources of biographical information. I certainly have no problem with it for undisputed content. I don't believe I've ever found it very helpful for disputed content. For example, in the case of the birth year of Pepa (rapper), it's almost certainly wrong [5], and I've found VH1's Behind the Music to be much better. --Ronz (talk) 02:39, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

GRuban, I find it hilarious that you are trying to justify your position by citing a Times article whose first sentence is: "Internet fact-hunters know not to place too much faith in Wikipedia ..." Krychek (talk) 16:00, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

As does WP:RSN; Wikipedia is very much not a reliable source. Meanwhile, back to the request? --GRuban (talk) 15:39, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, but no. According to WP:RS, which you yourself quoted above, the burden is on the person citing the source to demonstrate its qualifications. You are asking me to prove a negative, and I won't fall into that trap. The fact is, biography.com is bound to get a lot of things right a lot of the time, but that doesn't make it reliable. You may make some headway by showing me an instance where biography.com has corrected its own false information, cited a source, credited an author, claimed to follow journalistic guidelines for fact-checking, or explained its own editorial process. These things alone are not always sufficient to establish credibility, but I think we should require at least one as a bare minimum. Krychek (talk) 16:36, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Neither you nor we can prove something absolutely, all we can do is give evidence. Tenebrae and I have given roughly thirty pieces of evidence from highly reliable sources. You have given ... what? --GRuban (talk) 17:09, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

By the way, I'm now looking at what caused you to start this request to WP:RSN in the first place. It's a dispute with Tenebrae about whether Chadwick Boseman was born in 1976 or 1977, and whether Fergie (singer) was born in Hacienda Heights, California, or Whittier, California, one of two neighboring small towns of under 15 square miles each? And Biography.com says straight out in an indepth article that Boseman was born in 1977 and you're disputing that based on a bit of math and an ABC news article of "5 things to should know" that says the actor was 37 in Oct 29, 2014? Honestly, I have to agree with Tenebrae. One is an indepth piece, one is a list of trivia, and requires math, based on when the article author thought the article would be published; since, if we agree the actor was born in November, his age would change by 1 in just a month, right? They're both reliable sources, we go with the more indepth piece, and the one that doesn't require age math. Here is another source that says Boseman is 30; it was published in 2013. Doing similar age math would mean he was born in ... 1983? That source is Ebony (magazine). Should we now disqualify it as a reliable source, because it's clearly off by six years? No. You're building a mountain out of a molehill. If you want to show that Boseman was born in 1976, fine, find a source that actually says that, and we'll put it in. Even if we assume you are correct in both places, starting this long thread to disqualify Biography.com outright, because it's off by one year or one mile, when the evidence either way is highly debatable, is a severe overreaction. --GRuban (talk) 17:34, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for using your psychic powers to delve so deeply into my motives. Yes, those are the two most recent incidents that prompted me to finally act, but this is a problem that I've been noticing for years now. As for your "in-depth article" on Boseman -- are you kidding me? This is a piece cobbled together from a variety of secondary sources, much like a Wikipedia article. There is no personal interview, no author listed, and no source given for the birth date. And you also want to discredit me for using math? Please tell me this is all a bad joke. Straw man, ad hominem, and post hoc ergo propter hoc -- congratulations on scoring the trifecta of debate faux pas. Krychek (talk) 16:22, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Clearly strong feelings. I don't think we're getting anywhere. I don't see any evidence of lack of reliability from your side, except for the two rather minor and debatable differences that I listed in my last post above. You discount or ignore the evidence of reliability we provide, and ask that we somehow document the procedures the site uses to gather its information, which is not only impractical but not a requirement made of most sources. Any suggestions on how we can move forward? --GRuban (talk) 17:54, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Rappler

As per ​Psiĥedelisto's suggestion at COIN. Is Rappler a reliable source. NoNDeSCRiPT argues that Rappler as a source should be discouraged in light of the SEC ruling revoking the license of Rappler.

These are their arguments why Rappler is an unreliable source as posted on COIN.

Challenging Rappler's reliability based on these premises:

1. Rappler is a blogging platform (proofs already in the article)
2. The authors of the blogs are not journalists i.e. unprofessional first-party opinions
3. Since the site has no newspaper counterpart, articles can be edited and the edits can't be easily detected.
4. Readers are not assured that the authors writing behind Rappler news are really the journalists and not their hundreds of interns at Rappler X
5. Rappler is no longer, legally, a mass media, and as the Malacañang palace put it, they are now technically bloggers and can continue as a blogsite (which factually they have been doing since 2012). And opinion blogs are "unreliable sources" as per Wikipedia guidelines.

NoNDeSCRiPT 15:38, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Though I disagree to indiscriminately avoid using Rappler articles as reliable source. There are definitely portions of Rappler that should be generally considered unreliable or unsuitable for Wikipedia particularly IMHO an Opinion section and BrandRap which features sponsored content or native advertising. Some reports in Sports section in particular has been useful for me. A quick browse would yield non-opinion sports-related reports.Hariboneagle927 (talk) 16:30, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Sounds like a similar situation to Forbes and the Huffington Post where contributor articles are not obviously marked, but I don't know that much about Rappler. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 16:39, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Rappler is generally well-regarded. I have seen Reuters cite them. zzz (talk) 18:08, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

But when was that? Was it before this ruling from SEC? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:17, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

In the last couple of years. This ruling is politically motivated purely on a technicality. zzz (talk) 18:24, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

I've used this source in Philippine pop-cultural articles before (i.e. films), and have always considered it reliable using common sense. However, perhaps it's only reliable in this area, as well as sports, travel, etc. I say use it with caution if it's going to be used as source in fields like politics and current events. I remember this source being challenged in the Rodrigo Duterte article back in 2016 by Hijiri88; I might as well ping him to chime in on this. Slightlymad 04:13, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Previous discussions here and here. Use of blogs as a source for BLPs like the Duterte article is completely unacceptable (WP:BLPSPS), but in other contexts I have no theoretical problem with such sources being cited (and probably attributed as what they are inline) in other contexts, as a general rule, but in this case I'm broadly inclined to agree with points 2, 3 and 4 in the quotation above until I see evidence to the contrary. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:54, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: Rappler is not "a blog". The blog part of the site is clearly delineated (at least now) from the main news articles written by Rappler's paid employees. The blog posts anyone can write appear at the domain [x.rappler.com]. Opinion pieces and editorials are also clearly labelled. Rappler is closer to the Huffington Post than it is to Blogspot. Psiĥedelisto (talk) 07:47, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

I did not call it "a blog"; I called the blogs it hosts "blogs". I honestly don't remember what it was I was specifically complaining about being cited to Rappler back in 2016, but I do know the Duterte article was and is a mess, and the user who was citing Rappler in the Duterte article was behaving disruptively and showing a poor understanding of our sourcing policies in general. I don't really know why I was pinged and am still being pinged if the current dispute is substantially different from what happened in the fall of 16 as you seem to presenting it. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:01, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Wait ... it doesn't make much sense to ping me but not User:Aquillion; they were much harsher than me in that last discussion. And yeah, if their terms of use say "don't submit NSFW stories" that makes me very skeptical. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:06, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: As I see it, we're discussing Rappler in general, and I wasn't a party to the last discussion, but I disagree also with pretty much everything User:Aquillion wrote there. There is exerted editorial control -- if there wasn't, why would this list contain "editors"? Rappler is not, at least now, I have no idea if it was in the past, primarily user generated content. I think that we should view Rappler as an anti-Duterte-leaning newspaper, not as a WP:SPS, which it isn't. Psiĥedelisto (talk) 08:30, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

The "editors" at publishing houses frequently just copy edit for grammar, spelling and other stylistic aspects; having people on staff whose title includes the word "editor" says nothing by itself, especially when one of the three is on leave and one other is an image editor, which presumably refers to their ability to use Photoshop and tools of that ilk rather than anything to do with fact-checking. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:38, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

• I don't think the legal classification of a media outlet should be a huge factor in determining whether one is considered a reliable source. I've found the news articles of Rappler to be generally reliable and have used them as sources in several Wikipedia articles. Plus, Rappler has an publicly-available editorial board and publishes corrections and errata. You just need to be more discerning whether an article in Rappler is an opinion piece or not. —seav (talk) 07:45, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

@Seav: Can you provide a link to their "publicly-available editorial board" and some evidence that they "publish corrections and errata"? I read my comment from 2016-10-25 again and it seems I checked and couldn't find anything like that, and even now I don't see much to write home about. And yeah, point 4 of their usage policy basically places the onus on the user submitting the content to make sure it is legal and not plagiarized. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:18, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Sure. Here's their editorial board: [6] and here's a selection of their errata: [7]. —seav (talk) 08:41, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm not seeing anything there that would pass WP:USERGENERATED. Only a single "managing editor" is listed on their team (otherwise it's all developers, media managers, etc; listing the CEO as "executive editor" or listing a "photo editor" obviously don't qualify); and there is no indication that they actually exert any editorial control. (For comparison, Facebook, a site I would see as similar to Rappler, also has a Managing Editor position.) Posting errata after the fact in response to legal notices and the like (which is what the errata section looks like - at a glance, a lot of the stuff there is removing things due to copyright) is not a substitute for editorial controls. In fact, I would argue that that errata page actually makes the site worse, since its framing seems to indicate that there are no editorial controls at all before content gets published. My feeling is still that Rappler is never usable as a source except perhaps about Rappler itself, and that cites to it should generally be removed on sight. Citing Rappler should be seen as on-par with citing a Facebook post. --Aquillion (talk) 19:02, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

@Aquillion: Just an aside, read the job description of the Facebook managing editor position. That editor is clearly not editing Facebook posts, the job is to edit blog posts Facebook itself writes about its products such as Oculus or communication with the Facebook userbase. It's not at all similar to the Rappler job, which is to edit content on the site produced by Rappler's journalists. Facebook is a huge company, they really cannot be compared to Rappler. Psiĥedelisto (talk) 04:40, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't feel that this is an even slightly complicated case. Rappler is entirely WP:USERGENERATED and is therefore never usable as a source, outside of the very narrow exceptions specified by that rule. The arguments people are trying to present ("there is someone on the staff with 'managing editor' in their title") are shockingly weak. Hard no on this - Rappler is absolutely unusable as a source, fullstop, especially on a BLP. They have no editorial board (despite the someone bizarre comment above linking to their staff and arguing that it's an "editorial board") and seem to exert no editorial control beyond taking stuff down or updating it in response to complaints. In fact, their terms of service seem to essentially make it clear that things posted there go live immediately - citing it is equivalent to citing a Facebook or Reddit post. This is one of the most trivially obvious failures to pass WP:RS that I've seen brought to WP:RSN. --Aquillion (talk) 19:02, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

@Aquillion: I'm sorry, but you're simply wrong. Rappler is not majority user generated. Paid reporters write all of the articles on the main site. It seems to me that you simply don't like the site -- they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they don't edit articles and catch mistakes and post errata, they're user generated. If they do, it's proof there's no editorial control! You keep citing this "terms of service" as if it's some smoking gun, but you're failing to realize that Rappler has multiple parts to it. The terms clearly apply to the comments users post and the content on [x.rappler.com]. You call my arguments in re: the fact the site has editors "shockingly weak", but besides me driving down to Rappler's HQ and looking at their payroll and asking the editors "hey, what's your job description?", what else am I to do? The facts are: Rappler has paid reporters. Rappler has paid editors who work with the reporters. When Rappler is notified of errors that the editors missed, they post errata. How is this WP:USERGENERATED, again? Stop appealing to the terms of service which clearly apply to the blog platform or the comments, which isn't the point of discussion. My position remains: Rappler is a reliable source for goings on in the Philippines. If other sources, such as the Philippine Star or the Manila Times report on it, they are to be preferred; but Rappler's paid investigative journalists have broken story after story about the Philippines in recent years and your attempts to get them banned from articles do a great disservice to editors trying to write about the country. Psiĥedelisto (talk) 04:34, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

@Psiĥedelisto: Can you provide a reliable secondary source for your claim that Rappler's paid investigative journalists have broken story after story about the Philippines in recent years? Anyway, no one is stopping you or anyone else from writing about the Philippines -- if you could fix the numerous issues with our Philippine literature article, and perhaps fill in any of the three red links in that article's "See also" section, that would be great. But Wikipedia's purpose is not to act as a mirror for a "social news" (?) website's "broken" stories. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:34, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: Writing about Philippine topics is difficult enough due to the lack of reliable sources, losing Rappler only makes the situation worse. That's what I meant to convey. In 2011, Rappler was the first to report that former chief justice Renato Corona received a PhD from the University of Santo Tomas without writing a doctoral dissertation, which turned out to be correct. Rappler's story Philippine Daily Inquirer, where a spokesman for Corona is attempting to make similar arguments as users in this thread (see also on-wiki Renato_Corona#Doctoral_degree_controversy) This is one I remember personally as Rappler being the original source, so I knew how to bring it up again; I'm not sure if there's a site which records major (or minor) stories and who broke them first. I will say that I was able to find many occasions on which other Manila newspapers have cited Rappler as their source for a quote from a government official. Psiĥedelisto (talk) 13:27, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Rappler is generally a reliable source and is composed of many veteran journalists. I don't see how Rappler is WP:USERGENERATED as it hires dedicated beat reporters to cover stories. -Object404 (talk) 11:50, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

“Rappler is entirely WP:USERGENERATED”. This is factually incorrect. Sure, comments by readers on news articles, the site's "Mood Meter", and contributed articles are definitely user-generated, but its news articles are definitely written by a paid staff of journalists. So, no, Rappler is not "entirely" user-generated. —seav (talk) 07:43, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Rappler in International Fact-Checking Network

In order to resolve this issue once and for all, I would like to point out that Rappler is currently one of only two news organizations in the Philippines that is vetted as a fact-checking news organization by the International Fact-Checking Network of the Poynter Institute: [8]. You may read an independent assessor's assessment of the principles, structure, and methodologies of Rappler, when they applied to become a member of the IFCN, to indeed verify that Rappler is not entirely WP:USERGENERATED and that they produce news articles that should be considered reliable sources: [9]. —seav (talk) 06:11, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Attempt to seek consensus

Given the discussion above, let's see if we can get consensus for the following:

• Rappler, that is, its articles that are written by journalists paid by the company of the same name, and not its blogs at [x.rappler.com] or its comments, are broadly reliable for use in articles, unless the article is about Rappler itself.

Given that User:Hijiri88 and User:Aquillion have not continued discussion above, perhaps they will consent to this now.

Vote

• Support. Psiĥedelisto (talk) 15:13, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Hariboneagle927 (talk) 17:46, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support but with a caveat: the unreliable source tag should only apply to RapplerX. Opinion columns from newspapers and/or news sites do have some information that is useful, and we shouldn't discount that just because it came from Rappler. --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 07:42, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support per Sky Harbor. —seav (talk) 02:01, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support zzz (talk) 02:21, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support as per Sky Harbor -Object404 (talk) 16:39, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

onefivenine.com - broad consensus sought

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.

---

onefivenine.com is used on well over 2000 articles as a source and an external link. It has been discussed at the India Project noticeboard in the past, where consensus seems to be clear that it is not reliable, eg: here and here. One of those discussions was previously mentioned on this board (see here) but I don't think it caused much input from anyone who is/was not an India Project regular.

Can we have a firm consensus regarding reliability, please. Then, if gained, we can do a mass clean up and perhaps consider asking for it to be blacklisted. It appears to aggregate information, including by mirroring Wikipedia and scraping information from government census data dumps, but it also has similarities to an open wiki, eg: see this example. The About page shows it to be a hobbyist website.

There are several similar sites that will need attention in due course, eg: census.co.in, villageinfo.in, atareaview.com, indiamapped.in, villagesinindia.in, allindiafacts.com, and ourhero.com. Thanks. - Sitush (talk) 20:12, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

• I agree with Sitush; this is not a reliable source and should not be used in Wikipedia articles. Reyk _YO! 21:12, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

• The about page presents it as a blog. The site encourages user-submitted content. I don't see how anyone could think it is reliable. --Ronz (talk) 21:44, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

• I agree that it is not reliable, but I have used it so much that it would be a gigantic task, weeding out all of it. - Chandan Guha (talk) 08:20, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Not just onefivenine, there is a whole bunch of other websites auto-generated using census data, with the objective of getting some ad-sense revenue:

• Special:Search/villagemap.in
• Special:Search/villageinfo.in
• Special:Search/tripcarta.com
• Special:Search/sindhindia.com
• Special:Search/villagemaps.in
• Special:Search/villagesinindia.in
• Special:Search/wikivillage.in
• Special:Search/vlist.in
• Special:Search/satellites.pro
• Special:Search/mapsofindia.com (they have a lot of original content, but they also have a whole bunch of auto-generated pages, and they also use Wikipedia conent for some of their pages)
• Special:Search/etrace.in
• Special:Search/cityarea.in
• Special:Search/censusindia.co.in
• Special:Search/census2011.co.in
• Special:Search/gazeis.in
• Special:Search/gloriousindia.com
• Special:Search/mapcarta.com
• Special:Search/locale.online
• Special:Search/indikosh.com
• Special:Search/bharatekkhoj.org

Most of these are spammy websites (try visiting them without adblock), and should be replaced with District Census Hand Books or another suitable source. utcursch | talk 16:47, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Completely agree. Guy (Help!) 09:52, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

• I also agree they are not reliable. I always had a doubt, but I saw these sources being used in way too many articles that I thought it was okay. I have found many instances where the pincodes were different for the same village. —usernamekiran(talk) 19:12, 27 January 2018 (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.

Cryptocurrency news sources

There are literally hundreds of cryptocurrency news websites. Often it is unclear if a source can be considered as reliable. Is there a list with crypto related RS sources? prokaryotes (talk) 17:09, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

There is a ton of hype and speculation about crytocurrencies; these cryptocurrencies are very driven by online communities of advocates who come here to hype them. We have to hold sourcing standards reasonablely high in these articles.

Btw in general, broad posts like this don't generate much useful consensus. What is needed here are actual sources and content they are used to support.

what sources should be useful in a notability discussion is also somewhat different from what is reliable for content in an article. The OP (which although too general is commendablely neutral - kudos for that) arises from this AfD.Jytdog (talk) 19:40, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

• per the instructions at the top of this page, here are some past discussions about sources for cryptocurrency info:

search result

Dec 2013

Sept 2015 about Dash

November 2017 about Monero

-- Jytdog (talk) 19:45, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

• Note - the "publications" below are blogs on steroids; they are trade magazines more or less (trade blogs, really). Please do have a look at WP:NCORP where we are working on revising sourcing guidelines for notability, and trade rags have been specifically discussed quite a bit. Jytdog (talk) 06:36, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Nope. CoinDesk Editorial policy CoinDesk does not accept payment in return for news articles, features or product reviews. .... CoinDesk earns money through events, research and advertising.. Trade magazine, Trade magazines typically contain advertising content centered on the industry in question with little, if any, general-audience advertising. ... Trade publications include targeted advertising, which earns a profit for the publication and sales for the advertisers while also providing sales engineering–type advice to the readers, that may inform purchasing and investment decisions.. prokaryotes (talk) 09:49, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

From WP:NCORP, A company, corporation, organization, school, team, religion, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in secondary sources. This is true for CoinDesk, BM, CT at least. prokaryotes (talk) 09:54, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Glad this is being discussed. Yes, these are trade magazines, whose bottom line depends upon the speculation and hype from the industry. For anyone that's worked on cryptocurrency articles, I think it's clear from the extent of hype and spam that there are extensive WP:SOAP and WP:POV problems when relying on any of these trade magazines. Still, identifying a few that meet some minimal reliability criteria is helpful. --Ronz (talk) 17:41, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

CoinDesk

For a start, is CoinDesk.com (CoinDesk) considered reliable? prokaryotes (talk) 19:15, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Probably - They are owned by a company that owns a Bitcoin brokerage, but they claim independence from their owner.[10]They claim to emply the largest group of independent journalists covering the blockchain ecosystem.[11]. That would seem to address editorial oversight. They are cited by CNN, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily, and several other newspapers and news web sites, which is evidence of reliability per WP:USEBYOTHERS.- MrX 🖋 19:29, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Coindesk is very uneven and does everything from churnalism to outright koolaid-drunk-here-have-some hype to some reasonable reporting and good independent analysis. We cannot comment on publications generally this way. Jytdog (talk) 19:40, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Then they fit in nicely with the rest of online media. Is there reason to believe that their coverage is error prone, or that their reporting is not based in fact?- MrX 🖋 19:45, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

There are "articles" in it that no competent editor would touch with a ten foot pole. It a blog on steroids - a trade magazine really; this is not a news organization like the NYT. I have cited some things from it but there are things I read in it, and did not cite, and I have removed citations from it from cryptocurrency articles many times. Jytdog (talk) 06:33, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

• Comment Along with daily news they also provide market graphs, which get often cited by other reliable sources. They also disclose any COI the authors or CD might have in regards to the topic at hand.prokaryotes (talk) 20:15, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

BitcoinMagazine

Is Bitcoin Magazine considered reliable? bitcoinmagazine.com Bitcoin Magazine prokaryotes (talk) 19:35, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

We cannot comment on publications generally this way. Jytdog (talk) 19:40, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

It was co-founded by Vitalik Buterin, publishing since 2012. prokaryotes (talk) 19:54, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Possibly - They are under editorial control and but they are cited infrequently by other reputable sources (WP:USEBYOTHERS). - MrX 🖋 20:36, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

On Google Scholar a search for "Bitcoin Magazine" results in "Bitcoin+Magazine"&btnG= with about 418 results at the time of writing including ones by universities like [12] and [13]. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:40, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

CCN

Is ccn.com considered RS? CryptoCoinsNews prokaryotes (talk) 19:36, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

We cannot comment on publications generally this way. Jytdog (talk) 19:40, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Sure we can. It's better if we know the specific content in question, but we can at least disqualify sources that are so bad that they can't be trusted for anything (Breitbart, Daily Mail, InfoWars, WND).- MrX 🖋 19:47, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Generally, no - I would steer away from this one. They have no articulated editorial policy and WP:USEBYOTHERS is minimal.- MrX 🖋 19:57, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

CoinTelegraph

RS? cointelegraph.com - In my opinion similar to CoinDesk and Bitcoin Magazine, did not looked much at CCN yet. prokaryotes (talk) 19:51, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Also heavily used in this crypto key article Initial coin offering. Along with their about page, also notice their expert page, with attention to CV details cointelegraph.com/category/experts prokaryotes (talk) 20:19, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Generally, yes - They claim independence and appear to be under editorial control. They are cited by NPR, Forbes, Huffington Post and several other a few other news web sites, which is evidence of reliability per WP:USEBYOTHERS.- MrX 🖋 20:45, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

With regards to Forbes and Huffington Postw we need to make sure that the articles are by staff and not contributors, because WP:USEBYOTHERS would not apply in that case. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:51, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Black Agenda Report story about corruption at Arkansas Baptist College

Is this source reliable to add information about corruption to this article? I don't know anything about the source and I'm wary because the claims are about unethical and criminal behavior. Another news publication has found this story to be at least somewhat credible but I don't know anything about that publication, either. I also note that the claims are not coming completely out of the blue as it's clear that there have been challenges at this institution for several years e.g., it lost (but then regained) its regional accreditation a few years ago, the board of trustees fired the president in December for cause. ElKevbo (talk) 21:21, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

15 Times Major Media Outlets Used a Statistic about Plastic Straws Based on Research by a 9-Year-Old

"Calderon, the Democratic majority leader in California's lower house, has introduced a bill to stop sit-down restaurants from offering customers straws with their beverages unless they specifically request one. Under Calderon's law, a waiter who serves a drink with an unrequested straw in it would face up to 6 months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000."

"Calderon, along with news outlets writing -- from CNN to the San Francisco Chronicle -- unfailingly state that Americans use 500 million plastic straws a day, many of them ending up in waterways and oceans. The 500 million figure is often attributed to the National Park Service; it in turn got it from the recycling company Eco-Cycle.

Eco-Cycle is unable to provide any data to back up this number, telling Reason that it was relying on the research of one Milo Cress. Cress—whose Be Straw Free Campaign is hosted on Eco-Cycle's website—tells Reason that he arrived at the 500 million straws a day figure from phone surveys he conducted of straw manufacturers in 2011, when he was just 9 years old."

"Yesterday, I reported that the oft-cited, debate-driving statistic that Americans use 500 million plastic straws a day was the product of a 9-year-old's guesstimations. Despite those shaky factual foundations, the 500 million figure has quickly spread, virus-like, across the media landscape and even into our shops and schools."

"Visitors to the D.C. tea house Teaism -- just a short walk from Reason's D.C. office -- will be confronted with the questionable fact on a small poster adorning the restaurant's single-use straw dispenser, replete with a picture of a cute sea turtle. Meanwhile, impressionable children at the Mount Vernon Community School in nearby Alexandria, Virginia, are coming home with "Straw Wars" handouts citing the same dubious figure."

"It's easy to understand how the school could have been led astray, given how ubiquitous this claim is in the media. Please see below for a list of just a few of the news outlets that have cited this "fact" -- or otherwise quoted people saying it without any critical pushback -- in their reporting:

• CNN
• The Washington Post
• Reuters
• People
• Time
• Al Jazeera
• National Geographic
• The Guardian
• The Independent (UK)
• Seattle Weekly
• San Francisco Chronicle
• The Sacramento Bee
• The Los Angeles Times
• Saveur
• Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Activist groups are also quick to promote the claim. Among them:

• The Lonely Whale Foundation
• The Plastic Pollution Coalition
• The Sierra Club

And of course government officials have embraced the number too. The National Park Service has touted it. So has California Assemblyman Ian Calderon. It's in the text of a Hawaii bill that would ban the distribution of plastic straws in the state.

It's sad that so many outlets are treating the rigorous survey work of an elementary school student as the statistic about plastic straw use."

Sources:

• 15 Times Major Media Outlets Used a Statistic about Plastic Straws Based on Research by a 9-Year-Old
• California Considers $1,000 Fine for Waiters Offering Unsolicited Plastic Straws

Of course we have an article on this: Milo Cress.   :)   --Guy Macon (talk) 17:05, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Note that "major media" routinely uses press releases without any further checking at all, which is a good reason why the concept of "reliable sources" is not valid at this point for Wikipedia. Where a source is a press release, the press release should be cited and identified as such on Wikipedia. Just like opinions. Collect (talk) 18:34, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

It's now on snopes:[14]

I wouldn't go so far as to say that the concept of "reliable sources" is not valid at this point for Wikipedia, but I would like to see something in our policies that tells the editor that when a reliable source reports a fact, it is fair to ask whether the reliable source has any way of knowing whether that fact is true or false. If they have no way of knowing the actual number don't say where the number came from,[15] that is reason to question the source. If they say that the source came from the national park service without saying that the NPS got it from a 9-year old girl boy, that's almost as bad. Even if they say that the source came from the national park service and that the NPS got it from a 9-year old girl boy, they should say where the 9-year old girl boy got it from. Turns out that she called some straw manufacturers in 2011. Now how on earth does a straw manufacturer know how many straws end up in the sea as opposed to landfills? In fact, it is dubious to assume that a particular straw manufacturer knows the total number of straws produced per day -- businesses tend to keep that sort of information secret. And did the 9-year old girl boy actually talk to anyone in management, or just to the (possibly outsourced) customer service reps who man the phone banks? --Guy Macon (talk) 02:47, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

If you want to harp on accuracy, Guy Macon, then you should apologize for calling Milo Cress a girl. He is a boy. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:34, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

I would like to see something in our policies that tells the editor that when a reliable source reports a fact, it is fair to ask whether the reliable source has any way of knowing whether that fact is true or false. I wouldn't. That sounds like an invitation to make RSes compete with non-RSes over claims of fact, and to encourage editors to try to "override" RSes with original research. Generally speaking, if an RS cites another source, we can and should presume that the RS in question has done something to vet this source. In this case, it's distinctly possible that they checked with the national park service, found that it came from the recycling company and said "Okay" without following it up further. That's perfectly understandable. The fact that, in this case, someone found out that Eco-cycle got it from a 9-year old is unfortunate, but it doesn't really cast doubt on the reliability of nominally reliable sources. If we expect our sources to be perfect, we wouldn't have any reliable sources. It's also worth pointing out: None of this invalidates the original claim. Being 9 years old doesn't automatically mean that Cress' claims are unfounded. When I was 17, I "re-discovered" a Tipler cylinder by naval gazing my way through a general relativity textbook, enlisted my science teacher's help with the more complicated mathematics and wrote a paper about it for a science fair. That doesn't invalidate Tipler's original works on it, in any way. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:16, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

I partially agree. If it is at least theoretically possible for the source to have vetted the material, then I have no problem with accepting the source. It is that subset of cases where it is absolutely impossible for the source to know that I have a problem with. Many such cases involve thinks like changing an accurate "there is no evidence that X happened" or "most experts doubt that X happened" to a how-do-they-know-that "X never happened". --Guy Macon (talk) 18:08, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm actually okay with that. It's exactly the same thing we do, here. See Creationism. The experts have no evidence that the world wasn't created by Jehovah and/or Yahweh in 7 days 6,000 years ago, but we certainly don't hesitate to call out creationism as a pseudoscience and say that its claims are false. Now, if there's a minority of experts suggesting that X did happen (or more likely, that it may well have happened), then I agree that it's not ideal, but it's not all that bad, either. See String theory vs Loop quantum gravity. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:14, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

David Sams

Is a slightly puffed BLP using multiple press releases and youtube videos as "sources". Some of the sources do not actually even back the claims made. I would ask that others examine and weigh the sources used therein. Collect (talk) 20:17, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Producers blog and associated document on The Thing (1982 film)

Bizarrely there aren't a lot of sources for detailed info on this film but I've come across the below blog and associated document that go into amazing levels of detail on the behind the scenes goings on. Can anyone weigh in on your opinion as I really love the info there but I don't want to put it into the article if it's just gonna get knocked back at a GA or FA nomination. Thanks.

• http://theoriginalfan.blogspot.co.uk/
  • https://www.dropbox.com/s/8vq99ed4gwmdb7a/The%20Making%20of%20The%20Thing.pdf?dl=0

--Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:34, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Note, I redacted the WP:COPYLINK violation in the post above. Jytdog (talk) 16:27, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

That's how they made the document available, it's not a PDF of some existing work added to dropbox, that IS the document.

Cryptocurrency Notability

Since the notability noticeboard is no longer active, and the Cryptocurrency task force is not very active too, posting here. To prevent creation of unimportant cryptocurrency coin articles, and to keep important articles we should be guided by the existing notability guidelines. However, editor Jytdog challenged the existing guidelines. In my opinion a market capitalization which brings a currency to the top 50 of Coinmarketcap.com is sufficient, and or enough coverage in reliable secondary sources (majority likely in the Crypto Trade Press). Additional the talk page template should be updated with a direct COI warning, since it is a common issue that involved people edit their currency. Related current AFDs,

• a (Cardano) Notability per MC (Market cap) / NT (New technology) / UB (User base) unclear
• b (IOTA) Notability per MC (Market cap) / NT (New technology) / UB (User base) unclear
• c (Shadow, now Particl) Notability per MC (Market cap) unclear / NT (New technology) unclear / UB (User base) unclear. prokaryotes (talk) 09:57, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

One way would be to simply say that it is only notable if RS outside the "system" have noticed it.Slatersteven (talk) 10:15, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

There is no "existing guideline" that is specific for notability of a cryptocurrency. Per the WP:PAG policy, a guideline is a set of "best practices that are supported by consensus." What Prokaryotes is linking to above and calling "the existing notability guidelines" is Wikipedia:WikiProject_Numismatics/Cryptocurrency_task_force/notability, which was created three years ago in one diff per its history, and is watched by less than 30 people per the page information. So we follow GNG and probably better NCORP. Jytdog (talk) 15:26, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

The amount of edits a page receives or the amount of people watching a page isn't really a strong argument. The page was likely posted after a consensus process by the Cryptocurrency Task Force took place, crafted elsewhere.prokaryotes (talk) 16:07, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Please review WP:CONSENSUS and WP:PAG; you have done nothing to show that it has any level of consensus. However, its having been edited one time, three years ago, and its being watched by less than 30 people are evidence that hardly anyone is even aware of it. Something people are hardly aware of cannot be said to have consensus much less be a guideline. It would be a governance nightmare if anybody could create a page in project space, call it a guideline, and it actually would be one. I will not reply further on this issue.Jytdog (talk) 16:11, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

The Cryptocurrency Task Force lists its Notability Guideline on their page under guides, stating, "On which cryptocurrencies are notable." prokaryotes (talk) 16:17, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Since you have brought a new claim, I will reply. Yes it was added to that page at the same time it was created. The project page itself has less than 30 watchers per its information page. There are no walled gardens here, and one editor in a barely-breathing task force cannot proclaim "Guideline"! Again what you are claiming here has nothing to do with how Wikipedia actually works. Jytdog (talk) 16:24, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Given the amount of hype and speculation in the industry (that translates to extremely strong incentives for editors to violate WP:SOAP, WP:POV, WP:COI, etc.), I think we need very strong criteria with a wide consensus. Otherwise we'll likely end up in an ArbCom dispute (which might actually be good in the long term if it helps us strengthen Notability and NOT, but it's likely to take some editors with it.) --Ronz (talk) 17:27, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Alternative proposal ,based on a recent discussion at NCORP: we should define what sources, those generally specific to Cryptocurrency, are considered reliable for that field, with the presumption that more general sources like the NY Times or the Verge are automatically considered reliable and do not have to be listed (eg this is like what we do for WP:VG/S for video game sources). Once you can set what sources should be considered independent and reliable, then you can use the GNG as the baseline without having to establish any other cases. Now, if that cuts out too many types of cryptocurrency, then maybe we should consider a more specialized SNG (or on an existing SNG page), but it is almost always best for notability to see if you can make the GNG work by proper source selection, than creating yet another SNG. --Masem (t) 17:34, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Proposal

• Above discussion tries to resolve current issues in regards to cryptocurrency articles and notability. The question is what kind of notability we should use for guidance. Pinging Cryptocurrency Task Force editors TheMagikCow, JustBerry, Unicodesnowman, vishtany, 1Wiki8Q5G7FviTHBac3dx8HhdNYwDVstR, AgriosLykos, Thomas_Veil, JonathanCross, Hannasnow, moebatron, OnePercent, Jtamad, jtbobwaysf, paulsnx2, davisonio, MStroehle.

Use the existing Cryptocurrency Task Force notability guideline to assess crypto article notability. After we re-establish this, we could extent it further with for instance more precise guidance such as a market cap minimum for notability. Any such discussion should take place at the Task Force talk page. Main currencies are notable on its own, and articles about them also help to reduce security issues, ie. phishing links, scams.prokaryotes (talk) 16:49, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

• Keep Above linked Cryptocurrency Task Force notability guideline has been used the past three years, the guideline appears like a solid start for this specific topic. I vote for keep because other guidelines do not factor in features or the market value. prokaryotes (talk) 16:49, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

• Delete/Ignore Those guidelines are vague to the point of uselessness. First of all, what is "around 75%" of three? Why is that statement even there? Second, there is no reference to significant coverage in reliable independent sources, which is the foundation of general notability, and a large part of most of the specific notability guides (though they each modify that requirement to some extent). The metrics that are there are vague, simple statements with no discussion of how they should be interpreted. They completely fail to replace, or even supplement, the general notability guidelines and should be ignored when assessing the notability of a cryptocurrency. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 21:16, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
• Ignore and/or Delete outright to avoid future confusion. Vague, obscure -- yes, the fact that very few people even care about it IS important -- not even needed. The nominator's suggestion for imposing some sort of arbitrary number as part of any such guideline is also worrisome. --Calton | Talk 01:39, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
• Ignore and/or Delete outright to avoid future confusion. Per WP:PAG, "Guidelines are sets of best practices that are supported by consensus". That page, edited one time three years ago and watched by less than thirty people, is not a guideline, and the OP calling it one is probably reason to delete it. Jytdog (talk) 15:00, 30 January 2018‎ (UTC)
• Rewrite: Even as the original author - it seems that 3 years later I have learnt more about notability and the guidelines do read badly. However, this topic is only becoming more important and prominent, and it is going to be important to distinguish the genuinely notable coins from the crazy ICOs. A guideline is needed, and we should have a discussion about estblishing a totally new one. TheMagikCow (T) (C) 20:25, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Well said, has my support, and great that you showed up here as the original author. prokaryotes (talk) 20:30, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

• Nuke / restart. All subject specific guidelines should basically consist of examples of the kinds of articles that meet WP:GNG, sources that are unequivocally agreed to be reliable on the subject, and so on. Replacing GNG with completely different criteria based on agreement of fans of a specific type of article has never been a great idea. Guy (Help!) 13:09, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Thats not actually true. SNGs are supposed to describe cases of merit where sourcing may already exist but may take time for them to be fully located, or where by the merit, more sourcing is likely to come about. But, in the case of cryptocurrency, which fully exists within the era of digital news, there should be zero issues of finding sources. And because it is still rather news, it is impossible to fairly establish what merits will surely bring about more sources. As such, I agree these should be nuked, but only because they're not written as SNGs should be written and that an SNG around cryptocurrency is far too early. The GNG with proper sourcing should be sufficient. --Masem (t) 14:05, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Middle East Quarterly book review

This addition [16] (the block quote) in particular, is sourced to an opinion piece in the Middle East Quarterly, from 1996. It is my understanding that pre-2009 the MEQ was not peer-reviewed. Can it be considered WP:RS in the given context? Thanks, Khirurg (talk) 08:32, 30 January 2018 (UTC).

Question to RS volunteers. If that quote from the Middle East Quarterly by historian Daniel Pipes is cited in a scholarly book (meeting wiki requirements of wp:secondary and wp:reliable) such as by Donald W. Beachler (2011) The genocide debate: politicians, academics, and victims, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 123.[17], is the quote or citing what historian Pipes' views about the issue are ok for use in a Wikipedia article? Best.Resnjari (talk) 08:52, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

The book review text is simply summarising McCarthy's book and cannot be considered (in itself) a statement of Pipes' views on the figures presented. The review could reasonably be used to support a statement along the liens of 'Maccarthy's work has been described as significant and reliable by other historians such as Pipes (ref)'. Martinlc (talk) 13:08, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

But the problem is Pipes is not a historian, he is in fact a failed historian. He dropped out of academia and is primarily known for in character assassination of academics he dislikes (Campus_Watch#Criticism). His publication record as a historian is minimal. Calling him a historian lends him undue respectability and is misleading. Khirurg (talk) 00:22, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, but that is not the case. The attempted character assassination there is contradicted by his biography and the wiki article Daniel Pipes, via references outlines his whole career and life. Pipes, a conservative historian received his PHD (in Islamic Studies) and graduated from Harvard University. He has been an author of 16 scholarly books, and is known for being critical of Islam related issues. He has taught at Harvard University, University of Chicago, Naval War College for prolonged periods. In addition he has worked at the US State Department for policy-planning, has been the director of the distinguished Foreign Policy Research Institute and was Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. That said, Pipes comments are a review of an academic work (in which he acknowledges the numbers referring to historical Muslim civilian causalities/expulsions are of merit) which were first published in the Middle East Quarterly (MEQ). The editor above who brought the RS said that prior to 2009 the MEQ was not peer reviewed. However those exact same comments by Pipes have been cited in whole by historian Bleacher in a book about genocide that meets wp:reliable and wp:secondary. Question to RS volunteers: If one uses Bleacher as opposed to the original MEQ source (to allay concerns) to cite Pipes, would that suffice (as in this instance it would have had the additional scrutiny of another historian as well)? Best.Resnjari (talk) 07:34, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

If Bleacher cited Pipes for the figures from McArthy's book then he was wrong to do so. If Pipes has presented his own data somewhere it can be cited. Neitehr Bleacher nor Pipes' quoting of Macarthy's stats can be considered corroboration.Martinlc (talk) 12:21, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

@Martinlc:, i'll go into some background. McCarthy published a book in the 1990s called Death and Exile, and it deals with the 19th century + early 20th century collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent Muslim civilian casualties and expulsions that occurred during that time. Historian Daniel Pipes wrote a review of the book in the Middle East Quarterly (MEQ). As noted by the filing party however that journal was not peer reviewed until 2009 from which time it is now. Donald Bleacher, a Genocide studies scholar wrote a book on Genocide (2011) and when discussing issues relating to the Ottomans and various points of view held by historians on the matter, cited Daniel Pipes' comments (and acknowledged that he made them) on McCarthy which are identical from the book review in MEQ. Since MEQ was not peer reviewed, but Bleacher fits the criteria of wp:reliable and wp:secondary, instead of using MEQ as a reference to source Pipes would it be appropriate to just cite Bleacher as a reference who cites Pipes instead? Best.Resnjari (talk) 13:36, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

• Comment I am really confused, Resnjari, why don't you just cite McCarthy for what McCarthy has said?Seraphim System ^(talk) 09:42, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
  • I assume the answer is that McCarthy's work is of dubious RS status and the chain of citations is intended to somehow make the conclusions usable in WP. Book reviews are not peer reviewed even in journals that are peer reviewed. The most that can be said of Pipes' summary is that McArthy's conclusions were not obviously incorrect, which is a low bar.Martinlc (talk) 11:06, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

I checked Google Scholar and the source does not seem to be of dubious RS status. I think the citations in some of these Ottoman-era persecution articles to Bat Ye'or and Peter Balakian are more of a problem, since Ye'or doesn't have any academic credentials and has never held any academic position and Balakian is a poet. I don't think we should censor widely cited academic sources because some parts of their work may be controversial. Quoting McCarthy for his own estimates of persecuted Muslims is within Wikipedia's policies, especially as the number seems to have been repeated by multiple subsequent sources.Seraphim System ^(talk) 14:15, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

• Adding that the quotes cited in the diff above say McCarthy is often viewed as a scholar on the Turkish side of the debate. - they don't say he is dubious and based on how widely cited he is, and his academic credentials, I'm not sure what you mean by "dubious RS status". That said, to answer the original question, It puts into perspective the deportation of Armenians in 1915 and turns this from an act of hatred into one motivated by fear (had the Armenians, with Russian support, rebelled, Ottoman Muslims could have expected to be slaughtered). This is at the least a WP:REDFLAG and would need much stronger sourcing. I am not sure if this sourcing even exists, and if it does it would still be a minority view - I don't think an opinion piece from Daniel Pipes is going to be enough to save this from WP:FRINGE. It seems pretty speculative to me. There is a lot of "I wonder what he felt like that night, sword in hand, waiting for the coming battle" type historical narrative that isn't particularly suitable for Wikipedia style articles.
• I don't think this is the right way to deal with the problems in the area. Yes, the persecution of Muslims in the Balkans is not in dispute, but genocide studies is always focused on the victims, its not about making these types of justifications or comparisons. (The same is true for the Balkans and ICTY obviously and this is pretty much settled in scholarship. I don't think the majority of WP:RS have drawn an explicit connection between the Armenian genocide and human rights abuses against Muslims in the Balkans and Greece - they are both condemned. I would be extremely surprised if strong academic sourcing exists for this.)Seraphim System ^(talk) 15:15, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Seraphim System, Pipes is no fringe historian and if anything criticism toward him comes from parts of the Muslim side and parts of the left as opposed to anything else. Martinlc, he did a review of McCarthy's book so is it ok to use and say in a sentence or two Daniel Pipes states that ..... McCarthy's work is so on and so forth but citing Bleacher, that is the jist of my question. I am not using Pipes to cite McCarthy's numbers, but to cite the context and views among scholars who are heavyweights, experts in Islam and Genocide studies of where McCarthy's work sits in that spectrum. Best.Resnjari (talk) 15:22, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

So, I am surprised to find that there are actually a lot of sources that support this. I thought a majority position like this would at least be mentioned here Armenian_Genocide#Conflict_in_the_Balkans_and_Russia. (I know Wikipedia is not a WP:RS but this is a bit much, imo.) The problem with Pipes language in my view is that it is more extreme - it guesses at motivations, calls it "deportation", discusses intent (implying a legalistic argument against genocide), etc. - the majority of academic sources do not call the genocide into question. It's a subtle difference, but important. Having checked for additional sources, it seems a more muted version is not only non-controversial, but widely considered an essential part of scholarship about the Armenian Genocide. (I guess I should read things other then Wikipedia from time to time?) This can easily sourced to much stronger sources than Pipes or McCarthy, and I don't think either of these sources is preferable source where others exist: Britannica, Hovannisian a blackwell source discussing McCarthy and Mann Altorki again Seraphim System ^(talk) 16:47, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Seraphim System, yes over the years there are more and more academics doing research Muslim civilian casualties/expulsions regarding the Ottoman era, as also on the Armenian Genocide. I am aware of Mann and also Bloxham both of which have been used and make similar remarks to Pipes on McCarthy. Nonetheless back to the main thing here, Pipes, a noted historian only does a review of McCarthy's work and gives his analysis of it and roughly he says that McCarthy's work places into context what was happening to the Ottoman Empire during its violent breakup and events such as the Armenian Genocide and others. Pipes does not deny the Genocide. Please read the whole review. Bleacher quotes Pipes in the discussion about Genocide. My question is about use of Pipes via Bleacher citing Pipes' view as he is a heavyweight in academia especially relating to Islam studies. Best.Resnjari (talk) 17:42, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Application of MEDRS to trivial info in medical articles

Mongolian spot currently cites a Japan Times article for (part of?) Coria del Río in Spain has a high incidence due to the presence of descendants of Hasekura Tsunenaga, the first Japanese official envoy to Spain in the early 17th century.

In my experience, JT is often a less-than-ideal source when used for trivial claims about traditional Japanese culture, even for things every high school student is expected to know (one of their staff writers, it seems, once read a scholarly source that used the word "waka" to refer to poetry in Japanese, as opposed to Chinese, and extrapolated that this was synonymous with "domestic poetry", thus making the Man'yōshū Japan's oldest collection of domestic poetry, something that is definitely wrong), so seeing it in an ostensibly medical article made alarm bells go off for me.

But the above sentence is clearly not going to be "widely used as a source for health information" as the lead of WP:MEDRS states is the purpose of the stricter RS guidelines for medical articles.

Am I just being paranoid and it's fine?

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:56, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Not just you. Its making a claim about the incidence of a medical condition. I would expect a fully MEDRS compliant source - or at least, a government provided statistic. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:42, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Yeah I suppose. Thinking on it a bit more, if I'm reading it correctly, I can kinda imagine that the child of some otherwise "Spanish-looking" descendant of a Japanese guy from 400 years ago might randomly inherit, and the parents could be confused and not realize it's a benign condition affecting people of Asian heritage. (If it's talking about "Asian-looking" people of whom there happen to be a lot in that town because of Tsunenaga and his retinue, then it's redundant and misleading.) It still seems kinda outlandish, but looking at in terms of incidence of a medical condition (rather than a shared cultural link, which is invariably how JT presents such things) makes it seem less trivial. Thanks! Tagged. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:56, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Google docs

Is this Google Docs source reliable? At the article White's, one person, who has changed IP address at least twice, insists on the inclusion of this incident - see history of the page and User talk:Redrose64#whites. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:41, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

No. Unsigned entirely, and links to youtube as well. Unsigned sources are bestjudged by the notability of their author. Collect (talk) 14:50, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It is not a reliable source for that content, no. That is almost the definition of WP:USERGENERATED. Created by who knows who, editing who-knows-how-many times, etc etc. As for the events it purports to describe, it is UNDUE to discuss them unless they have been discussed in independent, reliable sources. Jytdog (talk) 14:52, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Anyone could have written that document and claimed it as their own, additionally, it relies on a YouTube link and is possibly self published. If it was a reputable source, the user in question wouldn't have needed to upload it to Google Docs. ChieftanTartarus (talk) 14:56, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

@Redrose64: I have requested that the page be Semi-Protected to deal with the issue, as it is coming from IP addresses ChieftanTartarus (talk) 15:02, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:34, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Germanic peoples

• Article. The article Germanic Peoples was originally, and is still mainly, about the classical tribes known from Roman and Greek sources. There has long been disagreement among editors about whether there are "modern" Germanic Peoples (as opposed to speakers of Germanic languages), in any sense worthy of an encyclopedia. It is argued that this is something which only appears in things like blogs or non-specialist works.
• Content. For years there have been insertions and removals of material about "modern" Germanic peoples. Currently at the end of the intro is "Modern Germanic ethnic groups include the Afrikaners, Austrians, Danes, Dutch, English, Faroe Islanders, Flemish, Frisians, Germans, Icelanders, Lowland Scots, Luxembourgers, Norwegians, and Swedes." (The basic idea seems to be that modern speakers of Germanic languages, at least if to a reasonable extent descended from ancient ones, can be called modern Germanic peoples.)
• 2 Sources currently being cited which use the term this way. Both are interested in nationalist movements it seems at first sight.

• Pavlovic, Zoran (2007). Europe. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 1-4381-0455-3. Described by publisher as "a useful reference on the geography of Europe" [18]. Pavlovic appears to be a Psychologist who writes about many things including the relationship between Eastern Europe and the rest of Europe [19] although I have not yet found confirmation that he is the one to write this book.
• Minahan, James (2000). One Europe, Many Nations: A Historical Dictionary of European National Groups. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-30984-1. [Google books.] Described by publisher as "an essential guide to the national groups populating the so-called Old World-groups that continue to dominate world headlines and present the world community with some of its most intractable conflicts". James Minahan on Amazon [20]. I note from Amazon: "JAMES B. MINAHAN is an independent researcher living in Barcelona, Spain. He is the author of Nations Without States: A Historical Dictionary of Contemporary National Movements (Greenwood, 1996), which was named an ALA/RASD 1996 Outstanding Reference Source, and Miniature Empires: A Historical Dictionary of the Newly Independent States (Greenwood, 1998)." From what I can see on Amazon, every entry about a modern group noted as Germanic is written as a passage about who they are descended from.

Not saying anything negative about the authors, my two cents is that possibly the two sources can be generalized as being, with regards to this specific subject, general/popular, and not academic or specialist. It would be good to get community feedback about whether such sources are good enough, especially if none better can be found (implying, according to a long running argument on the article, that specialists do NOT use the term "Germanic people" to refer to modern groups this way).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:28, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Just noting that almost all Irish people speak English (a Germanic language) as their first language, but no one would say "The Irish are a Germanic people". Listing off modern ethnic groups that speak a Germanic language and claim lineal descent from the "original" speakers of those languages as "Germanic peoples" is almost as weird; or perhaps even weirder, given that "Germanic" as a term is used primarily in historical linguistics and so one would assume a "Germanic person" is someone whose first language is a Germanic language regardless of their ethnicity (similarly to how the early inhabitants of Greece are classified as Greek or not based on the language that we assume they spoke). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:46, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

True, but I suppose supporters of this insertion would say modern Germanic peoples also have (or see themselves as having?) Germanic ancestry, as well as the connection to language (and perhaps other cultural things) that come from those ancestors. It seems some people talk and think this way, but OTOH the question here is whether the sources are considered reliable enough to have it in an encyclopedia. You have not commented on the reliability of the sources.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:04, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

I think the article scope needs to be clarified first. If its about historical (as in, Roman era) Germanic groups, then its irrelevant if the sources are reliable, they are not relevant to the article scope. If its about all Germanic-derived ethnic groups, then the above may be relevant. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:07, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

(Respponding to AL, not OID) Well, yeah, but in reality almost everyone in Ireland also has (at least some) Germanic ancestry. We were conquered by the "Anglo-Normans" (don't ask what they were because I don't know -- their name implies Norsemen but they spoke French), most of our cities were founded by "Vikings" from modern Norway, we were later colonized by the "English" (and "Scots"), and then part of the United Kingdom for more than a century. Irish people don't generally identify as "Germanic" because of a fictive national identity, not because of any certainty about stronger genealogical ties to the ancient Celts than to the ancient Germans. Modern scholars, when discussing such issues usually recognize that such things are usually not based in fact. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 20:28, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

@Only. I think that approach creates a chicken and egg problem. FWIW the article has definitely always been historically focused, but the question keeps arising as to whether this is enough. And the discussion of whether the article should include mention of modern equivalents, depends on whether there are reliable sources (and notability). You could argue that if there are another option is to have two articles, but no one has ever proposed this, because it seems everyone who wants the modern Germanic peoples included also (I think MAINLY) wants them presented as modern versions of the ancient peoples, and that's their main point. They would have nothing much extra to write about which is not covered in other articles? I notice we have articles such as Pan-Germanism and Germanic languages (which covers "Germanic speaking peoples"). @Hijiri yes, but even fictional or semi-fictional narratives can have WP articles about them, if notable etc, and in fact all nations are "in the mind" and based on narratives which are basically always "questionable". I am in any case thinking that the subject we are discussing (probably like with the two sources being used) is more connected to a sort of light version of Pan-Germanism?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:21, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Primary or secondary?

Would a newspaper article in The Plain Dealer be considered a primary or secondary source? Piriczki (talk) 15:19, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

It depends on the topic and whether it is news reporting or an oped. Broadly, most of what newspapers report is primary, but there is a large proportion of material that could be secondary too. --Masem (t) 15:22, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

It also depends on the time frame. A news item about a current event will almost always be a primary source. A retrospective 20 years later would be secondary etc. Per the instructions at the top, to give a decent answer we need source, article its to be used in, and the material it is going to support - as a single source could be primary, secondary, reliable, unreliable, depending entirely on the circumstances and material. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:53, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Might also be useful to check what kind of content the article is presenting. Is it first person accounts, breaking news reporting and raw facts? Primary. Do they go into analyzing the context and background? Secondary. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 12:11, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

And any given article may well be BOTH... with some parts primary and other parts secondary. Sources don’t always fit nicely into the primary/secondary categories. Blueboar (talk) 12:24, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't think they usually do. Plus a number of people use different definitions of "primary" and "secondary". And reliability or independence are unrelated issues still. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 14:30, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Verifying a Primary Source directly from Author

I have this question on reliable source. An editor User:Jeffro77 have challenged material appeared in The Watchtower magazine here. He have asked to submit secondary source to verify a statement about New World Translation made by Dr. Jason BeDuhn in a personal letter to the publisher of the translation, Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania.

I am a trained scholar of the Bible, familiar with the texts and tools in use in modern biblical studies, and, by the way, not a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses. But I know a quality publication when I see one, and your 'New World Bible Translation Committee' has done its job well. Your interlinear English rendering is accurate and consistent to an extreme that forces the reader to come to terms with the linguistic, cultural, and conceptual gaps between the Greek-speaking world and our own. Your 'New World Translation' is a high quality, literal translation that avoids traditional glosses in its faithfulness to the Greek. It is, is many ways, superior to the most successful translation in use today.

Now I contacted the professor by email. He replied back and said he is mystified by this request since Watchtower is certainly a citable source and suffice Wiki Standards. He said he would be happy to send me back a letter with the quote above verifying that he did sent the letter in Norther Arizona University letterhead. My question is how can I use it in Wikipedia? Can I upload the letter in Wikipedia Commons. Or should the professor have to give extra permissions via OTRS to put it in commons? --Roller958 (talk) 20:29, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

armstrongwilliams.com

First it was Jgera5, now it's Bbabybear02 saying some Sinclair stations are going to Armstrong Williams. I went to his website and it had a thing about it. Is it a reliable source? Should I revert Bbabybear02's edits? KOCB: [21] KOKH-TV: [22] KDNL-TV: [23] WRLH-TV: [24] Mvcg66b3r (talk) 15:42, 1 February 2018 (UTC)