Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Welcome — ask about reliability of sources in context!

Before posting, check the archives and list of perennial sources for prior discussions. Context is important: supply the source, the article it is used in, and the claim it supports. Additional notes: RFCs for deprecation, blacklisting, or other classification should not be opened unless the source is widely used and has been repeatedly discussed. Consensus is assessed based on the weight of policy-based arguments. While the consensus of several editors can generally be relied upon, answers are not policy. This page is not a forum for general discussions unrelated to the reliability of sources. Start a new discussion

Links to World Gazetteer don't work

Moved to WP:URLREQ

Podcasts to be used as: References or External Links?

I posted this on the talk page of Mona Lisa and have been directed to check here.

Can podcasts be used at all? If yes, is it as references or external links? I want to contribute quoting the episodes from the two widest known podcasts on Art History: ArtCurious and The Lonely Palette.

Here is an example from ArtCurious about Mona Lisa: https://www.artcuriouspodcast.com/artcuriouspodcast/1

It also has the transcript.

Please suggest! - Veera.sj

RfC: Business Insider culture reporting

Which of the following best describes the reliability of Insider for its original culture reporting?

Note this is section specific in efforts to try and find some narrow consensus as all previous discussions focusing on the sites as a whole have ended "no consensus".

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated

--TheSandDoctor ^Talk 05:32, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Survey (BI)

• Option 1 at least anecdotally, I've used the site and found the writing to be pretty good on culture topics. That doesn't mean every article is suitable for Wikipedia per other rules and guidelines, like NOTNEWS. For example this article might be suitable in gaslighting or influencer. It's journalism that quotes academic experts. -- GreenC 06:09, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

  Thank you for your input, GreenC. NOTNEWS and other policies/guidelines are always a consideration, regardless of the source. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 06:39, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

• Option 1 I have yet to see anything from Business Insider Culture that would not qualify as a WP:RS. ––FormalDude talk 08:08, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 but I'm willing to change my view if someone can offer a counterexample showing unreliable culture reporting. I haven't seen one yet; the reporting appears to be objective and factual, although somewhat gossipy and therefore somewhat unsuitable in my view (but then I tend to avoid pop culture articles anyway). ~Anachronist (talk) 13:14, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1, after going back and forth between 1 and 2 a few times. I often come across culture articles of theirs that are useful and as reliable as other sources, particularly other internet-focused sources like The Daily Dot (RSP entry) and The Daily Beast (RSP entry). I wouldn't necessarily weight them hugely for notability, and I might be careful when it comes to BLP-sensitive claims—it sometimes seems a bit sensationalist/tabloidy. However, even in articles like this, I've not really seen fact-checking concerns. I don't like that they've not addressed a correction I requested on this article that, in the first sentence, misspells the person the interview is about (it's "Thorn", not "Thorne"). However, I am yet to get a correction acknowledged by newspapers of record or indeed any source, even in cases of simple misspellings. — Bilorv (talk) 13:29, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
  • If it's unreliable for BLPs and not very usable for notability, surely that's an option 2 - David Gerard (talk) 20:17, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
    • Utility in notability is not related to reliability, whilst WP:GREL is about Generally reliable in its areas of expertise—this allows for a certain amount of areas of non-expertise (for instance, The New York Times is not a MEDRS per WP:MEDPOP) and for cases where the source is not going to be reliable even within its areas of expertise. I think it would be consistent to go for either options 1 or 2, but I opted for 1 because I don't think the issues are severe enough to lump it in with much worse "marginally reliable" listings. — Bilorv (talk) 23:08, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2 - doesn't lie that I know of, but questionable when used as evidence of notability. The considerations in the previous RFC Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_324#RfC:_Business_Insider still apply - they're notorious for space-filling clickbait and churnalism. If you're looking for endorsement of BI as WP:DUE, this is not the board for that - David Gerard (talk) 19:20, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

  This is specifically for original reporting though, which would seemingly exclude churnalism per its definition? I am aware of WP:DUE and how this isn't the board for that and that wasn't the question asked. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 19:32, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

  That would still be Option 2 in a guideline, because the sort of detailed and specific per-article source assessment you're looking at wouldn't be covered by a broad guideline. "Option 1" is clearly not correct, per the serious issues noted by multiple editors in the previous RFC. If you're not in fact trying for WP:DUE, then you've failed to make clear what precisely you're trying to push through here, and precisely which editing conflict you had in mind - David Gerard (talk) 22:00, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

  @David Gerard: What I had in mind for this was like how Fox News is split 3 ways at RSP. I figured there might be an ability to possibly gain consensus one way or the other per section, but apparently not. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 00:51, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

• Option 2. BI split into three different editorial teams: business, news, and lifestyle [1]. BI Culture would fall under lifestyle. In reality, I don't any evidence in RS that truly differentiates the various BI brands, so I would default to the previous RfC that showed a history of clickbait, bad editorial practices, and some factual errors. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 22:06, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2 - There are a lot of churnalized clickbait. Sea Ane (talk) 20:14, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1. We should stay neutral regarding the issue of "clickbait", as it's subjective and not all that helpful in determining fact-checking standards. The New York Times publishes headlines that could be considered clickbait. And I see that coming up frequently as a bit of an emotional, knee-jerk reason to discredit this publication. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 23:01, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
  • I'd add to this that headlines are not reliable, the body of articles is what we're talking about, so if "clickbait" is just in the headline then it doesn't matter much (though it would be strange to encounter, say, a publication with exceptional fact checking in its articles but lies in its headlines). — Bilorv (talk) 23:08, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
• Which???. This needs clarification - the title and link is for BusinessInsider.com but the Question is for Insider.com ? Also ‘culture reporting’ seems to mean ‘content at insider.com’ as a subsection and not ‘used as RS for facts about Culture events’. Can that be confirmed or otherwise clarified ? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:31, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

  @Markbassett: They both are effectively the same entity in that they have been changed to have the same name. I just named this section as such as editors will probably have more familiarity under that title. Regarding the second point, I am not sure that there is a difference? --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 14:57, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

User:TheSandDoctor The way it is worded asks if https://www.insider.com/culture is RS for culture - I think maybe pop culture more than respected for opinions on music or paintings. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

RFC: Newsblaze

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.

---

Newsblaze claims to be a news site: "the alternative business and world news newspaper". https://newsblaze.com/ and https://newsblaze.com.au/ There are presently 348 usages in article space.

The pressroom page states: "Newsblaze was founded with the goal of giving attention to the news that the mainstream media gives little or no time."

There are editors concerned at the quality of Newsblaze as a source, particularly given it does get usage on the encyclopedia.

• Option 1: The source is recognized as being generally reliable.
• Option 2: There is no consensus or additional considerations apply.
• Option 3: The source is recognized as being generally unreliable in most cases, though it can be used under certain circumstances.
• Option 4: The source is recognized as being not reliable at all and should be deprecated.

- David Gerard (talk) 17:05, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Opinions: Newsblaze

• Option 4. We should not be using this as a source on Wikipedia for anything, to the point that I'm not confident it could be trusted for WP:ABOUTSELF. It should be deprecated, and usages removed from article space. - David Gerard (talk) 17:10, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
  • I should note: I wouldn't have done the whole RFC thing except for discovering to my horror that it's actually being used as a source in practice - David Gerard (talk) 19:41, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
    • David Gerard, just a procedural concern. RfCs should be a neutral short question, so I'd recommend moving everything except the first line, the third line and the options, under the discussion subsection. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 19:56, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
      • I have done this - David Gerard (talk) 23:35, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
• 'Option 4. Pretty clearly not a reliable source, and not one that a serious, reputable reference work (nor responsible editors) should go anywhere near. MastCell ^Talk 17:42, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 per above. Also, the site barely even functions properly - I'm getting stuck in a redirect loop. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:51, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 I've reproduced the problem that ProcrastinatingReader had - might be a bug in their page. Other than that, OP's assessment that Newsblaze was founded with the goal of giving attention to the news that the mainstream media gives little or no time is even incorrect because it's not news to begin with. As CNNNN once said, Take two glasses of know-how and add a teaspoon of truth. Stir thoroughly. For me it's more of a pinch, if not less - obviously to be deprecated. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:43, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
  • That was a quote from their site. I do think it fails at it - David Gerard (talk) 20:01, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

    You just wrote that The pressroom page notes: "Newsblaze was founded with the goal of giving attention to the news that the mainstream media gives little or no time." It certainly does that, so I assumed you agreed with it. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 20:09, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

• Option 4 for the reasons outlined above. This is a bad source. ––FormalDude talk 20:12, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 I can't see any circumstances where anything Newsblaze says would be considered reliable. Even for themselves, as David Gerard states, I couldn't be sure it is correct outside of an email address. Canterbury Tail talk 20:14, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
• @David Gerard: what is your brief and neutral statement? At almost 4,200 bytes, the statement above (from the {{rfc}} tag to the next timestamp) is far too long for Legobot (talk · contribs) to handle, and so it is not being shown correctly at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia proposals. The RfC may also not be publicised through WP:FRS until a shorter statement is provided. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:16, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

  Sorry about that, I went into rant mode in the RFC text. I've shortened the text considerably, and moved my opinions and the cited support for them below - David Gerard (talk) 23:34, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

  Thank you --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:02, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

• Option 4 Well-known for propagating falsehoods and conspiracy theories, like here, for instance. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 02:26, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 as per previous comments. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:12, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Discussion: Newsblaze

Apart from not being neutral, my summary of Newsblaze was long enough to break the bot! So I've moved it here.

The site(s) propagates conspiracy theories, fabrications and serious medical misinformation.

• Medical conspiracy theories: Vaccine scaremongering, citing NaturalNews as a source; more vaccine scaremongering; "Australia-Japan Virtue Signal Summit Guns Blazing", where by "virtue signal" he means masks and vaccines; hydroxychloroquine advocacy.
• "Did Twitter Delete My Tweets and Stop Me from Following Trump?"
• Their White House correspondent, Randy Foreman, "attends daily briefings", though he doesn't seem to have filed much since the Obama years. What he does file includes supporting the Obama birth certificate conspiracy theory [2] [3] (enough for it to be noted by others) and giving credence to the Pizzagate conspiracy theory.[4] Foreman was not invited to the briefings; he used to just sit in the New York Daily News seat, because it was usually empty.
• "Arab Fifth Column Growing in Israel"
• Climate change denialism: "Is Bureau of Meteorology Ignoring Science To Tell Global Warming Stories"; "killer windmills"; abuse of statistics.

There is non-conspiracy content also, e.g. treating Covid vaccines as good and climate change as real. But even both-sidesing this nonsense is bad enough.

The "curation policy" reads like an excuse for skirting copyright violation.

The site is also weirdly broken - in both Chrome and Firefox, all pages seem to reload continuously. I could only read some of these pages through archive.is. Perhaps it's just me.

Summary: this site appears to be a conspiracy theorist blog, with press release reprints and borderline copyright violations to fill it out.

- David Gerard (talk) 23:34, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

• It's been a week since last edit - anyone uninvolved who thinks this is a WP:SNOWBALL? - David Gerard (talk) 00:18, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

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

RfC: Polish sources

A dispute has been raging in June and July about reliability of some sources in the context of Jan Żaryn, a conservative Polish politician, which spilt into WP:NPPSG, hence the scope of the request. Details will be mentioned in the "Discussion" section on the dispute, so that the RfC question fits in here.

Please evaluate the following resources in the following manner:

• Option 1: The source is recognized as being generally reliable.
• Option 2: There is no consensus or additional considerations apply.
• Option 3: The source is recognized as being generally unreliable in most cases, though it can be used under certain circumstances.
• Option 4: The source is recognized as being not reliable at all and should be deprecated.

Thank you. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:22, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Survey: Polityka

Webpage: [5]

• Option 1. Volunteer Marek has referred to it as an analogue of The Nation for Poland, and that assessment is pretty much correct, with all implications arising from this assessment (RS, partisan source (left-of-center to left-wing), might need care in WP:DUE and WP:BLP issues, but reliable for facts). In other words, pretty much usable. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:22, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
• Comment I'd agree with "Option 1" and Szmender's reasoning if specific mention of BLP issues is made. Volunteer Marek 19:42, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1. No idea why the article Polityka wasn't linked? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:46, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1, superb source.Mellow Boris (talk) 07:35, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm posting it again as a separate remark since my previous note has been removed by Mellow Boris[6] Mellow Boris (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic and is a new account. - GizzyCatBella🍁 09:45, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I registered on 21 May 2020, more than a year ago.Mellow Boris (talk) 09:47, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

You made 64 edits in total, scattered within 7 days throughout the year (not including entries you made today). The bulk was regarding the area under discussion. - GizzyCatBella🍁 10:06, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

• Option 1, per Szmenderowiecki. François Robere (talk) 12:33, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1, I agree with many of the comments posted but especially to the comment made by Szmenderowiecki. Jurisdicta (talk) 03:44, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 per Volunteer Marek above.--Darwinek (talk) 02:53, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1:Seems generaly reliable.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 19:57, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Survey: OKO.press

Webpage: [7]

• Option 1/2. They feature a fact-checker, although users should be cautious about using "according to OKO.press fact-checker" statements, because at least one was found to be essentially an opinion piece (but it should not be excluded altogether - users should use their best judgment to determine whether the whole piece is actually about fact-checking, and only after determining that they should). On the other hand, for assertions of fact and for their investigations, I see no reasons for unreliability. Moreover, their coverage has been extensively used in scholarly works for citing factual coverage: [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17] etc. That said, it is partisan and disproportionately uses heavily loaded labels (such as fascist or homophobic, which should generally be avoided per MOS:RACIST) and the same caveat as with Polityka applies here. In neither the case of Polityka, nor oko.press, should this caveat be an automatic reason/excuse for suppression of information, even in light of discretionary sanctions, including BLPs. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:22, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 - it would be more appropriate to say that they "have appropriated the language of fact checking". Their "fact checks" don't actually check any facts but offer opinions of a subjective nature and then they call it "fact checking". Like, anyone can CLAIM to be a "fact checker", but such a claim does't automatically make you Snopes or Politifact. In fact, by now, there's lots of hyper-partisan outlets (mostly on the right, but as in this case, sometimes on the left) who dress up their partisanship or even outright spreading of misinformation as "fact checking". Also, as Szmender notes, the overall tone of Oko's pieces is overwhelmingly hyperbolic and hysterical (a simple disagreement is presented as a "vicious attack" etc) and that's not even getting to the issue of cherry picking and selective use of context. Volunteer Marek 19:48, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1/2. IMHO they are trying to be a Polish Bellingcat, but they are much more active, not as well respected internationally, and partisan. I do actually agree with their editorial line more often than not, but they are "new". Not seeing any red flags outside that, but they do have a very obvious bias and don't pretend it to hide it. Just like there are obvious pro-government media in Poland these days, there are obvious opposition media and they are smack right there. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:49, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1. Superb reputation. Won Index of Censorship award in 2020 [18]. International media uses them, quotes them: [19][20][[21][22].Mellow Boris (talk) 07:41, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm posting it again as a separate remark since my previous note has been removed by Mellow Boris[23] Mellow Boris (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic and is a new account. - GizzyCatBella🍁 09:45, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I registered on 21 May 2020, more than a year ago.Mellow Boris (talk) 09:47, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

You made 64 edits in total, scattered within 7 days throughout the year (not including entries you made today). The bulk was regarding the area under discussion. - GizzyCatBella🍁 10:06, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

• Option 1/2, per Szmenderowiecki. François Robere (talk) 12:37, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1, as I said in previous discussions, Oko.Press is cited by the first class Italian center-right[24] and center-left[25] newspapers. I think it is to be considered reliable.--Mhorg (talk) 12:48, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

And as others have already pointed out, being quoted somewhere does not establish reliability. Volunteer Marek 03:30, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• Not really a fact-checker but a decent source nonetheless. Option 2/3 for anything non-political. Option 3 for political coverage. Highly biased and partisan outlet that is clearly "on a mission".--Darwinek (talk) 02:49, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3: Open about being pure political attack site.Extremely hyberpolic and emotional writing aimed at pursuing political agenda.— Preceding unsigned comment added by MyMoloboaccount (talk • contribs) 19:57, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Survey: naTemat

Webpage: [26]

• Option 2. Pretty tabloidish in some parts of coverage, but still usable for others. [27], for example, does not mention that in fact, the video had been selectively cut (though refers to CNN, saying this is "nonsense"). That said, its news sections (Świat, Dzieje się) are OK. There are better sources than that, though. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:22, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2. The assessment above seems correct. I'd avoid it for anything controversial. Tabloid. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:51, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2, since its reporting leans towards sensational.Mellow Boris (talk) 07:42, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm posting it again as a separate remark since my previous note has been removed by Mellow Boris[28] Mellow Boris (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic and is a new account. - GizzyCatBella🍁 09:45, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I registered on 21 May 2020, more than a year ago.Mellow Boris (talk) 09:48, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

You made 64 edits in total, scattered within 7 days throughout the year (not including entries you made today). The bulk was regarding the area under discussion. - GizzyCatBella🍁 10:06, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

• Option 2, per Szmenderowiecki. François Robere (talk) 12:38, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2 Not the best source but generally okay. I would avoid it for anything controversial, or where better sources exist.--Darwinek (talk) 02:13, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 19:57, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Survey: gazeta.pl

Webpage: [29]

• Option 1. Gazeta Wyborcza without the paywall, less investigative journalism than in GW and slightly less bias, because it does more routine reporting. Can't say much about kultura.gazeta.pl and kobieta.gazeta.pl for articles for Polish entertainment purposes. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:22, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1/2. When I looked into them a while back I got the impression that they were the GW attempt at tabloid market, as such their reporting is lower quality. But in general, still relatively good. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:52, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1, same reputation as the superb Gazeta Wyborcza with which they share many things but not the paywall.Mellow Boris (talk) 08:06, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm posting it again as a separate remark since my previous note has been removed by Mellow Boris[30] Mellow Boris (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic and is a new account. - GizzyCatBella🍁 09:45, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I registered on 21 May 2020, more than a year ago.Mellow Boris (talk) 09:48, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

You made 64 edits in total, scattered within 7 days throughout the year (not including entries you made today). The bulk was regarding the area under discussion. - GizzyCatBella🍁 10:06, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

• Option 1, per Szmenderowiecki. Can't say about the particular sections without context. François Robere (talk) 12:39, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 but would lean to Option 2 if the portal continues its "tabloidization".--Darwinek (talk) 02:41, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2 Generally reliable but politically engaged.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 19:57, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2 Generally reliable but... it's really not that good. It's basically riding on the high reputation of Gazeta Wyborcza from the 90s and early 2000's. These days? It's mostly click bait garbage. Look at it: [31]. Look at the stories: Wooly mammoths are coming back! Shocking salaries of medical workers! Speeding tickets are brutal (sic - their words)! Etc. etc. etc. Volunteer Marek 01:29, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Survey: Telewizja Polska (Wiadomości on TVP1, TVP Info, etc.)

Webpage: [32]. Note. We are NOT discussing pundits or talk shows.

• Option 3 for political or otherwise controversial content, not syndicated from PAP (Polish Press Agency), post-2015 They've even buggered their "fact-checker", making it a platform to spew mud on opposition parties, what can I say? The reliability of TVP news in general has even been part of research theses and scholarly papers: [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], which quite uniformly say it's pro-govt propaganda. No wonder TVP news is the least trusted among major news outlets, according to Reuters Institute Digital News Report in 2021. Since the term "propaganda" not only means bias but unreliability, my assessment is such as presented. Even PAP-syndicated coverage is far from the golden standard, it's still orders of magnitude better than their own coverage.

Option 2/leaning 1, not syndicated from PAP, pre-2015. TVP has had quite a lot of influence from whoever ruled, and indeed the news were skewed towards whoever ruled Poland, [39], [40], but it was a far smaller extent than today. A sample from protest coverage has actually shown TVP in quite a positive light [41], but it's more of a sample rather than a general assessment.

Option 1 for non-controversial non-political coverage. Sports, culture, and news reports in which the government, or the party, has not got interest, or some really trivial facts, like opening of a motorway, are not something shouldn't be able to source to them; though often this info is syndicated from PAP. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:22, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

• It's complicated, which is to say, I mostly agree with Szmenderowiecki. In fact I'd even consider Option 4 for modern "political or otherwise controversial content". It's propaganda-level - "all hail the current political party and its glorious leaders", extremely biased and simplistic. It is of course important to note that their older articles, as well as the ones on non-controversial issues, are still ok-ish. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:55, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 to 4. Filled with anti-LGBT, anti-immigrant, anti-EU, and other far-right bullshit from the Polish government. It was better under previous government, but that just shows that they are independent editorially from the government.Mellow Boris (talk) 07:43, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm posting it again as a separate remark since my previous note has been removed by Mellow Boris[42] Mellow Boris (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic and is a new account. - GizzyCatBella🍁 09:45, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I registered on 21 May 2020, more than a year ago.Mellow Boris (talk) 09:48, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

You made 64 edits in total, scattered within 7 days throughout the year (not including entries you made today). The bulk was regarding the area under discussion. - GizzyCatBella🍁 10:06, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

• Option 3 for anything post-2015, unless it's for something completely trivial (in the sense that it is narrow, numerical, and easy to verify) like the weather or sports scores. The opening of a motorway might seem trivial, but major infrastructure projects are often a political affair, so even that sort of coverage can be abused. I'll lean towards option 2 for anything pre-2015 if it can be shown that, despite its bias, the outlet was generally reliable pre-2015. François Robere (talk) 12:50, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 for non-political coverage. Option 1 even for political coverage but before 2015. Option 3 for political coverage post 2015.--Darwinek (talk) 02:17, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 Generally reliable but sometimes politically engaged.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 19:57, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Survey: Polskie Radio

Webpage: [43]

• Same assessment as TVP. There is virtually no difference between the two. The news on the webpage have virtually the same structure and the controlling body (National Media Council, RMN) is the same, i.e. the government. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:22, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
• More or less. There are differences between programs, Polskie Radio Program III used to be very respected in culture, but recently it got mangled by the new management and like all state media, suffers from lack of quality when it comes to anything political/controversial. Again, we need to be careful not to discard it in other areas, however, it was historically reliable, and it still is on non-controversial topics.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:58, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 to 4. Like TVP. Filled with anti-LGBT, anti-immigrant, anti-EU, and other far-right bullshit from the Polish government. It was better under previous government, but that just shows that they are independent editorially from the government.Mellow Boris (talk) 07:44, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm posting it again as a separate remark since my previous note has been removed by Mellow Boris[44] Mellow Boris (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic and is a new account. - GizzyCatBella🍁 09:45, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I registered on 21 May 2020, more than a year ago.Mellow Boris (talk) 09:48, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

You made 64 edits in total, scattered within 7 days throughout the year (not including entries you made today). The bulk was regarding the area under discussion. - GizzyCatBella🍁 10:06, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

• Same as above, per Szmenderowiecki and my previous comment. François Robere (talk) 12:55, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 Generally reliable but sometimes politically engaged.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 19:57, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Survey: TV Republika

Webpage: [45].

• Option 2 for non-syndicated content; option 3 for pundits A lot of what they publish is in fact syndicated from PAP, which should not be taken into account because it does not belong to TV Republika. Their own news reporting seems OK, though materials on history should not be used, unless an expert in the field actually writes/speaks to them. Materials previously published in the three sources below should not be used, either. Pundits are unreliable. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:22, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 to 4. Like TVP. Filled with anti-LGBT, anti-immigrant, anti-EU, and other far-right bullshit from the Polish government. It was better under previous government, but that just shows that they are independent editorially from the government. Separating PAP from non-PAP here would be cumbersome.Mellow Boris (talk) 07:46, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm posting it again as a separate remark since my previous note has been removed by Mellow Boris[46] Mellow Boris (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic and is a new account. - GizzyCatBella🍁 09:45, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I registered on 21 May 2020, more than a year ago.Mellow Boris (talk) 09:49, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

You made 64 edits in total, scattered within 7 days throughout the year (not including entries you made today). The bulk was regarding the area under discussion. - GizzyCatBella🍁 10:06, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

• Options 2 and 3, per Szmenderowiecki, with the caveat that syndicated pieces are usually available through several outlets, so whenever one is available that is better than TVR it should be preferred over it. François Robere (talk) 13:10, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Survey: Do Rzeczy

Webpage: [47]

• Option 3/4. While some might argue that I am being excessively harsh towards conservative sources, the case here is essentially Washington Times or Washington Examiner, but they have a notoriously fringe position on COVID; rejecting scientific consensus altogether and spreading COVID misinformation as can be seen on prominently displayed editorials by Warzecha, Lisicki, etc., [48], [49], [50], [51] and in news coverage such as here: [52], [53]. The same goes for lockdowns and other COVID-related issues. No, mass media need not conform to WP:MEDRS standards but at least they should not spread misinformation. And yes, [54] they promote anti-immigrant discourse by essentially fear-mongering; and for them, climate science has more to do with hoaxes and religion than science. WP:ABOUTSELF statements are attributable to the website, but otherwise it merits at least the red label. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:22, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

To clarify my criteria: WSJ and The Australian also host quite a lot of climate deniers, lockdown and vaccine sceptics, and so on. The reason why they are considered reliable and Do Rzeczy (or Gazeta Polska, which in fact employs quite a lot of journalists from Do Rzeczy) is not is that the former strictly divide their opinion section from the normal reporting (which is good for WSJ and quite good for The Australian) while the latter do not. In fact, the only suggestion that it is an opinion piece is the URL of form dorzeczy.pl/opinie/* instead of dorzeczy.pl/* - they don't make it otherwise visible, and yes, not every opinion piece is under "Opinie" subsection. They quite often regurgiate debunked theories about COVID (PCR Ct (cycle threshold) number being apparently too high, vaccines overrated, I think I've even seen some mask disinfo too), or, in case of normal reporting, reporting on Geert Vanden Bossche in the first link ([55], [56], [57], [58] - quite a crank, as you can see), and, in the second link, using LifeSiteNews, which itself is deprecated. And that's not isolated to COVID, I've seen this trend for lockdowns and scientific topics in general. The same, to a slightly lesser extent (though not COVID, fortunately), concerns Gazeta Polska. At times it's better not to make any reporting than to make bad-faith reporting, as is the case here.

Even for normal news, meh. This article about the abolition of Latin in the Catholic Church is sourced from partly a blog and partly LifeSiteNews. I mean, there are certainly better outlets than that to find coverage on the same topic. For me, if you insist on right-of-center publications, it can be either Wprost (same owner, but better quality) or Rzeczpospolita, which is more centrist than right-of-center now, but still.

We don't strive for diversity of opinions at the expense of reliability.

As for superhistoria.pl, it was not impacted by the change made by VM, so I don't take it into consideration (though yes, I know it's affiliated). This might, in fact, merit a separate discussion or even RfC - history supplements to Polish newspapers, i.a. because of heightened requirements for antisemitism in Poland topics. I stick to dorzeczy.pl only. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 12:22, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

• I concur that their coverage on controversial or political issues is highly biased, but I am not sure they need to be totally depreciated. Articles like [59] or [60] - the first two I checked - seem fine. I'd say the source can be used on non-controversial issues, and on issues related to politics and medical topics, has to be attributed. Well, for medical, it probably should confirm to MEDRS which it doesn't, so there's that. If we really want to depreciate it from some areas, I'd like to see examples of specific controversial sentences referenced to it? In the end, the conservatives need to have their POV represented too (as long as it is clearly attributed). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:10, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

  WP:ABOUTSELF statements can be sourced to virtually any outlet. It's an exception than a rule not to do that. Other than that, I see no legitimate uses of the source. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 10:26, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

• Option 3 to 4. This is a source that criticizes the Polish government for not being sufficiently anti-LGBT, anti-immigrant, and anti-EU.Mellow Boris (talk) 07:47, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm posting it again as a separate remark since my previous note has been removed by Mellow Boris[61] Mellow Boris (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic and is a new account. - GizzyCatBella🍁 09:45, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I registered on 21 May 2020, more than a year ago.Mellow Boris (talk) 09:49, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

You made 64 edits in total, scattered within 7 days throughout the year (not including entries you made today). The bulk was regarding the area under discussion. - GizzyCatBella🍁 10:06, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

• Option 4, per Szmenderowiecki. I don't see any reason to be lenient with outlets that publish that sort of nonsense. François Robere (talk) 13:13, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 for non-political coverage like history, religion, art etc. Option 3 for political coverage (including Covid of course).--Darwinek (talk) 02:24, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 Reliable for history, religion, art etc. Option 3 for politics.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 19:57, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Survey: niezalezna.pl

Webpage: [62]

• Option 4 3. Even worse than above. Instead of Washington Examiner, we deal with Polish Breitbart here. Mistaken for Najwyższy Czas. For my evaluation, see comment under Piotrus's one. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:22, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
  • You may be right, but what are your reliable sources about the bias / other problems with this source? The first two links we use are [63] and [64]. The first is on history and doesn't seem controversial, the second is on the politics and outside the general theme of stressing a controversial comment by a German politician doesn't seem to be factually wrong (it's just quoting, mostly). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:25, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I've mistaken it with Najwyższy Czas!, which is quite awful. Mea culpa. Regarding niezalezna.pl, the first article you mention, the one about Dowbór-Muśnicki, is syndicated from dzieje.pl (a historical news arm of PAP), the second article is syndicated from PAP (to which they seem to have appended a clickbaity title), so in fact, we may need to evaluate syndicated content from Polish Press Agency in general for the purposes of this request for comment. It makes a big difference in this case if the reporting is syndicated. As for their own content, [65] they syndicate some content from TVP Info, which is not a good sign (in fairness, they are at least honest about it, as you can check it at the bottom of the page). They've also head some fear-mongering about immigrants reported as plain news, and use pretty much the same tactics as TVP Info does, such as exemplified here: [66], [67] (the first link also seems to be a house ad for Albicla (Parler for Poland), but I don't mind it too much, in fact). Fortunately, any more questionable articles that appear sometimes on climate change or science, vaccines and so on (and which are inadequately disclosed as such on Gazeta Polska or Do Rzeczy, are conveniently placed under "opinion" section. However, the methods of their own reporting (not syndicated content) are not what I believe to be compatible with either option 1 or 2, and often mimic the ones that TVP uses, which I have rated accordingly.

Articles for culture or history are almost entirely syndicated from PAP. Filarybiznesu.pl (niezalezna.pl's economic section) doesn't seem bad but will need attribution in most cases. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 13:20, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

• Option 3 to 4. This is a source that criticizes the Polish government for not being sufficiently anti-LGBT, anti-immigrant, and anti-EU.Mellow Boris (talk) 07:48, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm posting it again as a separate remark since my previous note has been removed by Mellow Boris[68] Mellow Boris (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic and is a new account. - GizzyCatBella🍁 09:45, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I registered on 21 May 2020, more than a year ago.Mellow Boris (talk) 09:49, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

You made 64 edits in total, scattered within 7 days throughout the year (not including entries you made today). The bulk was regarding the area under discussion. - GizzyCatBella🍁 10:06, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

• Option 3/4, per Szmenderowiecki. François Robere (talk) 13:15, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Survey: Gazeta Polska

Webpage: [69]

• Option 3/4. In fact, it's the same as Do Rzeczy, minus the coronascepticism and plus the xenophobic/Germanophobic front pages and content ([70], [71], [72], [73], [74]). And yes, they like conspiracy theories about Smolensk air disaster (the other two outlets do not mention it that prominently but try to say there's some middle ground between MAK's report and the assassination theory), and [75] they aren't at good terms with climate science. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:22, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Note. I'm commenting on post-2005 Gazeta Polska. It did have a different editor-in-chief prior to 2005 - I have not read their coverage before that, so I can't comment on it.

• Comment - one consideration here is the vintage. The Gazeta Polska that existed before 2005 is a pretty different animal that has existed since. Volunteer Marek 19:51, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 to 4. This is a source that criticizes the Polish government for not being sufficiently anti-LGBT, anti-immigrant, and anti-EU.Mellow Boris (talk) 07:47, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm posting it again as a separate remark since my previous note has been removed by Mellow Boris[76] Mellow Boris (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic and is a new account. - GizzyCatBella🍁 09:45, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I registered on 21 May 2020, more than a year ago.Mellow Boris (talk) 09:49, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

You made 64 edits in total, scattered within 7 days throughout the year (not including entries you made today). The bulk was regarding the area under discussion. - GizzyCatBella🍁 10:06, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

• Option 3/4, per Szmenderowiecki. François Robere (talk) 13:17, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
• Comment. I can't read Polish, so I won't attempt to affirmatively evaluate the source here, but the rationales given above are a bit concerning as far as WP:BIASEDSOURCES and WP:HEADLINE are concerned. We can't declare a source generally unreliable on the basis of its non-article cover pages, nor its political position per se. We have to evaluate the sources on the basis of their ability to conduct fact-checking, editorial independence, and editorial control. I'm not really seeing source reliability analysis here along those lines. I am, however, seeing explicit references to political positions as a reason to oppose reliability, which we should avoid. And, while some of the front pages might inspire concerns, the spirit of WP:HEADLINE would be to evaluate article content rather than things that are often not created by researchers and journalists who wrote the articles and are written to grab readers' attention quickly and briefly. Obviously, headlines and covers aren't the exact same thing, but I'd think that the same logic applies in analyzing them. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:59, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

  @Mikehawk10 You are quite correct. Please see my edits here about the flagship news program of Telewizja Polska which introduced some academic studies. Most other sources discussed here are niche enough that they are rarely mentions by scholars... _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:17, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

OP note

As has been said, the discussion in the article on Jan Żaryn has become a mess. Not delving into intricacies of that waste of resources and time that could have gone to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures for display (Jan Żaryn), some details that you might find useful.

OKO.press has been objected to by three editors, Volunteer Marek (VM), Lembit Staan and GizzyCatBella, on the grounds that it was too partisan and was otherwise unreliable for BLP purposes. Ultimately, one of the fact checks they have produced ([77]) has been found to be unusable as a fact-check, but the reasons for exclusion were different (unreliability, non-notability of the sentence discussed, possible differences in understanding of the words). Other articles have not been universally accepted as either prefectly usable or absolutely unusable. In a similar fashion, objections have been made to include the other three sources from the first four, though no particular determination has been made.

As for the other six resources, on 18 June at around 1:40 AM GMT, VM decided to delete, in three consecutive edits, seven sources from WP:NPPSG#Poland (a pre-RSP listing watch list), on the basis that the !voting in the previous discussions was unduly influenced. According to the edit summaries, VM said that accounts that have not been extended confirmed violated the discretionary sanctions enforced for Eastern Europe topics and antisemitism in Poland when submitting their opinion on the resources [500/30 restriction applies only to the anti-Semitism articles, not E Europe articles in general, though in particular cases, admins might institute these restrictions - my note], alleging that the voting was manipulated by sockpuppets and asserting that most of the voters who voted contrary to VM have been either WP:SPA or otherwise inexperienced users. Rosguill reverted the deletion, but changed the rating, believing that the claims were substantiated. The change went as follows:

OKO.press: rough consensus for RS -> no consensus; TVP, Polish Radio, TV Republika, Do Rzeczy, niezalezna.pl, Gazeta Polska: unreliable -> no consensus

Bob the snob was indeed blocked for sockpuppetry, and Mellow Boris was tagged throughout as a probable SPA, but otherwise no other editor has been found to be guilty of any wrongdoing as far as I'm aware. Engagement in the discussions has been minimal, so in fact, there can't be any consensus (or "no consensus") labels put on discussions with 2-3 editors, as they are not representative. The only one that solicited more attention was about Gazeta Wyborcza and OKO.press, and even there the summary was rather incorrectly changed, in my opinion.

I invite users to evaluate resources once again, and hope more opinions could be solicited based on that.

Pinging all users who were participating in the discussions on RSN that were affected by VM's edits on NPPSG and Jan Żaryn discussing reliability of any of the given resources. (except for SarahSV, my condolences): @Abcmaxx, Darwinek, MyMoloboaccount, Mellow Boris, Volunteer Marek, GizzyCatBella, François Robere, Mhorg, CPCEnjoyer, Lembit Staan, Piotrus, Buidhe, GPinkerton, Astral Leap, V.A. Obadiah, and Rosguill: Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:22, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

You list four possible options but your agreement with my assessment of Polityka suggests one of the options should explicitly address BLP issues. Like "generally reliable but use with caution when it comes to BLP, particularly opinion pieces from the source" or something. Volunteer Marek 19:40, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

I essentially said: copy the assessment from The Nation. It has the caveat for BLPs and I believe it to be an appropriate safeguard. As I have mentioned, the caveat should not, in my opinion, mean that the source is unusable for BLPs, but we should handle it with more care. It's more of Option 1/2 for BLPs. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:50, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Discussion proper

Rosguill reverted the deletion, but changed the rating, believing that the claims were substantiated.: minor correction. I believe that VM's complaints in themselves are enough dissent, in the absence of a wide consensus for reliability, to merit listing as "no consensus". I have not recently evaluated VM's objections and have no opinion about whether the arguments are sound. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:44, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

@Szmenderowiecki Since you are discussing 500/30 and sockpuppetry, I have to say that you are display an amazing level of competency on intricate wiki rules and politics, given that you started editing just few months ago, effectively since April, meaning that you've been here for less than half a year. Would you mind sharing a secret on how one can go from registering an account to understanding past ArbCom cases, policies like RS, reviewing DYKs and so on in just few months? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:59, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Four months is plenty of time to learn the ropes on how Wikipedia works. This comment is essentially casting aspersions that Szmenderowiecki is a sock without evidence. If you think that Szmenderowiecki is a sock of Icewhiz or whoever then you should present evidence at SPI, and not casting bad-faith aspersions here. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:15, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia - Where do you see the word "Icewhiz" in the above question not addressed to you? - GizzyCatBella🍁 16:15, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

GizzyCatBella, do you not want people not involved in your content dispute to participate here? The above question is an aspersion and anyone can point this out. In the same vein, your spamming of "new account with few edit" notes in every section above, with regards to Mellow Boris is an aspersion as well considering they were pinged here. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 19:14, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Look Tayi Arajakate, you are obviously not in the loop, so please be cautious with your judgments. I'm simply disappointed when people ask legitimate questions and others say "you can't make that accusation, file SPI" and then you file an SPI, but that stays open for months. --> [78] - GizzyCatBella🍁 20:18, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

User Mellow Boris, who is in that SPI investigation, has no evidence of sockpuppetry presented against him yet on the SPI page, and the last edit in that investigation was done by you on 19 August, and btw you filed the request on 27 July. I mean, you were discussing the potential socks for 20 days and now the discussion is dead for almost the same time. Were I a checkuser, I'd have declined the request to check users (those not mentioned in the evidence presented) in the first place for want of evidence of apparent sockpuppetry.

I don't know the case, and you were the one who filed it, so I wish you good luck to prove it and get rid of the offenders (if any), as of course less socks => more fairness & less disruption. It's surely in the interest of the community, but it's also in your particular interest as a filer to get the case done. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 13:58, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@Szmenderowiecki - Regarding some of the editors you pinged:

• The new account Mellow Boris reactivated his account after one month of inactivity[79] to come here with their view[80].
• New account V.A. Obadiah hasn't been active since April 27, 2021,[81].
• Newish account CPCenjoyer hasn't been active since June 29/2021.[82]

I'm speculating Mellow Boris just randomly, luckily, logged in to Wikipedia after being dormant for one month and found your message but how are the last two suppose to hear about your ping? - GizzyCatBella🍁 09:16, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I got the ping message and commented with a reasoned rationale. This innuendo is unseemly.Mellow Boris (talk) 09:36, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

You made 64 edits in total, scattered within 7 days throughout the year (not including entries you made today). The bulk was regarding the area under discussion. - GizzyCatBella🍁 10:06, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I pinged all accounts that were not blocked (or under current sanctions), which did not have a notice of WikiBreak/death/whatever excluding their possibility to edit and that participated in the discussion. If they had been inactive, they wouldn't have received a notification in the first place. If you believe the users you mentioned to be violating any policy or being WP:NOTHERE, please go ahead with an ANI/SPI complaint, and their !vote will be struck if such determination is made.

@Boris Mellow: Please do not remove the SPA tags, this makes you no good. Whether these are sound will be determined by the closer. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 11:23, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

@Szmenderowiecki - Inacurate - you also pinged accounts that are now blocked - GPinkerton - [83] - GizzyCatBella🍁 11:32, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

OK, my bad, but they won't receive the notification anyway. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 11:33, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

But all this means that we're back to the situation where "consensus" is constructed on the basis of input from multiple accounts that are either brand new or pretty much brand new and who don't even qualify to edit the articles under the 500/30 sanction. Volunteer Marek 21:33, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek Indeed. Is there a way to bring this entire thread to the ArbCom's attention? They did discuss whether to extend 500/30 to related discussions a while ago, didn't they? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:47, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Well, let's begin with the fact that if you have evidence of sockpuppetry, long-term abuse or off-wiki coordination, we can always change the outcome because these votes will eventually be deemed invalid, and probably before this RfC closes. But first let's have the evidence of brand-new account/IP abuse. Not all under-500/30 accounts should be automatically suspect, just as no person who looks like a Mexican and who recently received an American passport should be automatically under increased scrutiny for voter fraud.

Secondly, as far as I am aware, there is no 500/30 limit for RfCs or for RSN discussions, unless the topic can be reasonably construed to involve a topic being under such restrictions. This is not the case here. What you seem to propose here (correct me if I'm wrong) is to give more weight to established editors (like you) and attach less weight to whoever is not an ECA, but that's really an WP:EQUAL violation. Tagging possible SPA accounts is appropriate but disregarding anyone who hasn't done X edits and been here for Y days if there is no policy or ruling mandating that is not.

However, if ArbCom has the possibility and wants to intervene here, the relevant policies are changed (or if ArbCom says the intervention is exceptional and a good reasoning is presented), why not? That said, I think this remedy should be used only in extreme cases, and so far I'm only seeing one "suspect" user vote that you propose to disregard. ArbCom should in any case generally exercise restraint. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 14:17, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Szmenderowiecki I very briefly dipped my toe into this dispute some months ago, and (wisely IMO) decided to get the hell out. Unfortunately, it seems the same people are arguing the same points they were last time I checked in. Perhaps it might be wise to list this as a proper RfC to get more fresh eyes on this, instead of rehashing the same debate that has been going on for months. BSMRD (talk) 05:27, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

I do not want to repeat myself but essentially I would raise the point of funding for these outlets. Now state media is never truly independent, and TVP/PR has never been free from government pressure, that goes from governments of PZPR, SLD, PO and now PiS. The level of partizanship has increased drastically last few years though, not seen since the 1980s. Now the right-wing and far right in Poland are very media savvy; Do Rzeczy, Sieci, TV Republika, Gazeta Polska and a host of others are funded by either PiS backed institutes or other pro-gorvenment figures and organisations and are nothing more than cheerleaders. That's why they have a much higher output than sales because if they were to compete merely on economic terms they would be long gone, especially with the sheer amount of defamation losses in courts. They are designed to be inflammatory and controversial and it doesn't matter what they publish because they're never held to account and even if they are, it's financial collateral. Before anyone accuses me of political bias there are plenty of independent right wing publications such as Rzeczpospolita newspaper and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna and there's also the Catholic Tygodnik Powszechny; furthermore TVN has had some spectacular failures regarding neutrality and I would be careful with naTemat.pl, as it could be just Tomasz Lis' way of muscling in to vent his personal opinions and grudges. Abcmaxx (talk) 10:41, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks to Szmenderowiecki for the research and for setting this up. François Robere (talk) 13:19, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
  • @Szmenderowiecki: I suggest adding media and soc to the list of categories in the {{rfc}} template. François Robere (talk) 16:00, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

    Go for it. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 16:06, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

     Done. François Robere (talk) 18:44, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Comment: It seems to me that lists of "reliable" and "unreliable" sources should not be regarded as automatically relieving Wikipedians of an obligation to think critically and to collate information found in one source with information appearing in other sources. I have found excellent articles, by first-rate historians, in popular periodicals – and, conversely, articles of dubious value in otherwise well-regarded journals. Nihil novi (talk) 02:00, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

This is a general caveat for the whole RSP list, not only for Polish sources (see WP:RSPUSE, para 2). That people often tend not to read the fine print is not RSP's, nor this RfC's, problem. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 07:06, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Indeed. Another side of the coin is that depreciated/lower quality sources can spread guilty by association. "This person published in bad source X so their academic articles are unreliable too". Again, not a problem with RSP... _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:19, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Bad RFC

• Bad RFC on all - This is a complete disaster. People who (in the main? in part?) do not understand Polish are assessing pretty much the entire Polish print/TV media landscape for general liability, seemingly based on "this is right wing", "this said good things about PiS". What is the actual content dispute you are asking people to arbitrate here? And why is the relative status of these source important? FOARP (talk) 15:45, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

We really can't discuss such a huge swath of sources in this way,.Slatersteven (talk) 15:49, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

And even if we could, we shouldn't absent any 'clear' indication of what the actual dispute is supposed to be about. We are told this has arisen out of an article about a Polish politician but clearly this is related to a particular aspect of that person - and what is it? And why are general RFCs on all these media sources needed to arbitrate it when apparently the actual thing being discussed is not general, but specific? FOARP (talk) 07:41, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

I believe you can adjudicate a general case coming out of a specific content dispute (which indeed took place, I just attempted to wrap it up so that you don't need to waste time reading through tons of text), or at the very least that's been quite a practice for some time. It may be wrong, but it is commonplace and seems to have become a new standard. You are certainly a person who's been here for longer - I have no benefit of remembering the olden days when the grass was greener and RfCs were topic-specific, so I can't even judge if the way the disputes were previously adjudicated were the ideal (or at least a better) way to establish quality of sources. RSP and NPPSG are apparently conducive to this type of general-grade RfCs based on specific cases of disputes.

The rationale is given in my note, which is the first post in the discussion. You can believe it not to be good enough, but I tried my best to explain why such admittedly big RfC is needed. In fact, archives 328 and 329 of RSN contain an even broader scope of Polish sources (based on which the NPPSG Polish list was initially established), the only difference being that the opener (Abcmaxx) did not call it an RfC. Additionally, the closer should reasonably exclude or diminish the weight of !votes whose rationale is only the wrong political stance when determining the close because of WP:BIASED. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 11:42, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Rolling Stone

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Based on the whole discussion on the reliability of Rolling Stone, I am here to adjudicate reliability of the source in two domains: its reliability on political issues in the last decade and the Culture Council articles; I have also taken note of the general reliability opinions by the people discussing the source.

Per snowball clause, the following determination is made despite the RfC being relatively young (i.e. filed 8 days before closure; and discussion started just over 10 days ago):
1. There is unanimous consensus among editors that Rolling Stone is generally unreliable for politically and societally sensitive issues. The RfC opener suggested that this determination be applied for articles since 2011. While Mikehawk10 does in fact indicate reasons why such divide should be made at this year, it must be borne in mind that there was no specific trigger (such as a change of ownership) that could be attributable to such decline, so this date, as several editors, including RfC OP, have noted, this should be taken as an estimate rather than a strict division. Editors have said that low-quality reporting appeared before, but whether any caveats should be made for reporting prior to ca. 2011 (and if so, which) must be established in a separate discussion.
2. There is unanimous consensus among editors that Culture Council articles (of URL form rollingstone.com/culture-council/* or council.rollingstone.com/*) are self-published sources and are, in most aspects, equivalent to Forbes and HuffPost blogs. Editors, however, have also expressed concern that at least some of the content published is promotional and thus not usable. Editors should thus determine on a case-by-case basis whether the opinions published there are independent and if they constitute due weight. Usage of these sources for third-party claims in biographies of living persons as well as medical or scientific claims is not allowed.

3. The above determinations do not impact the news reporting on culture (film, music, entertainment etc.), which editors deem to be of high quality. The RSP entry will be edited according to these findings. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 00:46, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

---

I'm curious to know what editors think of Rolling Stone. There's news this week of them being involved in COVID misinformation or an outright hoax. Rolling Stone is now famously known for multiple hoaxes. [84][85]— Preceding unsigned comment added by Loganmac (talk • contribs) 18:11, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

• "Multiple hoaxes" that are actually the same story twice? was also printed by many other news sources NPR Forbes Fox CBS and appear to have been caused by a confused press release from a third party [86]? So that'd be a no. Black Kite (talk) 22:21, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
  • That is the wrong media screw up, Rolling Stone is the "Oklahoma ER's overwhelmed", you're linking to the "Mississippi Poison Control" story. fiveby(zero) 22:37, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
    • Ah, true. It's still the same story twice, though, so hardly "famously known for multiple hoaxes". Especially spurious given that one of the reports is from Fox... Meanwhile "The story, which originally appeared in Oklahoma's KFOR-TV news, was widely shared by reporters..." Black Kite (talk) 22:42, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) The Mississippi Poison Control Center thing you linked is another story. The Oklahoma story originates from an interview that the doctor did on KFOR (a local news station in Oklahoma), and it seems he decided to make stuff up for whatever reason KFOR severely misrepresented it. People are mad at Rolling Stone because they were one of the first to pick up on it, which lead it to go somewhat viral on social media. The lack of any fact checking here is troubling, as presumably this would be easy to check with a few phone calls, but Rolling Stone were certainly not the only ones to report on this, see e.g. The Guardian. Not to say that the Rolling Stone doesn't have any skeletons in their closet, but broadly speaking I don't think this shows any grave systemic issue on their part. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 22:44, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

• Yep. Crappy fact-checking, but they'd hardly be the first major news source to fall foul of something like this in the last 18 months. Contribs of the reporting editor are what you'd expect btw. Black Kite (talk) 22:47, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

• I wouldn't be using Rolling Stone for this type of news in the first place (eg not directly medical but related to medical crisis) - a similar factor related to the "Rape on Campus" story as that's out of their ballywig. But if we're talking anything in the entertainment industry, they still remain one of the top sources. --Masem (t) 22:52, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

• Volteer1, you may want to scratch that where you say the doc "decided to make stuff up", according to Reason there are no quotes where he connected Ivermectin to overwhelmed hospitals. fiveby(zero) 22:58, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks. I had just assumed what KFOR said of the interview was accurate. Choice quote from that piece: This means, of course, that if the national media outlets had called the doctor or the hospitals, they would have easily uncovered the error. Instead, they unthinkingly spread it. That is disappointing. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 23:07, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

• What's concerning me here is that this is a great example of failures of Rolling Stone to do independent fact-checking prior to releasing their article. It almost feels like a churnalistic approach has taken hold, especially given that the topic itself is rather clickbaity. And, well, there's also the glaring defamation problems it ran into a few years ago, which showed a complete and total breakdown of its editorial process, and this may be one of those papers where its political bias leads to actual blind spots in fact-checking, rather than it being a simply biased source. The existence of the Culture Council, where people can basically pay to publish their own writing in Rolling Stone, makes me think that the current WP:RSP listing is too simple; even though opinion pieces are governed by WP:RSOPINION, there appear to be at least some Rolling Stone pieces that are truly self-published and might not belong in a biography of a living person. It's certainly a indispensable historical source for the music industry, though I'm strongly concerned regarding its reliability since 2014—particularly on social issues and politically sensitive issues. I'd favor an RfC to clarify the extent to which others share these concerns and to help us write a better RSP entry that accounts for the Culture Council. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 07:24, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Their "Culture Council" articles are at least clearly marked, see e.g. a random example, though I agree these should be treated as self-published sources and the RSP entry should be updated accordingly. I do think they remain generally reliable for music and film/the entertainment industry, but I share your concerns about social/political issues and think an RfC would be a good means of evaluating community consensus. To me, it does feel like they haven't learnt all their lessons from A Rape on Campus, and seem too willing to churn out articles on hot-button political and social issues they know will get them clicks – like the article discussed above – and if all fact-checking the above story would have taken is a phone call to a hospital, it concerns me that they failed to do that. Outside of hot-button political and social issues though, I don't think I really have any concerns. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 08:59, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Rolling Stone on Politically Sensitive Topics and Social Issues (2011-Present)

Which of the following best describes the reliability of Rolling Stone from 2011-present with respect to politically sensitive topics and social issues?

• Option 1: generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated

— Mikehawk10 (talk) 00:33, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Discussion: Rolling Stone on Politically Sensitive Topics and Social Issues (2011-Present)

• Option 3. Since 2011, Rolling Stone has shown a reduction in its editorial quality regarding politically sensitive issues that has resulted in it publishing false and fabricated information, churnalism, as well as pieces of questionable reliability due to conflict-of-interest:

  Rolling Stone is a politically biased source that maintains a left-of-center lean. The Guardian describes it as a rock’n’roll magazine turned liberal cheerleader, while The Washington Post notes a left-of center political alignment and, in a separate article notes that the magazine has supported liberal causes and candidates since the 1990s. And, it doesn't appear that this sort of alignment is limited to the United States, as I discuss below with respect to Canada.

  Bias in a source, of course, doesn't necessarily impact reliability. As WP:BIASEDSOURCES states, when dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering. The problem is that it appears to generally fail on both editorial control and a reputation for fact-checking when dealing with politically sensitive topics or social issues. In a more mundane sense, its fawning cover story on Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was also regarded as containing many inaccuracies by reputable Canadian news agencies including Global News, National Post, and Macleans Magazine. I doubt Wikipedia editors would attempt to verify controversial facts with a piece that states that [f]or Trudeau, listening is seducing, but this is minor compared to problems that were revealed in a notable 2014 journalistic catastrophe at the magazine.

  It has had substantial issues with its editorial process for some time now, the worst of which was shown in their response to their libelous 2014 A Rape on Campus piece. The Washington Post ([link via Chicago Tribune) notes that critiques of the story blamed not just Rolling Stone's editorial standards but also its left-of-center politics. Columbia Journalism Review, in its scathing report, notes that the senior editors of Rolling Stone were unanimous in the belief that the story’s failure does not require them to change their editorial systems (emphasis mine). Rather, according to CJR, Coco McPherson, the fact-checking chief, said, "I one hundred percent do not think that the policies that we have in place failed. I think decisions were made around those because of the subject matter." (emphasis mine)

  But cutting corners on fact-checking because a publication is doing news reporting on a social issue isn't the hallmark of a reliable source, but the hallmark of an unreliable source. This editorial attitude doesn't inspire any confidence in the ability of the source to report facts. And, by the time that Rolling Stone retracted the piece, nearly five months had passed since it was published. And, senior staff at the magazine still questioned the decision to issue the retraction years later. It's no wonder why Poynter states that The big lesson from Rolling Stone’s last debacle, “A Rape on Campus,” was that legendary magazine’s editing process had failed. It’s a lesson the institution is still struggling to learn.

  On top of all this, nobody was fired at Rolling Stone as a result of the libelous story's publication. As CNN puts it, the magazine earned a battered reputation for fact checking and accuracy.

  Signs of this sort of lack of editorial process appeared as early as 2011. According to the Washington Post, a report on alleged Catholic sex abuse in 2011 relied upon a witness ("Billy") who kept changing his story and might have been a warning of sorts for the sort of abject reporting failures that we saw in the 2014 piece. It goes on to report that what’s more, the author of the story, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, never mentioned a personal fact: At the time she was reporting Billy’s story, her husband was winding down his career as a prosecutor in the Philadelphia district attorney’s office, which was prosecuting the defendants in the case. Newsweek, in a cover story, has reported similarly. The 2011 story is still up and has no sort of correction or retraction noted, nor does it declare any sort of conflict-of-interest, which... raises further concerns about editorial integrity to say the least. (The case almost went to a retrial in 2020 until COVID-19 delayed, and the prosecutor won't so much as call Billy to the stand at this point.)

  The New York Times reported in 2017 that the last piece to have received journalistic acclaim from Rolling Stone was published in 2010. The timing of this piece, which was significant in the downfall of Stanley A. McChrystal, combined with the revelations of the 2011 conflict-of-interest problems described above, lead me to draw on reliability at around 2011.

  There's some reason to believe that unreliability extends into other areas, such as its giving El Chapo the a role in editorial oversight over his own interview that was published Rolling Stone. This is plainly an independence problem and it shows further issues with editorial control, though it seems to be a bit more of a one-off for this sort of engagement.

  As for churnalism in the political arena, I'd point towards a story widely described as debunked (see Bloomberg, The New Republic, and Reason Magazine). The update appended to the article shows that even basic fact-checking prior to publishing wasn't present in this case, though the correction is a sign that the article is misinformation rather than disinformation.

  There's also a sense of blending factual reporting and opinion in its "politics news" section, which further hampers credibility. This piece comes to mind as an example (it talks about where we need to be with respect to legislative priorities). I could continue to provide additional examples if people would desire a fuller list.

The reason that I go with an Option 3 rather than a deprecation is that it probably is fine for the fact that X person holds Y political position. But I'd never use it for controversial facts, given that its fact-checking and editorial process is questionable at best. But, the editorial process not making changes after the absolute trainwreck of A Rape on Campus, but instead continuing the same bad editorial practices is a sign that this biased source lacks the substantial editorial control and fact-checking that a generally reliable source would possess. That, plus the mixing of opinion and fact in politics news articles, are enough to earn a WP:GUNREL from me. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 00:33, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

• Anywhere from 2 to 3 to 4. The fake A Rape on Campus report in 2014 was not the latest or most egregious of Rolling Stone's false "reporting" over the past 10 years. The most recent was from a mere five days ago, a totally fabricated and totally false story purportedly about ivermectin poisonings, complete with a totally fake photo [87]. Rolling Stone has become an embarrassment to itself. Softlavender (talk) 01:16, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 due only to the specific issues cited which indicate a pattern of sloppiness, not because of the perception of ideological bias. RS is a monthly magazine that averages just two "hard news" stories per issue so, while the above list would not be enough to deep-six a daily newspaper, for a monthly hybrid topics publication we're talking about a pretty substantial percentage of articles. Frankly, even 2011 may be generous as we have examples of issues with RS going all the way back to 2000, such as a 2005 article in the magazine that alleged a government conspiracy to cover-up something or another about vaccines [88] that RS chose not to retract even after it was widely debunked. Chetsford (talk) 02:50, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Just to clarify my position—it isn't because Rolling Stone has a left-leaning bias per se that I'm basing my decision off of. It's more of a reported sloppiness around these issues, which occur when it ventures into the political/social issues domain. The quote from the fact checking chief that decisions were made... because of the subject matter is what I was trying to get at with how the bias on the subject matter caused material impacts on the reliability of the fact-checking process. It's the sloppiness with facts that ultimately causes problems as far as WP:SOURCE is concerned. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 03:52, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

  Also, I agree that 2011 might be generous, though I really couldn't find any other clean date that I could use as a cutoff for unreliability in light of how the 2017 NYT report characterized the quality of Rolling Stone. The bonkers vaccine article doesn't help its establish its credibility before 2011, but it might be best to consider that time period separately. There was a good bit of garbage reporting on vaccines in the early-to-mid 2000s, which erm... didn't help public health. But the RS piece and Kennedy's media circuit is particularly significant in spreading vaccine conspiracy theories. Yet another reason why WP:MEDRS is important, I suppose, but I'm not sure exactly how to handle the timing. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 05:24, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

• Option 3. Thanks Mikehawk10 for your analysis above. The attitude of the editors after A Rape on Campus, as documented by CJR, troubles me: Rolling Stone’s senior editors are unanimous in the belief that the story’s failure does not require them to change their editorial system... Coco McPherson, the fact-checking chief, said, "I one hundred percent do not think that the policies that we have in place failed. I think decisions were made around those because of the subject matter." Also, as noted in the piece by CJR, the Rolling Stone does have fact-checkers who did question some of the material in the article, but "because of the subject matter", the fact-checkers were overruled: "Put this on Jackie?" the checker wrote. "Any way we can confirm with him?" ... Asked if there was anything she should have been notified about, McPherson answered: "The obvious answers are the three friends. These decisions not to reach out to these people were made by editors above my pay grade." They demonstrated significant failures in their fact-checking process there, and it appears they did not seek to correct them. This attitude coheres with the subsequent fact-checking errors with other "too good to check" stories – the churnalism from a few days ago discussed in the above section that could've been verified as untrue if they had just made a phone call, and the concerns raised over the editorial failures in the El Chapo interview Mikehawk10 mentioned above concern me as well. It is disappointing to see from a publication which does still seem able to cover music and film adequately, but I do think I'm going to have to go for option 3 here, somewhat reluctantly. I have no strong preference about a "starting date", but given RS do describe a kind of transformation in Rolling Stone, it does make sense to have one, and I guess 2011 is reasonable enough. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 15:16, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 As per analysis above. We can't use it for anything other then entertainment or music news --Shrike (talk) 15:48, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3: Cant really add to much above, they are an entertainment magazine, with some pretty shoddy journalism.Slatersteven (talk) 15:54, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 Their entertainment coverage is impeccable but they should not be used as sourcing (unless they are the central point of issue with a topic) for these types of topics. --Masem (t) 16:10, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 Per Mikehawk10 and others. The complete absence of fact-checking for the ivermectin story, and that fake photo, is what seals it. DoubleCross (‡) 18:02, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 - I was going to go option 2, but the above has convinced me. They used to be vastly better at this. I'm not sure 2011 is the cutoff date, but it's true in the present - David Gerard (talk) 19:12, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
  • I should note that RS in decades past was a solid Option 1, but isn't any more. Worth determining when they turned to trash - David Gerard (talk) 14:25, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 (possibly 2) as per above. Might be usable with attribution for more robust reports on case by case basis. Strongly avoid use for medical/scientific or for any areas where proprietors have interests (e.g. US party politics, Saudi Arabia). Probably goes without saying that any political podcasts it has hosted (e.g. Useful Idiots) would not be a usable source. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:07, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 reluctantly, but the above is definitely convincing. However, I stress that this opinion is limited solely to the aforementioned and explicitly does not cover film, music, and entertainment. For those, this is a no-brainer #1. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 01:56, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 per the detailed analyses above. The bogus ivermectin hospital story still has not been retracted like it should have, just amended. Given how eager I have seen some editors be to use this magazine about entertainment on controversial political issues, it's good to see it finally get some scrutiny. It is high time we stop permitting bad left-wing sources as we have long ago stopped using bad right-wing ones. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:51, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 good magazine for interviewing bands. no good magazine for politics. Sea Ane (talk) 10:05, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 based on the analysis above. I would still use them for music journalism, but their other reporting seems suspect given the lack of editorial control. --Jayron32 17:29, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Rolling Stone Culture Council

Which of the following best describes the reliability of Rolling Stone Culture Council articles?

• Option 1: generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated

— Mikehawk10 (talk) 00:33, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Discussion: Rolling Stone Culture Council

• Option 3. Culture Council pieces are essentially self-published sources that come about when a person to pays to publish on the Rolling Stone digital platform, per The Guardian. The sorts of stories appear to be clearly labeled, as Volteer1 notes in the discussion before the RfCs. This feels a lot like a blogging service. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 00:33, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 These are just mat releases. Chetsford (talk) 02:53, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 As per Mikehawk and Chetsford. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:01, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 They are self-published blogs you pay money to show to Rolling Stone's audience – Rolling Stone makes it clear they are only the work of the individual writer and that the articles do not have editorial input. Pretty similar to WP:FORBESCON. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 13:59, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 promotional self-source blogs - often pay-for-play advertising, see previous discussion. These are advertising, not content, and should generally not be used as sources on Wikipedia - David Gerard (talk) 19:10, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 per Volteer1. Paid blogs, no oversight, just like WP:FORBESCON. DoubleCross (‡) 19:19, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 It's a pretty clear pay-to-publish scenario with no editorial oversight. I guess the only exception to using them would be to cite an expert's opinion, but the Guardian indicates that the platform is primarily for PR professionals, so it's unlikely we'll ever cite this source directly. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 23:53, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3.5. It's clear that they are unreliable here, but it should be made clear that they are also not independent. BilledMammal (talk) 03:04, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3, per above. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 10:57, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 with consideration. WP:RSOPINION may need to be taken into account on a case-by-case, same as with WP:FORBESCON. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 01:59, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3, same as Forbes and HuffPost "contributors". Crossroads ^-talk- 03:53, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Note: WP:UPSD update

I've pre-emptively updated WP:UPSD to mark RS as a publication whose reliability 'varies with topic/contributor'. I'll update again if the closure of the RFC is harsher/more lenient than this. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:06, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Headbomb, I have closed the RfC with the ruling you can see above. Thank you for your active maintenance of the list, greatly appreciated. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 00:46, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Updated to mark the council articles as generally unreliable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:50, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

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

Jakarta Post article/opinion piece on Happy Science

Article under discussion: Happy Science.

Source under discussion: "Happy Science, a new cult offers celebrity guide to heaven", The Jakarta Post 22 July 2012. (archived version)

Statement to be supported: "Not only the domestic Japanese press, but also international media in the United States, Uganda, Indonesia, and Australia have applied the term "cult" to Happy Science." (The source in question is only meant to support the "Indonesia" bit.)

There have been repeated and extensive attempts from representatives of the group to whitewash the article and remove all references to it being known as a cult. The article talk page archive has a lot of sealioning by sockpuppets. In this instance, the argument for removing this particular source is that the op-ed is not signed so the opinion can't be attributed to a person. To my mind, it would not be appropriate to include any names of journalists since that would make it look like this is just the individual opinion of that person – however, it might be the case that this one source shouldn't be used, and if so, we'd simply need to remove the reference to Indonesia. --bonadea contributions talk 10:31, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

I believe that this anonymous source is not reliable.

As User:Politanvm said, the source is an opinion piece, which isn’t reliable for statements of fact.

Even though it has nothing to do with this case, User:Bonadea mentions the "behavior" of representatives of Happy Science, so I am compelled to mention the issue of his neutrality as well.

He insisted on putting the hatnote "The Gay Science" for years.

He claimed that it was necessary to avoid confusion because one of the translations of "The Gay Science", "The Joyous Science", is very similar to "Happy Science".

But the fact is, according to [this source], "The Joyous Science" had only 25 views in the past, while "The Gay Science" had 846,086 views.

To add to that, when I deny his claim based on some evidence, he even deletes the text and evidence, which is not neutral at all. A series of logs can be found on the talk page, so you can judge for yourself.

bonadea is collecting unreliable sources of information in order to prove that this organization is a cult.

I believe that we should not ignore reliability just to fulfill bonadea's wish to complete the sentence "It is a cult". Thank you all for your justice and consciences. --Cadenza025 (talk) 12:02, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Reliable: yes; due for mention: no. The statement is international media in the United States, Uganda, Indonesia, and Australia have applied the term "cult" to Happy Science (italics added). There are two ways to support this statement. The best one is to bring up a reliable secondary source which explicitly states right that (viz. Happy Science is called a cult in media). A more shaky way is to bring up actual attestations, which however easily slips into cherry-picking and undue weight (in Wiktionary, we need three attestations to support that a word even exists).

Here, the Jakarta Post is among the most reputable newspapers in Indonesia, and arguably ranks as No.1 among local English-language media. So there it is baseless to dismiss Jakarta Post out of hand as an unreliable source. But is this attestation sufficient, especially when apparently there are only two instances of Indonesian quality media applying the term "cult" (or its Indonesian equivalent sekte)? I could only dig up the Jakarta Post piece using "cult", and a report in Suara using "sekte". That's about it, for the simple reason that Happy Science does not get much coverage in Indonesia anyway. So, no the bumpy road of attestations does not lead to inclusion with due weight. –Austronesier (talk) 14:49, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

This Washington Post article covers your first example. It reads: In Tokyo, Wednesday’s protest was backed by the Happy Science religion, which has been described in foreign media as a cult. It seems like it makes sense to remove this Jakarta Post citation, and add this WaPo reference. For context, I wasn’t asserting that the Jakarta Post isn’t reliable, but that the article is in the Opinion section, rather than their journalism, and we wouldn’t typically cite from opinion pieces even if published by a reliable news agency (WP:RSOPINION). Politanvm ^talk 21:15, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@Politanvm: I have to admit that I hadn't looked into the discussion in Talk:Happy Science before answering. So I was only referring to simplistic statement "this anonymous source is not reliable" by Cadenza025 here. The Washington Post article is indeed perfect to support a less specific version (without listing countries) of the disputed text. I fully support your arguments further below in this discussion. –Austronesier (talk) 13:42, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

The source is not Wikipedia but it's kind of circular reference: 'Source A says "Some source B says it's a cult"'. In this case, WaPo says "It's described in The NYT as a cult", in NYT, it says "Japan Times says it's a cult". The original statement is According to The Japan Times, "for many, the Happies smell suspiciously like a cult". Not only the domestic Japanese press, but also international media in the United States, Uganda, Indonesia, and Australia have applied the term "cult" to Happy Science. So, this statement is such like Not only Source C, Source A says 'Source B says "Source C says it's a cult". (WP:CIRC). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cadenza025 (talk • contribs)

WP:CIRCULAR is just about citing sources that themselves reference Wikipedia, so unless there’s reason to believe WaPo is referencing Wikipedia, it isn’t relevant here. There’s no need to overthink this. The WP article says that foreign media has described it as a cult, and we have a reliable source that says foreign media has described it as a cult. It’s a simple paraphrase of a reliable source. Politanvm ^talk 00:39, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, the source is not Wikipedia, so I don't expect WP:CIRC to apply directly, but I do think this policy is helpful in thinking about sources. This is because, as you said, the statement we are focusing on now says "Not only the domestic Japanese press, foreign media has described it as a cult". In reality, however, the "foreign media" refers to "the domestic Japanese press". Despite the fact that there are only a few actual sources, the WP article misleads the reader into thinking that independent opinions are emanating from several different continents. It's not just a paraphrase. --Cadenza025 (talk) 03:35, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm not following how "foreign media" would be read as "domestic Japanese press". It seems clear that it's talking about press outside Japan, and it certainly isn't misleading, since it is coming from multiple continents. Are you suggesting that media can't write independently about organizations in other countries?

Or is the issue that we need to rephrase how the Wikipedia article talks about media describing Happy Science as a cult? We have an abundance of sources that either describe it a cult directly or talk about other media describing it as a cult, so it's certainly WP:DUE, but I suppose we could discuss how to phrase it more closely to what the sources say. If you're saying it's necessarily unreliable for a news source to say X is described by some media as Y, there's no Wikipedia guideline or policy to back that up. Basically, we just paraphrase what the reliable sources say, and a discussion about how we know better than reliable sources is creeping into original research. Politanvm ^talk 03:56, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Firstly, I agree with the opinion that citing from The Jakarta Post is not appropriate. And, to avoid confusion, I will only focus on US sources here. Then,

Source	Context	Refs
WaPo	In Tokyo, Wednesday’s protest was backed by the Happy Science religion, which has been described in foreign media as a cult. (Link to NYT article)	NYT (or something unknown)
NYT	“To many,” The Japan Times wrote in 2009, “the Happies smell suspiciously like a cult.”	JT
JT	For many, the Happies smell suspiciously like a cult	*Original

In the above,

1. In the context of "cult", WaPo cites JT (requotation from NYT / or something we never know / includes The Jakarta Post) and do not cover it themselves.

2. In the context of "cult", NYT cites JT and do not cover it themselves.

3. JT is not in the WP:RSP.

4. JT is not an international media.

Regardless of what these may conclude, let me first see if we can agree on these 4 facts. Because there's no Wikipedia guideline or policy about this, there is still room for discussion. Thank you. --Cadenza025 (talk) 07:45, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Continue to focus on US sources here.

1. JT says HS as a cult, NYT and WaPo say "JT says HS as a cult".

2. Thus, Not only the domestic Japanese press, but also international media in the US have applied the term "cult" to Happy Science is not much appropriate.

My suggestion is below.

1. Because these three sources point to the same one source, this is enough:

According to The Japan Times, "for many, the Happies smell suspiciously like a cult".[JT][NYT][WaPo]

2. Or simply exclude WaPo from this because its source is unclear:

According to The Japan Times, "for many, the Happies smell suspiciously like a cult".[JT][NYT]

--Cadenza025 (talk) 11:47, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Austronesier has already responded with a simple clarification below, but to put a final bow on my thoughts, I believe you are over-complicating this and doing original research. There is no reason to assume WaPo is only referencing NYT just because they gave one link with further information. I understand your analysis, but your facts and outcomes are not correct.

1. WaPo is a generally reliable source with editorial standards. We don’t expect them to post citations for all of their research because we can generally trust that they’re not writing nonsense. Wikipedia is a summary of what reliable sources say.
2. There’s no reason to believe WaPo is only talking about the NYT article that quotes JT. Other non-Japanese media have described Happy Science as a cult in their own words, including Vice and The Daily Beast among the others already cited in the Wikipedia article.
3. Whether or not all of these other sources or reliable isn’t too important. The claim is that international media describes Happy Science as a cult. This claim is unambiguously true, and stated simply by WaPo. Whether or not it is a cult isn’t the question, just that it’s described as one.

In summary, it is clear that multiple non-Japanese media have described Happy Science as a cult, and we have a reliable source to back it up. I’m open to rephrasing the laundry list of countries, but it is an unambiguous fact that “international media have described Happy Science as a cult”. I support Austronesier’s proposal below. Politanvm ^talk 14:43, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

I understand. Since the subject this time is the reliability of The Jakarta Post's opinion piece, would you accept to drop Indonesia from the list of countries? Also, I will continue to suggest other sources if there is any doubt about them. Since the aggregation of these individual sources will affect the results, let's leave "international media have described Happy Science as a cult" for another discussion. Thank you for your patience. --Cadenza025 (talk) 16:05, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

I can see a couple of inadequate readings above:

• In reality, however, the "foreign media" refers to "the domestic Japanese press". This has already been clarified by Politanvm. The WaPo article is a report about an event in Japan, and takes the geographical perspective of Japan: "local" is used to refer to Tokyo ("The support reflected controversial local movements, too. In Tokyo, Wednesday’s protest was backed by the Happy Science religion"), and consequently "foreign" refers to media outside of Japan.
• WaPo cites JT (requotation from NYT [...]). No, WaPo does not–directly or indirectly—quote JT or NYT. Where do you read this? It says "the Happy Science religion, which has been described in foreign media as a cult"; the media are not specified, which is not necessary in this context. I would put this statement into reasonable doubt if we weren't able to find any non-Japanese media that use the label "cult". But even a lazy search proves that doubt wrong.

Solely to attribute the label "cult" to JT and citations of JT completely ignores actual instances of usage in international quality media (cf. The Age, Jakarta Post, The Independent[89]). My suggestion is only to use WaPo as source, and add an {{efn}} listing selected media (just to counter doubts that WaPo might have made up a baseless statement). –Austronesier (talk) 14:07, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

This needs to be mentioned because it needs to be supplemented. As you can see in the table above, I am of course aware of the possibility that media is unknown, because WaPo does not specify the media as you say.　There are two main possibilities for the media that WaPo is targeting. One is the NYT, and the other is everything but the NYT (which means it is unknown as you say).

The reason I mention the NYT possibility is that immediately after the sentence in WaPo, there is a reference to a NYT article, so it is perfectly natural to assume that the first sentence is referring to a NYT article. In fact, it is hard to imagine that the WaPo editor did not anticipate that not a few readers would think that way. However, since it is not stated, it is impossible to prove. But if that is the case, then it becomes necessary to focus on the relationship between NYT, JT and WaPo. As Politanvm says, maybe I'm overthinking this, but I think it's an important point. This is not the subject of this article, so I would like to discuss it at another time. Thank you. --Cadenza025 (talk) 18:02, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

That's speculation, so you invite to discuss something which is both unverifiable and unfalsifiable. I won't enter into such a discussion. And note that your speculations will not unexist the attestations in The Age, Jakarta Post, The Independent, Vice, The Daily Beast. Bottomline: we have multiple attestations of international media calling Happy Science a cult, and we have a reliable secondary source which states that Happy Science has been called a cult in international media. –Austronesier (talk) 18:19, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, there is unverifiable part in this WaPo article. I'm sure there are more than a few readers who associate the NYT with the context. I would like to hear the opinions of several experts in this area. I am not doubting the reliability of such medias as The Age, Jakarta Post, The Independent, Vice, The Daily Beast, etc., but if I have doubts about the content and think it is not appropriate in the context, I would like to clarify it. Thank you for your consideration. --Cadenza025 (talk) 01:41, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

The WaPo article is verifiable. We can see plainly with our own eyes that WaPo’s claim that “foreign media have described Happy Science as a cult” is true, by virtue of all the sources listed above.

I think we’ve settled all that need to be said on RS/N: The Jakarta Post opinion piece alone isn’t sufficient for that claim, but the Washington Post is. I agree with Austronesier’s proposal to cite WaPo and provide a footnote that lists the other individual sources. @Bonadea, if that sounds right to you, I can make those edits to the article. If not, this discussion should probably continue at Talk:Happy Science. Politanvm ^talk 18:53, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

No. If the conclusion is that The Jakarta Post opinion piece isn’t an appropriate source, we should not use it. And the sentence on which the article is based should also be excluded. --Cadenza025 (talk) 05:45, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

What was said above is that the Washington Post is a reliable source for the claim. You expressed concern that WaPo was incorrect, so Austronesier proposed adding a footnote showing the multiple foreign sources describing Happy Science as a cult. There is no reason to remove the sentence altogether because we have a reliable source for it. Politanvm ^talk 13:11, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

[Proposition] By the Washington Post article, it can be drawn to the conclusion "foreign media describe the Happy Science as a cult".

[Facts] f1: WaPo's claim is "foreign media describe the Happy Science as a cult." f2: Immediately after the claim, it mentions the contents of the NYT article and links to the NYT article. f3: The NYT cites JT. f4: JT is not in the WP:RSP. f5: JT is not an international media.

[Guesses] g1: In the first half of the sentence, the author mentions all foreign media, including the NYT. Either the first half has nothing to do with the second half, or the second half is describing a single case. g2: The first half of the sentence is stated with the second half of the sentence describing the NYT article in mind. The second half of the sentence is stated as evidence for the assertion in the first half.

[Claims] The only facts that can be ascertained from the WaPo article are f1 and f2, and g1 and g2 are both just speculation. The problem here is that not only g2 but also g1, which you believe, is just a speculation. Whether g1 or g2 is correct is not the subject of the discussion. Only the writer knows that. It is, as Austronesier said, both unverifiable and unfalsifiable. The only thing we are discussing here is whether or not both g1 and g2 are speculations.

You draw your conclusion only by saying that "the string 'foreign media describe Happy Science as a cult' seen through our retinas and optic nerves is consistent with the proposition". But this is not correct. This is why I stated earlier that "there is an unverifiable part in this WaPo article".

[Conclusion] The proposition is False. It is only our speculations that are leading to the conclusion.

To add to this, whether g1 or g2 is correct will greatly affect the conclusion of another agenda item. Therefore, it is also wrong to view this as if it were a small problem. I myself believe that not a few readers will read it as g2 and professional writers are naturally aware of this, however, again, whether g1 or g2 is correct is not the subject of the current discussion. Whether or not both are speculations is the only issue.

What I would like to suggest is that instead of lumping them all together as "foreign media," we should explain what each media is claiming, and then carefully consider each claim. --Cadenza025 (talk) 04:51, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Baba tells Bibi, Bobo and Bubu: "In and around Roma Termini railway station, there are lots of places where you can get hot coffee". Generally, all of them trust Baba. For Bibi, it is sufficient to have Baba as a reliable source of information, but Bobo and Bubu want to see for themselves. The three of them take a train to Rome, and indeed upon arrival they see lots of places where hot coffee is sold. Bibi just smiles and wants to see more of Rome. Bubu says: "Our trusted friend Baba was right, as usual!" But Bobo is still in doubt: "Ok, we can get hot coffee everywhere, but how can we be sure Baba was talking exactly about these cafes and vendors that we are seeing now when they said that in and around Roma Termini railway station, there are lots of places where you can get hot coffee?" Bibi and Bubu sigh and tell Bobo to drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass. –Austronesier (talk) 10:09, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

I understand that it is difficult to verify everything, and Wikipedia has no function or role to verify the truth. However, BABA, BIBI, whatever, and you can make fun of it all you want, If you don't want to take it seriously, feel free to leave, still I cannot overlook the fact that lies are being perpetrated with impunity. Having said that, I respect the rules of Wikipedia, and I try to argue within the rules.

Media "A" says "B" because "C".

Media "X" says "Y" because "Z".

It's okay to write those things as they are. Whether they are true or not will be verified over time. In fact, there are many court cases where major Japanese media wrote false articles about Happy Science, and Happy Science filed lawsuits and were found to have no evidence or backing for their articles. What I am simply trying to say is that it is absolutely wrong to lump the word "cult" together and write it as if it is one conclusion without evidence and harden it as if it is an agreed decision. --Cadenza025 (talk) 15:00, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

@bonadea, you said that I wouldn't call the organisation "evil" even if they have been involved in some very controversial activities. I saw these words and thought I would trust you. However, calling a religion a cult is the same as calling it an evil. If people do a Google search for HappyScience, the word "cult" will be there. And we, the innocent, continue to be persecuted in this infosphere. Even if that's what the media does, and even if you don't intend to, you are supporting and amplifying their activities. At this very moment, you are hurting the faithful. You keep calling them "cult" without any reason. Just because the media says something, doesn't mean it's been properly corroborated. Is it enough that the editors of Wikipedia are convinced? Please stop hurting and respect the faithful of HappyScience. We don't need to rely on the media to do that. The media are not omniscient and omnipotent, so there is much they do not know. As you can see, I am one of the believers of Happy Science, and I think I fall under the category of WP:COI. So I'm not going to edit the article myself. I leave to you what I know. According to WP:ABOUTSELF, it is possible to write about things that only we know, right? happyScience is neither evil nor cult. --Cadenza025 (talk) 16:25, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

My parable is meant dead serious. And please learn to distinguish between WP:WIKIVOICE (e.g. Happy Science is a cult, which we do not do in the article) and citing media coverage (e.g. Happy Science has been described in international media as a cult, which is sufficiently sourced). This has nothing to do with being "convinced".

As for We don't need to rely on the media: oh yes, the content of WP is solely built on reliable sources, and these include the Washington Post. And please be careful when you equate WP reflecting the content of reliable sources with "persecution". –Austronesier (talk) 11:16, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

I can see that you guys are just following Wikipedia's rules. I respect you all. But whether the word is "described" or whatever, even if you switch the word around and it follows Wikipedia's rules, the fact remains that it is actually hurting a lot of people for no reason at all. For no reason whatsoever.

Dear fellow editors, my only hope is that you will carefully clarify one by one who is saying what and for what reason, instead of simply lumping them together under the term "cult”. --Cadenza025 (talk) 12:30, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Please also see WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Wikipedia summarizes what reliable sources say. Censoring or white-washing Wikipedia articles because you don’t like what the media says won’t solve this supposed harm. What @Austronesier proposed and what I support does exactly what you’re asking: Citing our reliable source (WaPo) and adding an explanatory supplement demonstrating exactly which sources are using the descriptor. Politanvm ^talk 03:01, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

No. What I'm asking is neither censoring nor white-washing. I'm asking for all to be revealed, not summarized or omitted to hide something. At the very least, I mentioned that the sentence in WaPo that you are trying to cite stands on the basis of our speculation. Unless there is a clear refutation of that, the cite is inadmissible. --Cadenza025 (talk) 03:24, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Needless to say, this does not mean that you should cite the entire article. --Cadenza025 (talk) 03:43, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

I’m going to take Austronesier’s advice and stop beating this dead horse, because anything that needs to be said has been said. We have a reliable source, and we can verify that source’s claim with our own eyes. There is no speculation from me or from WaPo. WaPo linking to another article that provides further reading in no way, shape, or form implies that the NYT is their sole source of information. When I have a few more minutes, I’ll implement Austronesier’s proposal (unless someone else gets to it first). Politanvm ^talk 03:50, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Your argument is unreasonable. No matter how much you think so,

In Tokyo, Wednesday’s protest was backed by the Happy Science religion, which has been described in foreign media as a cult. The group gained infamy last year for selling a “Spiritual Vaccine” that it claimed could cure covid-19 at a price of hundreds of dollars.

No one can prove that it is obvious that the first and second halves of this sentence are unrelated. It is just your wishful thinking from which you draw your conclusions. As I have said many times, this is an issue that greatly affects our conclusions, and you can't turn away from it. --Cadenza025 (talk) 04:25, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

I’ve attempted to implement Austronesier’s suggestion. If there’s any feedback or further edit suggestions, it’s probably best to discuss that at Talk:Happy Science, since no meaningful evidence has been shown here to change the reputation of The Washington Post as a reliable source. Politanvm ^talk 04:27, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

A peer-reviewed paper by Segreto and Deigin's reliability has been challenged at "Investigations into the origin of COVID-19"

Links: authors-are-not-virologists rebuttal, authors-are-not-virologists-2 rebuttal, lack-of-citations rebuttal, authors-are-not-virologists-3 rebuttal, bioessays_poor_reputation rebuttal, bioessays_poor_reputation-2 rebuttal, Talk:Investigations_into_the_origin_of_COVID-19/Archive_8#Talk_page_consensus_on_high-quality_"Lab_Leak"_sources.

Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.202000240

Article: COVID-19 lab leak theory.

Content: The paper hypothetizes that SARS-CoV-2's cleavage site and specific RBD could result from site-directed mutagenesis, a procedure that does not leave a trace

I open this noticeboard given that in the last talk page discussion about it, some editors said that a consensus was reached to find the source unreliable for its main claim regarding COVID-19 origin, and that any further discussion would be best placed in a RS Noticeboard.

Please discuss whether the source is reliable for the topic.Forich (talk) 22:29, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

This source was cited 42 times. A recent review mentions this source, along with Relman DA (2020) (Opinion: to stop the next pandemic, we need to unravel the origins of COVID-19. Proc Nat Acad Sci 117(47):29246–29248), as a support of the hypothesis that that SARS-CoV-2 may have been manufactured in a laboratory. Nothing in that review suggests Sergio&Deigin is not reliable. However, it seems this source: Segreto, R., Deigin, Y., McCairn, K. et al. Should we discount the laboratory origin of COVID-19?. Environ Chem Lett 19, 2743–2757 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-021-01211-0 should be used instead, because it is more recent, and it is authored by the same authors. --Paul Siebert (talk) 22:37, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

See Template:Origins of COVID-19 (current consensus) #3. I don’t think anything has changed since. It’s not an RS. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:39, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

As a medical source, per WP:MEDRS, there are extra considerations. Keep in mind there was another study refuting their finding linked to on that same page, and also consider whether there is enough secondary source strength to warrant its use. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk)

Is this local consensus supposed to overturn our policy? This source meets all requirements that we apply to top-quality reliable sources. WP:MEDRS is noit a policy, but just guidelines. However, it seems this source is outdated, and the more recent source (see above) should be used instead.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:44, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

There is no separate standard to that applies to MEDRS that does not apply to RS. One is no less a "policy" than the other. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 22:49, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Anyway, here is the abstract of the 2021 paper by the same authors:

"There is a near-consensus view that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of COVID-19, has a natural zoonotic origin; however, several characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 taken together are not easily explained by a natural zoonotic origin hypothesis. These include a low rate of evolution in the early phase of transmission; the lack of evidence for recombination events; a high pre-existing binding to human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2); a novel furin cleavage site (FCS) insert; a flat ganglioside-binding domain (GBD) of the spike protein which conflicts with host evasion survival patterns exhibited by other coronaviruses; and high human and mouse peptide mimicry. Initial assumptions against a laboratory origin by contrast have remained unsubstantiated. Furthermore, over a year after the initial outbreak in Wuhan, there is still no clear evidence of zoonotic transfer from a bat or intermediate species. Given the immense social and economic impact of this pandemic, identifying the true origin of SARS-CoV-2 is fundamental to preventing future outbreaks. The search for SARS-CoV-2′s origin should include an open and unbiased inquiry into a possible laboratory origin."

--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:53, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Still WP:PRIMARY, still published by non-credentialed authors who have little expertise in viruses, or virology, or especially viral genetics. BTW, that envir chem lett paper is an Editorial, meaning it is not peer-reviewed, and is thus simply the opinion of the authors themselves.

The only ways in which this should be used is in how it is cited or discussed by secondary peer-reviewed review papers published in topic-relevant journals. They must tell us how we interpret the proposed ideas and how we perceive the credibility of its authors. BTW, from examining the authors list here, this is just an editorial by all the folks who have any semblance of scientific training in DRASTIC. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:57, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Not a RS. Segretto and Deigin's qualifications have not changed. They are still bucking against the majority consensus opinion of the scientific community, and BioEssays has no relevant expert editors in virology or similar topics. This is an opinion paper at best, it is not a review, it appears to be peer reviewed (it went through one round of revision), but it is published in an essays outlet, and does not contain much, if any, original research). It should be treated as an opinion piece published in a non-topic relevant journal. And, so it becomes a question of whether the opinions of the authors are particularly relevant to the topic or notable/DUE. And I would say they are not. Deigin's highest qualification is an MBA. He has never done any work on viruses, or in biosafety. Segretto's closest work is in fungal ecology, though she does have a PhD. She has not worked in high level biosafety labs or in environmental health and safety. Not every paper that is published in a scholarly journal is useful for our purposes. Especially ones that are purely primary opinion, and are not well respected by the scientific community. The consensus has not changed, that the ideas in this paper are not likely, that any genetic engineering of the virus is extremely unlikely, etc. For all these reasons, this is not an RS. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:54, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

BioEssays is a peer-reviewed journal with impact factor of 4.5 (not a top journal, but still quite decent). Why invent new rules that are not found in our policy?

According to the policy, it IS a quite reliable source. However, as I already explained, it is outdated.

For records: it is quite unlikely SARS-CoV2 was engineered.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:07, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

BioEssays is not well respected, especially not in the field of virology. Citations (e.g. impact factor) are not the only way to evaluate the reliability of a scientific source. This is far from the first time the reliability or usefulness of a piece published in Bioessays has been called into question. It has a long history of publishing pieces that are pure opinion, speculation, "out there" idea, that some have described as belonging more in the lay press or in blogs than in a scientific journal. It's interesting stuff, but people would be concerned if you cited it for a statement of fact in a dissertation. Example: The journal has been accused of using milquetoast peer-review, in which the ideas of the papers published within it are given only a cursory review, and not truly critiqued or subjected to the rigorous criticism normally demanded by the scientific community. Like in this paper about declining sperm counts. [90] or this paper by Gutierrez, Beall, et al in 2015. See criticism: [91]. Or Speijer in 2020 [92]. [93]. Or this cancer paper proposing the "TOFT model" [94]. [95] or the ativastic model: [96]. I'm not saying that Bioessays doesn't sometimes publish good stuff. it does. I even really like the Evolution essays they publish sometimes. But the point is that they often publish stuff that is a little out there. And not respected by the broader community. They like to publish stuff that is on the edge. Groundbreaking, fascinating, controversial. The editors of this journal have even said as much: [97] But this is exactly the opposite of what we need for reliable sources on Wikipedia. We need stable, tried and true, endlessly vetted secondary review papers which evaluate this stuff for us. Not the primary essays which propose these novel and controversial ideas. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:29, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

"It's a peer reviewed journal therefore it's default reliable" is not a good argument. Sourcing guidelines are not blunt instruments. Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology an Elsevier journal once published a paper that suggested cephalopods are aliens. Editors should always have discretion as to which sources are used. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:34, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

We cannot invent ad hoc rules.

The question was quite clear: "Does this source meet RS criteria"?

The formal answer is "Yes it does" (per our policy). However,

• The source seems outdated (another, more recent paper by the same authors should be used instead, where they concede the natural hypothesis is an almost consensus view).

• The source may not meet NPOV criteria: despite being reliable, it may represent minority of fringe view.

That means, (i) instead of this, formally reliable source, another, more recent source should be used, and (ii) a decision about usage of this source should be made if weight issues are resolved. I believe, it will not be difficult to make a brief search to find relative weight of that source. It may be quite likely it expresses nearly fringe view.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:44, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

No. See WP:SOURCE:

• The work itself (the article, book)
• The creator of the work (the writer, journalist)
• The publisher of the work (for example, Random House or Cambridge University Press)

All three can affect reliability.

As per current consensus #3: Specifically, editors were not convinced by the credentials of the authors, and concerns were raised with the editorial oversight of the BioEssays "Problems & Paradigms" series.. i.e. bullets 2 and 3 are a fail. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:04, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Note: WikiProjects Medicine, Skepticism, COVID-19, Molecular Biology, and the Fringe Theories Noticeboard have been notified of this discussion.— Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:02, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

I fundamentally disagree with this approach. Yes,

• I agree that BioEssays is not a top journal, and its editorial board does not look impressive.

• I agree that Environmental Chemistry Letters, where the second article was published, has no direct relevance to the topic.

• I admit that the authors' own credentials may be not too impressive.

However, if Wikipedia editors are allowed to invent additional criteria to reject some sources, some other Wikipedians may invent some other local rules to approve some sources that normally should be rejected. That is dangerous for Wikipedia as whole.

Instead, I propose to use a more formal approach: to admit that that source meets formal RS criteria, but check how frequently this source is cited, and in which context. If majority sources ignore or openly reject this source, and I expect they are, this source should be rejected as fringe. Under this source I mean the 2021 article not the BioEssays article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:46, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia is supposed to be mainstream and academically conservative about scholarly topics (as any encyclopedia would). Is this paper cited by others, and if so, in which context exactly? If it's only cited by papers in dubious journals and by non-experts (read: newspapers mentions fall in this category too), it's unlikely to be an accurate reflection of the academic mainstream. Looking at the list of citations on Google Scholar, many of these are obvious examples of this (self-cites by authors; cites in Env Chem Let by some other authors; pre-prints; predatory journals). All to say, the Google Scholar count is not any useful metric. There appear to be some citations from virological.org (which is basically a place for discussion amongst virologists and a repository for unpublished papers, so not exactly peer-reviewed but not entirely unacceptable per WP:SPS - at least, I'm not planning on citing it, but the authors I'm citing below are indeed virologists and not amateur detectives), but some of them are rather dismissive:

Hence, analyses suggesting that the evolutionary origins of the RmYN02 S1/S2 cleavage site can be revealed by a simple nucleotide alignment (Segreto and Deigin, 2020) are overly simplistic. [98]

Or, more dramatically, entirely unflattering:

Proponents of theories for the unnatural origin of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) have asserted that the 12 nucleotide insert in the spike gene, which results in acquisition of a furin cleavage site in spike, may have arisen by laboratory manipulation (Relman, 2020; Segreto and Deigin, 2020; Seyran et al., 2020; Sirotkin and Sirotkin, 2020). Here, we compile evidence demonstrating that insertion/deletion (indel) events at the S1/S2 and S2’ protease cleavage sites of the spike precursors are commonly occurring natural features of coronavirus evolution. [99]

Putting all that together; you have a paper which wasn't actually cited in other peer-reviewed research, certainly not positively (so it is extremely unlikely to be representative of the mainstream view); it's from non-experts and it's in a dubious journal. So, since it fails all three criteria, not an RS. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:47, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Again, that is not true.

• A journal with impact factor of 4.5 is hardly dubious. Is is quite good.
• Tyshkovskiy & Panchin's article [100], a direct responce to Segreto and Deigin, was published in the very same journal. If BioEssays is a dubious journal, why the two bioinformatic scientists from Misha Gelfand's institute publish their response there? The fact that they are real experts cannot be questioned by nobody in clear mind. The fact that leading experts respond to that article means it is by no means fringe.
• The article was cited 42 times, which is pretty decent for the 2020 article.

We all agree that lab leakage is highly unlikely. However, do not modify WP rules to remove the source that you don't like. If you misinterpret our policy to reject some source, somebody else may do the same to approve some other source.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:02, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Fetishizing impact factor as an exclusive and all-encompassing way to assess the quality of journals will lead us down some very dark paths. I say this as someone who has published in many "high impact" journals (Science, Nature, Immunity). I don't regret it, but I also don't value those papers as exceptionally good, either. Examples of crappy journals with impact factors around that of BioEssays:

• Journal of Ginseng Research, 6.06
• Academic Exchange Quarterly (a well known predatory pay to play journal), 5.11
• Scientific Reports (where half the editorial board resigned in disgust at sham peer review), 4.379

I could go on and on. This is a bad argument.

Saying that a quality scientist also published there does not make it a good journal. Good scientists publish in bad journals and vice versa. Andrew Wakefield's infamous MMR anti-vaxx study was published in The Lancet [101] [102]. Medical Hypotheses has published AIDS denialism (infamously [103]), but they have also published papers by V. S. Ramachandran and several nobel laureates. Doesn't make it a good journal. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 02:13, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Please, mind your tong. Nobody here is fetishizing anything. Impact factor does not guarantee credibility, but it is a relatively good predictor of quality. And, that was just one my argument out of several. Again, if BioEssay is bad for us, why it is not bad for Panchin? Or you reject Pancin's article as a good source too?

Look, if we reject Segreto's article (who supports a lab leakage hypothesis), we must reject Panchin's article too. But we are not going to do that, right?

--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:29, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Keep in mind, I am criticizing your arguments, not you. You seem to be a very reasonable person, and I have no reason to criticize or demean you in any way, and have tried hard to avoid doing so. I would describe Panchin's article as also an opinion piece published in a low quality journal, and therefore also would not cite it. BTW, it is also WP:PRIMARY and should be avoided for that reason as well. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 02:31, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Well, if Wikipedians are allowed to arbitrarily decide what is an opinion piece and what is not, then its quality will deteriorate further.

Ok, I trust you that you authored several Nature papers (which means you are pretty notable person and a true expert). But what if in reality you are just a 10th grade high school student? Why your opinion on Panchin matters? What if I respond you that I personally know his supervisor, and I guarantee he is a leading expert in bioinformatics, and his opinion (as well as the opinion of people working under his supervision) is 146% reliable (no matter where it is published)? That may be true, or I may lie, who knows? And what shall we do in that situation? Vote?

Alas, that does not work like that. We either use some formal criteria, or Wikipedia will become even a greater mess.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:39, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Never said I published multiple Nature papers. I have published in the journals I referenced. The Nature article is a forthcoming topic review I have authored with my former advisor about flaviviruses. That is neither here nor there. Opinion pieces are not inherently bad. Expert opinion is often quite useful. But it depends on the person saying the opinion, as you have referenced. Sometimes, it's amazingly useful, and reliable, like in the many very great articles published in The Conversation which we cite with attribution.

The thing that makes this Deigin and Segretto paper opinion, imo, is that it makes broad sweeping statements that are not verifiable or testable. Is that subjective? Yes. Is all RS-determination of non-WP:RSP sources somewhat subjective? Also yes. This is not a court of law, it is not a mathematical equation. There is some subjectivity in our interpretations of the sources and their qualities. And that is why consensus is more than just "Does it meet the formal criteria?" And why this noticeboard exists, frankly.

The fact that this Deigin and Segretto piece is published by two people who no mainstream scientist discusses, references, or cites, is why they are fringe and would, therefore, be almost always WP:UNDUE to quote. The bad journal, non-expert authors, questionable editorial series, and WP:PRIMARY status are why this particular paper is not a WP:RS. Doesn't even particularly matter whether it's opinion for that part of the determination. As several other editors above have agreed. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 02:45, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

All of that would be completely correct if Wikipedia were edited by professionals. The problem is, however, that that is not the case. Many people even don't understand the concept of peer-reviewing. Imagine you are discussing all of that with 10 users who are 10th grade students, and they achieved a consensus that you are not right. What will you do in that situation? That is why more formal criteria are needed. And the approach is as follows: this source formally passes WP:V, but does not pass (or marginally passes) WP:NPOV.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:59, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

As WP:1AM recommends, I would either 1) put it out of my mind and accept that the encyclopedia is forever a work in progress and it being "wrong" to me in one area does not diminish its overall greatness, 2) start an RfC, or 3) escalate it to this noticeboard, as Forch has done.

Do you have a WP:PAG-based reason for circumventing consensus? Could you provide a quotation of the relevant passage? Because I am not reading that anywhere in the relevant policies. It appears to be your opinion on how Wikipedia should work, not an accurate assessment of how it does. Such opinions on altering PAGs should be placed on the talk pages of the relevant guidelines. They are not relevant here. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 03:22, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

WP:V is if the content is verifiable to the source (reliable or not, vs WP:RS). I also see multiple claims from you that editors would be using their own special rules, when WP:PRIMARY is not that ambiguous. —PaleoNeonate – 04:55, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Shibbolethink, I am rarely editing science related topics, but I know most people here are pretty reasonable. In addition, the amount and quality of scientific publications allows easy evaluation of quality and notability of each source, so these should be not much disagreement in these topics even if we approach the problem totally formally. In connection to that, I find it very dangerous when some users decide to come to consensus about reliability of certain category of sources that are not described in the policy or guidelines. It is dangerous because in some other topics, such as history or religion, many users apply lower standards to sources, and if we allow local consensus to approve or reject some certain category of sources, that may lead (and is already leading) to huge NPOV and OR problems in some topics.

Look, we both agree that this source should not be used. However, I came to that conclusion based on a letter and spirit of WP:V/NPOV, whereas you refer to some local ad hoc invented rules. Whose approach, in your opinion, is less dangerous?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:36, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

The criteria we are using to judge this source are not ad hoc or invented. You are mistaken.

The policies themselves describe the metrics we are applying, as several editors above have communicated to you. Primary vs Secondary, Author, Journal, Relevant expertise, acceptance by the wider scientific community, opinion vs scientific description of findings, etc. etc. are all described as ways to judge source reliability in WP:PAGs and essays. See: WP:SOURCE, WP:SCHOLARSHIP, WP:RSPRIMARY, WP:MEDANIMAL, WP:BESTSOURCES, WP:MEDPRI (policies and guidelines) and WP:RSE, WP:SCIRS, WP:RSUW (essays).

I am not pulling these criteria out of nowhere. They come from the guidelines and essays above. We are not inventing ad hoc rules. We are applying the rules described in the above pages.

Explanatory supplements explicitly endorse the idea of using context to judge reliability, See: Wikipedia:Inaccuracy#Appendix: Reliability in the context.

You are the one who is asserting a new way to understand RSes and what counts and what does not count. If I am mistaken, please provide a quotation from a policy or guideline which describes your approach of ignoring consensus. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:12, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Shibbolethink, our disagreement does not affect the verdict about this concrete source (we both agree it should not be used). Therefore, this discussion is about the procedure in general. If you want, we may continue it, but feel free to stop at any moment.

Actually, the disagreement is only about allowing too much freedom to Wikipedians in their decision of what source is reliable. Let's check you and my approaches (and I apologize in advance if I misinterpret you)

• Primary vs Secondary. No disagreement, except one aspect. Being an author of peer-reviewed publications, you perfectly know that the Introduction and, partially, "Discussion" sections are the summary of the current state of the field: "Introduction" is a mini-review, and "Discussion" is a discussion of own results in a context of the results of previous studies. Therefore, even research articles are, partially, secondary sources. Of course, the author's own data are, by and large, primary.

• Author My approach: The number of citations and/or h-index is a good measure. You propose to analyze if the author is an expert in this concrete topic. You approach works fine if your opponents are reasonable and well educated people, but what if they are not familiar with a subject or are civil POV-pushers? What is they establish consensus that this particular author's qualification in this particular field is insufficient?

• Journal My approach: if the journal is generally relevant (e.g. Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biochemistry, Environmental Chemistry, etc are relevant to biomedicine) and its impact factor should be at least 1. Your approach seems to include a detailed analysis of event the journal's editorial board. Again, my approach is more formal (and less strict), but it allows less freedom for misuse by poorly educated of bad faith users.

• Relevant expertise My approach: if the source/author was cited by several other sources, and there is no wholesale criticism/rejection, then it is acceptable. Your approach seems to require a detailed analysis of the content, which, again, may be a seed of endless debates and possible edit wars.

• opinion vs scientific description of findings Don't see any difference with secondary vs primary.

• At that point you stop and conclude the source fails WP:V. In contrast, I continue, and ask another question: "If this source passes WP:V, should we use it per WP:FRINGE?" And the answer is, most likely, "No". If our approaches lead to the same verdict, but my approach allows less manipulations, why do you think you are right, and I am not?

I doubt my interpretation of our policy and guidelines is less correct than yours. I would say you demonstrate more creativity in policy interpretation. Actually, you are bringing the standards of scientific community into Wikipedia. Personally, I would wholeheartedly supported this approach, but it works only when all users are professionals, which is not the case (and will never be).

--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:00, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

...the Introduction and, partially, "Discussion" sections are the summary of the current state of the field: "Introduction" is a mini-review, and "Discussion" is a discussion of own results in a context of the results of previous studies. Therefore, even research articles are, partially, secondary sources. There is rarely any reason to cite the summary of the field from primary research article intros/discussions because, if the topic is DUE, it will have been discussed in detail in far more comprehensive secondary reviews. JoelleJay (talk) 09:02, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Not sure where to jump in on this conversation so I'll add my thoughts here:

• For scientific topics, I'd say that primary sources are fine for non-controversial statements, which this is not
• When acting as WP editors, our opinions on whether the paper's arguments are convincing is less relevant than the consensus of the published material, which currently leans heavily towards zoonotic origins
• Of the current 42 cites, a significant number are refutations and self-cites (totally fine, but should be omitted from assessing mainstream acceptance/support) and I can't see much independent support for the conclusions presented
• It's cewrtainly fair to say that it's a highly minority opinion, bordering on fringe.
• If included in the WP page, it should therefore certainly be contextualised as "A minority/niche position is that the virus could have a laboratory origin,[refs] however the mainstream consensus is that of natural origins.[refs]"
  • Conceivably the specific evidences for and against can be listed but that might be getting pretty technical.
• I'd not be too concerned about the journal itself - the accuracy variation within journals is often greater than the variation between them and
  • In this context, impact factor isn't a great metric but more useful ones are hard or impossible to calculate e.g. was the paper rejected elsewhere and why, or what were the specific expertise of the reviewers etc.

Hope that helps somewhat with an outside opinion. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 04:23, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

• This [104] is clearly a secondary RS per our policies. This is NOT an original research publication, but rather a critical review or analysis of already published information. The fact it was cited 40+ times only makes the publication more notable and deserving inclusion. This is not a medical claim and not a medical question, as has been debated to nausea. Therefore, WP:MEDRS does not apply, although one might reasonably argue that it is a WP:MEDRS source as a review/analysis article. It does not really matter that authors are not virologists, but biologists. It does not mean that the authors are right. To make it balanced include some opposing views please. My very best wishes (talk) 14:39, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

In other words, (a) BioEssays is generally an RS on biological subjects, and (b) I do not see anything to disqualify authors of the publications as knowledgeable biologists. This is NOT a misinformation, but a justifiable view that was widely cited and shared by a number of people. Sure, their views and analysis are disoutable, but it is important to cite BioEssays and biologists, rather than only politicians and journalists. I do not see why this needs to be censored. My very best wishes (talk) 19:49, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

But Deigin is not a biologist in any sense and Segreto is in an unrelated field of biology... JoelleJay (talk) 20:44, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

• Problems and Paradigms is not a review series. Segretto and Deigin formulate novel analyses and take primary data they themselves have generated for the publication and interpret it. That makes this publication a PRIMARY source. Not a secondary review. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:16, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

  @Shibboleth, no different to the joint China-WHO report then? Aeonx (talk) 22:19, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

  If I were Shibboleth, I wouldn't bother replying with more than "false equivalance". Entirely ignoring the fact that most of our coverage on the topic is not even based on the WHO report anyway. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:46, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

  Huh? An official statement from a prominent medical body is WP:MEDRS, a very different standard. —PaleoNeonate – 04:50, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

  Segretto and Deigin speak only for themselves when they assert broad-based opinions. The WHO report speaks with the authority of a team of experts formally assembled by the WHO. Big difference. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 19:18, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• It does not matter if this is called "review". This is in fact a review/analysis article. Yes, sure, they are not speaking for the entire scientific community. No one does. I voted "RS" because such source would easily pass as an RS on a typical WP page about a biological subject, and there is nothing wrong with using it anywhere. Yes, this is apparently a minority view, but a very large minority. Personally, I am not a supporter of this view. My very best wishes (talk) 13:42, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

  MVBW, you have always been a very reasonable editor in our exchanges. You are being reasonable here. But I still disagree, I see only parts of this article are secondary, much like how many primary articles have introductions that are secondary. But the components where they create their own alignments, hypothesize on the significance of those alignments, etc. are primary. As are their conclusions, which are novel to this paper. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 13:51, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

I think you are mistaken. See Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary,_secondary_and_tertiary_sources: "A secondary source provides an author's own thinking based on primary sources...". Author's own thinking. Every good review provides an analysis by authors. A bad review is just a collection of information. I do not think that one is so great, but just mentioning what it say should not be a problem. My very best wishes (talk) 14:00, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but most reviews do not include primary research investigations such as creating alignments and pointing out things about those alignments. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:06, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Some of them do. But here is my point. Would including such ref on a page would be helpful for a typical WP reader who is interested in this subject? Yes, it definitely would. My very best wishes (talk) 14:21, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of relevant information. We have a duty to our readers to maintain our standards of reliability in sourced info. Reading all the screeds of the DRASTIC team would probably be interesting to a user curious about this topic, but we still don't cite them. Because they are unreliable. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:08, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Just to jump in on the primary/secondary aspect. This one's definintely a mix. However there are big chiunks that are pretty primary, e.g. the sequence analysis of the furin site is original research in that paper as far as I can see. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 00:06, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Discussing the reliability of a source, without considering what article text someone proposes writing and in which article they are inserting it, can only take you a small distance along the road. Thinking that "Yes it is reliable => I can write whatever I want (about topic X) based on that source" is wrong. Arguing X is just a guideline so can be dismissed is wrong. Our guidelines are the application of policy to specific areas, and e.g. MEDRS is just the application of several policies to using sources for biomedical topics. WP:PSTS (policy) explains our dislike of primary sources and explains that a research paper is a primary source. Footnote C in that policy explains also includes "editorials, op-eds, columns, blogs, and other opinion pieces" as primary sources. Just having an opinion and getting a random journal to publish it is not sufficient on its own for Wikipedia to mention it. See WP:WEIGHT and WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Shibbolethink makes several good points about the authors and the journal that suggest both are outside of their field of expertise while also pushing an agenda. -- Colin°^Talk 14:46, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

• Every critical analysis/review article expresses an opinion by authors to some degree. That does not make a source non-RS. To the contrary, consider Current Opinion (Elsevier) Their review articles are great. Although yes, an opinion to some degree, they are generally very good WP:MEDRS sources. They are not "opinion pieces" as in CNN (and even an opinion in CNN is a valid RS if written by an expert). My very best wishes (talk) 15:02, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Colin, Shibbolethink is right in almost everything but one thing: this source is reliable (passes WP:V), but it, most likely, does not pass WP:NPOV. Your "Thinking that "Yes it is reliable => I can write whatever I want (about topic X) based on that source" is wrong." is WRONG. A correct statement should be as follows:

"Yes it is reliable. However, before using that source, we must make sure it represents at least a significant minority viewpoint.

Clearly, the facts presented during this discussion demonstrate that it is even not a significant minority view, and the authors themselves recognize that in their next publication.

I think, if we want to follow the WP:V spirit and letter, the formal summary should be:

Formally speaking, it is reliable, but it should not be used as an insignificant minority view.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:23, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I don't see how your "correct statement" contradicts my statement you say is "WRONG". And that "correct statement" examines only one aspect (representing a significant minority viewpoint". That still doesn't allow anyone to cite that source and "write whatever they want based on it". WEIGHT would impact how much text to write, where to write it (lead, body, which article(s)), etc. And we still wouldn't be able to state it as fact, just as a minority opinion. And as others note, there may be more recent papers: people are allowed to change their opinions and what might have been thought important at one point may no longer be. Just saying "Yes it is reliable." is problematic. What on earth is it reliable for? Very little of it is reliable for anything more than the opinion of its authors at that point in time. My very best wishes is wrong. Merely citing other papers doesn't turn an opinion piece into a formal literature review (never mind a systematic review). -- Colin°^Talk 15:43, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

In this case, the point of determining whether an article is an RS is moot if you anyway argue it should not be included. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 15:40, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert, If we want to follow Wikipedia policy to the letter, we would wait for someone to close this discussion and determine the consensus established here, and that would tell everyone whether or not this publication should be considered reliable for use in the Investigations article. And if that consensus were to establish the source as reliable, it would have to be robust enough to overturn the consensus established on the relevant talk pages, which is that these publications are not reliable. We wouldn't just follow your opinion or my opinion of what we should do. We would follow the consensus opinion. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:22, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Since both you and I have no disagreement about this concrete publication (I think it should not be used too, unless someone decides to include Panchin's article, which is a quite reliable RS; in that case it may be instrumental to mention that Panchin analyzed a possibility that RaTG13 was an ancestor of SARS-CoV2, which was proposed by Segreto), no closure is needed. The outcome of our dispute relates to the policy interpretation, not to this concrete source.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:07, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

@Colin agreed. You can find the relevant discussions about how various users have intended to use the paper at the top of this discussion section. Or also in this consensus template. In brief, several users have wished to use this source to describe how the genetic engineering hypothesis of COVID-19 origins is viable, and not a conspiracy theory. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:39, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

If those users wished to use this source to confirm viability of the hypothesis of artificial origin of COVID-19, then all of that is an NPOV issue, not V. Which is exactly what I said initially.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:12, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

• RS; it's published in an indexed, peer-reviewed journal and widely cited in reputable sources. Except in an exceptional circumstance, no further information should be required nor investigation of the source undertaken. Any original analysis, by us, as to its content is an inferior form of peer review (done by laypersons) to that which it's already undergone. The MEDRS arguments are stretching that guideline, in my opinion, to cover any article or topic that touches in any way on biology, which is an unconvincing reach. The arguments about its conclusions not aligning with the scientific consensus are also entirely unconvincing. Consensus is what we use to make decisions on WP, not judge the merits of knowledge or purported knowledge. Our WP:UNDUE policy says that articles should represent significant viewpoints, not majoritarian viewpoints. That said, it would be appropriate to give any content cited to this source diminished weight in the article, also with respect to our DUE/UNDUE policy. Chetsford (talk) 22:24, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

  By your criteria, the fraudulent vaccine-autism paper by Andrew Wakefield is also an RS, since it's in an indexed, peer-reviewed journal (Lancet) and it is widely cited in reputable sources. Crucially, what your analysis misses is that it is widely cited for the wrong reasons - i.e. the only citations from actually reputable sources are as an example of fraud (the Wakefield paper). Or in our case, refutations. WP:SCHOLARSHIP is the basic summary of this guideline - i.e. works by actual scholars in their fields and not random nobodies, especially not then there's a huge WP:REDFLAG hanging all over it (something that goes against the prevailing view within the relevant scientific community [virologists], is published by non-experts, and is a primary source, is certainly not the kind of thing that satisfies any of the "high quality reliable source" bit). This, critically analysing the context and the content of a source is the kind of reflection on sources that's entirely routine in serious academic studies, and that's certainly the viewpoint Wikipedia should be written from. Not a popularity contest of which thing gets more attention in US newspapers. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:44, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Correct me if I am wrong, but hadn't that paper been debunked? If yes, then the analogy is incorrect.

And, yes, fringe source if published in a good peer-reviewed journal is RS. However, if that RS is fringe, it should be treated as such, i.e., ignored. --Paul Siebert (talk) 04:57, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• Not an RS Let's see, it pertains directly to human health, so WP:MEDRS is in full force (in a way that it wouldn't be for, say, choanoflagellate mucus or sauropod vertebrae); it's evidently a primary source; the authors lack relevant expertise; the journal deliberately skews toward the provocative; impact factor is a shoddy way of telling what journals are worthwhile. Also, 42 citations is a pitifully small number for a hot topic, particularly given that they include refutations, self-citations, and MDPI. XOR'easter (talk) 01:31, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

I am impressed how can we arbitrarily use formal criteria (if that leads to a desirable result) and use more creative approach (when formal criteria do not work as we want). Clearly, the spirit of WP:MEDRS is: "do not use research articles, because you may misinterpret the raw data from them, and a reader may take that as a direct medical advice". In other words MEDRS warns (not prohibits, for it is just guidelines) against usage of research articles when it may cause a direct harm to reader's health. In connection to that, I am wondering what concrete health risk may be caused by the fact that the two authors assert (wrongly, imo) that SARS-CoV2 was engineered, and, concretely, RaTG13 was its direct ancestor? I cannot imagine a situation when this information may cause any harm to our readers.

Furthermore, 42 citations in less than 2 years is very good, just take a look at this list: majority of research articles in this list have even smaller number of citations.

In addition, some articles in that list (for example, this one, which is quite a secondary source and RS) cite articles published in BioEssays (including Sirotkin's article about a plausibility of the lab leakage hypothesis, which was cited without obvious criticism). I am wondering why those authors are unfamiliar with the fact that that journal is unreliable?

I am not a proponent of the lab leakage hypothesis, and of this concrete source, but we must avoid twisting our policy and guidelines to achieve our own agenda (even if it is quite noble).--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:28, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Clearly, the spirit of WP:MEDRS is: "do not use research articles, because you may misinterpret the raw data from them, and a reader may take that as a direct medical advice". This is a total misreading of both the current language of and intent behind MEDRS. Here's a line from the recent close that fell strongly in favor of removing mention of medical advice from the lead:

There's a solid consensus to begin this guideline with Option 2, i.e. to remove the bit about "medical advice" from the lead sentence. Supporters of this option offered the view that MEDRS exists to help editors find reliable sources in the fraught landscape of biomedicine literature, popular writings, et al. and is not intended to support those seeking health information per se.

Furthermore, 42 citations in less than 2 years is very good, just take a look at this list: majority of research articles in this list have even smaller number of citations. The paper has only 16 citations in published journal articles. GS does not order hits by citation number so I can't see how you're able to make a comparison among similar papers unless you've looked at all the results, and anyway the search terms you use return all sorts of COVID papers from any time up to the present so it's useless for gauging relative impact.

In addition, some articles in that list (for example, this one, which is quite a secondary source and RS) cite articles published in BioEssays (including Sirotkin's article about a plausibility of the lab leakage hypothesis, which was cited without obvious criticism). The citation to the Sirotkins is followed immediately by reasoned dismissal of their hypothesis. It was most likely included because it is one of the few (and first) papers remotely entertaining the idea, despite the attention it's gotten in the lay media; there's nothing compelling authors only cite high-quality research for a topic they're just going to rebut anyway, especially if HQRS doesn't even exist for it. JoelleJay (talk) 15:23, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

In addition, some articles in that list (for example, this one, which is quite a secondary source and RS) cite articles published in BioEssays - This is another opinion editorial, and is explicitly labelled as such. It, therefore, is not a RS, not in the scholarly sense. It could be used with attribution of course, but should not be used for statements of fact. WP:RSOPINION. I would advise you to be more careful about what you label as obvious secondary RS. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:49, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• Primary source that has been reputably published but it's certainly not HQRS, which is what this topic needs, regardless of whether you apply MEDRS to it or not. This is not a widely cited piece (citations in predatory journals, pre-prints, self cites and refutations are the predominant results on google scholar), it has not been published in a mainstream journal and the credentials of the authors are lacking. Context matters and the context is that there is no dearth of scholarly publications on this topic and that this publication in particular goes against the present scientific consensus (it admits as much). This doesn't mean it's just a minority view but one that is not a significant view among reliable sources. It'd be completely undue to include in practically any form, and if used at all needs to be based on review article(s). Tayi Arajakate _Talk 02:31, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• "it has not been published in a mainstream journal" Am I missing something? The journal is: (a) first quartile, [105] (b) indexed by SCOPUS and PubMed, [106] (c) published by Wiley & Sons. I must be missing something. Hopefully you can help me understand. Chetsford (talk) 03:41, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

  By not being mainstream, I meant not being so for the topic area, i.e the field of virology. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 04:42, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Alas, I presented an example of BioEssays articles that are cited by good CARS-CoV2 related publications as reliable (without any obvious criticism). If they are treated as reliable by peers, why should we treat them differently?--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:22, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• Non-RS, primary source. As others have already said at length here, and as I have said in the diffs linked at the top of this thread, this source fails MEDRS and our standards for the high-quality RS required to cover fringe topics. That BioEssays apparently does not vet the credentials of its "Hypothesis" series authors is a red flag but the poor reputation of the journal is by no means the only reason to reject this paper, so it's not a great use of editor time debating impact factor etc. here. JoelleJay (talk) 09:19, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• Overall RS, with some parts of the source being primary hypothesis After reviewing the source and many of the comments above. There appears there may be some bias and WP:PUSH by the usual suspects whom have their own pre-formed perceptions on the various lab leak theories. Ignoring all that, just looking at the source and evaluating whether this is a reliable source of information is relatively straight-forward. The source is a WP:RS for the clear reasons mentioned above, however it does contain some secondary scientific analysis of both secondary and primary data and forms a novel hypothesis; the source is reliable for it's analysis on others data, but is not reliable for the primary data and subsequent hypothesis. Aeonx (talk) 10:14, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

  Instead of accusing other users of attempting to push a point-of-view (which is unhelpful, borderline WP:BATTLEGROUND); you really ought to substantiate your "clear reasons mentioned above". Is it the fact this is a primary source? Is this the fact that the author's credentials are unimpressive, to say the least? Is it the fact the source is only cited by at best dubious publications, with the few instances of not dubious publications citing it being refutations? Is it the fact that it's definitively at odds with other, more reliable and more recent sources on the matter (WP:REDFLAG)? What exactly makes you think that this is an acceptable source? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:26, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

  The article contains both novel study data and other data, and provides analysis on both, at times independently and at times not. I believe it is possible to be more nuanced than perhaps you would like. Rather than categorise the source into primary or non-primary, how about addressing the content with more fidelity, examine which parts of the article specifically you interpret to be primary. I've already given my perspective, although you've summarily ignored that and instead launched a whataboutism argument. Which is frankly a false argument. The issue of WP:REDFLAG does not dispute a sources reliability, only it's relative weight in any given article. The reasons of why this is a [WP:RS]] are that it meets the policy criteria as detailed above by others. Me repeating that issue wasting other editors time, as indeed you appear to do. I'm concerned that given your past edits and edit warring with others that you might have an unconscious or intentional bias on this, not an accusation - just something for you to personally consider. Aeonx (talk) 23:13, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• Dubious first, I don't think there's any question that not everything published in what is normally a reliable publisher is a reliable source. There are plenty of examples, some here, of bad material published in good journals. If Bioessays indeed does not vet the credentials of its "Hypothesis" authors as suggested above, I agree that's clearly a red flag. Lack of author credentials alone is usually enough not to use something. It also isn't a journal with any specialism in the field of virology, another reason to be dubious about its use. Doug Weller talk 12:30, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• Not an RS. Has been discussed before, again and again and again, see here. Fails WP:MEDRS, WP:PRIMARY, WP:FRINGE, WP:FALSEBALANCE, WP:DEADHORSE, WP:FORUMSHOP, WP:IDHT, and probably a bunch of other such pages. I have no patience with users who think guidelines can be ignored because they are not policies; if that reasoning were valid, we should just delete all guidelines because they would never be used anyway. WP:CIR is another relevant page here: if I rarely edited science pages, I would not insist on my lay opinion for several days in the face of users who daily edit science pages contradicting me. They know what they are doing, they even explained why they are doing it several times, and there is nothing arbitrary in using the fine print of the rules in addition to their headlines. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:24, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
• I made this post on the policy page, because I think this discussion is an indication of different understanding of our policy by different users.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:54, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• Not an RS per Hob Gadling rationale--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:26, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Not RS. Not suitable for Wikipedia's purpose of reflecting accepted knowledge, WP:PROFRINGE instrument only. Alexbrn (talk) 16:27, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

• RS, just barely. Paul Siebert makes a good point that any paper published in any non-predatory journal fulfills the minimun requirements for WP:Primary. However, we are discussing a specific claim that requires deeper judgment, and wikipolicies allow us to to invoke the case-by-case rule here. It is done all the time in WP:RSN, that's what it is there for. Here are my two cents onto the subject of reliability

1) Authors: Deigin lacks proper scientific credentials, though Segreto is barely ok. So its not definitive what to make of a paper by them, I guess we can trust the more reliable of the two. This rule would apply to those papers with large number of coauthors in which one can be a Ph.D student or someone lacking expertise, but it should not hurt the credentials of the overall authorship group.

2) Journal: There are precedents that Bioessays is taken seriously by top journals. For example, in Martin and Koonin (2006), doi:10.1038/nature04531, they cite Poole et al (1999), published in Bioessays. So it is a non-predatory journal that, at least in one ocassion, has entered the top levels of scientific discussion.

3) The specific case of the Furin Cleavage Site claim: So, we have a claim going around in different sources saying that FCS is so peculiar and odd that it might have come from a lab instead of nature. Has this claim been repeated in News media? Yes. They tend to cite Nicholas Wade's opinion piece published at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists as the source for it. If one reads Wade's article, he gives credit to a Deigin opinion article published in Medium as source for the FCS claim. That medium article is related to the Segreto and Deigin Bioessays paper, in my opinion, it is almost a preprint of it. Has this claim being repeated in top cientific journals? Yes. The Holmes et al (2021) review published in Cell mentions that The genesis of the polybasic (furin) cleavage site in the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 has been subject to recurrent speculation. Although the furin cleavage site is absent from the closest known relatives of SARS-CoV-2 (Andersen et al., 2020), this is unsurprising because the lineage leading to this virus is poorly sampled and the closest bat viruses have divergent spike proteins due to recombination (Boni et al., 2020; Lytras et al., 2021; Zhou et al., 2021). Furin cleavage sites are commonplace in other coronavirus spike proteins, including some feline alphacoronaviruses, MERS-CoV, most but not all strains of mouse hepatitis virus, as well as in endemic human betacoronaviruses such as HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-HKU1 (Gombold et al., 1993; de Haan et al., 2008; Kirchdoerfer et al., 2016). A near identical nucleotide sequence is found in the spike gene of the bat coronavirus HKU9-1 (Gallaher, 2020), and both SARS-CoV-2 and HKU9-1 contain short palindromic sequences immediately upstream of this sequence that are indicative of natural recombination break-points via template switching (Gallaher, 2020). Hence, simple evolutionary mechanisms can readily explain the evolution of an out-of-frame insertion of a furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2 (Figure 2). Here we see that Holmes et al omit citing Segreto and Deigin, or Wade. They introduce the FCS claim when they say "The genesis of the polybasic (furin) cleavage site in the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 has been subject to recurrent speculation." but with no citations there, which seems to be a mistake or at least, a failure in research protocol for a literature review to properly give credit where is due, in my opinion. It is very hard to believe that they missed the Bioessays paper during their the keyword search part of the review, I mean, just type furin cleavage site sars-cov-2 on google scholar and the Segreto and Deigin appears in the top 15 results. In conclusion, here, most of top newspapers trace the FCS assertion as Wade -> Deigin (Medium) -> Segreto and Deigin (2020, Bioessays), and the best secondary reviews omit them, so its a tie here. So, authors and journal passed the test, and specific case of analysis of the claim results in a draw, a not definitive conclusion, which means that overall its an RS, although just barely. Forich (talk) 04:39, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

• Not convinced by pro-Deigin analyses. Clearly a WP:MEDRS standard applies here, and any such claim (as presented by Segreto/Deigin) must come through strict scrutiny. I will try to respond to what I understand to be necessary criteria before the article comes cited and mentioned

• Is BioEssays a WP:MEDRS, as the claim is certainly within MEDRS scope? It is certainly a legitimate scientific journal, and the example Forich mentions is quite good to show that for genetics (though not exactly a related subdomain to the one being here in dispute), it is at least sometimes treated seriously. But we have more area of expertise than one touched in this question, and that is in particular virology. Shibbolethink convincingly, in my opinion, showed that the journal has a stated purpose to test new ideas, but Wikipedia is not supposed to be a dumpster of whatever new research and new ideas appear. So yes, the journal is OK, but we should bear in mind what journal does, that is, publish some really new ideas which have not yet been vetted (as is the case here). So, for the third criterion of WP:SOURCE, it's a pass grade but nothing close to spectacular. Just acceptable.
• Are the authors qualified? The answer here, is no. Deigin has little to do with virology, biosafety, and has touched genetics only to the extent that it was concerned with aging. Not convinced about his virology skills at all. Segreto has much better credentials and her contributions to genetics, I believe, should not be disputed, but all the time she's been working with fungi, not viruses. Again, COVID or COVID-like diseases are not her domain of expertise, and there's no evidence she has received additional virology training before switching to publishing papers on COVID.
• Is the work itself OK? Well, to begin with, we don't establish accuracy, or even prominence of a scientific (MEDRS-sense) idea using normal press. While the claim may resonate among the lay publications, it is totally irrelevant to the scientific consensus (or lack thereof) in the scientific community, which is what counts. There's one more troubling thing, though. The citations, from my review, rarely, if ever, supported their findings, and many more were in fact rebuttals. There is a good reason Holmes et al. avoided Nicholas Wade and the pair of authors discussed here. The former, who became one of the most active supporters of the theory, has published his opinion in a journal absolutely unrelated to the topic (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists), and he does not have the expertise, either (probably the least among the three of the people mentioned here). As Forich shows, the scheme is Wade -> Deigin (Medium) -> Segreto and Deigin (2020, Bioessays). But it's the Wade to Deigin transition that is by itself worrying. A person who is barely a scientist (and I'm being generous here) makes a claim based on an opinion (piece) of a non-scientist (he was merely a journalist for Nature and Science) and then passes through peer review of a journal that, by self-admission, likes to test the boundaries of science by publishing not-exactly-mainstream papers. This is all too fishy for me. As an opinion piece, provided that due weight is given, probably it could be used (though I don't even recommend doing that), but certainly not on par with other articles.

Totting up: journal is acceptable, authors are not good enough, and to say that such a paper conforms to WP:MEDRS, or even WP:RS requirements is quite a stretch. Find some better sources. I see no reasons for consensus change. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 12:46, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

CounterPunch and Al Bawaba

I will bundle these two sources together because they both appear on Alex Saab’s page. An editor has placed an unreliable source tag against a number of statements sourced to CounterPunch and Al Bawaba. Counterpunch appears in the Perennial list with the description "There is no consensus regarding the reliability of CounterPunch. As a biased or opinionated source, its statements should be attributed". Al Bawaba does not appear in the Perennial list. It is used as a reference nearly 1,000 times within Wikipedia. I found one discussion about the reliability of Al Bawaba from 2015 which is not useful here.Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_198 The statements that have been tagged are:

• On 24 August, according to CounterPunch, the US asked that the period allowed for its response be extended to 7 October.
• In August 2021, Saab's defence team asked that the site of his detention be moved from the island of Sal to Praia. It said Saab's health had deteriorated and that he needed access to specialist medical care for his cancer. On 1 September 2021, the Barlavento Court of Appeal granted Saab's request.(sourced to Al Bawaba)
• Saab's defence team asked the Cape Verde courts to refuse Saab's extradition on the grounds that there were legal irregularities associated with his arrest. By September 2021, the request had reached the Cape Verde Constitutional Court.(sourced to Al Bawaba)

In addition, the following statement sourced to CounterPunch was removed from the page with the edit summary "Per talk page. The most important reactions, including OHCHR's, ECOWAS Court's and Russia's are already covered by other sources. If other reactions are to be included, better sources should be used ".

• Roger Harris, a board member of the Task Force on the Americas, wrote in CounterPunch that Iran, China, Russia, the United Nations, the African Union, ECOWAS, and Venezuela had written diplomatic letters to Cape Verde asking that Saab's extradition be refused based on the "principles of immunity and inviolability of consular rights.

Relevant points here are that

• The statements sourced to CounterPunch are attributed as required.
• The statements are factual rather than opinion.
• The statements do not appear to be controversial.

I did ask on Saab’s talk page why the tags were added. The response was "Mostly BobFromBrockley's comments in its respective section, I will try to give more details briefly".

Does anyone have any thoughts about the reliability of the two sources for the statements that have been tagged and the statement that has been removed from the page? Burrobert (talk) 13:20, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

If its uncontroversial then there is no problem to find other WP:RS especially in WP:BLP we shouldn't use sources with questionable reliability and the WP:ONUS for them was not met --Shrike (talk) 17:34, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

• "If its uncontroversial then there is no problem to find other WP:RS": that was not the question I asked. I asked whether the two sources are reliable for the specific statements. Whether the same information can be found elsewhere is not relevant. If another source disputed the information then that would make a difference but that has not occurred here. Are the two sources reliable for the specific statements?
• "the WP:ONUS for them was not met": again that is not the question asked.

Burrobert (talk) 00:18, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

I think that CounterPunch, although it does have some very good content, has a lot of really poor content, including conspiracy theories. It shares writers with deprecated and generally unreliable sources such as GlobalResearch and Unz Review. And a lot of what it publishes is opinion rather than factual, and would rarely be due. Therefore we should both exercise extreme caution and take it on a case by case basis. In this particular case, as I suggest on the article talk page, it's hard to see why the author - a retired conservationist active in the Peace and Freedom Party, whose name and affiliation are currently red links - should be seen as authoritative. I also observed that the cited article appears to have been re-posted unchanged from Dissident Voice, which I don't think has any editorial oversight. A recent discussion of DV here reached a consensus that it is generally unreliable. The article really reads like a press release from Saab's defence campaign, concluding with a link to a petition in support of him.

I'm less familiar with Al Bawaba, but their reporting on Alex Saab seems a little off to me. As NoonIcarus notes on the talk page, their reporting in the cited article[107] seems pretty partisan. It is also almost entirely made up of quotes from the defense team, suggesting it a lot of it is copied from a press release or similar. It seems Al Bawaba has quite a large number of articles on Saab,[108] which are all basically long verbatim quotes from the defense team. The latest, "Defense Team Responds, Alex Saab, is a Victim of a Failing Judicial System in Cape Verde",[109] makes not attempt at neutral reporting. I suspect this is a case of churnalism, with the co-ordinated PR campaign using an online magazine's desire for content to seed biased opinion in the newsphere. I don't know if this is a common MO for al Bawaba, but I think it needs to be treated with extreme caution. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:25, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Firstly CounterPunch:

• “really poor content, including conspiracy theories“ : some examples would be useful. It is such a vague statement that it is meaningless.
• “It shares writers with deprecated and generally unreliable sources such as GlobalResearch and Unz Review”. I hope this guilt by association argument holds no weight with editors.
• “whose name and affiliation are currently red links”: funny, because you added the red links. Generally that means you think they deserve their own articles.
• Dissident Voice: the article was published by CounterPunch which is responsible for content on its site. CounterPunch has editorial oversight.
• “The article really reads like a press release … “. The statement that is sourced to the article is a simple and uncontroversial factual statement: “On 24 August, according to CounterPunch, the US asked that the period allowed for its response be extended to 7 October”.

Al Bawaba:

• “the cited article[120] seems pretty partisan”. The statements that are sourced to the article are simple and uncontroversial factual statements: “In August 2021, Saab's defence team asked that the site of his detention be moved from the island of Sal to Praia. It said Saab's health had deteriorated and that he needed access to specialist medical care for his cancer. On 1 September 2021, the Barlavento Court of Appeal granted Saab's request”. and “Saab's defence team asked the Cape Verde courts to refuse Saab's extradition on the grounds that there were legal irregularities associated with his arrest. By September 2021, the request had reached the Cape Verde Constitutional Court”.
• the second statement sourced to Al Bawaba is verified by the next sentence in the article which reads: "On 8 September 2021 the Constitutional Tribunal of Cape Verde rejected Saab's defence appeal ... ".

Burrobert (talk) 02:05, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

@Burrobert:I've never heard of Al Bawbaa, so I won't comment on it without looking in a bit, but I do think that Counterpunch, although it does have some very good content, has a lot of really poor content, including conspiracy theories seems to be accurate. A list of some conspiracy and fringe theories published by the magazine are below:

• The site has a history of publishing 9/11 conspiracy theories. A 2019 piece claimed that WTC-7 was not hit by a plane like the rest of the complex but was bombed! The bombing let to WTC-7 being destroyed from a fire that burned for 7 hours — until the building collapsed at 5:20 p.m.. A 2021 piece (here is the correct link) endorses the conspiracy theory that the CIA deliberately planted explosives in WTC 1, WTC 2, and WTC 7 in order to ensure their collapse, citing a report by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Another article seems to endorse the belief that "Zionists" were responsible for 9/11, stating that In the Western World, Corporatism has become ‘subject’ to Zionism and in consequence Capitalist Democracy has been usurped by the power of a concentrated accumulation of resources – and this- no mere product of ‘happenstance’ – but rather part of a systemic scheme whereby the rich are to get richer and the poor to get poorer? \ When 2.3 Trillion Dollars can ‘go missing’ from an Economy and disappear down a ‘memory hole’ as part of a historical revisionism aka denial; when the very day after the gone missing is ‘announced’ and the Rabbi Dov Zakheim as Comptroller is not held to account because it ‘happens’ there is an attack on the Twin Towers (also WTC 7) and the Pentagon which becomes the focus of attention and a casus belli for war then something is seriously wrong – and psycho political abuse is in operation? Let us also not forget the ‘weapons grade anthrax’ – such the ‘memory hole’?. This isn't the only piece that reiterates the antisemitic canard to attempt to tie Jews to 9/11.
• On the note of the piece holding "Zionists" responsible for 9/11, there's even more antisemitic conspiracy at this publication! This 2014 piece states that It is forbidden by the censors who channel acceptable opinion to draw parallels with the Nazis’ modus operandi. But if the shoe fits … \ There is Israel’s Mengelian experimentation on caged Gazans, apart from saturation bombing, with nerve gas, depleted uranium, white phosphorous and flechette shells. More, the model of the Reichstag fire false flag has been readily replicated, not least in the 1954 Lavon Affair and, most spectacularly, in 9/11 (whence the five dancing Israelis at Liberty Park?). Practice makes perfect with false flags. Add extra-judicial murders made to order. (For those unfamiliar with "dancing Israelis", see this ADL piece.)
• A 2017 piece in the magazine also appears to deny the Holodomor, calling it fiction.
• A 2018 piece appears to deny the existence of the Xinjiang internment camps, calling it a bald and barefaced accusation... made with nary a shred of supporting evidence. The piece also denies widespread abuses against Uyghurs in the region, stating that The deluge of fake news from Western corporate media since the beginning of this year seeks to demonize the Chinese government, painting it as a gross violator of human rights, when the truth is the exact opposite. Another 2018 piece described the internment of over 1 million Muslims as wild allegations. Another piece seems to recommend The Qiao Collective's Chinese state media-filled resource compilation on the topic, as well as deprecated source The Grayzone.

If the source were pseudonymous, I'd be inclined to put it in the same bucket as Zerohedge: it contains some good stuff but also conspiracy theories, and should be deprecated. However, since it's possible to attribute items to an author, I'd say that publications by the magazine are generally unreliable and not due unless referenced by a reliable secondary source. I'd be extremely hesitant to use the source in a [[WP:|BLP]]], even if it were given attribution, and I think that the source would be best avoided altogether in that context. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 05:27, 15 September 2021 (UTC) (See the RfC below for my current thoughts, which changed based off of vaccine conspiracies and an apparent jarring lack of editorial control.)

Re Burrobert on CounterPunch: Conspiracy theory content: who is Israel Shamir, Counterpunch's resident intelligence correspondent? Alternately known as Jöran Jermas and Adam Ermash, Shamir is a fringe writer who has devoted his professional life to exposing the supposed criminality of "Jewish power," a paranoid anti-Semite who curates a website full of links to Holocaust denial and neo-Nazi sites, defenses of blood libel myths, and references to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Ali Abunimah, Hussein Ibish, and Nigel Parry have warned their fellow Palestinian activists to avoid contact with Shamir--Reason.com 2010; Counterpunch [allowed] one of its most popular contributors, Paul Craig Roberts, to air his [9/11] Truther arguments on their website --Stephen M. E. Marmura International Journal of Communication, 2014; “It’s one that you run into time and time again,” [9/11 and now Covid truther Mark Crispin Miller] said on an October 11 episode of CounterPunch Radio. “To the point that I now believe that anyone who uses that phrase [conspiracy theory] in a pejorative sense is a witting or unwitting CIA asset.”--Observer.com, 2017; Alison Weir, Israel Shamir and Gilad Atzmon] are three crypto-antisemites who have been openly circulated in the progressive world, appearing in supposedly leftist publications like CounterPunch in particular... CounterPunch...has published antisemitic writers for many years--Spencer Sunshine, Journal of Social Justice, 2019; CounterPunch keeps citing Global Research well into 2020--Emmee Bevensee, Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right , 2020 (Sunshine lists several examples here; The left-wing magazine CounterPunch has published a significant number of articles condemning Beijing’s repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. However, it has also occasionally featured pieces that deny any such thing is taking place.--CodaStory, 2020. See also Jovan Byford here. This may be a small proportion of what CounterPunch publishes, and it has certainly improved since the 2000s, but it means we need to exercise extreme caution. Guilt by association: This isn't guilt by association; it's about assessing reliability on a case by case basis. An article in this publication by an author who also writes for reliable sources might be worth using; an article by an author mainly known for publishing in GlobalResearch, ZeroHedge, Unz, Infowars etc is worth avoiding. Red links: I added links on the assumption that organisations/people we consider noteworthy are likely to be notable in their own right and therefore should have articles. If they're not notable, we need to be certain they are due, so I think red links are an important part of building Wikipedia. If you think they're notable, maybe start the article. Editorial oversight: Sure, CP has editorial oversight over what it publishes, but when it is syndicating articles from sloppier sources, such as Dissident Voice, we need to exercise extra care. Uncontroversial content: I'm not saying we definitely don't want to use this, but I flagged it with "better source" because if it is indeed uncontroversial we should be able to find a better source not drive traffic to a press release from partisans in the story. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:57, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Starting at the top:

• "A 2019 piece claimed that “WTC-7 was not hit by a plane like the rest of the complex but was bombed! The bombing let to WTC-7 being destroyed from a fire that burned for 7 hours — until the building collapsed at 5:20 p.m.”." I am far from being conversant with US 9/11 history (more familiar with the original 9/11 involving the CIA-engineered coup against Allende). I believe the official story is that WTC-7 was not hit by a plane like the rest of the complex but was substantially damaged by debris when the nearby North Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed. The debris ignited fires on multiple lower floors of the building, which continued to burn uncontrolled throughout the afternoon. The difference between the two versions seems to be the word “bombed” which the writer does not explain so it is hard to comment any further.

• “A 2021 piece endorses the conspiracy theory that the CIA deliberately planted explosives in WTC 1, WTC 2, and WTC 7 in order to ensure their collapse, citing a report by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth” I can’t see the reference to the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. However, the final line in the story is: Note: Yes, this is satire.

Burrobert (talk) 06:42, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

• @Burrobert: My apologies for the link screw up; the piece I linked was indeed satire, but it was also not the piece I was attempting to link nor describe. I have updated my comment above to reflect the proper link, which is also located here for your convenience. Obviously, labeled satire can’t be counted against the reliability of the publication—but the 2021 9/11 conspiracy-laden report is something that Counterpunch presents as if it should be taken seriously. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 14:04, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

  And, to add on to the above, the website has a troubling history with the bogus vaccine-autism conspiracy theory. Granted—there is WP:MEDRS for a reason—but this doesn’t provide strong reasons for us to trust their fact checking process. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 20:58, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

RfC: CounterPunch

Which of the following best describes the reliability of Counterpunch?

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting;
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply;
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting; or
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated.

— Mikehawk10 (talk) 03:12, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Discussion: RfC: CounterPunch

• Option 4: CounterPunch has a history of publishing false and fabricated information, including numerous conspiracy theories, and should be deprecated.
  1. As I noted in my comments above, the site's history of publishing 9/11 conspiracy theories is widespread. A 2019 piece claimed that WTC-7 was not hit by a plane like the rest of the complex but was bombed! The bombing let to WTC-7 being destroyed from a fire that burned for 7 hours — until the building collapsed at 5:20 p.m.. A 2021 piece endorses the conspiracy theory that the CIA deliberately planted explosives in WTC 1, WTC 2, and WTC 7 in order to ensure their collapse, citing a report by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Another article seems to endorse the belief that "Zionists" were responsible for 9/11, stating that In the Western World, Corporatism has become ‘subject’ to Zionism and in consequence Capitalist Democracy has been usurped by the power of a concentrated accumulation of resources – and this- no mere product of ‘happenstance’ – but rather part of a systemic scheme whereby the rich are to get richer and the poor to get poorer? \ When 2.3 Trillion Dollars can ‘go missing’ from an Economy and disappear down a ‘memory hole’ as part of a historical revisionism aka denial; when the very day after the gone missing is ‘announced’ and the Rabbi Dov Zakheim as Comptroller is not held to account because it ‘happens’ there is an attack on the Twin Towers (also WTC 7) and the Pentagon which becomes the focus of attention and a casus belli for war then something is seriously wrong – and psycho political abuse is in operation? Let us also not forget the ‘weapons grade anthrax’ – such the ‘memory hole’?. This isn't the only piece that reiterates the antisemitic canard to attempt to tie Jews to 9/11.
  2. On the note of the piece holding "Zionists" responsible for 9/11, there's even more antisemitic conspiracy at this publication! This 2014 piece states that It is forbidden by the censors who channel acceptable opinion to draw parallels with the Nazis’ modus operandi. But if the shoe fits … \ There is Israel’s Mengelian experimentation on caged Gazans, apart from saturation bombing, with nerve gas, depleted uranium, white phosphorous and flechette shells. More, the model of the Reichstag fire false flag has been readily replicated, not least in the 1954 Lavon Affair and, most spectacularly, in 9/11 (whence the five dancing Israelis at Liberty Park?). Practice makes perfect with false flags. Add extra-judicial murders made to order. (For those unfamiliar with "dancing Israelis", see this ADL piece.)
  3. A 2017 piece in the magazine also appears to deny the Holodomor, calling it fiction.
  4. A 2018 piece appears to deny the existence of the Xinjiang internment camps, calling it a bald and barefaced accusation... made with nary a shred of supporting evidence. The piece also denies widespread abuses against Uyghurs in the region, stating that The deluge of fake news from Western corporate media since the beginning of this year seeks to demonize the Chinese government, painting it as a gross violator of human rights, when the truth is the exact opposite. Another 2018 piece described the internment of over 1 million Muslims as wild allegations. Another piece seems to recommend The Qiao Collective's Chinese state media-filled resource compilation on the topic, as well as content from deprecated source The Grayzone.
  5. And, to add on to the above, the website has a troubled history of supporting the bogus vaccine-autism conspiracy theory.
  6. Their editorial process is also rather suspect; the magazine has failed to vet the identity of freelance journalists to the extent that it has, in recent years, published literal propaganda made by the GRU without having a clue that the person they were giving a byline to did not exist. And, on top of that, the magazine didn't know that much of the language in those propaganda pieces had been plagiarized from other sources.

Taken together, I don't think consider CounterPunch as a source to be something we can use to verify facts, except possibly in an WP:ABOUTSELF fashion. (And, even with respect to ABOUTSELF, I'd use it with caution given its issues vetting who its contributors actually are.) This publication should be deprecated as a source for facts. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 03:12, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

• Option 4. Per the investigation above, they have promoted numerous conspiracy theories, including antisemitic ones. Not reliable at all and should be deprecated; anything cited to it, if not covered elsewhere, isn't worth saying. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:41, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

• Option 4 Huh, I knew this publication had a strong POV but I wasn't aware that they routinely spread conspiracy theories. One study describes them as a "an ostensibly left magazine that has given space to white nationalists and antisemites" [110]. Conspiracy theory expert Jovan Byford describes CounterPunch as an antisemitic and conspiracist magazine [111], and a Stanford researcher included CounterPunch on a list of prominent conspiracy sites [112]. Their contributors include numerous conspiracy theorists, including Israel Shamir, 9/11 truther Paul Craig Roberts [113], Wayne Madsen [114], Mark Crispin Miller [115] and others. Scholars Stephen Zunes and John Feffer documented how false claims made by CounterPunch and similar websites about the Albert Einstein Institution ended up on Wikipedia and Sourcewatch [116]. Other nonsense claims by CounterPunch can be found in the Algemeiner [117]. The 9/11 conspiracies, vaccine conspiracies, and Uyghur genocide denialism, as described by Mikehawk, is just icing on the cake at this point. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 09:23, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

• There are over 2,500 references to CounterPunch on Wikipedia. The instructions are that "Requests for comment for deprecation, or for blacklisting or classification as generally unreliable of sources that are widely used in articles, should be registered here using rfc|prop. As usual with RfCs, consensus is assessed based on the weight of policy-based argument". I suggest putting the RfC in its own section rather than as a appendage of a previous discussion. Burrobert (talk) 10:35, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Option 4: Regularly publishes conspiracy theories as per Mikehawk excellent analysis shouldn't be used in Wikipedia --Shrike (talk) 10:39, 19 September 2021 (UTC) Option 4: - Very good research above, demonstrating why it can't be used. Inf-in MD (talk) 11:19, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Historisches Lexikon Bayerns

The Historisches Lexikon Bayerns is published as a wiki, but appears to have an editorial structure and is organized by the Bavarian State Library (an arm of the Bavarian Ministry of Sciences and Arts). There are many authors (identified in bylines on top of their articles), but the credentials or authority of the authors are not generally clear. The version histories of the articles don't seem to clarify when a version is considered done. It has a large German-language section, and a small list of articles translated into English. How should we regard this source, including for potentially controversial topics such as its coverage of Nazi-era Germany? (To provide a concrete example, let's consider whether citing the HLB article "Blutfahne der NSDAP" in our article Blutfahne would be satisfactory.) TheFeds 00:12, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes i'd say in most contexts it can be used as a valid source and probably can be treated similarly to national biographies or national/state encylopedia you find in the English speaking world. The wiki aspect (that a wiki software is used) shouldn't be an issue as it does not provide an "anyone can edit" feature.

As far as that specific article is concerned. First of all as far as the content is concerned I'm not seeing anything that would be controversial. As far as the author is concerned a quick check/search indicates that he has published some NS-related stuff in proper historical journals and is quoted in some reputable books on the subject. So he seems to be an expert on the nazi era in Bavaria. However I didn't find any biographical details regarding his education & career. My overall conclusion is, that he seems ok as general source for the Blutfahne article, except for highly controversial/disputed aspects maybe.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:05, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

From my correspondence with the author of a different article, who asked me for an informal peer review, I gather the following: At least someone on the advisory board reads the articles before they get published (not by the authors themselves but by library staff). Should be mostly solid information for a more general audience. --HHill (talk) 20:57, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

World Socialist Web Site

How should we categorise the World Socialist Web Site, a socialist news website owned by the International Committee of the Fourth International? While they have a clear Troskyist slant and bias, they have also covered a range of international issues that have attracted international coverage including the 1619 Project (where they played a key role in rallying opposition), the Pike River Mine disaster in New Zealand and Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party. Are we allowed to cite the WSWS in articles? I did use a WSWS article in the Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand#Migrants section. Is is safe to use articles from them if the story is covered by other more reliable and less partisan media? Just wanted to get some clarity on the issue. Andykatib 10:30, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Though they reliable for their own views per WP:ABOUTSELF. Their views are usually are WP:UNDUE and shouldn't be used unless it cited by WP:RS Shrike (talk) 10:43, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• It's an opinionated reliable source, and therefore can be used (with attribution when necessary) on any relevant page. It is exceptionally widely cited in academic sources, I've checked on google scholar, and I stopped looking after the 22nd page of citation results. --Boynamedsue (talk) 12:09, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Not that I necessarily disagree with that assessment, but I do vaguely recall this site having been discussed before albeit with a different conclusion. It might be worth to check the archives for older discussions.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:21, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• They don’t really draw a hard line between news and analysis/opinion so I would not use them without attribution, that being said they are seriously notable and will often be used by others as a representative Trotskyist viewpoint. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:33, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Of course the opinions of any newsorg are not forbidden by RS and undueness is not WP:RSN's business, but the above comments about opinions are irrelevant because the cite in the article you mention, i.e. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/09/07/nzim-s07.html, supports a fact and is recent. It doesn't look contentious, so if nobody disputes the fact on the relevant talk page, I'd say don't worry about it and the question here is unnecessary. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:48, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

The difference is that the opinions of most newsorgs don’t appear in their news but in editorial or opinion pieces... You might notice that the linked article makes no such pretense, it begins with "In another attack on the basic rights of migrants...” Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:54, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• Reliable only for opinion. Some notable socialists post there and they are cited, but there is no indication of editorial oversight and fact checking. Free1Soul (talk) 16:50, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Thanks everyone for the feedback. Will treat the WSWS as an opinionated source. Agree with Free1Soul's assessment to treat it as reliable only for opinion. While they do have factual content, their ideology is first and foremost. They describe certain right wing figures and groups as fascist. They also describe other left-wing groups like the Democratic Socialists of America as "pseudo-left." Within this context, fascist and pseudo-left are opinion labels rather than factual ones. Will be very careful when using WSWS. Andykatib 21:33, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

I absolutely advise to avoid this source for non-WP:ABOUTSELF coverage. Opinions are like assholes, so presenting a Trotskyist viewpoint might be needed somewhere, but that's patently not the case here.

For the two facts you referenced (accomodation supplement not granted for temporary visa holders and the non-renewal of NZ$1M fund), here are better sources:

Radio New Zealand - this one for accomodation supplement

Radio New Zealand, Voxy.co.nz - somewhat less convincing but still better than WSWS - related to the aid to international students Szmenderowiecki (talk) 22:49, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks Szmenderowiecki, will check out these sources. Andykatib 23:40, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Just a question for everyone, would it be possible to have an entry for the World Socialist Web Site for the table on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#Sources. This will provide users with clarity about the WSWS' status as an opinionated source. Perhaps once we have reached a consensus on what classification to give it? Andykatib 09:12, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• The WSWS are effectively a party newspaper, so the upper bar for it would be the Morning Star's "maybe reliable". In practice, it doesn't even meet that; the ICFI are pretty tiny (so we'd run into WP:FRINGE considerations regardless), and their attitude regarding both their former intellectual leader Gerry Healy, and other leftist groups, makes them incredibly suspect. Sceptre (talk) 12:42, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Possibly reliable for some niche areas such as the history of American Trotskyism, but generally a poor source and increasingly so over the years, not because of their left-wing bias, which isn't an issue, but because of their increasing amplification of conspiracy theories. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:03, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Glad I'm not the only one who's noticed the website's conspiratorial claims, such as this one. The website has also published several articles denying both the Uyghur Genocide and the internment camps.[118][119][120][121][122][123] X-Editor (talk) 21:12, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

In a similar vein, while they have an impressive amount of USEBYOTHERS considering their background, I was unable to find any examples of use by RS for topics other than labor news, so that would be the only topic that it would potentially be ok to use them on. My impression from reading though a few polemics is that WSWS is arguably fringe even within the context of US Trotskyism, and thus it would probably be unwise to cite them for perspectives even on that topic unless there was independent coverage suggesting that their view is significant. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:27, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Occasionally they might be useful on uncontroversial biographic information and cultural commentary in the arts in cases the information in the main stream media might be somewhat limited. Imho their obituaries for people in the arts and reviews of cultural works are ok, at least the ones i've seen.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:59, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Ah, that's a decent example of potentially ok coverage as well. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:25, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

What does it mean to "deny" the "Uyghur genocide"? The claim of a genocide against the Uyghurs is an extreme viewpoint that is rejected by all sorts of people, including the US State Department's legal advisors: [124]. Making acceptance of this extreme claim into a litmus test for reliability would be absurd. -Thucydides411 (talk) 08:32, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes though the whole issue depends on what definition/notion of genocide you use. (attempted/Inded) associations with the holocaust are obviously nonsensical however an argument for a "cultural" genocide seems somewhat reasonable. However imho some of the "denial" articles look pretty dubious in their own right, they read like classic hyperbolic cold war propaganda, where the agenda trumps any sober and somewhat neutral analysis of the facts at hand.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:56, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

This is a reliable, opinionated source. Their coverage of American history has been quite prominent over the last two years, and the WSWS has actually been the primary venue in which professional historians (Gordon Wood, James McPherson, James Oakes and others) have expressed their criticism of the New York Times' 1619 Project. On American history, I think it's accurate to say that the WSWS' coverage has actually been more representative of mainstream historiography recently than that of the Times, difficult as that may be to believe. The noted historian Sean Wilentz recently wrote about this historiographical debate here: PDF link.

Articles in the WSWS are often opinionated, so attribution may be appropriate, but I've seen no evidence that it's less factually inaccurate than any other reliable political magazine. I would put the WSWS into the same category as magazines that cover current events, politics and history from an opinionated perspective, such as Jacobin, Reason, The Atlantic (which is probably closer to the dominant viewpoint among Wikipedia editors, and may therefore appear less opinionated), etc. -Thucydides411 (talk) 08:56, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Is populationu.com a reliable source

This edit replaced another source.[125] Sadly this is one of those editors who has never found their talk page, so if I revert they're likely to replace it again, at least that's my experienc. Doug Weller talk 11:54, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

It's registered anonymously via Namecheap (i.e. with the whoisguard option to hide the whois information), is also hosted via that service and I don't see any information about the site's owners or authors given on the site. They list a few sources for their information, however. It appears to only currently be used in 12 articles and in the first case I checked it had been added by Raibisu43, a now blocked sockpuppet. —PaleoNeonate – 16:54, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate: thanks very much for this. Doug Weller talk 13:05, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Circular references from The Times of India

See earlier discussions: February/March 2020 RfC, November 2020, May 2021. RSP summary at WP:TOI: The Times of India is considered to have a reliability between no consensus and generally unreliable. It tends to have a bias in favor of the Indian government.

I regularly come across TOI articles which copy content from WP articles, and which are in-turn used as citations, making WP:CIRCULAR. One such examples: Sreerama Chandra at 18:21, August 28, 2021 which was copied into TOI article [126] on 4 September 2021, about the subject and his background. The article was then sourced (thankfully only the Bigg Boss contestancy at the moment). WP:ICTF has consensus on not using TOI to source BLP details such as birthdate.

Should TOI be considered generally unreliable, or maintain the status quo of 2020 RfC outcome being "between no consensus and generally unreliable". In either cases, I'd propose extending the summary statement at WP:TOI, to include not considering for BLP details, especially when it comes to subjects related to films. Should it also include anything about circular references? — DaxServer (talk to me) 10:53, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

• It's possible both pieces originated in a press release. Generally I support the status quo which permits uncontroversial content but with caveats for biographic details and politics, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 00:21, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

If its being pulled unattributed from a press release thats just as big an issue for us... Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:42, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

• Circular citations are unambiguously not reliable. Spudlace (talk) 04:26, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
• I'd also support not downgrading it to generally unreliable for the same reason Atlantic306 mentions, i.e, there are a lot of uncontroversial content that can be and is sourced to it. Though I think the RSP entry doesn't have an adequate summary on why it is unreliable and how to use it. It should at least mention that the paper contains undisclosed paid news and that it should not be used to establish notability or to source anything that's remotely contentious i.e, it should be removed if it's questioned in any context.

I have also left a notice regarding this discussion on the Noticeboard for India-related topics. I'd suggest notifying relevant noticeboards whenever you start a significant discussion or proposal, it informs others who might be interested and improves participation in the discussion itself. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 14:43, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification! — DaxServer (talk to me) 14:53, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

@Tayi Arajakate: I would in general avoid leaving notices about RSN discussion on topic area noticeboards unless one notifies a wide range of them (for instance here there are five relevant topic areas but you’ve only notified one of them), selective notification can be a WP:CANVASSING issue. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:32, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Horse Eye's Back, I don't know how this can be construed as canvassing but alright I have left a notice at WT:JOURNALISM as well now, not sure what the other three places would be. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 17:08, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

I don’t personally have an issue with it, I’m just letting you know that best practice is to cast a wide net and that some will object if you don’t. India and Journalism is probably wide enough, the other topic areas noted on the talk page are media, newspapers, and brands. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:32, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Alright, I have left notices on WikiProject Media and WikiProject Newspapers now, brands seems too tangential to me. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 15:55, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

• I'm a little torn here. a) there's clearly serious questions about reliability. b) however, we don't exactly have a surfeit of English-language media sources in the subcontinent, and as a result low-profile topics, in particular biographies of low-profile people, are often short-changed. c) however', if there's serious concerns about a source, should we be relying on it for determining notability anyway? At the moment, I feel the optimal solution is to allow using it on a case-by-case basis, but noting at RSP that any TOI sources we use should be checked for evidence of churnalism and/or copyvio. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:13, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
• Standards across the Times Group have been in decline for at least two decades, its sad that this is where we’re arrived but its not our fault. As much as it pains us thats what generally unreliable looks like and we’re poor editors if we let our personal feelings about the source get in the way of that acknowledgement. If they turn around and start moving back up the reliability scale (perhaps by going back to the bare minimum required of them by global editorial standards) we can reassess but I’m not seeing grounds for any finding other than generally unreliable or deprecate. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:36, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
• I would let the consensus of the previous discussion stand. If it is the weather in Delhi on 17 June 2021, say, fine, use it. It is the smog in Delhi and its relation to reduced life-spans there, not fine, forget it. Keep for easily verifiable facts; avoid for anything with even remotely political implications. I don't think you will get too many people weighing in though. It hasn't been that long since the last RSN notice. I am appearing only because I was mentioned there in the closing note. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:34, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Dignity Memorial

Is Dignity Memorial (operated by Service Corporation International) a reliable source for birth dates? I know that Find a Grave is UGC and thus unreliable, but I can't figure out whether Dignity Memorial is also UGC. Specifically, I want to know if it would be acceptable to use this as the source for Saul Soliz's DOB, as all secondary RS I have encountered thus far only report his death date and age at the time of death. Armadillopteryx 16:58, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

The interesting thing here is, they're not technically the source, they're only posting the information the family is providing. That being said, I'm not sure why the DOB a family provides wouldn't be reliable. Canterbury Tail talk 17:43, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

This is one of those cases in which I don’t think that the source is going to be incorrect per say but it just doesn’t meet any of our standards for a reliable source so I don’t really see many use cases for it. I do not think we could use it for a DOB. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:18, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

CrimethInc.

• Used in Anarchism in Brazil for the claim that anarcho-communist and anarcho-syndicalist organizations participated in the 2021 Brazilian protests

  Vandaw (August 12, 2021). "Only Revolt Can Bring Down Bolsonaro". Facção Fictícia. CrimethInc. Retrieved September 11, 2021.

• No prior RSN discussions; prompted by WP:@ discussion
• Special:LinkSearch/https://crimethinc.com

CrimethInc. is a decentralized anarchist collective of autonomous cells that publishes articles, zines, and books about and for the anarchist movement, per our own article, which also cites Harper's: "CrimethInc’s core function is the creation of propaganda". I've always taken it for granted that this source is unreliable for newsworthy statements of fact in an encyclopedia, having no semblance of editorial control, e.g., fact-checking policy, reputation for accuracy, or journalistic reputation/pedigree, nevertheless considering its ideological bias. But this view was contested so looking for outside opinions both on this case and the general use of this source on Wikipedia, considering its other uses.

In this case, the claim itself is relatively innocuous, but that said, if it's noteworthy that anarchists meaningfully participated in the 2021 protests, is there really no other source for this claim? The ref itself, as noted in the linked edit above, is a repost and translation of a noblogs.org blog. My stance is that it's unregulated content. I'll let the other discussants—@Blue Rasberry and Grnrchst—chime in with their own stance. czar 02:38, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Is there any coverage in, say, Folha de S. Paulo or similar sources? Putting aside the questions of RSN (which I believe the source fails spectacularly by self-admission, so it might only be usable for WP:ABOUTSELF statements). Arguably that would mean CrimethInc could be used to say that these protests indeed took place, but the question here is of notability. You know, if there is a dozen of anarchists protesting near, say, Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine) with transparents reading something to the tune of "Down with the government! Down with the parliament! Down with the courts!" and really nobody cares, we shouldn't either. (I specifically chose this country as normally, if some big cheese called for such civil disobedience, such calls would have been endorsed by quite a lot of folks there, see Euromaidan, Orange Revolution). Szmenderowiecki (talk) 13:14, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree with both Czar and Szmenderowiecki above. I happen to love many of the things that CrimethInc has put out over the years but would never dream of using them as a WP reference. If something is notable it should be possible to find a better source. Generalrelative (talk) 21:06, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

I think it is an OK source for this claim. Anarchism is heavily un-represented in mainstream sources and so it's often good to use anarchist sources on details of anarchist activities, and this would be one of the better anarchist sources. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:48, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Can we use photocopies of sources on Google drive ?

User:238-Gdn has used one here.[127]. And although "alleged" might be correct, I don't see how that can be shown in Yitzchak Ginsburgh's article vis a letter by him. Doug Weller talk 12:43, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

I mean, if we knew that the work was originally published elsewhere and cited that, but internally used the perhaps questionable copy on Google Drive for review, that's one thing we'd turn a blind eye to as long as you are vouching for the original publication and proper source. But to a source only published on a cloud drive without mention in wider sources? No way. No way to verify authorship, etc. --Masem (t) 12:51, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

How do we know it has not been manipulated?Slatersteven (talk) 13:15, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

I'd be fine with hosting it, but the moment someone raises a concern because they want further verification, then I'd say it's no longer acceptable. Similar to how we treat offline sources, or non English sources that are not easily verified by every editor who had questions/concerns. But till then, thank you for including a link even if informal. ~ Shushugah (he/him • talk) 15:51, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

The link seems to be a clear violation of WP:COPYVIOEL to me. It's okay to have convenience links for sources, but not when they're hosted by someone without permission of the copyright holder. (Archival links are considered acceptable provided it's an archive of content was published by the copyright holder.) Similar to Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request editors could potentially share this privately to aide with verification but it should not generally be done publicly and especially not in articles.

But this is from May 17 1996 The Jewish Press page 88 so the link is irrelevant. We do not require a link for the source to be valid per Wikipedia:Offline sources.

However a letter to the editor is at most only usable to show the writer's POV. It's even worse than an opinion column or editorial since those may at least have some basic fact checking by whoever published it whereas I'm fairly sure most publishers just try to avoid anything which sounds too insane or will get them sued when it comes to letter to the editor and don't fact check them at all.

With reference to Slatersteven's point an issue here is the providence of the photocopy. If it came from the editor who wants to use it then I'm partially with Shushugah we should treat this like we do every other source. We generally trust other editors when it comes to what sources say and trust them to provide accurate copies if we want to verify the details ourselves. If for some reason people are extremely sceptical of some particular editor, it would probably be acceptable to seek out another copy and maybe even remove it in the interim but you really need to actively seek it out if you're going to challenge it IMO. If the editor doesn't know where the photocopy came from then IMO it's more reasonable to reject it outright even without seeking out another copy.

Nil Einne (talk) 15:31, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Are these sources reliable or not?

• Yong Choon Kim (1981). Oriental Thought: An Introduction to the Philosophical and Religious Thought of Asia. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 7. ISBN 9780822603658.

• Ali Ünal; Harun Gultekin (2013). The Prophet Promised in World Scriptures. Tughra Books. p. 253. ISBN 9781597848237.

Thanks in advance.--TheEagle107 (talk) 13:46, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

For what?Slatersteven (talk) 13:48, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Agree entirely with Slatersteven, context is key, but a very quick scan tells me the former source is pretty solid--the author being a professor emeritus at the University of Rhode Island--while the second is a bit more mysterious. Again, reliability does not exist in a vacuum. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 13:51, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

@Slatersteven:, @Dumuzid:, Please take a look at here.--TheEagle107 (talk) 13:53, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

It seems to me they are an RS for that.Slatersteven (talk) 14:01, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

TheEagle107 -- I left my thoughts on the article talk page. The short version is that I don't think reliability is a problem, but I don't care for the relevant section of the article. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:04, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Both are rs, particularly the first, since it has an academic publisher. However rs says that context matters. An introduction to Asian religions written by a professor and published by an academic publisher is where a reasonable person would look for an accurate and neutral description of Hinduism. A book about Mohammed written by an Islamic scholar and published by a publisher of Islamic books would not be my go to source for Hinduism. Just because an otherwise rs contains information about a topic does not mean it should be used. The less relevant to the topic a source is, the less likely that it's descriptions will be accurate or mainstream. I would not use for example a book about Mars by an astrophysicist as a source for 19th century literature. TFD (talk) 16:18, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

It may be the case with religious books that the author is credentialed but the faith forward study is something we just would not use. The introduction of the second book is enough to rule it out as RS "That is why Islam, revealed by God and conveyed to humanity by Prophet Muhammad, is universal and eternal. A Prophet inculcates the Creator's grandeur in the minds and spirits of human beings..." Spudlace (talk) 04:32, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Re the Yong Choon Kim book, Rowman and Littlefield are legitimate publishers of a variety of academic and popular books. But I would be cautious about any book offering an "introduction to the philosophical and religious thought of Asia" as many English language books on various Asian philosophies often tend to be somewhat dismissive, rely on shaky historical or linguistic foundations etc. English-speaking academic philosophy (I don't know so much about theology/religious studies) is still rather behind on a proper detailed understanding of the philosophical and religious thought of Chinese, Indian and other Asian cultures. A somewhat obscure single volume summary published in 1981 may be reliable in the WP:RS sense of the word, but to properly understand the subject in context, you might want to consult more recent sources that go into more detail. —Tom Morris (talk) 07:17, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Does Noah Carl writing in The Critic (British magazine) establish notability?

A review by Noah Carl, writing in The Critic (British magazine), is used in the article Russell Warne to help back up a summary of one of Warne's books. I am concerned that the Warne article may fail WP:PROF and WP:GNG, so evaluating whether this source counts as coverage in a reliable, independent source will help me decide whether to launch an AfD. There are only a few other sources which could conceivably be called coverage of this individual.

Carl and Warne are certainly both part of a tight network of fringe racial hereditarians who argue that there is a genetic basis for observed differences in IQ test performance between racial groups (if you're skeptical that this view is fringe, see this recent RfC), but I am unaware of any specific evidence that they are personally close. It's also worth noting that Carl is now an independent researcher since being sacked from his university position for "poor scholarship" and "selective use of data and unsound statistical methods which have been used to legitimise racist stereotypes".

The Critic is described as "conservatively inclined", which certainly wouldn't be a problem if the author were reliable and independent. In this case, however, I'm not sure that is the case.

Thoughts? Generalrelative (talk) 19:25, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

The description of The Critic in its article - and it's of extremely dubious notability - reads like euphemisms for "crank". I would say that a fringe race scientist writing about another fringe race scientist in a fringe publication of questionable notability is WP:UNDUE and verges on promotional usage of Wikipedia - David Gerard (talk) 23:23, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Also, how on earth are Intelligence and Mankind Quarterly not on WP:CITEWATCH - David Gerard (talk) 23:27, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

@David Gerard: they are on it. Look under "Pseudo-scholarship" for Mankind Quarterly (unless there's another publication called Intelligence and Mankind Quarterly, but I haven't heard of that before). An individual listing could be made also, if there's a need for it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:37, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

ah thank you, I keep forgetting the hidden sections :-) Intelligence probably survives by being one of Elsevier's more dubious moments - David Gerard (talk) 23:40, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

If you mean "Intelligence (journal)", our article writes "the "journal Intelligence is one of the most respected in its field" but has allowed its reputation "to be used to launder or legitimate racist pseudo-science"." It could be added as a borderline source. Or we could simply have add new category "Category:Race and intelligence controversy", which would act as a sort of catch-all. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:15, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Added as a new 'unreliable field' category here. It will likely need some cleanup after the initial listing tomorrow, but give me 2-3 days and things should make sense after that. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:43, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks very much for doing that! Super helpful indeed. Generalrelative (talk) 15:30, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure it'll be that helpful, but I guess we'll see. I think the main issue will be that if it includes journals like Intelligence, the signal-to-noise (i.e. crap vs good citations) ratio will be pretty small, since Intelligence does not mainly publish bad scholarship. Do note that all the CiteWatch will do is compile publications involved in the controversy in some way, not only bad papers of dubious scholarly value involved in the controversy. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:56, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

I hear that. However I still think it will be useful to those of us who are active in keeping race pseudoscience out of less high-profile articles. It's really a constant struggle, even after the emergence of a strong consensus on the topic at the main article Race and intelligence (here's an example we happen to be dealing with right now). So any additional tools we can use to monitor the situation are very much appreciated. Generalrelative (talk) 17:02, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

If this new "unreliable field" category is going to be added at CiteWatch, we should be clear about what it will have to include. There are around 18 academic journals that Wikipedia editors have decided are sometimes inadmissible due to their sometimes being used "to launder or legitimate racist pseudo-science". I provided a complete list (as of about four months ago) here, along with diffs of the judgment that had been made to reject these sources in each case. I encourage others to look at the diffs provided there, and verify that this list of rejected sources is accurate. If this category is going to be added, it will have to be handled in a consistent way for all of the journals and books about which Wikipedia editors have made this judgment.

Past discussions have not made it clear whether the broader Wikipedia community supports this basis for rejecting sources that otherwise satisfy WP:RS, because all of the past noticeboard discussions about it have been shut down before they could reach any conclusion (the discussion I've linked above being one such example). But now that a new discussion has been opened about this same question, we can try discussing it again.

As should be clear from my comments in the earlier discussion, I'm opposed to this interpretation of RS policy, but either way this judgment will require a consensus of more editors than just the four of us. I'd like to hear the views of other uninvolved people. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 14:31, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Contrary to what Ferahgo claims, no discussions have been improperly "shut down". The RfC that Ferahgo links to was shut down by an admin because Ferahgo's RfC statement was lengthy, confusing, and tendentious, in violation of WP:RfC, which says that the RfC statement should be neutrally worded, short and simple. Ever since the 2020 RfC on race and intelligence (see [128]) reached a consensus (sustained on appeal) that the claim of genetic differences in intelligence between different races is a fringe POV, a small number of editors have been pressing to relitigate the matter. Ferahgo's malformed RfC was an example. After Ferahgo's abortive RfC, in order to resolve the matter I started a simple, neutrally worded RfC on the R&I talk-page (see [129]). It ended in a snow-close reaffirming the consensus that racial hereditarianism is a fringe POV. Both RfCs on race and intelligence had extensive participation by many editors -- about 50 in 2020 and 35 in 2021. Ferahgo's claim that the unreliability of sources that promote racial hereditarian theories of intelligence has to be relitigated is without merit. NightHeron (talk) 15:13, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. I would also add that the list which Ferahgo linked to should be read with a critical eye. For instance, she appears to imply that Nature Neuroscience was deemed unreliable by some overzealous editor. When one examines the context, however, it's clear that the letter –– not a "paper" as Ferahgo stated –– was removed from the Bibliography section of Race and intelligence because it does not directly relate to the topic. Indeed, the authors of the letter make clear that they are concerned specifically with “interindividual variation” rather than between-group differences (the fallacious leap from the one to the other is a common move for racial pseudo-scientists). Implying that this letter relates to the topic of race & intelligence by including it in the Bibliography constitutes a weaselly form of WP:SYNTH. Generalrelative (talk) 15:29, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

In older versions of the article, the Posthuma Nature Neuroscience source had been cited as additional support for the material that was removed in this edit (as it relates directly to the point made by Hunt's book, which does specifically discuss race). Both the Hunt and Posthuma material had been in the article for about a decade, and then when the Hunt material was removed, the Posthuma source was removed a few months later. If this source had been removed in a different context, a case could be made that it was removed due to not being directly about race, but the actual context in which it was removed suggests that wasn't the reason.

Let's also please not forget the discussion here, in which a discussion was underway about opening a new RFC to examine the question of whether the removal / exclusion of all these sources was compatible with RS policy. The subsequent RFC on the article's talk page was opened with the stated intention, as explained here and here, of pre-empting the planned RFC about sourcing from occurring. (See also this summary of the issue by Stonkaments). The community has never been given the opportunity to make a decision about the sourcing question, although I don't know whether this discussion is the correct place to try to resolve it.

@Headbomb: in light of your comment above, that this category will only be a list of publications involved in the controversy in some way, do you feel this is an appropriate place to have the discussion about whether the decision to remove and exclude these sources from articles is supported by policy? I'm not seeking to derail this discussion, and if this question isn't relevant to what will be included in that category, I'll continue waiting for a time and place when this matter can be appropriately resolved. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 20:20, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

This would be the place to discuss the removal of those sources from Wikipedia. WT:CITEWATCH would be the place to discuss removal from the listing. That said a) the results aren't even up yet b) no one is proposing anything of the sort, save for the discreted Mankind Quarterly and other similar garbage publications. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:23, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Now we can, hopefully, finally get some opinions from uninvolved editors about the source removal issue. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 23:36, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Results are live at Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals/Journals cited by Wikipedia/Questionable1#Race and intelligence controversy. Note that Intelligence Journal really was Intelligence Bulletin, I've cleaned up the articles, but the compilation will reflect the old dump. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:00, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Intelligence (academic journal)

David Gerard recently made these edits at Intelligence (journal), which I reverted. Per this and this edit summary, this is inappropriate. Not only does it misrepresent at least one of the sources cited, but it is using non-academic sources, two of which have a known political bias, to condemn an academic journal. That is entirely contrary to WP:SOURCETYPES. Aren't journalistic sources banned from race and intelligence? Is it the position of editors fighting pseudoscientific racism that all study of human intelligence is illegitimate? If so, that is an extreme position that is itself WP:FRINGE and completely out of step with cognitive psychology, psychiatry, and so on. If that is what people are fighting for, then it is time for a new RfC. That previous RfC never, ever justified that. This journal overwhelmingly publishes mainstream topics. I fear that some editors have become overzealous. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:32, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

This is more suitable for WP:NPOVN than here I feel. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:37, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Is it the position of editors fighting pseudoscientific racism that all study of human intelligence is illegitimate? I'm not aware of anyone who has made this claim. But in any case, as Headbomb has suggested, if you're concerned about WP:NPOV then WP:NPOVN would be the proper forum to raise your concerns. Generalrelative (talk) 01:42, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Also, FYI, the reliability of the journal Intelligence for R&I topics was discussed explicitly at the recent RfC. If you're curious, see the exchange with Mikehawk10. Again, no one has, to my knowledge, ever advocated for anything like the kind of position which Crossroads has expressed concern over. Generalrelative (talk) 02:01, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear that, although I think some of what was said in that discussion goes too far based on the sourcing I've seen. Outside of that one area of race-and-intelligence that sources have commented on, I see no reason to treat it as anything other than an ordinary psychology journal. Of course, WP:PRIMARY and WP:MEDRS still apply in all cases. Even then, if they published something that was against the position that race differences in IQ test scores are genetic, like something about the Flynn effect, that should be usable, since it goes against that bias. I brought up the matter here since I think the edit was inspired by this discussion and I am concerned that both it and what was being said here may be part of an effort to condemn the journal entirely. And, Headbomb, I don't entirely understand the meaning of its listing in CITEWATCH, but being listed there is part of my concern. I understand a 'caution regarding X POV' listing, but not a 'remove on sight' listing. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:14, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Cool, that was my understanding of the consensus among editors who discussed the journal at the RfC. I'm not sure what you saw there as going beyond what you stated, but in any case we don't disagree on the proper approach to using this source. And of course Headbomb can speak for themself, but note what they stated above: I'm not sure it'll be that helpful, but I guess we'll see. I think the main issue will be that if it includes journals like Intelligence, the signal-to-noise (i.e. crap vs good citations) ratio will be pretty small, since Intelligence does not mainly publish bad scholarship. Do note that all the CiteWatch will do is compile publications involved in the controversy in some way, not only bad papers of dubious scholarly value involved in the controversy. Generalrelative (talk) 03:27, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Is it the position of editors fighting pseudoscientific racism that all study of human intelligence is illegitimate? I don't know about editors specifically making this claim, but it does seem to be a rather common sentiment on the progressive left. This article[130] provides a good overview. Economist William Darity, for example, said: "There will be no reason to pursue these types of research programs at all, and they can be rendered to the same location as Holocaust denial research." Meanwhile, philosopher Peter Singer said: "If you ignore these things that contribute to inequality, or pretend they don’t exist, you make it more difficult to achieve the kind of society that you value....There’s a politically correct left that’s still not open to these things."

Given this (well-documented) tendency to dismiss research that challenges one's views, we should be extra careful to judge sources as objectively as possible. We need to make sure we aren't selectively excluding sources simply because they align with one political view or another. Stonkaments (talk) 17:54, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

This is an attempt to relitigate the previous discussion. No, we don't need to add scientific racism for false balance - David Gerard (talk) 22:18, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I made that edit to Intelligence (journal) because, per WP:LEDE, the lead paragraph did not adequately summarise the contents of the article and the balance of views on the subject. It is remarkable that an Elsevier journal has such fame in the wider world - as I cited to RSes, that were already in the article - for race and intelligence pseudoscience, and leaving this multiply-RS-cited remarkable fact out of the first paragraph was clearly and obviously incorrect by Wikipedia policy and practice. That Intelligence is published by a respectable scientific publisher makes it more noteworthy, not less. It is whitewashing to fail to note such an important fact about the journal right there in the lead summary.

BTW, you're supposed to ping editors when you talk about them - David Gerard (talk) 22:14, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Intelligence (journal) is so short, there is no distinct "lead" that necessitates repeating that. The next paragraph was not a separate heading and makes the actual point accurately. The text you added absolutely did not "adequately summarise the contents of the article and the balance of views on the subject." All three sources were misrepresented by making it seem they think of it only as disreputable racism, even though all of them note that the journal is otherwise respected. I didn't ping you here since you are already part of this discussion. I know I dislike unnecessary pings to discussions I am already part of. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:27, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Per the comments by Headbomb and Ferahgo in the section above, I think we should have a discussion about the broader practice of rejecting otherwise high-quality academic sources in relation to this topic. There is currently a discussion at Talk:Race and intelligence about rejecting In the Know by Russell Warne as a source, which was published by Cambridge University Press. A previous discussion at this noticeboard found Cambridge University Press to be a reliable source with respect to the topic of race and intelligence.

This edit blanked five paragraphs of text cited to mostly high-quality academic sources, including some controversial figures such as Jensen, but mostly material cited to respected figures such as James Flynn (academic), Earl B. Hunt, Ulric Neisser and Donald T. Campbell. The link posted by Ferahgo above contains a few dozen examples of edits like that, but that one was one of the more severe cases. Until now, it has never been possible to have a community-wide discussion about this practice, but maybe we can have that discussion now.

@Ekpyros: @Alaexis: Both of you have been involved in the related discussion on the article's talk page, so I think you should be aware of this discussion as well. Gardenofaleph (talk) 21:46, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

You and a very small number of other editors have been repeatedly trying to relitigate the RfC of 2020 at FTN (reaffirmed in the RfC of 2021 at the R&I talk-page) that reached a strong consensus that racial hereditarianism is a fringe POV. Your argument about Cambridge University Press is without merit, since several otherwise reputable presses on occasion publish fringe material (also true of Elsevier). The question of reliability vs unreliability cannot be determined for an entire publishing house.

By the way, you are violating WP:CANVASS by selectively pinging two editors (Ekpyros and Alaexis) who share your POV and inviting them to join this discussion. NightHeron (talk) 22:03, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

BTW, Elsevier is not such an imprimatur of quality either - remember their history of pseudojournals assembled as marketing exercises - David Gerard (talk) 22:16, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

And Elsevier published Homeopathy for years... XOR'easter (talk) 14:22, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

NightHeron, I only pinged those two editors because the other two main participants in that discussion, yourself and Generalrelative, are commenting here already.

I feel that you have misled the community about what classifying the hereditarian hypothesis as a fringe theory would mean in practice. In your original RFC, Insertcleverphrase accused you of "trying to shut down sources that have a specific viewpoint, regardless of where they are from, or where they are published." In response, you denied that this was the intention of your RFC. But then after the RFC was over, you and Generalrelative went ahead and removed nearly all such sources from the articles, with the justification that "The issue of the admissibility of sources claiming a genetic link between race and intelligence was settled at the Fringe theories RfC last year." In the edit I linked in my previous comment, this even included removing sources such as Neisser and Flynn, which disagree with the hereditarian viewpoint but still include detailed discussions about it.

If the community had been told honestly that this is what the "fringe" classification would mean, instead of your denying it would mean that, would they have reached the same conclusion to classify it as a fringe theory? Who knows? Thus far you've managed to prevent the community from having a meaningful discussion about this new approach to sourcing, so we've never been able to determine the answer. Gardenofaleph (talk) 23:51, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Gardenofaleph, Well, there was a second RFC which reaffirmed all that and which took place after the editing you're concerned about. Some editors may be unhappy with the results of that community wide meaningful discussion, but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen. MrOllie (talk) 00:08, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

@Gardenofaleph: A strong consensus came out of two RfCs and several other discussions over the last two years that racialist theories about intelligence are fringe, and therefore subject to WP:FRINGE. A small number of editors have simply refused to accept this. Per WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV, we have to avoid FALSEBALANCE and UNDUE citation of sources that promote those fringe theories. Contrary to what you say, such sources are extensively cited in R&I, but in a context that makes it clear that their POV is rejected by scientific consensus. The current version of R&I contains many references to works by such famous proponents of racial hereditarianism as Arthur Jensen and J. Philippe Rushton, in addition to works by their less famous more recent adherents. Several editors worked on revising R&I in accordance with the consensus at the 2020 RfC; we were not censoring anything, but merely complying with WP:PROFRINGE and WP:UNDUE in removing some references or revising the text that cited them. There were continual objections from opponents of the RfC consensus, which were debated at length on the talk-page. A few of those editors have persisted since then in trying to relitigate those issues and reintroduce sources that were found, after thorough discussion, to be unreliable and/or undue. Their forum-shopping and POV-pushing around race and intelligence have turned this topic into a time sink. NightHeron (talk) 01:00, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Reliability of Massacres of Tamils (1956 - 2008)

The book Massacres of Tamils (1956 - 2008)[131] was published by the North East Secretariat on Human Rights, which is the human rights wing of the LTTE [132] (a group designated as a terrorist organization). The NEOSHR was noted by many human rights groups (such as the HRW) for attempting to whitewash LTTE's crimes and having clear ideological links to the group [133]. Is it considered a reliable source?. And, what about other publications made by the NESOHR?. This book has been used in a number of articles throughout Wikipedia. Amritsvāraya (talk) 11:06, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Well firstly NESOHR are not the same as the LTTE, an armed group. The members of NESOHR did not take part in armed conflict like the LTTE. Secondly, it was not human rights groups which accused NESOHR of being an attempt to whitewash the LTTE, but an US diplomat, who is hardly a neutral source. A cursory glance at NESOHR's publications shows clearly that their main function was to document all the mass atrocities committed against Tamil civilians by government forces, which many international human rights groups were not covering in detail. NESOHR is the only group to cover all the massacres:

https://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=37441

The head was a Christian priest, who later got assassinated by government forces:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._X._Karunaratnam

And another member was a civilian woman N. Malathy who later wrote a book on her experiences with the organisation, she said this:

"Some leading members of citizens’ committees in Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Trincomalee, and Batticaloa, led by Fr. Karunaradnam, got together and put pressure on the LTTE to create a civilian human rights body. NESoHR was the outcome of these two independent processes, and as such NESoHR retained a level of independence from the LTTE."

Source: https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/12962741

As they lived in LTTE ruled areas, they were likely affiliated with the LTTE on a civilian level, but were not active members.

There was a similar wiki dispute regarding the use of Tamilnet as a source, and it was decided by Wiki admins that it was a reliable source.

The NESOHR source was published by an independent publishing house, and it still fits the criteria of reliable source. Oz346 (talk) 13:03, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

• Comment TrangaBellam (talk) 16:28, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Rfc: Business Today

• Business Today

Rfc please, is the above a reliable source for establishing notability of Draft:Online Gravity - See Draft talk:Online Gravity for discussion. Amirah talk 16:43, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

• It would help - it's a review in an apparent RS - but it wouldn't be sufficient to meet WP:BOOKCRIT; you'd need at least one more. Ideally, you'd have a lot more evidence of independent notability than two book reviews - David Gerard (talk) 16:54, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

  Thank you, User:David Gerard,

  I have found a couple more sources, would they also help?

  • Financial Express
  • e-Review of Tourism Research 14, no. 1/2 (2017)

  Amirah talk 17:12, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I think the Financial Express is a second RS of substantial content. I also see live mint.com has an excerpt, a few side remarks about it, e.g. Western Sydney University notes on or The Hindu. That’s still not much.

Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:00, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

LevelSkip on Blacklist

Hello! So I was attempting to copy and paste the Slime Rancher page to my sandbox so I could start work on a specific section of it, when I was warned while trying to save it because one of the references (levelskip.com) was on Wikipedia's Blacklist. So I took a look at the discussion and it wasn't about levelskip.com but a whole bunch of other websites associated with one parent website. However this didn't really help me understand why levelskip.com is on the blacklist. Could anyone help me understand? Blaze The Wolf | Proud Furry | Discord: Blaze Wolf#0001 (talk) 18:05, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

@Blaze The Wolf: if you've already found the discussion, it would help greatly if you would link to it so people don't have to search for it again. But anyway I don't understand what you mean by "wasn't about levelskip.com but a whole bunch of other websites associated with one parent website". This discussion MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/October 2020#HubPages.com niche domains was about all websites associated with HubPages. Yes that included other websites, but it also included levelskip.com which is in between hobbylark.com and letterpile.com. The about us page levelskip.com/about-us confirms that it's still a part of HubPages

If you have unique gaming knowledge, we'd love to have you on our team of writers. Feel free to check out our Editorial Policy and write your own article! LevelSkip.com is part of the parent company HubPages, a place to discover and create original, in-depth, useful, media-rich pages on topics you are passionate about.

Of course this also confirms the concern mentioned in the previous discussion still seems correct namely that it seems to mostly just let random people write articles with little editorial oversight. Nil Einne (talk) 08:54, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

@Nil Einne: Ah ok. That was something I couldn't tell just by looking at the page. ― Blaze The Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#0001} 12:47, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Scapin the Schemer

There's a bunch of listings of modern plays here, but the 1676 English translation by a notable playwright wasn't there until I added it. Should we lose all the focus on the 20th century English adaptations with no independent sources, or do you think there's good sources that just aren't used yet? Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.6% of all FPs} 19:10, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Biographies from Widewalls

Is anyone familiar with Widewalls and the reliability & independence of their artist biographies? It seems to be a commercial site for art sales and auctions based on their About Us. It's currently used in several WP artist biographies.

At Talk:Nelson Saiers#Altered page, the article subject is requesting inclusion of material from this biography of the subject. My initial guess is that it's as good as an autobiographical primary source since these commercial listings tend to take material directly from the artists, although it's unclear to me if this kind of source lends any WP:WEIGHT / WP:PROPORTION so any additional input here is welcome. — MarkH₂₁^talk 07:17, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

ancient-origins.net is surely an unreliable source

Which should probably be deprecated. Uses:[134]. See for instance [135] on giants in ancient America. This section on "ancient technology" [136]. Not all of its content is woowoo, but it happily hosts nonsense so nothing on it is reliably published. Doug Weller talk 12:32, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

• Deprecate It is self-declared fringe-promoting:

The goal of Ancient Origins is to highlight recent archaeological discoveries, peer-reviewed academic research and evidence, as well as offering alternative viewpoints and explanations of science, archaeology, mythology, religion and history around the globe.
We’re the only Pop Archaeology site combining scientific research with out-of-the-box perspectives.

If there's any peer-reviewed academic research and evidence highlighted by them that's worthy of inclusion here, we will have the RS to cite anyway. –Austronesier (talk) 13:11, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

• Not an RS Deprecate.Slatersteven (talk) 13:49, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
• I mean, we shouldn't have to formally deprecate something so obviously unreliable, but if it would be useful to have this written down then sure. Girth Summit _(blether) 16:06, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
  • If the OP is correct it is used a hell of a lot, a good reason to depricate.Slatersteven (talk) 17:00, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
• Sure, but I should remind the OP that, under the WP:SOFIXIT principle, there's no need to ask permission to remove obviously unreliable sources. They can just remove them. You don't need permission to make Wikipedia better. --Jayron32 17:25, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
• @Jayron32: obviously that would be me, and of course I know I don't need permission. However, that wouldn't completely fix the problem as I know that it would continue to be added. As @Girth Summit: points out, it would be useful to have this in writing. Doug Weller talk 16:13, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
  • I would agree, yes we can remove it, but this is one of those sites that will forever be being added, and argued the toss over.Slatersteven (talk) 16:18, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
    • I guess, but you're presuming that the people who would end up adding such a site would check WP:RSP first. I have never, since the Big Bang, seen a single person do that, and I expect not, until the heat death of the universe, expect one to ever do so. But if it makes you feel better, I won't stand in the way. Removing them when you find them is the useful task. The rest of this is just painting the bikeshed over and over. --Jayron32 16:27, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
      • No, I know they do not, but we can then go "depricated source", and make it clear it is against RS to add it. When they argue "Ahh but prove its not an RS" we can then point to RSP and say end of debate.Slatersteven (talk) 16:55, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
        • When something like this is done, it definitely does need to be added to WP:RSP. I may be the first person to do so (thought I suspect I'm not), but when links to Ancient Origins were pulled from two articles I was following, that was the first place I went to check its reliability status. That it's been nuked without first being listed there is a problem especially since looking at it on an article-by-article basis, not everything published there is problematic. —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 11:43, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
          • I've been removing links to AO for years whenever I ran across them. Because they publish articles about giants, ancient aliens, and other assorted conspiracy theories and pseudoarchaeology. Their business model is to sprinkle 30% insane bullshit into 70% generally real archaeology, see fact check for media bias rated "conspiracy-pseudoscience". I just stepped up what I have always done once I noticed this conversation. Because that source should never have been used here. Nothing they publish can be trusted, even though some of it is factually accurate, because it is all sprinkled with woo.Heiro 14:39, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

• Not an RS, Deprecate with extreme prejudice. If they said water was wet I'd check to make sure it still was. Heiro 16:20, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Also, per that very long list linked above, I think every example in article space should be rooted out and nuked (I jsut did a few dozen, but good lord there are over 500 of them, possibly thousands). I also wouldn't mind the entire site being added to the blacklist. Their entire business model is fringe and spam, there is no conceivable article on this entire website (Wikipedia) that would benefit from a citation to this "source". Heiro 16:51, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

• • • I think I may have found them all. There ended up being fewer than I initially thought, around 100 in article space, not counting numerous archives and talk pages which I left untouched. Heiro 04:57, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

• I just took a look at Pachacamac. It was used twice there, once in addition to a clearly reliable source, and the other time a couple of sentences before that source despite the fact that it was in the reliable source. Clearly spam. Doug Weller talk 16:23, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
• Deprecate. I wouldn't bother saying so, except the horrifying degree to which it's actually used as a cite. Shall we do the formal RFC? - David Gerard (talk) 17:44, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

  It looks like if we went for an RFC it would be a snow close as te only "objection" is "its not an RS no need to depricate just remove it".Slatersteven (talk) 17:51, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

• This is snowing, no need for formal closure; I'm heading right off to the blacklist page. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:30, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
• Deprecate as it's clearly willing to print anything that will get clicks. The caveat is that it often churnalises press releases on bona fide scientific results, which is probably why it's used in so many articles. Instead of "nuking" it as Heironymous Rowe has already started to do, it would be better to look for better sources that say the same thing, or tag it with {{better source needed}} rather than replacing it with {{citation needed}}. – Joe (talk) 06:44, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
• Added to spam blacklist ([137]) by Beetstra. As for Joe Roe's point, dealing with the remaining uses and figuring out how to replace the churnalism is best left to editorial discretion. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:27, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Is this a reliable source? (aymennjawad.org)

• The Gallic Chronicle of 452: Translation and Commentary

This appears to be a ?blog? Is this a reliable source? --Kansas Bear (talk) 22:58, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree. TFD (talk) 23:15, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

That's it is a blog? Therefore unreliable? --Kansas Bear (talk) 23:18, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

@Kansas Bear: At first glance, it doesn't appear to be reliable. Apart from being a blog, the author is clearly not an expert on the subject. Is there anything in it that isn't covered in RS? M.Bitton (talk) 23:46, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Said author/translator calls the Priscillians, Manicheans. This is refuted by "Medieval Heresies: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam", page 46. --Kansas Bear (talk) 00:02, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Definitely not RS. M.Bitton (talk) 00:12, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree it is a blog and therefore not rs. It's on the author's personal website and although he contributes to pundicity, his articles are labelled as a blog. Even if it were not a blog, it's analysis by a non-expert, which also fails rs wherever it is published. Even if it met rs, it would not be the best source. TFD (talk) 00:34, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Fails RS, he's clearly not an expert. Doug Weller talk 09:02, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Rfc Financial Express

• Financial Express

Rfc please, is the above a reliable source for establishing notability of Draft:Online Gravity - See Draft talk:Online Gravity for discussion. Amirah talk 15:28, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

qfit.com, blackjackincolor.com, blackjack-scams.com

Web pages being used as source: qfit.com, blackjackincolor.com, blackjack-scams.com

Used as references currently or in past at:

Blackjack

Card counting

Hole carding

Shuffle track

Martingale (betting system)

The most recent editing dispute discussion appears at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Blackjack under discussion #5: Informal Motion . . .

Objective3000 claims innocence at inserting citations to his self-published webpages.

He states

I did not add most of these cites

[138], And he writes

I also don't want to get into the habit of linking to my own sites as I see what I believe are some large abuses of this practice on various BJ related pages.

[139]

The histories show otherwise. Every citation found to the self-published webpages of Objective3000 was inserted by Objective3000 himself, as follows.

Card counting with your mind is legal and more accurate than this application

.[140]

Another interesting aspect of the probability of card counting is the fact that, at higher counts, the player's probability of winning a hand is only slightly changed and still below 50%.

[141]

Blackjack played with a perfect basic strategy typically . . . 10%-30% of the time depending on rules, penetration and strategy.

[142]

Shuffle tracking is an advanced form of card counting. There exist many types of shuffle tracking.

[143]

Betting can then be altered to reflect the altered composition.

[144]

Techniques other than card counting can swing the advantage . . . since the shuffle tracker could be, at times, betting and/or playing opposite to how a straightforward card counter would.

[145]

Furthermore, a straight string of losses is the only sequence of outcomes that results in a loss of money, so even when a player has lost the majority of their bets, they can still be ahead over-all, since they always win 1 unit when a bet wins, regardless of how many previous losses.

[146]

Objective3000 deleted an external link created by another editor.[147]

Objective3000 inserted blackjackincolor.com as an external link after another editor deleted it.[148]

Objective3000 again inserted blackjackincolor.com as an external link after another editor deleted it.[149]

Card counting with your mind is legal and more accurate than this application.

[150]

Over 100 variations exist.

[151]

However, if, because of a sloppy dealer, or a player who has trained himself to spot a dealer's hole card, the dealer's hole card is spotted, the player who plays correctly has a theoretical advantage of up to 13%, compared to the normal player disadvantage of around .5%.

[152]

The advantage can vary substantially depending on the rules, the percentage of cards seen, and the strategies used.

[153]

In the process of inserting the above citation to qfit.com, Objective3000 deleted two references to the webpage of the blackjack expert Michael Shackleford, aka the Wizard of Odds.

The following table illustrates various ranking systems for card counting.

[154]

The following table illustrates a few ranking systems for card counting. Many others exist.

[155]

The Wikipedia criterion for expertise concerning the reliability of self-published sources is clearly stated: “Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications” (WP:SOURCES and WP:RS, specifically WP:SPS).

Specific types of third-party publications to establish the reliability of self-published sources are presented at WP:V|reliable sources. Academic and peer-reviewed publications, university-level textbooks, and books published by respected publishing houses are noted as reliable third-party generated sources.

The self-published commercial webpages qfit.com and blackjackincolor.com (other than the main page) have ads for Casino Verite software and provide the name of the developer. The self-published webpage blackjack-scams.com has a link to qfit.com. That Objective3000 is the one and the same developer of Casino Verite software is established on Objective3000’s talk page

Author Casino Vérité and some other stuff. Editor here since 2007, if my ancient mind recalls correctly.

[156].

Henceforth we will refer to the developer provided on those webpages as Mr. W.

The work of Mr. W fails to meet any of the criteria noted in WP:SPS or WP:V|reliable sources. Specifically, none of the work of Mr. W has either been published in a peer-reviewed third-party journal (google scholar search), been accepted for presentation as a paper at the pre-eminent International Conference on Gambling and Risk Taking scholarly meeting sponsored by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/authors.html), or has been published in academic or general interest book form by a reliable third-party publication (amazon.com search). The name of Mr. W is not found in the list of authors at the two major publishers of gambling books, Cardoza and Huntington Press (google scholar, https://cardozapublishing.com/, http://huntingtonpress.com/authors/). His self-published book (lulu.com vanity press) is not in stock at the number one source for gambling books, the Gamblers Book Store in Las Vegas (http://gamblersbookclub.com/).

Mr. W does not therefore meet the Wikipedia clearly stated third-party criteria for being an expert. The citations that he has inserted in multiple articles to his commercial-content self-published webpages qfit.com and blackjackincolor.com and to blackjack-scams.com therefore do not meet the criteria for reliability of self-published sources.

TransporterMan (Third Opinion Wikipedian), Ohnoitsjamie (Administrator), and Wikieditor11920 have agreed over a span of many years that Objective3000’s self-published webpages are highly unlikely to be considered reliable sources.

TransporterMan wrote

Let me note in passing, however, that the links being removed appear to me to be very iffy as reliable sources . . . See the Wikipedia policies WP:SOURCES and, especially, WP:SPS.

[157].

He added,

Reviews and mentions of a person's work does not constitute publication of that person's work; publication of work means having ones writings themselves published by others. The way to be certain, however, is not to take my word for it, but to post an inquiry at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard about these sources. Would you like for me to do that for you? I'm fairly certain of my analysis and the probable outcome, but I've certainly been wrong before.

[158]

Ohnoitsjamie wrote

qfit seems questionable to be used as a WP:RS here.

[159]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aabcxyz (talk • contribs)

• This was way too long to figure out what the issue is. Please summarize. Blueboar (talk) 19:35, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

  To Summarize: The owner of the self-published webpages qfit.com, blackjackincolor.com, and blackjack-scams.com, who is an editor by the name of Objective3000, does not satisfy the criteria stated in WP:RS and WP:SOURCES as an expert in the field by virtue of having been published by reliable third-party publishers. All of his work is self-published. We have provided numerous Diffs to show that every reference to the self-published webpages were inserted by Objective3000 himself. Opinions by TransporterMan and Ohniitsjamie that the references to at least one of the self-published webpages would not survive this Noticeboard were provided.

Aabcxyz (talk) 20:38, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

This thread is probably worth a gander if someone is interested in this. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 19:48, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

• User:Objective3000 has been getting some pretty rough treatment from a few editors over at Talk:Blackjack for some edits they made some years ago. This is another instance of that argument. It looks like there is some personal history involved. - MrOllie (talk) 19:50, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

  Aabcxyz is one of the numerous socks of this farm.[160] He has been attacking me on and off for ten years because I refused to help him get a book deal and I took part in an AfD that resulted in deletion of an article about himself, one of several articles mentioning him that he added. I would file an SPI, but am retired and wouldn't feel comfortable in any case. It's a slam dunk not only because of behavior, but the fact he exposed his IP in the same article just previous to these screeds. The other editor pressing this and I have had numerous clashes in AMPOL, where he is now indef TBanned. I have stated many times that folks are welcome to replace these cites. I have placed many cites in these articles from other authors. But, it's not easy to find some info in this field. Indeed, in one case I added a cite to a book that is currently on eBay for $8,600. That author is self-published as are many of the other cites in these articles. But, he is also an established expert in the field. O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:09, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Well now, he's adding more simply false statements. Not a surprise. He has done this off-wiki starting ten years ago. Even weirdo, personal lies, like where I live. O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:49, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

The sources are not unusable, but Objective3000 has a clear COI. He's also made a lot of personal attacks on the relevant page--in fact, almost every comment is a personal attack, including this one. I think that it's a problem when an editor cannot remain emotionally neutral and responds to a reliability discussion--commonplace on WP--as a personal criticism. MrOllie is clearly very sympathetic to Objective3000's "rough treatment," though I'm not sure that's borne out by what's going on at the talk page. I think the best solution here would be for a discussion to proceed on when and where these sources can be used without O3000 so heavily weighing in. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 21:44, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, but you don't know the ten year history, much of it off-wiki. Also, the OP has posted a large number of outright falsifications here and in the original thread. This has nothing whatsoever to do with my emotions, and frankly that characterization is a PA which you should strike. As for COI, I did have my COI stated on my UP. I removed it when the OP started harassing me by telephone. It was quite unnerving to have an editor start calling me. I then removed it. I also find it odd that you would characterize my posts as attacks when the OP has been posting very lengthy attack pieces against me since the day he arrived, 2.5 months ago, on several pages including the TPs of THREE sysops. O3000, Ret. (talk) 22:04, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't know your history with this user; I'm referring to your interactions with me. If this person is harassing you IRL or attacking you, that should stop and I am agreement with you on that. I'm not intending to offend but frankly I read your comments to me as pretty charged most of the time and including a lot of off-topic accusations. That's my opinion. (You are also not the only one with an interest in online gambling -- or maybe you're not online :) ). Anyway, I don't agree that these sources are a scam or fraudulent, and most are very useful. But in fairness, I think there should be some caution with SELFPUB wherever they are used. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 03:19, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

I have zero interest in online gambling. Don't know where that came from. My comments to you are based on your past failed complaints to admins; and the fact you have appeared on an article where you have never contributed to support an argument against someone you apparently considered a foe. But yes, I am not happy about the OP using yet another sock to continue his decade-long attacks filled with falsehoods and ridiculous accusations about my motives and character. I thought I was done with WP. O3000, Ret. (talk) 10:40, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm describing my interest in the subject, not yours. Your "comments" are personal attacks, plain and simple. I think it's time Objective3000 extract himself from discussions about the reliability of sources that they authored. These accusations against the OP should also be made in the appropriate forum. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 11:34, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Both here and at Talk:Blackjack you have been telling Objective3000 to go away and leave the discussion - that itself is uncivil. It would really be best if you would step back yourself and look at your own part in escalating this. MrOllie (talk) 11:51, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

MrOllie I suggested that perhaps Objective3000, as the author of these self-published pages, should allow other editors to contribute to the discussion rather than dominating the entire thread and responding aggressively to each and every post. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 18:08, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

And why were there so many posts to respond to? If you keep speaking with someone, you shouldn't be surprised that they respond. MrOllie (talk) 18:10, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

It wasn't only to my posts, if you follow the thread. But I look forward to participation of any other user willing to discuss the central point here, which is whether these sources meet the criteria for WP:SELFPUB. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 18:44, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

:The sources are not unusable, but Objective3000 has a clear COI. He's also made a lot of personal attacks on the relevant page--in fact, almost every comment is a personal attack, including this page. I think that it's a problem when an editor cannot remain emotionally neutral and responds to a reliability discussion--commonplace on WP--as a personal criticism. MrOllie is clearly very sympathetic to Objective3000's supposed "rough treatment," though I'm not sure that's borne out by what's going on at the talk page. I think the best solution here would be for a discussion to proceed on when and where these sources can be used without O3000 so heavily weighing in. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 22:08, 17 September 2021 (UTC) Striking double comment. 03:14, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I think it will be much easier for others to chip in if you could concentrate on one thing only: the reliability of the sources. COI concerns can be addressed on WP:COIN. M.Bitton (talk) 21:52, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

You both are far more experienced than I am here. I'll study the implications of COI, but TransporterMan and Ohnoitsjamie believed that WP:RS was a problem, and I provided Diffs to their actual words. The bottom line is that the author of the websites to which he alone has placed multiple references in multiple articles, as documented by numerous Diffs above, has not acquired the requisite expert status by virtue of having his work published by third-party reliable sources. I thought that was the issue with WP:RS and WP:SOURCES. Aabcxyz (talk) 22:09, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Making false statements does not help your case. O3000, Ret. (talk) 22:12, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

You should be clear about what you are calling false. Because diffs clearly demonstrate you've been involved in adding sources to the page that you authored, and have been arguing vociferously for their inclusion despite several editors raising reliability concerns. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 11:43, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

You need to stop mischaracterizing my edits. No, I have not been “arguing vociferously for their inclusion”. I have stated, over and over, that I have no problem with anyone replacing them with better sources. And, I was not the editor who reverted the sock’s removals. My arguments have been limited to false statements made about me, like yours here, and the fact that the author of these sites is a recognized expert under RS as demonstrated in the original page. That the sock continues to falsely claim that extensive studies by me published by, for example, Elsevier Academic are simply footnotes is simply false. Actually, if so many (dozens) of RS positively refer to someone, that in itself is meaningful on this page. O3000, Ret. (talk) 15:10, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

As I see it, the discussion has you as the chief advocate for inclusion on these cites. But again, this is a frivolous point I don't care to argue. The criteria for a subject matter expert is publication in independent, reliable sources. Meaning an individual who has published books, articles, or other material in secondary sources. A reference or inclusion of a particular aspect of one's work in someone else's casts a very broad net for expert. It might be appropriate for inclusion, or it might not--that's a worthy topic of discussion. I'm not interested in the other back-and-forth. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 18:15, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

If you are not interested in certain things, stop talking about them. O3000, Ret. (talk) 19:08, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

To be clear, what I'm not interested in--and what have gone well over the line at this point--are the snark, personal attacks, and grievances/accusations of bad faith. The suitability of these sources is a perfectly fine discussion. To reiterate, we really should not allow these articles to lean so heavily on these SELFPUB sources, which I do not meet the WP:SELFPUB criteria. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 19:35, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

And yet you and the OP say nothing here about the fourteen other non-published sources used in dozens of cites in these articles. Just mine. The simple fact is that the vast, vast majority of sources on BJ from major publishers are pure crap suggesting you can easily take money from casinos with simple betting strategies. Wonder why the casinos make so many billions. The best selling books from big publishing houses are not RS. O3000, Ret. (talk) 19:56, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Again, I've addressed some of the other self-published sources, and the one's I've seen are by established experts who have attained national recognition or had their works published in independent outlets. I think this is a COI problem at this point before it is an RS issue; Objective3000 refuses to allow any discussion to develop without their heavy thumb on the scale. We should not include sub-par sources because it will pacify the author who happens to be heavily involved in the creation of the page, but I think that will be most editor's initial reaction. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 04:17, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I do not control this page, my research has been published in respected independent outlets (unlike a dozen other people cited on the mentioned pages), and claiming I need pacification like a baby is a gross PA. Your charged, misleading comments and WP:IDHT behavior continue. O3000, Ret. (talk) 10:40, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Rfc: archived advertisements

Wikipedia:PRIMARYCARE would not seem to bar use of advertisements/advertorials (Wikipedia:SPONSORED) from 1954 since nothing is now (in 2021) being sold or marketed. Or would it? Such as, in the following:

The homes were marketed as having air-conditioning.

References

Djflem (talk) 22:31, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

It shows the fact, but I can see an objection as WP:SYNTH/original research - did a source at the time note this? But I concur that this would just be using a primary source for a fact, and not count as promotion - David Gerard (talk) 23:09, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Used as above, it is probably fine as far as promotional concerns go. However, I wouldn’t draw the threshold at the advertised product no longer being sold; claims made in old advertisements can still paint the company’s history in a more positive light and could thereby be used in a manner that misconstrues a company’s reputation or quality at a particular point in time. If, for example, we cite an advertisement from 1980 to say that Mercedes-Benz was the first to introduce XYZ feature into its automobiles on the basis that the advertisement says so, I think that sort of stuff would still be promotional with respect to the brand itself. Older advertisements are primary sources that probably can be sparingly used for HOW a product was marketed, but I am not sure that they would ever be considered reliable for much else. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 23:52, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

• For context, the article in question is about the Green Meadow, Delaware subdivision. A previous version had several paragraphs which were just quotes of advertisements by the developer, along with "The houses gained popularity in the area for their air conditioning, as a heat wave was sweeping through the area at the time" written in Wiki voice, sourced to a pair of ads. In my opinion the proposed wording "The homes were marketed as having air-conditioning" is an improvement but still raises some concerns.

NPOV is a major issue with self-sourced content like this. Articles should be written from the viewpoint of independent reliable sources; even if advertisements and marketing statements are clearly labeled as such, they still only present the point of view of the developer. Was AC truly a major selling point at the time? Were buyers actually attracted to these homes because of the heat wave, or is that just something the builder came up with to boost sales? Was this really the "most talked about" subdivision in the area? Did people actually want to live near freeways and shopping centers or did these things turn out to be more of a nuisance? We need independent sources to put these claims in context and present an unbiased view. Even if ads are attributed as such, they still only present the developer's self-interested view which does not serve our readers well. There are often aspects of a topic that we simply don't cover because no independent sources are available.

In this case we do actually have an independent source, a "Community Profile" newspaper feature from the 1990s which included interviews with longtime residents. One person did mention that air conditioning was the reason she chose Green Meadow when it was first built, but there were also no trees yet and she had to drive to the post office until mail delivery was implemented (funny how the developer didn't mention that). I think it's reasonable to include a brief mention of AC based on this source, but it begs another question: Why would we ever need to cite an ad in this context if we need independent sourcing to back it up? Why not just use the independent RS in the first place? –dlthewave ☎ 16:58, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

todor66.com

The website http://todor66.com is being used as a reference on a number of basketball, handball, volleyball articles. Having looked at the website, I consider it to have all the hallmarks of a self-published source - amateur look & feel, owned by a single person, only operating on http not https as any credible website would these days.

I have heard from one editor today who claims it is the only source of information regarding game results on the (geographic and amateur) fringes of these sports and therefore it must be used. I don't consider that to be a valid argument as poorly sourced information is no better than unsourced information.

I would appreciate the comments of others on whether they would consider this to be a reliable source? 10mmsocket (talk) 15:27, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

The above assessment seems quite right. No information about the author whatsoever, besides their (supposed) name (which happens to be the same as that of a Bulgarian footballer who died 20 yrs ago, so I can't find absolutely anything to suggest this would be an acceptable SPS). No indication as to the sourcing of the information either. If this is the only site which reports some information, then, yes, that information does not go on Wikipedia. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:39, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Slovenski Narod newspaper

Hello. source: The source in question is an article in the Slovenian newspaper Slovenski Narod from 1904. The full edition is available from the Digital Library of Slovenia here where it can be downloaded as a PDF. For those without a grasp on South Slavic languages, the text can be highlighted, copied, and pasted into a web-translation for a decent idea on what is being stated. The article in question within this newspaper edition is "Položaj v Macedoniji" which is based on a conversation with revolutionary leader Hristo Tatarchev.

article: I added this article as a source to the article of Hristo Tatarchev (and was promptly reverted).

content: I used the source to support two sentences I added: diff. I essentially paraphrase two points explicitly stated in the article, one being that Turkish reforms were insufficient in his view and the other that his organization would never allow Macedonia to join Serbia or Bulgaria.

I look forward to any guidance from uninvolved editors regarding why this source can or cannot be considered reliable for the purposes I had attempted to use it. Thanks. --Local hero ^talk 05:49, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi, I am the other editor involved in this issue. The article in the newspaper is used by User:Local hero in historical context. However per Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (history), historical scholarship is generally not:

• Journalism
• Opinion pieces by non-scholars
• Popular works that were not reviewed, especially works by journalists, or memoirs—these may be useful to supplement an article that relies upon scholarly sources
• Any primary source, etc.

Per Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (history), to determine scholarly opinions about a historical topic, consult the following sources in order:

• Recent scholarly books and chapters on the historiography of the topic
• "Review Articles", or historiographical essays that explicitly discuss recent scholarship in an area.
• Similarly conference papers that were peer reviewed in full before publication that are field reviews or have as their central argument the historiography.
• Journal articles or peer reviewed conference papers that open with a review of the historiography, etc.

That means if somebody want to use such a primary source (newspaper clipping in a language that is unclear to all the readers of the English-language Wikipedia and older then 100 years) it must be supported by recent scholarly books in English, etc. Thanks. Jingiby (talk) 06:10, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I’ll quickly note that the page you reference is not a Wikipedia policy and that this newspaper source is not a “clipping” as the full edition is available. Looking forward to input from uninvolved editors. --Local hero ^talk 06:19, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I will clarify that the idea backed by this newspaper's article contradicts with a lot of secondary WP:RS cited in the same article (Hristo Tatarchev).Jingiby (talk) 06:26, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Using Tidal for album credits

There is a debate about using Tidal as an reliable source for album credits. Some editors think it's only use for promotion because it's a streaming service, while others think it's useful because most albums these days have been released for digital download then physical copies. Should the website be only use for album credits and not anything else? TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 05:51, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Here are the examples of the album credits from Tidal [161] [162] [163]. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 06:09, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Can't see those not logged in. Where does Tidal get its information? I know Spotify gets info from the uploader, and also used an old dump of AllMusic at some point - David Gerard (talk) 10:48, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

@David Gerard: Tidal used to have the credits in full view without ability to logged in, I guess they change that (much to my annoyance). Tidal gets their information from the album's label. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 11:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Pinging @Kyle Peake and Throast: in this discussion. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 11:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC)