Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Editors can post questions here about whether given sources are reliable, and editors interested in sourcing issues will answer. Please post new topics in a new section. If you are satisfied with a response, please tag your thread at the top with {{resolved}}.

The guideline that most directly relates to whether a given source is reliable is Wikipedia:Reliable sources. The policies that most directly relate are: Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. For questions about the sourcing policy, please go to WT:V.

MEMRI

Is MEMRI http://www.memri.org/ a reliable source. I think it is based on the content it has. Yahel Guhan 00:55, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Brian Whittaker of the Guardian (who has a Masters' in Arabic language) has exposed at least two cases where MEMRI promulgated translations which were misleading at best, and probably knowingly fraudulent. MEMRI has also been extensively criticized for its extreme one-sidedness in the guise of "Media Research". Finally, all of MEMRI's founders are former Israeli military intelligence officers, Israeli neo-cons with deep links to Likud, or both.

That being said, MEMRI might sometimes be a reliable source for opinion and commentary, but I'm very leery about using such a group for factual information in the absence of independent confirmation. <eleland/talkedits> 01:11, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Agree. It can be used if properly attributed, and when describing opinions and not facts. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:28, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

See here for a related discussion. Relata refero 19:36, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I have a related question which is a little trickier, and pertains to the use of sources like MEMRI and CAMERA for opinion purposes.

Basically, these organizations can be counted on, every time, 100%, to praise Israel and condemn perceived enemies of Israel. Pretty much anything that happens in and around Israel, they'll express an opinion on it, and it's always the same opinion. They are well-funded and active, but it's very difficult to know how significant their views actually are. Nonetheless, such groups tend to be used heavily in Middle East articles as sources of criticism and commentary.

Now, there are some occasions when these groups do get play in actual media outlets. There was a fraudulent Sabeel-bashing editorial in the Boston Globe recently by a CAMERA member, and MEMRI scored a media home run with their mis-translation of Tomorrow's Pioneers material. Obviously, those controversies deserve mention. But a lot of the supposed controversies MEMRI, CAMERA et al document don't seem to exist outside of a narrow partisan "echo chamber" environment. Pallywood is an excellent example - Israel wonks are obsessed with it, but the media don't take it seriously and probably haven't even heard of it.

"mis-translation" or not! The difference between the tomorrows pioneers translations are minute and well within slight veriation you get when you translate anything. Given this is all that can be said against an organisation that translates thousands of TV broadcasts as well as newspaper reports every year this is clearly a very accurate translating service (used by the BBC). MEMRI does not have a news agenda it just translates what is said in the arab media. ^{(Hypnosadist)} 12:12, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

So, what is the guideline for judging when an opinion is important enough to be mentioned? Personally, I would favor keeping to reliable factual sources and only using partisan sources when it's been established, factually, that a genuine controversy exists. Is that the usual practice? <eleland/talkedits> 20:08, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

For evaluating whether or not they are echo chambers and to what degree they should be quoted outside their narrow concerns, I would suggest WP:FT/N. Relata refero 20:17, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I use the FTN often and greatly appreciate it, but I am leery of bringing such a fine, effective institution into the Israelistinian tarpit. <eleland/talkedits> 20:20, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, I just thought that Moreschi and co. might be able to evaluate the notability of opinions quite dispassionately. Relata refero 20:27, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

More specifically the question (at least the question I have) is whether MEMRI is a reliable source on the Qur'an, its exegesis, the hadith/sunnah or classic Islamic theology. If yes, what makes it a reliable source in any those fields? I think the best way to go about this is to look at each individual author, and evaluate him/her for his/her credentials.Bless sins (talk) 18:11, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

First of all, you are asking the wrong question. What you should be asking is Is MEMRI a reliable source for views on the qur'an, exegesis, the hadith/sunnah or classic Islamic theology. Any answer your second point. Either it is or it isn't. Yahel Guhan 22:47, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

The MEMRI seems to talk of Islam as if it is an expert. The question is, should we consider it as one? Also, "Either it is or it isn't" never works, since there are exceptions.Bless sins (talk) 17:59, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

It is very, very easy to quote from someone else's scriptures in ways liable to incite hatred. So severe and obvious is this problem that, if MEMRI really claim to be a source on Islamic Scripture (do they?) that would be another reason never to use them.

There used to be a Israeli holocaust survivor, soldier and professor who insisted on exposing what appear to be serious extremism within Judaism. Our article on him doesn't discuss his apparently well-founded views on the religious exhortation to kill civilians. Instead of which, we re-publish the very most unpleasant things his opponents said about him ("diseased mind, Nazi views"). Why would we give a body like MEMRI, an attack-dog of well-funded anti-Muslim propaganda and extremism, better treatment than an individual who put his career and personal safety on the line to oppose extremism? PR^talk 17:42, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why this is relevant. MEMRI is a serious organisation, that it can be argued that they have erred in translation on two occasions, just goes to show what a RS it is. Any major news source print daily corrections and apologies, so 2 mistakes should invalidate a source? Please! Lobojo (talk) 01:28, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

• Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. - as Eleland points out above, MEMRI has just the opposite reputation. Dlabtot (talk) 02:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Knol as a RS?

Interestingly, the CSM reported today[1] that Salon blogger Farhad Manjoo believes[2] that the Google Knol project will serve as source material for Wikipedia. This raises the question: Does (will) Knol meet the reliable publication process standards of WP:V? SaltyBoatr (talk) 16:36, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Fortunately we have Wikipedia:Verifiability so we don't need to rely on what bloggers say. Knol is no different from any other self-published blog, or website that lacks editorial oversight: it is not presumed to be a reliable source except for non-controversial information about the writer. - Jehochman ^Talk 16:50, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

You're probably wrong, or at least on the wrong side of consensus. There's a discussion on the mailing list about this. Relata refero (talk) 05:34, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The mailing list is informative but does not govern policy. The mailing list includes malcontents, banned users and others whose opinion would not be persuasive on Wikipedia, and the sometimes toxic atmosphere there has led to very low participation. Guy (Help!) 18:07, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Guy, just because you don't participate doesn't mean its worthless, OK? A lot of major policy is still first heard there. In this case, I'm quoting the participants in a thread started by DGerard, and there wasn't a banned user in sight. If you don't pay attention half the time, don't blame the rest of us. Relata refero (talk) 20:41, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Wait, the Mailing list gets to challenge WP:SPS without on-wiki discussion and consensus? And we listen to that challenge and not WP:SPS? --Thinboy00 @009, i.e. 23:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Knol probably will be a reliable source for Wikipedia, because it names its article's authors by real name and lists their credentials, plus their sources, both primary and secondary. It doesn't get much better than that. Cla68 (talk) 23:27, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Antiwar.com vs. Political Research Associates

I see that in this edit, a cite from Antiwar.com was removed on the grounds of being self-published. It was removed from the bio of Chip Berlet, the main attraction at Political Research Associates, which is abundantly cited as a source all over Wikipedia. This seems ironic to me because I can see no structural difference between Antiwar and PRA. They are both highly opinionated commentary sites. Why is one better than the other? --Niels Gade (talk) 07:58, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I also can see no difference. It appears to be a case of goose and gander. --Marvin Diode (talk) 15:59, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Echos of the disparate treatment of Frontpage Magazine and MMFA and FAIR. But it's hardly news that Wikipedia editors have net group biases. But Chip Berlet has a special history, as it seems it was a long-term project of SlimVirgin and a like-minded claque of admins to abuse and manipulate BLP policy to the detriment of NPOV in that article, among others. Andyvphil (talk) 04:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:NPA ·:· Will Beback ·:· 05:55, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, antiwar.com doesn't count as self-published. It might count as a source of dubious reliability; however, there is certainly no difference between quoting the editor of that site and the editor of Publiceye.com. I'd like to disassociate myself from Andy's remarks above, though, as I don't know the facts (also, its clique). Certainly, if PRA is overused, people should feel free to remove it. Relata refero (talk) 05:31, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, claque does work in this context. --Niels Gade (talk) 18:01, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Heh, you're right. Relata refero (talk) 17:35, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any conclusion here that PRA is an unreliable source. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 03:26, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

We were discussing self-publishing, actually. And we usually wait a bit before deciding there's no consensus. People check this noticeboard on irregular schedules. Relata refero (talk) 06:25, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Some editors are pointing to this thread as a reason to deleted sourced material. I was simply pointing out that that is premature. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 08:15, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Did anyone have particular cases where they felt the PRA was used improperly as a source, for comparison? AliveFreeHappy (talk) 06:32, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes. PRA is overused as a source, and often in ways which violate WP:BLP. There are two persons who are professional anti-LaRouche activists, Dennis King and Chip Berlet, who both have websites with arguably slanderous attacks on LaRouche. PRA is Berlet's website, and King's website has been discussed before on this page (Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 3#www.lyndonlarouchewatch.org.) (PRA, for example, features defamatory leaflets with instructions to print them out and distribute them at LaRouche events, not the sort of thing you would expect from a scholarly source.[3]) These attacks do not appear in the conventional press, so these two persons have opened Wikipedia accounts (User:Dking and User:Cberlet) to use Wikipedia to get greater exposure for their views. They are joined in this effort by User:Will Beback and User:Hardindr. The idea appears to be to use Wikipedia to "expose" LaRouche, since the conventional media are not doing this to their satisfaction. Material from the the websites in question is spammed into all LaRouche-related articles [4][5] [[6] in violation of WP:UNDUE and WP:REDFLAG. I think that use of PRA should be scaled way back to a level that corresponds to its notability, and never for material that conflicts with BLP -- I do not believe that PRA meets the standards required by WP:BLP. --Terrawatt (talk) 07:57, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Dennis King and Chip Berlet have been professional investigative journalists, and are the acknowledged experts on Lyndon LaRouche and his movement. They've been quoted at least dozens of times in the mainstream press. King is the author of the only full-length biography, which was published by a major publishing house, Doubleday & Co. Berlet is a longtime researcher for Political Research Associates, which also meets our standards of a reliable publishing source. Some editors have tried repeatedly to have these two authors considered unreliable sources and have never succeeded.(Isn't there a statute of limitations?) Yet they haven't proven that the authors have been factually incorrect in any straighforward reporting. The reason that they are used in all the LaRouche articles is that they are the leading researchers of the LaRouche movement. Their viewpoints on LaRouche are not different from all the other reliable sources, and are consistent with the usual reporting. What erroneous material has PRA published that shows they are unreliable? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 08:15, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

1. Who "acknowledges" them as "the experts"?

2. It looks to me like King's website was rejected as a self-published source at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 3#www.lyndonlarouchewatch.org.

3. PRA is loaded with what WP:BLP calls "a conjectural interpretation of a source," i.e., rampant editorializing and conspiracy theory. PRA might be acceptable in many cases for non-controversial material, but what King, Berlet and Will Beback have consistently done is use it as a source for a fringe theory that behind every utterance of LaRouche there is a hidden agenda of neo-fascism, which has been noted by outside observers as a particular tactic of Berlet and PRA against all of their targets. As is noted at the beginning of this discussion, Activist Justin Raimondo has written that "Berlet is professional political hit man whose specialty is smearing anyone outside the traditional left-right categories as an extremist, at best, and a nascent Nazi at worst."[7] This is why PRA should be used sparingly and with particular caution in BLP articles. Will Beback is completely mistaken to say that "Their viewpoints on LaRouche are not different from all the other reliable sources." --Niels Gade (talk) 15:44, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

1. Do you want me to plaster a talk page with all of he times that Berlet and King have been cited? I'll do so if that convinces you.

Being cited in an article isn't the same as being "acknowledged as the experts." I would be interested in seeing reliably sourced commentary that says they are "the experts." --Niels Gade (talk) 16:09, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

2. I don't see a consensus there. I see one editor piping in, but without a full understanding of our policies.

3. I don't think you are accurately describing my actions. The whole concept of "fringe theories" concerning LaRouche is a bit humorous, considering how many fringe theories he's come up with and how frequently he's describned as "fringe". Raimondo is hardly an objective commentator. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:08, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

How would you describe your actions? What is inaccurate in Niels' description? --Terrawatt (talk) 22:08, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I haven't been advancing the "fringe theory that behind every utterance of LaRouche there is a hidden agenda of neo-fascism". ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:21, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

You have supported King and Berlet when they do it. --Niels Gade (talk) 16:10, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Can you substantiate that accusation? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 01:10, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

For example, you have vehemently defended the use of King's book as a source.[8][9][10] King's book is simply a very long essay defending this fringe theory. The mere fact that something has been published by a large publishing house does not make it automatically a suitable source for BLP. --Niels Gade (talk) 16:01, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

That book is the best, most reliable source we have for the life of Lyndon LaRouche. Being published by a major publishing house does, in fact, make it a suitable source for a BLP. I have certainly not sought to advance the theory that that "behind every utterance of LaRouche there is a hidden agenda of neo-fascism". ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:15, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

But the book you are promoting does advance that theory. --Marvin Diode (talk) 21:44, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that using the book as a source is the same as "promoting" it. I haven't written an article about it, or any other promotional actitivity. I have defended it's use as a source. No one has presented any verifibale factual errors on the book, and Niels Gade himself has confirmed facts from it. No one is suggesting that there's a more reliable 3rd-party source for the life of LaRouche. If you call using the book as a source "promotion" then are those editors who use LaRouche-published books and articles "promoting" them? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:03, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I would say yes, if they are using them in articles outside of the "LaRouche-related" articles. King's book is a reliable source on King's views, and would certainly be acceptable in the article on Dennis King. --Marvin Diode (talk) 15:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. Using a reliable source isn't promoting it. The job of Wikipedia editors is to verifiably summarize reliable sources using the neutral point of view. Dennis King and Chip Berlet's books and articles are reliable sources written by acknowledged experts on the topic of Lyndon LaRouche and his movement. Using their work is no different than using a NY Times or Washington Post article. Though, of course, I know you regard those as unreliable too. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 08:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. May I ask how you happened to arrive at this conclusion about me? --Marvin Diode (talk) 04:03, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Am I wrong? Do you consider such mainstream media as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, or NBC to be reliable sources on the topic of Lyndon LaRouche? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 05:20, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes to both questions, and I have said so explicitly. --Marvin Diode (talk) 15:48, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Break

<unindent-Perhaps I misunderstood this comment of yours:

• Major publications are not above conducting dirty tricks campaigns where politics is involved -- this has been true for a long time, and not likely to change soon. [11]

It appeared that you were denying that major publications were a reliable source. What did you mean and in reference to which publications? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:13, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I meant just what I said. We have to use major publications as a source, unless there are peer-reviewed journals or some other, stronger source available. As you may recall, in my request for arbitration[12] I proposed that "when [King's or Berlet's] views have appeared in mainstream publications, those may be used as sources and would not be disputed (this satisfies the requirements of WP:REDFLAG.)" I emphatically disagree with your statement that using the websites of King or Berlet "is no different than using a NY Times or Washington Post article." This doesn't mean, of course, that I consider the NY Times, Washington Post or Wall Street journal to be infallible. Mature editorial judgment should be excercised with any source. --Marvin Diode (talk) 21:54, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Please do not say that I have "confirmed facts" from King's book, as if that makes it a reliable source. The book may correctly say that February is the second month of the calendar year; that doesn't in any way excuse the fact that it is full of outrageous, propagandistic speculation and innuendo. --Niels Gade (talk) 15:22, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

You have confirmed facts from the book. You have not offered any evidence that there are factual errors in it. The book meets WP's standards for a reliable source. However that book isn't the topic of this thread. It has already been discussed before and there's no need to keep bringing it up. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 18:05, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Just to put things in perspective, has anyone offered any evidence that there are factual errors in the LaRouche publications? I don't believe that this is the sole criterion for use of a source. --Marvin Diode (talk) 21:54, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Clippings of factual errors promoted by LaRouche.

• On the talk show, LaRouche blamed the Soviet Union for engineering what he termed the the AIDS "conspiracy." "There is no question that it can be transmitted by mosquitoes," LaRouche said, citing as supporting evidence the high incidence of the disease in Africa, the Caribbean and southern Florida.
• On the KGO talk show, LaRouche pointed to the "insect-bite belt," which he said includes Florida and the Caribbean. "In the insect-bite belt, we have a very large transmission of AIDS among poor people," he said. "The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta has been suppressing this evidence."
• Indeed, Secretary of State March Fong Eu said last week she would challenge in court "blatantly false" sections of the ballot argument for Proposition 64 submitted by LaRouche backers, including claims that "AIDS is not hard to get," and that potential insect and respiratory transmission of the disease and transmission by casual contact are "well established."

Do you want to argue that he was correct? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 01:43, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

You aren't addressing Marvin's question. The issue is not LaRouche's personal opinions. The question is about fact-checking at Executive Intelligence Review or other LaRouche publications. Do you have evidence of factual errors in those publications? --Niels Gade (talk) 21:36, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

We can spend more time investigating the LaRouche movement's claims about diseases if we ever seek to use the EIR as a reliable source. Of course, if you have any citations from EIR disputing LaRouche's incorrect statements then that might help their reputation. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:20, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

If EIR is accurately reporting an opinion by LaRouche, that does not discredit EIR as a source, regardless of whether LaRouche's opinion is credible or not. I asked you for examples of cases where EIR reported something as fact which turned out to be incorrect. You are applying a completely different set of standards to LaRouche publications than you do to the self-citing by King and Berlet. --Marvin Diode (talk) 03:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have access to an archive of back issues of EIR or other LaRouche periodicals. Since no one is proposing using EIR as a reliable source, it seems like moot point. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 05:58, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I would propose using EIR as a source, judiciously and appropriately, just as I would use King and Berlet as sources, judiciously and appropriately. Alternatively, I would propose using none of them. --Niels Gade (talk) 23:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Treating EIR as a relaible source would require overturning or altering an ArbCom case. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:00, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Other thread

1. I have no problem with using King and Berlet as a source when they are cited by legitimate publications, because those publications may be expected to excercise some discretion about which of their theories are suitable for responsible publication. The Kronberg interview you mention below has not appeared anywhere, to my knowledge, outside of the PRA site.

2. I see a consensus.

3. Actually, I think it is quite appropriate to compare LaRouche with Berlet as "fringe" commentators. In fact, both of them frequently describe their opponents as neo-fascists or proto-fascists. The difference is that I have not seen quotes from LaRouche plastered all over Wikipedia. The quotes from LaRouche appear to be confined mainly to the articles about LaRouche and his organization. I think it would be appropriate if quotes from PRA and Chip Berlet were largely limited to articles Chip Berlet and Political Research Associates. As far as Raimondo is concerned, would you say that he is less objective than Berlet? --Niels Gade (talk) 21:52, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

2. Who are the participatns in this consensus you see?

3. I'm not sure what the point is of comparing the reliablility of two sources. As for Raimondo, he appears to be more of a commentator than an investigative journalist. Michael Rubin of Frontpagemag.com says, "Citing statements replicated in recent Mujahedin-e Khalq publications brings as much credibility as quoting from Lyndon LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review. Quality of sourcing always matters: Justin Raimondo is hardly a trustworthy authority.[13]" His footnote goes to an article titled "Justin Raimondo: An American Neo-Fascist", written by Stephen Schwartz. Do you think he's a reliable source? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:39, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. You're now quoting FPM, unquestionably a fringe, unreliable source, to point out that another source is too fringe to talk about a third fringe source notable only for studying a fourth fringe source. Listen to me very carefully: theyre all unreliable. Will, there's nobody else opposing that statement. Relata refero (talk) 13:51, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Kronberg interview

The dicussion above is rather vague and compares the position of one source versus another. On a more specific point: is there any reason why this interview on PRA with Marielle Kronberg should not be considered a reliable source for her words? Does anyone assert that the interview is faked or altered? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:01, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

As long as this interview is not considered the absolute truth as is quoted only to show the opinions of Marielle Kronberg, and if the opinion of this lady is relevant for the Wikipedia article where it is intended to be added, I don't see any reason to avoid the usage of this interview as a source.--MariusM (talk) 20:10, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I have indicated elsewhere that I don't object to it appearing in one article, but spamming it into every LaRouche-related article is undue weight. --Niels Gade (talk) 21:52, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

If you don't object to the sourcing why did you just remove it from an article, claiming a sourcing issue? "the sourcing issues are discussed at WP:RSN#Antiwar.com vs. Political Research Associates. The only actual criticism is sourced to PRA. The rest of the paragraph is context."[14] If there's no sourcing issue then please restore it. ·:· Will Beback ·:·

Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes is a prominent political commentator, so presumably his opinions may be cited (with proper attribution) when they appear in newspapers, books, and other similar sources. However, should opinions published on his blog be permitted in Wikipedia articles? In particular, on the Prophet of Doom article, this blog post was used as a source for the statement that "Muslim agitators have circulated a petition to have the book banned and censored" (stated without qualification) as well as Pipes' own opinion on the subject. The group allegedly circulating this petition, Islamic Educational and Cultural Research Center, doesn't even have an article on Wikipedia and there is no evidence that the group or petition was notable. Anyone can start an online petition. Under WP:V, blogs are generally considered to be unreliable sources, but someone insists on putting this back in again and again, arguing that Pipes' "opinion on the subject is inherently notable." *** Crotalus *** 04:19, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd say his blog shouldn't be cited for such things. The lack of third-party fact-checking on blogs gives us a standing presumption against citing them, and that's particularly the case if the blog is the only source for the cited information. To quote WP:V, articles relating to questionable sources "should not repeat any contentious claims the source has made about third parties, unless those claims have also been published by reliable sources." And as WP:V goes on to say, "if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so." If the information has been reported by a mainstream source, it's potentially usable, but not if it comes solely from a personal blog. -- ChrisO (talk) 15:40, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Pipes is a borderline source at best; he has qualifications in the relevant field, but he explicitly casts himself as opposed to it - to the point of calling for some kind of purge of the entire Middle Eastern / Islamic Studies academy. In my view, information from Pipes' more scholarly works can be included as an attributed opinion, ie "according to Daniel Pipes, blah blah." However information from his personal blog has two strikes against it - it's coming from a dubious source to begin with, and it's only something he dashed off without review or oversight. It should probably be excluded, and it certainly shouldn't be stated as fact. At the very least it needs to be qualified "According to Daniel Pipes's weblog..." <eleland/talkedits> 19:45, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

It should perhaps be noted that there are many who consider Pipes an extremist Zionist with an agenda for Israel (and with good reason). While I do agree with a lot of things he says on Islam, I think it would be foolish to not keep in mind that he is politically motivated and not always suitable for WP:NPOV policy. On the other hand, for simply citing his opinion in compliance with NPOV policy would probably work out fine. Oh and, I seriously doubt his blog is peer reviewed. — EliasAlucard (Discussion · contribs) 21:45, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Free Republic.com message board posts as RS

Are forum posts a reliable source for Wikipedia, such as on http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39a525043cb8.htm ? Various users are adding forum posts as RS here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Free_Republic&action=history and claiming they are RS-compliant. Lawrence Cohen 18:40, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Can you give a more specific example? Going back a few from the current version is this with some FR links. The text is mostly discussing things on FR; are the links to the discussion being mentioned, or which of them is a problem? -- SEWilco (talk) 19:09, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Typical: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Free_Republic&oldid=186162142#_ref-20 SELFPUP prohibits such sources when discussing other parties. In this case, they're discussing Tony Snow. In this case: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Free_Republic&oldid=186162142#_note-25 they're linking to a copyvio of another news source that discusses Free Republic. The problem is that I don't think a message board's post, as they have no editorial oversight or control, and as an extremist site similar to http://www.stormfront.org, should not be used as sources for anything but exclusively material to themselves from non-forum posts by random, anonymous individuals. Lawrence Cohen 19:44, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

In general, I agree. But you're deleting whole sections of the article that are "Exclusively material to themselves," such as the frequent disruption of their forum by varuious trolls and "agents provocateurs," also they could not reasonably be described as "extremist," certainly not like Stormfront. Unless you consider the US Republican Party to be "extremist like Stormfront." I've been reading a lot of FR threads since becoming interested in this article, and they seem very mainstream. The "extremists luike Stormfront" get banned for making racist remarks. You're not familiar enough with the subject matter, or you wouldn't make claims like that. Samurai Commuter (talk) 20:51, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

The fact remains that the leftist/agents bit is 1) sourced to message boards, which are useless for an encyclopedia and inherently unreliable; 2) discuss other individuals besides the article subject; 3) are unverifiable, and have no editorial oversight; 4) are the same edits routinely pushed by a banned editor; 5) editing on the behalf or to advance the desired edits of a banned user is not allowed, and is grounds for banning. Thats a lot of reasons this material is inappropriate for Wikipedia. And yes, the "Freepers" are extremists, as sources say. Lawrence § talk/edits 21:15, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

See last post of previous section by Septentrionalis: "When the fact being sourced is that Poster X said Y, then I have to agree the post proves it reliably. The difficulty is that this fact, by itself, is rarely of encyclopedic interest." "Rarely" is not "never." In an article about that forum, such facts may frequently be of encyclopedic interest. Also, WP:SELFPUB is policy and trumps WP:RS, which is only a guideline. Samurai Commuter (talk) 19:35, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Lawrence, they're obviously self-published sources. Anybody here could sign up and make comments there and what one person says is just a personal opinion -- which is the tiniest "minority opinion" there could be. Editors adding FreeRepublic posts as "reliable sources," should be told they're wrong and if they edit war, they should be blocked. It's a good thing you came here, Lawrence, but it's unfortunate that you'd actually have to come here for such an obvious violation of policy and it's pretty sad to see several editors here actually defend this vandalism. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 01:34, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The neatest trick would be to sign up and post something anonymously on such a bulletin board, then come to wiki and cite yourself for the source of an assertion. I suspect that was going on in the WyldCard business. Eschoir (talk) 07:48, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, the existence of FreeRepublic is notable. What goes on there, however, is not. The "forum controversies" posted there belong on Encyclopedia Dramatica -- not here. I took a quick glance at the Daily Kos article (since it's a similar topic) and that article also seems to suffer from similar problems. A lot of that stuff isn't notable and needs to be cut down. Fortunately, the Kos article hasn't started being sourced with user comments. Any admin needs to just carry a big stick and beat all of the political pundit trolls down. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 01:40, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

OK I've read through most of this and I have to point out a few things. The article linked is in-fact an article about the internet forum itself. Self-published statements by a subject, presented as the views of that subject, are acceptable, provided they are not presented as facts or reveal certain personal information about living people. Imagine this scenario: We have an article on Anne Coulter and she has a blog where she says "Edwards is a faggot". We can certainly quote her, from her blog, on her article to show what her beliefs are. I see this case as similar. To present a "biography" of FreeRepublic it would be acceptable to quote posts from the board, presenting them as quotes of the board, not as facts. I'm open to having my mind changed on that. I'm not fully sure I'm interpreting policy correctly here, but this is my first stab at this new type of situation.Wjhonson (talk) 08:49, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

We can quote Coulter saying 'Edwards is a faggot' only if that quote is considered suitable notable elsewhere. BLP implies that anything contentious about a living person must be sourced to an RS, not a SPS, even if the article is about the maker of the statement, not the subject. In this example, if Coulter had merely said "E is a faggot" and it had been noticed all over the blogosphere and nowhere else, it should not even be in the Coulter article. Relata refero (talk) 14:05, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

You're right, Wjhonson, but here's what we can't do:

• "FreeRepublic is a racist and fascist organization" (a string of sources to user comments)
• "Daily Kos is an anti-semitic, anti-american organization that hates the troops" (a string of sources to user comments)

Those are extreme hypothetical examples, though that's what somewhat seems to be going on. They're referencing "forum controversies," but who's to say that any of these controversies are notable and how can they be independently verified?

Political pundits on the left, such as the folks at Democratic Underground have been guilty of the former and political pundits on the right, such as Bill O'Reilly and Michelle Malkin have been guilty of the latter.

Also, looking at the article on Democratic Underground, again, I see the same nonsense. Any rouge admin just needs to carry a big stick and clean out the troll mobs. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 22:18, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I point out that the selection of those user comments would be OR, would it not? And, insofar as the anonymous user comments were primary sources, it would be impermissible to synthesize them to advance an argument. Eschoir (talk) 01:32, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes I agree with both your statements. We cannot analyze or synthecize the comments. We can quote them however. We can select, selection is an editorial process much like paraphrasing, joining, copyediting. We do not quote entire works, we select quotes. Now how do we reconcile that with the question of OR in the selection process? Here is how. Primary material can illustrate an issue brought forward by a secondary source. It cannot be used to introduce a brand-new issue. So if a verifiable, secondary source states that Free Republic is fascist, we could then point to certain posts to illustrate examples of that. If no secondary source states it, then we cannot. That's the basic approach. There's always fine-tuning on a case-by-case basis and with consensus. As far as commentary from both sides, imho I would quote both sides with attribution. This provides the basis of the situation, with a neutral point of view. As above, we must ensure that the *basic* issue has been mentioned in a secondary source. Wjhonson (talk) 18:52, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem is identifying which particular posts are fascist, of course. That's where OR might come in by the back door. Relata refero (talk) 14:05, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

You are a genius. But let me put you anonther case -- Regency publishes a book saying Clinton raped Juanita Brodderick. There are plenty of posts at FreeRepublic to illustrate that, but they would nnot be admissible. Case in point, someone used FR email to extract compromising info from a MD GOP staffer and gave it to the Washington Post. There are plenty of posts at FR saying that it was a certain democratic official. They would not be usable? Eschoir (talk) 22:52, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hell no. Freep postings are on roughly the same WP:RS level as witticisms in black marker on a bathroom stall. The only possible circumstances in which a Free Republic board posting might be a source would be if the posting itself was the subject of commentary in third-party reliable sources, or if the posting came from Free Republic admins and was sourced for an article about Free Republic. Otherwise, Wikipedia needs to treat this stuff like radioactive Kryptonite and stay far, far away. <eleland/talkedits> 19:59, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Do we accept forums that are likely _the_ source for a statement - not just _a_ source?

Initially I've asked a similar question at the policy village pump. After a quite fruitful discussion an editor suggested to ask here for expert answers on the reliability aspect of that particular question. For reference there's also a discussion about verifiability going on here on the WP:V Talk page.
Here goes. In the EVE Online article an editor recently posted a link to a forum topic in the EVE Aurora forums. Aurora is an organization that helps the developers and game masters of EVE Online organize in-game events. The question is whether we accept this source. Here is what the discussion over at the village pump brought.
We are talking about forums here. They are self-published content and therefore "largely not acceptable" as WP:V puts it. The only exception could be content that has been also published by "reliable third-party publications". However, as a fellow editor pointed out, "There aren't going to be much if any paper sources." Or other forms of third-party publications for that matter. I would think that even if there are no other sources this forum is not a reliable source. What do you think about this? Do we accpet this source with regards to its reliability?
-- Aexus (talk) 07:10, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

You ask an interesting question, Aexus. Here's a few quick thoughts:

• First, chat fora have no editorial oversight or emphasis on fact-checking, so you'll never really know what you're getting in terms of facts (the person could be talking nonsense). I also think it's a bad idea to start citing e-mails for "notable opinions," too, but there seems to be some disagreement among editors on that score.

• Second, I use something called the "acid test." If a news search engine (e.g., Factiva, Lexis-Nexis, Google News), academic journal article search engine (e.g., JSTOR) or book search engine (e.g., Worldcat) fails to produce any sources linked to that subject or forum conversation, then we can safely infer that virtually no one thought the subject or fact was worth discussing. Hence, on notability grounds, it really shouldn't be included in Wikipedia. Resorting to an e-mail forum post --- where there are sadly few legal implications to worry about --- in order to verify facts seems pretty dangerous to me on several levels.

• Finally, we went through a similar issue when editing the Essjay Controversy page. Some editors wanted to cite private Essjay e-mails and chat fora and other miscellany in the article. Purists rejected this idea, and edit wars sometimes ensued. The only way that we were ever able to include "unpublished" Essjay e-mail and chat forum comments without a fight was when they were (ironically) cited by third-party journalists and academics. Go figure. (^_^) J Readings (talk) 11:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

When the fact being sourced is that Poster X said Y, then I have to agree the post proves it reliably. The difficulty is that this fact, by itself, is rarely of encyclopedic interest. Our article is usually implying that poster X said it first, which requires an independent source; or that poster X is actually notable person Z, which can be clear for a single-person blog, but is much harder for a forum post, although if the poster can be shown to be, say, an EVEonline developer, that would count. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:45, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

No, they aren't verifiable and they only represent the opinion of one person. Take a look. Like Wikis, forum posts can also be changed relatively quickly.

Just ask yourself, "WWBD?" (What would Britannica do?)

Can you really imagine a group of credible encyclopedia editors, sitting around a desk, with one of them using random results on Google or forum posts as reliable sources? Of course not.

If anybody else tells you otherwise, you should first attempt to change their minds through rational discussion invoking the assertions above. If they make vague appeals to relativism, subjectivism, absurdism and other sophistry, then you should ignore them. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 01:52, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Per WP:PSTS and WP:SPS we can use self-published anything as a primary source for to support the fact that the source exists or says what it says it says, as long as we take care to make sure that anyone without any specialist knowledge would agree if they looked at it. MilesAgain (talk) 21:46, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Nope, not quite. We also need to ensure there's a secondary source backing up our interpretation or our choice of extracts. Relata refero (talk) 14:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for your opinions! The conclusion I take with me back into the EVE Online article is that the Aurora forums do not meet Wikipedia's reliability standards as they are self-published content. They don't meet the reliability standards even if we consider that they're likely the only source for a statement - being the only source doesn't make them less of a self-published source. Thanks!
-- Aexus (talk) 20:32, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

What constitutes an "independent third party source"?

What constitutes an "independent third party source"?

I am considering requesting deletion review of a pair of articles on a pair of Guantanamo captives.

I've discussed this with the closing administrator. He or she said they didn't have a problem with considering Summary of Evidence memos complying with WP:VER. But he or she said that "these sources were clearly not independent or neutral."

I am going to assume that the closing admin, and others who have expressed this concern, were not aware that the Bush Presidency set up an independent body, the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants, which was under the oversight of a civilian, the "Designated Civilian Official", to administer the CSR Tribunals and Administrative Review Boards. Similarly, the staff who prepared the memos in question were not under the command of the JTF-GTMO Commandant.

I told the closing admin:

One could argue that this arms-length status, under Civilian oversight, did not really make them independent. But, since they were independent, on paper, I don't think one can say that they "clearly weren't independent". As I wrote above, this is a judgment call. IMO, editorial decisions, based on unreferenced judgment calls, don't comply with WP:NPOV, whether the editorial decision is the insertion of a conclusion, or the decision to suppress the use of certain references.

I'd welcome the opinion of others.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 16:05, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

A civilian authority is an improvement on, say, a military review board; on the other hand, to be truly independent here, it would need to be independent of the President, under whose authority and with whose support the military is acting. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:32, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

By that reasoning wouldn't we be restricted from covering any person who relied on the defense of a court-appointed attorney?

No offense, but, as I said to the closing admin, the conclusion OARDEC is not truly independent is a judgment call. We'd put a {{cn}} tag, if anyone was to write, in article space:

"It is obvious that since OARDEC is staffed by military officers, and that the "civilian official" it reports to is a Deputy Secretary of Defense, it is not truly independent from the US military."

Unreferenced -- this would be a big-time lapse from WP:NPOV. It would be a violation if it substituted "widely accepted" for "obvious".

No offense, but the very first line of the verifiability policy states that the wikipedia aims at "verifiability, not truth".

• One of the consequences of that policy is that there can be times when we have to present material that we know is verifiable, that we personally believe is totally untrue.
• If we have verifiable, authoritative sources, that assert something we personally believe is totally untrue, and have no references to back up what we believe is true, we have to live with the article referencing the the verifiable source we personally disagree with. Period. That is policy.
• Even a broad hint that the verifiable source makes doubtful assertions would be a violation of WP:NPOV -- when we have no references.
• We are totally entitled to have doubts about the independence of the OARDEC memos.
• We are totally entitled to hold the personal belief those OARDEC memos are biased against the captives.
• But, making editorial decisions based on our personal belief would be, IMO, a violation of WP:NPOV. As I wrote above, the decision to suppress the use of these verifiable sources is just as much an editorial decision as the decision to insert unreferenced doubts. This is, I believe, an instance where we have to rely on what we can reference, not our gut feelings. Geo Swan (talk) 19:43, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Aren't the two mentioned by say, Amnesty International, or some other non-gevernmental organization, ideally outside of the United States? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:37, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't know. Maybe. The DoD uses a non-standard Arabic --> English transliteration scheme. And JTF-GTMO had a habit of changing its official spelling of the captives names. So it is not really possible to definitely say there are no non-DoD sources describing the captives.

But I don't think that should matter, if the judgment that the OARDEC memos aren't independent only relies on "gut feelings". I think this question came from the helpful impulse to find a solution that circumvents the need for a deep discussion of policy. I was hoping there would be a discussion of policy. Geo Swan (talk) 19:43, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

If person X is arrested or detained by a government (or the military branch thereof) and is tried by that same military, and all documents and information about person X are only available from (and filtered by) that same military (or the government directly controlling it), then this does not constitute independent and neutral sourcing as required by Wikipedia, especially for biographies of living persons.Fram (talk) 20:47, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I would like to remind the respondent, above, that the goal of the wikipedia is "verifiability, not truth". Respondent above does not seem to recognize that their conclusion, above, is a judgment call -- one not referenced to a verifiable reliable source. We are not allowed to insert unsupported material that is only supported by our gut feelings. Doing so does not comply with WP:VER, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. And those same policies prohibit us from removing material based solely on our personal gut feelings of what is true.

Concerning independence -- I'd like respondent to spell out, exactly who they think OARDEC would have to be independent from, before they would regard documents they prepared as sufficiently neutral and independent. Are they arguing that OARDEC would have to be appointed by, and under the oversight of the UN? Would they accept appointment and oversight by NATO? What if they were appointed by and overseen by the US Congress? By the Department of Justice? Would they accept that OARDEC was independent then? What if the Secretary of Defense created a brand new agency, with new staff, with the sole task of reviewing the evidence about the captives's status?

I suggest respondent review the wikipedia's coverage of alternate theories about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The wikipedia has a referenced article on the official Warren Commission inquiry into the assassination. And the wikipedia has companion articles like Kennedy assassination theories. The wikipedia's articles coverage of those other theories are all adequately referenced. If respondent thinks he or she can document this lack of independence and neutrality they assert exists, shouldn't they produce those references?

Cheers! -- Geo Swan (talk) 17:33, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure of this. I think it oversimplifies the complexities of the military and the government. there is a difference between the Deputy Secretary and a military officer. different parts of the government and different parts even of the military often operate in opposition to anther. True, the opposition is limited. True, for the purposes of criminal law it can well be argued that they do not have the necessary independence of judicial objectivity--but that is rightly a much higher standard than for WP sourcing, such as avoiding BLP does not require the "beyond a reasonable doubt' of criminal justice. Ultimately, one could argue that all political and judicial organs of a given country are not truly independent--the same US senate confirms judicial appointments as military commissions. And personally i would regard this as a quite reasonable argument why the allegations against US violations of international law must be tried by a court beyond direct US jurisdiction. But that does not mean we can report nothing on the US unless we find it it another nation's newspapers. We just have to be aware of the possible biases. DGG (talk) 08:51, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Primary source, or secondary source?

I forgot to ask, above -- I question the label several of my correspondents applied to these memos -- "primary sources". All of these Summary of Evidence memos were based on multiple documents. In some instances we know they were based on dozens of primary sources from over half a dozen other agencies. So why shouldn't we consider the summary memos "secondary sources"?

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 19:43, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

For a source to be considered secondary there must be some form of significant and original artistic construction within it. If the summaries are something like a bibliography, this is considered a form of mechanical action, requiring no original artistic effort. I.E. five bibliographies prepared by five authors from the same underlying sources would mostly generate identical final products. If the summaries are something like paragraph-or-larger abstracts, and were *not* writen by the authors of the underlying individual sources, but rather writen by the author of the final product, then this would be a secondary source. To expand, mere repetition of underlying abstracts created by the authors of the underlying sources is a mechanical reproduction, not artistic, not a secondary source. Based on this reasoning, would your source be secondary? Wjhonson (talk) 19:54, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• These documents were written by entirely different people, in an entirely different chain of command -- not documents written by same people who wrote the originals The original documents came from JTF-GTMO, the CIA, the FBI, the military's Criminal Investigation Task Force, the Department of State, the office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, the Department of Homeland Security, and various foreign intelligence services. The DoD released Board Recommendation memos for about 200 captives whose repatriation or release was authorized by the Designated Civilian Official in 2005 or 2006. All of those memos that I have reviewed, so far, said the Boards considered the input from at least three of the above sources. Feel free to check for yourself if you like.
  • "Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) and Administrative Review Board (ARB) Documents". OARDEC. September 2007. Retrieved 2008-09-29.

• By artistic effort I assume we are not talking James Joyce or Shakespeare. I assume that at any effort that required understanding and intelligent paraphrasing would satisfy this criteria? These summaries did require an intelligent understanding of the original documents to prepare. IMO some of these authors were better at bringing intelligent understanding to their summarizing and paraphrasing efforts than others. Some authors summaries contain errors that showed they tried and failed to bring intelligence and intelligent understanding to their preparation of these summaries. Even artisitic failures require artistic effort. Your neighbour whose garage band makes a demo tape covering some pop songs, that is a total artistic failure, in unlistenable, has still made an "artistic effort". His or her demo tape is as fully protected by copyright law as Lars Ulrich, or Britney Spears.

• For example, a large number of the captives had their detention justified because their name was found on some kind of suspicious list. For some reason, probably security, the source of these suspicious lists was usually obfuscated. The authors of the Summary of Evidence memos made editorial decisions about how much obfuscation to apply. The authors of the Summary of Evidence memos made editorial decisions about when to assume similar sounding allegations were separate, distinct allegations, and when the source documents they were summarizing were describing the same basic allegation.

• Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 16:45, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, imho, summaries of the type you outline above would be considered secondary sources.Wjhonson (talk) 06:37, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

MMFA - Media Matters for America

Is Media Matters for America [MMfA] a reliable source? Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. I believe MMfA fails at least one of those elements.

I raise this because I recently saw an article making certain claims and citing mainly to MMfA or to other sources like it or worse. I was trying to determine the factual accuracy of the statements made in Wikipedia but I found the MMfA pages to be biased, one-sided, and confusing, as if they were covering for a lack of an ability to clearly support the assertions they were making. Since every MMfA cite linked suffered from the same defects, I felt that the editor who added them had not provided sources to prove the truth of the matter he/she inserted into the wiki article.

And the matter being asserted was one of racial hatred. A claim of racial hatred was being supported by several links to the MMfA articles as I have described them.

I thought incendiary statements of racial hatred should be removed if that cannot be supported, and the MMfA links did not provide that support for the reasons I gave. Further, one would think if racial hatred was involved, there would be main stream media sources to cite, as opposed to only MMfA. However, I did not want to remove the material without first asking here about MMfA.

I read the material here about MEMRI because that seems to most closely fit the MMfA situation, and MEMRI has not faired well so far.

So I seek input here before I take action to remove the MMfA links I saw. I feel this is especially necessary since some of the editors have in the past admitted bias against the subject of the wiki page, and they occasionally edit in a fashion that disfavors the wiki page's subject without reliable sources. So I know ahead of time if I remove the MMfA links I will become instant persona non grata, again. I am here to get my ducks in order.

Thank you for your input. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 23:11, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Here is more on my concerns: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:American_Family_Association#Some_Source_Material_Looks_Biased

Thanks. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 23:13, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I see the matter is even discussed on the MMfA talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Media_Matters_for_America#Media_Matters_as_a_source --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 23:19, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow. I just read that on the MMfA talk page. It seems MMfA is not a reliable source. But I will await what people have to say here on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard, perhaps a better location to discuss such issues than the relevant page's talk page. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 23:28, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

No, they are an advocacy group, just like the right-wing Newsbusters and are not a reliable source. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 05:45, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I would argue that they could be a reliable source in some instances and not in others, and arguing that they never or always can be used as a source is a little extreme. Mostly what MMfA does is simply publicize errors, mis-statements, and gaffs (real or preceived) by other media organizations. That being case, articles might as well just cite the original media rather than MMfA. In the specific case brought up by LAEC, I think the question is not whether they are a WP:RS—clearly they are the most reliable source for their own opinions, which is what they are being used as a source for in the article—but rather the question should be whether their opinion/criticism of AFAJ is notable enough for inclusion in the article. Yilloslime (t) 06:23, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

That is a good point to make. Is the opinion of an extrememly politicially biased website notable for inclusion? MMfA is used as a source of criticism for just about anyone or any organization having what they view as conservative leanings. So much so in some articles, that the article becomes little more than a sounding board for MMfA. Arzel (talk) 14:48, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I basically agree with Yilloslime. It is a quesiton of notability. I believe that they can be used if the incident was also reported in a more notable, mainstream source. Otherwise, like Zenwhat said, it is just advocacy. MrMurph101 (talk) 20:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree in part with Yilloslime: the first section of his analysis is correct to say that much of the time that Media Matters might be used as a source for some series of facts about a broadcast or newspaper article, it would be better to cite the original broadcast or article instead. As far as the notion that MM's opinions might not be notable, with a link to WP:N, it's important to realize here that WP:N is not the standard for inclusion of material within articles. As the guideline itself says, "These notability guidelines only pertain to the encyclopedic suitability of topics for articles but do not directly limit the content of articles." Some of MM's opinions are surely not worthy of inclusion, but EACH of their opinions should not be presumed unworthy just because of the source. It would be an absurd paradox to say that because a person or organization has a clear point of view or is partisan, we refuse to report on their opinion. We represent the opinions of partisans all the time here. Croctotheface (talk) 21:23, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be good to differentiate the idea of what is notable. There is WP:N as it relates to whether an article is worthy of being kept or not. In this case the idea of notability is whether information Media Matter's opinion or anyone else with an opinion on something is worthy of inclusion. My position is that it is ok to just mention that "Media Matters frequently criticizes Pundit X by (use a couple of examples)" but not to use them to make a laundry list all the alleged bad things someone/something has done unless it there is more coverage of it by other, (ideally) non-editorializing sources. MrMurph101 (talk) 21:44, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I want to make clear that the initial reference to notability WAS linked to WP:N. I see this a lot, where some editor refers to "notability" just as an English word and not in the context of WP:N and nonetheless links to WP:N. I want to be very clear lest people reading such comments get the wrong idea about what WP:N does and does not apply to. Anyway, I don't believe that everything Media Matters says (or everything ANY person or group says) is worthy of inclusion by definition. So no laundry lists, that's for sure. However, the opposite is also true: we should likewise avoid declaring that MM's opinion can never be worthy of inclusion or that it always must be covered by other sources. I do readily concede, though, that of the hundreds or thousands if items that MM publishes, very few will tend to be both noteworthy and not receive any coverage in other places. Still, I don't think there's any basis for saying that we can never report on MM's opinion in any kind of depth unless it's out there in some other form. Croctotheface (talk) 23:08, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Croctotheface in that my linking to WP:N was inappropriate, since that policy applies specifically to topics that are the subject of articles. Sorry, my bad for linking to a policy page that I hadn't looked at very closely for quite some time. Still, I think my basic point is valid: the question is whether MMfA's criticism of AFAJ is noteworthy enough for inclusion in the article on AFA, not whether MMfA is a reliable source in general. Also agree that it's probably only rarely that MMfA is the only source to document an otherwiese noteworthy news item. Yilloslime (t) 23:39, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Advocacy sites are fine when they are used for one of both sides of an issue being presented. It's basic WP:NPOV here. What is the specific use being asked about? MilesAgain (talk) 15:27, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure advocacy sites are "fine" for the use stated. Recall [a]rticles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.

Specifically, an entire section of an article is based on two MMfA links and 2 links from other sources that I would be shocked if they had a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Remember, this is an encyclopedia, not a platform for people to publicize their biases against the subjects of wiki pages.

Please, look carefully at that section I just linked, consider the four links supporting it, and see if any of you do not get the feeling something is amiss, as in adherence to wiki policies and guidelines, what have you.

Anticipating the argument that wiki rules are meant to be broken, does that mean claims of racial hatred should remain and be based on the weak underpinnings as illustrated in this example? --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 00:21, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Look at this -- a WorldNetDaily link was summarily cut out in 6 minutes with an editor saying "worldnetdaily is not a reliable source." It only took 6 minutes to remove the WND link. Yet the link provided balance, was from a reliable source, was directly on point, and WND has a reputation for accuracy and fact-checking or it simply would not be as highly rated as it is; WND is the Internet's largest private news organization, or something around that. If WND gets cut out in 6 seconds, what does that say about MMfA? --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 01:03, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

You're comparing apples and oranges. For starters, MMfA does not purport to be a news organization, they transcribe and comment on the media. As such, there are limited instances when they are acceptable as a source of quotes (their transcriptions have not been found to be inaccurate) and very limited instances when their commentary is acceptable (as opinion, not news). Worldnetdaily on the other hand pretends to be a news organization but does not adhere to any journalistic practices. This has been discussed extensively here (read through the archives). I have no idea where you got the idea that worldnetdaily has a "reputation for accuracy and fact-checking" or what sort of rating you're referring to when you talk about how highly rated they are. --Loonymonkey (talk) 02:10, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

You pointed out to me how WND was already discussed here. I wish there was an easy way to see what was already covered. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 02:58, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

There is a bot which emits an index of section headlines. It might be listed in WP:ARCHIVE. -- SEWilco (talk) 04:14, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Internet polls as a reliable source???

I'm wondering if a consensus can be reached on banning internet polls as reliable sources. I remember taking an advanced research methodology course during my graduate school days. The statistics professor outlined all the ways in which internet polls on places like CNN and local news sites are completely unreliable compared to the more professional polls conducted by mainstream newspapers and government organizations:

The top 4 reasons are:

• It's difficult to control for sockpuppets and meatpuppets distorting the responses to suit their organized political agendas (i.e., someone who passionately believes in a particular answer or subject is more likely to take the poll, get friends to take the poll, and/or answer the poll repeatedly from different IP accounts if necessary, than someone who is not so trying to skew the responses, is apathetic, or simply didn't find the poll.)
• The questions can be vague or posed in such a way that the replies can be skewed in a certain direction.
• There is no control over the sample size, so from a statistical point of view, it's impossible to determine how representative of the total population such a poll is.
• The internet poll is skewed towards the readership of a given site, which may attract certain types of readers with certain values or levels of education or political interests, etc.

There were a few other reasons why internet polls were unreliable, but these were the top points. I raise this issue because occassionally I come across WP articles where internet polls were cited or someone insists on using an intenet poll as represenative of what "people" must be thinking about something. When last I checked, this issue is not addressed in the reliable source gudelines. What do others think? J Readings (talk) 00:03, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, methodologically the polls are worth less than the screen they are displayed on. However, many newspaper polls are equally unreliable (and there the method is usually hidden, while in an internet poll you at least know what it is). I would treat these reluctantly, but they could be cited as a spicy folklore to comment on the topic of the article (but not as a sociological method of estimating the population's views). Pundit|utter 03:21, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe that internet polls are reliable in any way, and agree that they should not be used. There is also the question of notability. However, I suppose one could anticipate a circumstance where an otherwise reliable source mentions an internet poll in the context of an article, and it would probably then be acceptable to include it.

I am a bit unclear about Pundit's comment about "newspaper polls". Do you mean the polls that newspapers announce in their pages to get their readers opinions on a subject (e.g. call this number and vote yes/no on some question)? To my mind these have the same flaws as those listed by J Readings above, and should not be included. But if you mean polls commissioned by newspaper from reputable polling companies, there is a fair amount of information available about the polls and polling, and since they are also generally published and commented on in the media, they reach much higher levels of notability and verifiability than the internet/internal newspaper polls. --Slp1 (talk) 14:56, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to be unclear. Many newspapers conduct own polls, which barely satisfy any methodological requirements. Of course I'm not referring to the newspapers simply citing reliable research centers' survey results. The simplest criterion I use for deciding if the poll is of any use is whether they publish the methodological background and assumptions for the poll (if the newspaper cites the results, they usually don't give the full legend, but it is still possible to find it after going to the source). Pundit|utter 20:43, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I think that only polls carried out by reputable polling organisations, published in reliable sources, should be accepted. I find that articles like Films considered the greatest ever and Films considered the worst ever, which rely almost completely on anonymous, self selecting internet and phone-in polls, are particularly problematic. But try to do something about it, and you'll be bitten by those editors who WP:OWN the article.[15] Chris Bainbridge (talk) 15:10, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate the comments. So far, it looks like we're all basically in agreement that internet polls are absolutely worthless, methodologically. Not surprisingly, I've never encountered a serious academic publication citing internet polls as an authoritative source for interpreting any claims made. Then again, I've never encountered mainstream newspapers trying to do it either (but this doesn't mean that it never happens on some rare occasion.) I sympathize with Chris Bainbridge's frustrations (even though I wasn't thinking about the IMBD when I posted here) and, while I'm being a bit frank, I was surprised to read how one editor managed to override the collected opinions of several other established editors who made rational arguments against internet polls and who were able to cite policies and guidelines in support of those arguments. This recurring problem on Wikipedia just reinforces the need to revisit the guidelines for "self-published sources" by anonymous users and clarify the language, I believe. J Readings (talk) 00:15, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Gun Politics, Kruschke book

Over on the Gun Politics article, this book has been questioned as a non-reliable source. Kruschke, Earl R.. 'Gun Control - A Reference Handbook. ABC-CLIO Inc. 1995. isbn 0-87436-695-X. I am curious of other editor's opinion on this. SaltyBoatr (talk) 02:16, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The book is one of several books written by a political science professor at a reputable university. It is published by a mainstream publisher, ABC-CLIO. There are few reviews but those that are recommend it. Appears a reliable source to me.--Slp1 (talk) 14:08, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree. According to JSTOR, Kruschke is quite an active political science professor, but I couldn't find any academic reviews of this particular book. For what it's worth, other academics favorably reviewed his other books including The Right to Keep and Bear Arms: a Continuing American Dilemma (1985). J Readings (talk) 14:30, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Kruschke is a reliable source, SaltyBoatr. However, considering the fact that the article currently cites:

• Frontpage magazine
• Ted Nugent
• Haciendapub.com
• John Lott, Jr. (a study that was later disavowed by his co-researcher and criticized for inaccuracy)
• Wayne LaPierre, President of the NRA
• A number of political opinion pieces, including the one above from Japan

I think we have a lot more bad sources to worry about than that book from Kruschke. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 15:27, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I commented on the talkpage. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 15:38, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Naggar

Is Professor Dr. Zaghloul. R. M. EL-NAGGAR a reliable source? According to his CV, he has been professor King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Kuwait University, King Saud University and Qatar University. He has also been research assistant at University College of Wales and Robertson Research Laboratories.Bless sins (talk) 05:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

For others: Please also note that according to WP:RS, he satisfies none of the requirements:

• The material has been thoroughly vetted by the scholarly community. This means published in peer-reviewed sources, and reviewed and judged acceptable scholarship by the academic journals.
• Items that are recommended in scholarly bibliographies are preferred.

In short, this is just an Islamic apologist with a degree and a personal website. None of his work has been published in academic journals, or has been peer reviewed. He is no different from anyone else having a degree which many people have but are not necessarily RS's. The same applies to Maurice Bucaille, and William Campbell. People are reliable sources if they are respected in their community for their expertise. If its a strictly personal localized affair, it doesnt fly because everyone can qualify for that. But not everyone has stuff in academic journals. Please also note that this is a guy who is trying to prove a connection between science and Islam. Also since he's a religious/partisan source, he would not qualify under WP:RS#Extremist sources, which says "Organizations and individuals that are widely acknowledged as extremist, whether of a political, religious or anti-religious, racist, or other nature, should be used only as sources about themselves". Naggar is a religious source obviously. His personal website is plenty proof of that. --Matt57 ^{(talk•contribs)} 05:43, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Please note that being a "religious source" is different than being an "extremist source" or "extremist religious source". The last two are clearly unreliable, but merely being "religious" doesn't automatically disqualify one as a reliable source.Bless sins (talk) 05:47, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

It is still a religious partisan source and we are told to avoid them usually because of their bias. Also, the fact remains that none of his work has been reviewed by the scientific community or published in academic journals. I will let other uninvolved editors comment further on this. --Matt57 ^{(talk•contribs)} 05:54, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Please note that your suggestion would mean that authors such as Daniel Pipes are unreliable when not publishing in "academic journals".Bless sins (talk) 06:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

ROFL, what a horrible last name. Bless sins, did you really have to put it all in caps, lol. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 08:15, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I just copied it straight from his CV (I know I was being lazy, I din't want to misspell it).Bless sins (talk) 19:30, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Where do you want to quote him? Relata refero (talk) 15:29, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I want to use him for providing a scientific perspective on the Qur'an. I think he should good for that because of his association (and high posts in) the following organizations: Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, Cairo, Egypt; Islamic Academy of Sciences, Amman, Jordan; and The Muslim Association For The Advancement of Science, Aligarh, India. These are all mainstream organizations reflecting the views of mainstream Muslim scholars.

Ofcourse, his views will be attributed, and won't be treated as facts. I understand that he is definitely not an ideal source, but not all sources on wikipedia are published in peer-reviewed journals and university presses.Bless sins (talk) 19:30, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Here's a list of fellows at the IAS in Amman. (That's just this year.) The MAAS at AMU is basically a social organisation, which does great work in trying to get Indian Muslims more interested in science and tech, but little more than that. I don't know about the Egyptian thing. Here's what I think: this is a person more notable as a Muslim scientist than as a scientist who happens to know something about Islam-related science/the Qur'an. There is a difference. If he is quoted in articles as we would quote - in, say, articles about Genesis - scientists notable for trying to reconcile their Christian faith with the Biblical narrative, I'd have no objection. Relata refero (talk) 20:29, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Notability doesnt imply anything about reliability. Naggar made a personal website and lectures and what not. Ofcourse he'll then be notable because Muslims will be touting his stuff around as facts. Ali Sina and Robert Spencer are notable as well, Spencer being more notable than Naggar but he was labelled as an extremist source and therefore not reliable. It seems if its anything anti-Islamic, the label "extremist" is quick to be applied but if its pro-Islamic people are more lenient. This guy Naggar has nothing other than a few degrees in Islam and science. No peer reviewed stuff, no academic journals or commentary by the scholarly community. He's a single guy, Islamic apologetic, trying to prove the link between science and Islam. Being members of a some Islamic organizations means nothing - they're a dime a dozen. Anyone can form an Islamic organization. Reliability means that a person is known in that area and recognized by other people of the same area in a scholarly way. Does this apply to Naggar? Not at all. Just another guy with a PHD and even if that was true, it doesnt imply reliability. There are some basic requirements for reliability which say "Can we depend on this guy for making this opinion? Who is he? Is he someone authentic or just an Islamic apologist with a degree?" The latter is the case here. If Naggar was published in recognized academic scientific journals, he would be acceptable. Otherwise this is just a personal essay from a guy who has a PhD no different than all of our friends here: Category:Wikipedians with PhD degrees --Matt57 ^{(talk•contribs)} 16:31, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Just want to pick you up on something: no academic, peer-reviewed journals? Did you miss the 100+ journals listed on his CV? I have no problem with sticking to RS material which mentions El-Najjar, but I was under the impression that a professor of Geology could be used for at least geology-related analyses. ITAQALLAH 17:47, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there appear to be quite a few journal articles listed, many of which are Western, as well. Relata refero (talk) 18:50, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree we should not quote this guy for facts. However, the article in question "scientific perspective on the Qur'an" is apparently religious, opinion. Hence, if we have to have such an article (do we?), then I'd have thought he was ideal. Only the Islamic apologetic should be included, unless you have a problem with such people of course. PR^talk 17:29, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Not only the apologetics. But they're presumably relevant. As I said, he shouldn't be quoted as a scientist, but as an writer of apologetics. Have a look at Gary Habermas. This guy's the equivalent, except as a scientist where Habermas is a historian. Relata refero (talk) 18:50, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Regarding what Itaqallah said, I didnt know he had journals published. In that case we should only use articles which have been published and not persona essays. Thoughts? --Matt57 ^{(talk•contribs)} 05:28, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Matt57, much of reliable content is found outside academic journals. For example, BBC, CNN, Time magazine etc. are reliable but not academic journals. Do you agree?Bless sins (talk) 06:08, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

When X source quotes Y as saying "foobar", can we cite it as "X says foobar"?

The particular issues here are controversial and inflammatory, but in the section header I've tried to summarize the general principle.

We have a paper from the National Science Foundation quoting CSICOP's listing of various topics as pseudoscience. Here is the passage (quote):

What Is Pseudoscience?

Pseudoscience is defined here as "claims presented so that they appear [to be] scientific even though they lack supporting evidence and plausibility" (Shermer 1997, p. 33). In contrast, science is "a set of methods designed to describe and interpret observed and inferred phenomena, past or present, and aimed at building a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or confirmation" (Shermer 1997, p. 17). According to one group studying such phenomena, pseudoscience topics include yogi flying, therapeutic touch, astrology, fire walking, voodoo magical thinking, Uri Gellar, alternative medicine, channeling, Carlos hoax, psychic hotlines and detectives, near-death experiences, Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), the Bermuda Triangle, homeopathy, faith healing, and reincarnation (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal <http://www.csicop.org/>). (unquote)

Is this a reliable source for the assertion that "The National Science Foundation lists homeopathy as a pseudoscience"? thanks, Jim Butler^(talk) 09:57, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• The context of this quote isn't just that the NSF is providing the perspective of CSICOP, but rather that they are adopting CSICOP's formulation as expert evaluators. Considering this, it is absolutely appropriate to say that the NSF considers these topics to be pseudoscientific. The way the statement is phrased is most telling: "According to one group studying such phenomena..." This sentence asserts that the phenomena of pseudoscience can be studied (that is, it is subject to basic demarcation). This is alternatively a straightforward pronouncement of general consensus or, if viewed by true believers, a provacative acceptance as experts of the POV of a skeptical organization. The NSF paper is not quoting CSICOP in order to distance themselves from the claim; rather they are quoting CSICOP as an authority more equipped to provide a list for all the weird and bizarre beliefs that get promulgated as pseudoscience. Ripping this quote out of the paper without reading the rest of the report can mislead readers into misinterpreting this report as being "more conservative" that CSICOP, except they go on to adopt CSICOP studies (for example, the nine-year-old debunking theraputic touch) as plain statements of fact. ScienceApologist (talk) 12:19, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)No. The extract is written very carefully so we cannot, in fact say that the NSF thinks the CSICOP is the only group studying such phenomena, that the CSICOP is the main group studying such phenomena, or that the NSF agrees with the CSICOP about the list. We can at best say "A CSICOP study quoted by the NSF says that homoeopathy is pseudoscience."

If elsewhere they quote the CSICOP as an authority, then elsewhere they quote it as an authority. They do not do so in the matter of the list, and that's that. Relata refero (talk) 13:57, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• • The NSF in no means was even attempting to indicate that CSICOP was the only or main group. The statement LinaMishima (talk) 14:47, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
• The key text is "According to one group." Before this text, NSF is defining Pseudoscience, but is choosing, at least for the time being, not to label anyone as such. The NSF, never says that they are adopting the CSICOP's formulation, and for good reason. These are the claims of a skeptical org and not a scientific body. A prestigious scientific body like the NSF would never take the wholesale claims of a skeptical organization and blindly adopt them. Anthon01 (talk) 13:53, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I have dealt with this on the homeopathy talk page. You clearly displayed a complete lack of understanding of formal writing there, and continue to do so here, claiming 'wholesale claims' would be 'blindly adopted' if the correct interpretation was followed. LinaMishima (talk) 14:47, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• I find you comments humorous. You think because you make a statement on a talk page its true or that its dealt with? There are no mastadons here. Please note who brought this issue to this page. That person doesn't agree with you either, even after you "dealth with it". Anthon01 (talk) 14:58, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• In general, the answer to the question is no, of course. Deborah Lipstadt is quoting David Irving, but to criticize him, not to adopt his statements. In this case, however, the NSF adopts Shermer's definition and the context makes it clear that they also support the classification of homeopathy as a pseudoscience. See the section on Alternative Medicine further down in the statement. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:59, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Then quote the wording in that section. Relata refero (talk) 14:07, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• The key thing here is that this extract comes from a definition of scope. In definitions of scope, references are either disputed, synthesised in whole or in part into a concluding definition, or used in full. As no concluding definition is drawn, it is clear that they are supporting all three definitions presented for pseudoscience. This is certainly not the case with all similar situations. LinaMishima (talk) 14:47, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• Again that's OR on your part. Anthon01 (talk) 15:00, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Unless the NSF states somewhere that they are adopting the CSICOP's formulation, we can not assume they are doing so. We can say that they quote it and discuss the context of how they quote it, but we can not draw unsupported conclusions from that. Blueboar (talk) 15:05, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes quoted definitions are left as quoted definitions by the quoting body precisely because they do not want to give those definitions additional sanction. We have no way of determining whether this was or was not the case in this instance. `Relata refero (talk) 15:10, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes? Always on wikipedia when dealing with minority opinions. ;-) Anthon01 (talk) 15:15, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• This an exceptional claim to make against a profession, that is actively participating in scientific research to help establish if and where homeopathy might have some application. The text in question, is at best ambiguous in supporting the claim that the NSF labels homeopathy pseudoscience. Such a claim require exceptionally clear, explicit statement by the NSF or another nationally recognized scientific body in order for that claim to be verified. Anthon01 (talk) 15:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
• I'll say what I already said at Talk:Homeopathy: any reasonable reader should understand that the NSF paper uses the CSICOP list as examples of phenomena that meet the definition of pseudoscience that they employ earlier. But for some reason, there are many Wikipedia editors who insist on unreasonable interpretations of texts, and refuse to believe that a text means something unless it's spelled out in the most literal fashion. By the logic that says the NSF is not adopting CSICOP's formulation, we must also say that they are not defining "pseudoscience" or "science"--because they quote another authority (Shermer) for those definitions rather than speaking in their own voice. Obviously, that's ridiculous.

Let me echo Stephan by saying that the paper has an extensive section on alternative medicine. The vast field of alternative medicine apparently falls into the NSF's definition of pseudoscience. And here's a quote from that section: "Alternative medicine is another concern. As used here, alternative medicine refers to all treatments that have not been proven effective using scientific methods. A scientist's view of the situation appeared in a recent book (Park 2000b): 'Between homeopathy and herbal therapy lies a bewildering array of untested and unregulated treatments, all labeled alternative by their proponents...'" Again, even though homeopathy is mentioned in a text quoted by the NSF, it's clear that it's one of the "treatments that have not been proven effective using scientific methods," i.e. pseudoscience. A bit further on, the NSF summarizes another study: "Furthermore, among the 16 therapies included in the study, the largest increases between 1990 and 1997 were in the use of herbal medicine (a 380 percent increase), massage, megavitamins, self-help groups, folk remedies, energy healing, and homeopathy." Again, homeopathy is included among unscientific methods. --Akhilleus (talk) 15:17, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not quite ridiculous to say the NSF does not define pseudoscience, if they in fact do not do so, but quote Shermer. I don't see the problem; if Shermer is good enough for the NSF, he should be good enough for us. Ditto, if CSICOP is good enough to quote by the NSF, if not directly endorse, then its good enough to quote for us. Why is there a problem?

There is a reason why a politically-appointed body might not wish to take a strong stand on pseudoscientific methods. We have to accept that their publications are unlikely to come out and say things directly, and work around that. Simply put, the NSF can direct us to reputable sources that we can then use. For example, we can use the summary Akhilleus quotes, but to derive from that that the NSF agrees with all the assumptions of the study it's summarizing wouldn't be justifiable. And why should we? Why fetishize the NSF? Relata refero (talk) 15:26, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

This discussion is moot because CSICOP has, in the words of WP:V, "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy," and is thus a reliable source in its own right. MilesAgain (talk) 15:42, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Indeed... remember that the question was whether we can say that the NSF has stated that homeopathy is pseudoscience based upon their qouting CSICOP doing so. The answer to that question is: "No" ... we can only say that they quote CSICOP as doing so, and in what context they quote it. There is, however, nothing wrong with stating that CSICOP has labled homeopathy as such. Blueboar (talk) 15:56, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

No, Jim. You can't because it's a false claim. The NSF did not say that. The NSF cited a source which said that. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:29, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, before somebody says "verifiability, not truth." Yes, I know that. Don't insult my intelligence with such a cliche remark. What I mean is that according to WP:V, we should state what the sources themselves say. In this case, there is no source of NSF saying, "Pseudoscience is X." They simply invoke that definition in one of their papers, therefore the claim has not been verified.

It is a fairly reasonable definition, though. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:31, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• The NSF did not state "pseudoscience topics include X," they stated "According to one group [CSICOP] studying such phenomena, pseudoscience topics include X." That's a very clear distinction. Granted, the context makes it clear that NSF took CSICOP's view seriously, but they didn't state it as their own view. Claiming that the NSF stated CSICOP's view as their own is outright misrepresentation of the source. <eleland/talkedits> 20:04, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

The NSF doesn't really say anything is anything period. They fund research in a variety of areas. This project was undoubtebly with funding from the NSF, thus when the report comes out it is noted that funding comes from the NSF, but the actual research is coming from CSICOP. The NSF is just reporting on NSF funded research. Arzel (talk) 20:14, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Undoubtly what? Is that you opinion or do you have a source to support that? Anthon01 (talk) 23:20, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

For Arzel: I don't see any evidence that the NSF funded CSICOP's "research" here. --Jim Butler^(talk) 20:53, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

• As the question is put, "When X quotes Y saying Foobar can we cite "X says foobar"? -- In general, the answer is no. And in this case, it is a close call, but I have to agree that unless the National Science Foundation actually says, "This is our opinion" we cannot cite something as their opinion, even if they quote it. Their quote specifically attributes to another entity and though it suggests agreement it does not actually grant it the same authority as a NSF statement. --Blue Tie (talk) 00:00, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

• Much appreciation for feedback above. For the record, I agree with Zenwhat and Blue Tie on this, and would answer "no, not quite" to the question I posed. In practice the only thing that is impacted by this question is the presence or absence of the category:pseudoscience tag at Homeopathy (for an explanation of why this is the case, see Talk page there, or more concisely, User:Jim_Butler#Categories). We can still cite the source truthfully, and explain the arguments in the article. regards, Jim Butler^(talk) 20:53, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

It is worth pointing out that, in addition to Akhilleus' noted additional instances above, similar language appears in the Science & Engineering Indicators reports from several other years. I do not think that it would be mischaracterizing the tone of the report to cite as such, though 'NSF SEIND cites ...' is more pedantically accurate. Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 08:53, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Bollocks on that - pedantically correct is the best correct. This NSF report is obviously critical of homeopathy and lends credence to its classification as pseudoscience. The fact that they cited CSICOP favorably in this matter lends WP:WEIGHT to CSICOP's findings, but does not comprise a policy statement. They do not themselves make any specific assessment or assertion for homeopathy in the same way that they do for e.g. astrology and magnet therapy. Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 22:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

• I don't think this essay was written with much rigor at all, frankly. The definition given for pseudoscience is "claims presented so that they appear [to be] scientific even though they lack supporting evidence and plausibility," as quoted by one author, but then, in the same paragraph, CSICOP is quoted as listing faith healing as a pseudoscience. While I am sure there are some individuals who might claim a scientific basis for faith healing, on the face of it, it is belief, not science, and therefore should not be called pseudoscience (most who practice a similar type of healing with a claimed scientific backing would not be calling it faith healing). This is evidence for a very lax standard of analysis and must be taken into account if one is going to use this quote to represent the NSF's opinion; this is an informal essay giving voice to some sector of the NSF. The definition of pseudoscience starts with "is defined here [emphasis mine]" -- i.e., in this essay -- the author clearly did not want to even appear to be making a policy statement. Friarslantern (talk) 21:32, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Page archived

I've archived the previous version of this. No way am I editing a page when it takes 30 seconds for each letter to appear when I'm typing. You regulars really ought to know better than to let a page get to more than 500k in length. x_x Jtrainor (talk) 04:04, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Just so you know, some of those threads were still live. Silly rabbit (talk) 04:16, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Err, yes. several of them were. I had archived some threads already. I'm going to restore some now. Relata refero (talk) 06:08, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Allegations of state terrorism committed by the United States

This page has extensive problems with biased, POV sources that violate WP:REDFLAG, and there's an edit war going on over it; one editor is attempting to clean up material and sources that violate policies, and the WP:OWNers of the page are reverting everything he does. I've dropped by to aquire some outside input on the subject as to which sources/references in the article are reliable under the current policies. Hopefully doing this will help fix the ongoing problems there. Jtrainor (talk) 04:04, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Well there are 184 sources in the article. Can you be a bit more specific?Bless sins (talk) 04:12, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

The actual problem (speaking as another editor who has worked on the article, and I differ with Jtrainor here) is that User:Raggz (to whom Jtrainor is referring) misunderstands an aspect of the verifiability policy, namely the "redflag" section, and attempts to use it as a means to delete sources that generally meet our standards for reliability. Much of the dispute on the talk page is over the understanding of the "redflag" section of WP:V. If someone wants to help out with the dispute it would be appreciated. I can try to give a more full accounting of the situation if that's the case.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Bigtimepeace, here. The various contested claims, raised per Redflag, have withstood scrutiny and have been substantiated by various other scholarly sources. For example, see here for a list of additional sources found to support the claims made about Cuba that were being contested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BernardL/Sandbox4 What I think we see here is that a case of some editors who simply "don't like" what is being said, and therefore they must be right (their own opinion), and the sources must be wrong.:) Hence, since they don't agree with it it must be "exceptional" in nature, and they argue has to be echoed in the mainstream US popular press (which is not what policy says, not to mention these are not really exceptional claims to begin with).Giovanni33 (talk) 05:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I've just looked over the talkpage, and it appears that the loci of the dispute are several quotes. The most prominent example accuses the US of financing state terrorism through aid to Israel and committing it by bombing Afghanistan. (The same quote also mentions the Palestinian "national liberation struggle".) I'm not sure that too exceptional a claim, but even so, its from a well-known peer-reviewed journal, and written apparently by a professor of international law who's prominent in the field. I have no opinion on the use of the quote, which must have been taken out of context because otherwise it sounds a little silly (or perhaps dated, to early in the Second intifada), but as far as the source goes, I don't think I can claim that it's anything but excellent. Relata refero (talk) 18:30, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

ghthesoap.com

This site is being used to support claims in a few different articles, notably Supercouple and List of supercouples. There has been discussion at Talk:List_of_supercouples#References.3F and Talk:Supercouple#OR_and_bad_sources, where admin Jossi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has tried to point this out to no avail. From the site's own "About us" page - "All information displayed on the site is fan driven. The production team behind the website will keep our opinions and views restricted to such media as articles."[16] Pairadox (talk) 08:04, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Blacklist it. MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#Proposed additions

You especially can't use fan-sites in WP:BLP. The site is also used on the articles on Kelly Monaco and Maurice Benard. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:10, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

It's been added. MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#ghthesoap.com ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:26, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I proposed to add it but that addition was rejected. You'll just have to remove it and hope they don't linkfarm again, even though they probably will. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 06:49, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

futoncritic.com

A couple, not a whole lot, of user are using Futoncritic.com as some sort of bible when it comes to future episode airings. It's gotten to the point of problematic and the user has been told a number of times by various editors to stop using it. As she keeps insisting that it is reliable, I felt it was time to bring it here. (Thanks Pairadox for leading me here). See this comment [17] where apparently she believes you "can't get more reliable than the futon critic." The privacy policy at Futon critic seems to indicate that it's a pay to have your stuff site. I didn't think that counted as reliable sourcing. Can we discuss? IrishLass (talk) 18:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. This is a tough one to answer. My first impression was to laugh and say, "Get rid of it," but I read they're about us page and it's somewhat convincing. They've been up for 10 years, they're good enough that they sell ads independently, they focus exclusively on TV information, and they do original stories. Wikipedia shouldn't discriminate against New media so long as it's reliable. The only thing I'd add is: Check to see if it's cited by reliable third-parties. FutonCritic on Google pops up 404k results, suggesting it's pretty widely-used, despite the silly name. About their privacy statement, I think you misunderstand it: They collect information from users to sign up on behalf of their clients, the advertisers. It's not like Digg where anybody can sign up and upload content. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 00:43, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Discussion of interest on hard to find, archaic sources

FYI, this section is fascinating here. Please read and weigh in there. An editor is asserting it could be OR and unacceptable to make an article from sources that wouldn't be readily available to everyone, or using old harder to find sources. Lawrence § t/e 00:56, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

This is true. I.E., not too long ago I dealt with somebody trying to use a Korean newspaper that wasn't published in English or archived online. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 04:28, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Blogs of respectable news organisations?

There's a dicussion underway [Talk:Stormfront_%28website%29#What_the_hell_is_going_on_with_this_.22blog.22_thing.3F here] as to whether apparent blogs of the BBC and CNN are reliable sources, and also if an article from a reliable source (New Times) that is hosted on a third party website is reliable. The relevant links are [18], [19] and [20]. Expert attention very much appreciated as it is a controversial article. Skomorokh ^confer 02:17, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, these are not Blog postings... they are news reports posted on the website of legitimate news outlets. There is a difference. These are reliable sources no different than if they appeared on the television report (in fact, they often are little more than transcripts of television reports) or in a print newspaper. Blog postings appearing on the web sites of mainstream media outlets such as CNN or BBC are equivalent to Op-Ed pieces appearing in major newspapers. The news orgainization is acting as the publisher of the posting author's opinion. Such postings would be reliable for statements as to the opinion of the author, but not for statements of fact. As for the NYT article... why use a third party?... better to use the NY Times article itself. Blueboar (talk) 02:25, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

As Blueboar noted, the BBC article is an article, not a blog entry, and so is as reliable as the reporting agency and their sources (being the BBC, this is likely very highly reliable). However, it must be noted that the BBC does have a blog network [21]. The key test when evaluating blogs of a respectable source is to check for a line such as "the views expressed here are the opinion of the author and do not represent the views of the organisation as a whole". It should be noted that the BBC blog network does not have such a disclaimer, meaning they are likely to have internal policies about writing entries, requiring that facts are stuck to and speculation must be based off evidence and existing research (rather than a fanciful whim - unless stated, of course). With a disclaimer, professional hosted blogs by respected journalists are personal opinions only, whereas without they are endorsed editorial commentary. LinaMishima (talk) 02:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

But since they are editorial commentary they should be presented in our articles as opinions, not as facts. We can say: "according to columnist Joe Journalist, of CNN, such and such is fact"... but we can not bluntly say "such and such is fact" and cite to the blog. A print newspaper's editorial column or op-ed page would require the same attribution.Blueboar (talk) 02:59, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

• Some are editorial commentary. The Washington Post has a number that largely aren't. So as always, it depends. If a BBC blog provides some data as a fact, I think it meets RS requirements. But opinions would need what you've stated. Hobit (talk) 03:20, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

That said, I have heard the Chicago Tribune blogs are pretty awful and unmonitored. Adam Cuerden ^talk 03:24, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

There are also so called blogs where the start is a news article or a responsible editorial--and then the comment from the public follows. The lead-off article would be a RS. The Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog is one such example DGG (talk) 04:31, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Usually the piece placed to start off the blog discussion is an excerpt from the newspaper itself, and the original article would be the better source. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:50, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Generally, yes. But sometimes the blog publication is earlier (CHE is a weekly, not a daily), and sometimes it is the only free online version, or even the only online version. Of course is such case both the authentic version and the convenience online version should be cited.DGG (talk) 19:28, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

SoapCentral.com

I was going to post this in the ghthesoap.com section above, but decided to give this topic its own section. What about www.soapcentral.com? There really aren't many soap opera sites out there that Wikipedia considers reliable. Soapcentral.com, while some may call it a fansite, is extremely reliable, as seen with articles like As Strike Winds On, Soaps Are a Hot Commodity and WGA Takes Issue With Soap Opinion Column. And Wikipedia's soap opera articles rely heavily on it. It's right up there with soapoperadigest.com in its reliability and I'd like to get some feedback on it now, as I would hate to see it banned (you know, blacklisted) from Wikipedia without most of us who use it knowing. It's considered a reliable source by WikiProject Soap Operas. And it serves articles such as Todd Manning well, where some of the information may not be available elsewhere on the internet in reliable sources, and when access to magazine articles where the same information could be accessed is unavailable to the editor simply because they don't have or know about the article. I'm unaware of if this site has been brought here for discussion before, but I felt now was as good as time as any, if that isn't the case...and so I can know either way, considering that if it has been brought here for discussion before, I don't know about it. Flyer22 (talk) 04:22, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

From their Terms of Use: "SOC is a distributor (and not a publisher) of content supplied by third parties and Subscribers. Accordingly, SOC has no more editorial control over such content than does a public library, bookstore, or newsstand. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers, or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including information providers, Subscribers or any other user of soapcentral.com, are those of the respective author(s) or distributor(s) and not of SOC. Neither SOC nor any third-party provider of information guarantees the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content, nor its merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose." Just for the curious.... Pairadox (talk) 04:45, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

All that said, again I point out that this site is extremely reliable and is a great asset to many soap opera articles on Wikipedia, such as reporting the firing of Richard Culliton and what went down with the controversy over character Frankie Stone, information that I cannot find anywhere else in a reliable source on the net but everyone knows about...as it's been stated in several soap opera magazine articles. I don't have access to any of those articles where he responded to the controversy about his character creation Frankie Stone's death...or specific articles on his firing in 2002, but soapcentral.com has information on that. Losing this site on Wikipedia would be a great disservice to many soap opera articles. I've worked with several excellent editors who know Wikipedia like the back of their hand and none felt that soapcentral.com was a source that I shouldn't use, such as when getting feedback on the Bianca Montgomery and Maggie Stone article (an article that I will be nominating for GA or FA status soon after a few more tweaks), and soapcentral.com is extremely important to that article when adding information on Richard Culliton's part in writing characters Frankie and Maggie Stone. This site is very important for sourcing soap opera-related articles, and as such I cannot see any good in discontinuing its use. Flyer22 (talk) 05:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Are there any FA or GA soap opera articles that used soapcentral.com at the time of their elevation? That would indicate that a wider slice of the community has already weighed in on the reliability of it. Pairadox (talk) 06:07, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Hey, Pairdox. And, unfortunately, no, because we don't have that many soap opera articles that have been elevated to GA or FA status. We have Pauline Fowler (FA), EastEnders (GA), and Coronation Street (previous Featured Article). And that's all...I think. But neither of those articles need soapcentral.com because soapcentral.com is an American site with no part of their site dedicated to those three British topics I just mentioned. I suspect that any soap opera article that I've worked on to improve, and then I were to nominate that article, with it using soapcentral.com, would be the first to have that source under scrutiny. But, really, there have been other great editors that have "scrutinized" the sources I've used in the articles I've been working hardest on, where soapcentral.com is used and none felt that it was unreliable. Bignole, for instance, who worked on me with the Bianca Montgomery and Maggie Stone article, checked that article up and down, and I feel that he would have mentioned soapcentral.com needing to be yanked if he felt that it was unreliable. He elevated the Jason Voorhees article to FA status, and I trust him. Maybe my best bet is to just take one of these articles I've worked hard on to the GA or FA nomination process and see what happens there, with these articles using soapcentral.com as a source. Flyer22 (talk) 06:29, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I can point to a minimum of four errors without checking for soapcentral.com and it is updated by fans. I know this because I had to contact them regarding one of our trolls from here, a Mr. Grant Chuggle. They base a lot on opinion, their own, and not true storylines. My favorite glaring error is this one [22], last paragraph where Brandon left Harmony. For those unfamiliar with Days of our Lives, the show is set in Salem, not Harmony. Harmony is Passions. If they can't get something so simple correct, I don't feel they are a reliable source. Also, and this is a big pet peeve, they make up SORAS ages. People want to use soapcentral.com ages but they aren't based in fact, they are based on speculation. I am curious where they have no control over content came from, or maybe I'm reading that wrong. They do the editing and even advertise for fans to update the daily summaries. I find that to be a fansite and nothing more. They regurgitate rumours as fact and then respected agents have to run around like mad men explaining their clients' contracts because people think soapcentral.com is gospel. While they are an okay site, they aren't complete and they pick and choose too much. I would say, absolutely no on a reliability level unless we can pick and choose. They aren't reliable on ages, their spoilers are iffy and even some of their character histories are wrong. What are they right on? IrishLass (talk) 13:51, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

IrishLass, they are right on everything else. Their character bios, like you just pointed out, may be mostly fan-updated. But those editors are chosen carefully. I've also contacted them about such. Soapcentral is seen as the gospel by users because it is extremely accurate in its news reports and articles, like I linked to above. It isn't the most visited soap opera news site for nothing. It's control is no different than a library, as it says, "SOC has no more editorial control over such content than does a public library, bookstore, or newsstand." They are a distrubutor of content supplied by third parties and subscribers...who happen to be very reliable. No different than a library. And soapcentral really is indeed like a library for everything soap-related (American, I must admit). Most of their information is not speculated. They are often the first to report big happenings in the soap world, which turn out true every time. The only thing I've seen that may be a problem is their character bios, but even those are 99.9% correct. Our project, WikiProject Soap Operas, can include to exlude that, but this site should absolutely not be excluded from Wikipedia. Surely, you know how much losing this site on Wikipedia would harm soap opera articles. There aren't many soap opera sites out there that Wikipedia would consider reliable. Soapcentral is one of the more reliable ones out there, and losing it would truly be a sad hit to soap opera-related articles on Wikipedia. Flyer22 (talk) 19:11, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree losing it would be bad, for some information. But what about the ages and changing of the dates of birth? How do we address that because they admit they guestimate those. The age issue is really my sticking point on using it. That and the character bios that are blatently wrong. IrishLass (talk) 19:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

We clearly need to come up with a guideline at our project, where we exlude character bios from that site. That's the only problem I've seen you have with that site. Like the characters' birth dates, for instance. Although, they happen to be right on the birth date concerning Erica Kane and others, and I'd hate to lose using that site as a means for sourcing birth dates that most viewers, not just soapcentral, have trouble keeping up with. But if we can't trust their character bios as often as we think, then we should exclude the use of that if it will allow us to keep using the very valuable aspects of that site, such as its news reports and news articles. Perhaps we should get Elonka to help us out on this. Flyer22 (talk) 19:29, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I think we've reach an agreement point. My issue is not about the day of the birthdates, it is making up the years. They have Bo Brady born in 1963 and that's impossible. He's not 45 with a 30 year old son that was born when Bo was nearly 30. You know what I'm saying. If we can establish that years of birth via soapcentral cannot be used and character history should have a second source (another example is the phrasing of that EJ/Sami night that gives us such fits) when it's not plot point but opinion, I could be persuaded to agree. But, you are completely right, Elonka should be brought in to this and I do have a huge issue with the ages thing. BTW, the Erica thing cracks me up. I'm sure at 61 Susan Lucci thinks it's great someone thinks she's 46.IrishLass (talk) 19:51, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we've most definitely come to an agreement. We should discuss this further at the project. And, yes, the Erica thing cracks me up as well. But, hey, the show did de-SORAS her. Flyer22 (talk) 23:31, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

The news articles on that site are most definitely needed for Wikipedia soap opera articles. Those are reported by people such as Elizabeth Albanese and Dan J Kroll (the site's creator), etc., and are always reliable. I've copied-and-pasted this topic at WikiProject Soap Operas for further discussion. I'll still weigh in here if more comments are stated here about this topic. But just so everyone knows, it's there too, so that WikiProject Soap can tackle this. Flyer22 (talk) 00:16, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

are birth date discrepancies necessarily errors of the source? I though such things happened frequently in soap opera plots--they are mentioned in a number of the articles? DGG (talk) 05:01, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

LOL, DGG. You mentioned what I mentioned above, that birth dates are something that most viewers have trouble keeping up with when it comes to soap opera characters, not just soapcentral. Anyway, if you mean are soap opera birth dates mentioned in a lot of Wikipedia soap opera articles, yes. But soapcentral isn't used for the majority of those. It's usually some random IP address filling in the ages of soap opera characters on Wikipedia, without any sources. As for soapcentral, their articles don't usually include stuff about a character's birth date, unless it's character bios we're talking about. Soapcentral's articles are usually either news articles or critical commentary articles. Their character bios, which are written more so by fans (though well-selected fans), have more of a chance of being wrong. Although, from what I've seen of them, they are often right. I mean, it's not like any of the character bios are blatantly made up. I'm sure soapcentral would throw out any editor who was making up a character's history. The thing is, though, their character bios can be wrong about things such as a character's birth date. I had never seen a character bio there wrong about the town a character lives in, but IrishLass has pointed out above where that has happened. I look at it more as a typo, however. Either way, it seems that the best thing to do is to restrict or somewhat restrict using soapcentral when it comes to character bios, but to continue using it for news information. Flyer22 (talk) 05:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Another thing... IrishLass, are you sure that the matter over what seems like soapcentral's confusion over Bo's age doesn't have to do with him or his children having been SORASed? Like his children having been SORASed, which in turn de-SORASed him, no matter how much of a young age we are to believe he conceived a child. Flyer22 (talk) 05:48, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

It'd probably be best if you answered that at the project, IrishLass. Instead of answering here and there too, or copying and pasting your answer there too. Flyer22 (talk) 06:19, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Anti-Christian sentiment

Very poor sourcing on this article, and to my mind too much use of reports in minor Christian news media. I'd appreciate further opinions, because newspapers with a religious affiliation may be RS, e.g. the Jewish Chronicle. Thanks. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:47, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Newpapers with a religious affiliation are certainly RS for the opinions of the religious sect that publishes them... however one does need to be careful to check whether the particular religious sect or denomination publishing the paper passes the undue weight test. An extreme religious view point is probably too Fringy to include in the average article.

We even have to be careful when discussing some Mainstream denominations. Take the Baptists as an example. It is hard to say that anyone speaks for all Baptists. The Baptist Church is fragmented and split. There are large groups (with multiple congregations, comprising hundreds if not thousands of adhearents), and there are small groups (no more than one tiny congregation, with a website) ... all call themselves Baptist. A newspaper that reflects the views of one of the larger sects would certainly be notable. One reflecting the views of one of the small sects may not be. It is important to find out which you are dealing with, determine how much weight the publishing body should be given, and attribute any statements so the reader knows who is saying what and how prevelant the views expressed are. Blueboar (talk) 14:17, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Megalommatis

Is Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis a WP:RS? He presents himself as: Orientalist, Assyriologist, Egyptologist, Iranologist, and Islamologist, Historian, Political Scientist, Dr. Megalommatis, 49, is the author of 12 books, dozens of scholarly articles, hundreds of encyclopedia entries, and thousands of articles. He speaks, reads and writes more than 15, modern and ancient, languages.[23] Now I personally don't think he is reliable, but some Wikipedians are trying to insert his articles as some sort of reliable source in various Wikipedia articles. Some of the articles he is currently featured in (as source, external link or otherwise): Anuak, Bibliography of the Darfur conflict, Kush, Colombia. Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL Google scholar only yields one hit. He seems like a fraud or a con-artist to me and should be excluded from all articles on Wikipedia. Some of the claims he has made are quite hilarious though: The Assyrian and Israelite Origin of the Northern Europeans and Americans does anyone really believe that? — EliasAlucard (Discussion · contribs) 23:05, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

An accurate description of this gentleman might be an independent writer. He does not seem to hold an academic post or to publish articles in peer-reviewed journals or books with good publishers. The onus is on those who want to refer to him to show that he is reliable. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:46, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Come again? Gentleman? You bestow this guy such a lofty title? He presents himself as an Assyriologist, Egyptologist, Iranologist, Political Scientist, and yet he doesn't have any real academic or scholarly books published, and you consider him to be a gentleman? Clearly, there's something very fishy about this guy and he does not seem to be whom he claims to be. I say he's most definitely unreliable. So what should we do with the articles where he's cited/linked to? — EliasAlucard (Discussion · contribs) 02:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

If he is being used as the only source for contentious claims, remove him. Relata refero (talk) 13:17, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Mark Juergensmeyer

Is Mark Juergensmeyer a reliable source for the inclusion of N.Irish terrorism in Christian terrorism? He is a highly respected expert on religious terrorism, with hundreds of relevant publications to his name. The cited source in which he regards N.Ireland terrorism as religious in nature is published by the University of California Press. To quote WP:SOURCES "In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks;" However, User:Mamalujo is arguing that Juergensmeyer is fringe and should be disregarded. I would welcome some other editors weighing in on Talk:Christian_terrorism. The contrast between the inclusion criteria for this article, where university published academics are rejected in order to shorten the list, and Islamic terrorism, where the views of general pundits are accepted, is a blatant violation of neutrality. Chris Bainbridge (talk) 23:42, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Juergensmeyer is certainly a reliable source... what we would call an 'expert' in the field. If there is a question as to the factualness of something he says, it can be expressed as his opinion ("according to Mark Juergensmeyer... etc."). Blueboar (talk) 23:50, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Dr. Herman Daly and monetary economics

This is the easiest version of the source to access:

• Daly, Herman. "Ecological Economics: The Concept of Scale and Its Relation to Allocation, Distribution, and Uneconomic Growth" (PDF). University of Maryland. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-01-11. Retrieved 2008-01-11.

This is the academic vetting of the source:

• Peer-reviewed by CANSEE in 2003 and during the The Global Conscience Conference (Copenhagen, May 2004, ISBN: 87-89843-66-5). Also, published by both Anthem Press and Edward Elgar Publishing. In addition, can be found in the bibliographies of the following: a scholarly writing at the Simon Fraser University, another published by the Royal Society of New Zealand (Mar 2004), a doctoral dissertation submitted to the Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa, another submitted to the Università degli Studi di Verona, the Local Environment (2005) journal, the International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology (2005), etc. and has been accepted into curriculum of various universities.

Dr Daly's general credentials can probably be found here:

• Herman Daly
• Born in 1938, Daly earned his B.A. at Rice University (1960) and Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University (1967). From 1968 to 1988 he taught economics at Louisiana State University. Then he served as Senior Economist in the World Bank's Environmental Department until 1994, when he became a professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs, his current position.

The source is being used to quote Dr Daly's overview of the monetary policy that is presently used in the United States.

Although the material used from the source has no derivation from any economic theory (it's just an observation of processes that are used nearly everyday in the US), an editor is particularly troubled by this source because of the general economic theories that Dr Daly subscribes to.

The editor accepts that the source was published in the manner recommended by WP:RS. However, the editor continues to contend (from their own personal knowledge) that Dr Daly is an unqualified source of any information pertaining to monetary economics, and, more specifically, that Dr Daly is unqualified to draw conclusions about US monetary policy. Despite the vetting of the source, the editor is unable to provide any academic publication that disputes Daly's conclusions about the costs of monetary policy in the US.

Is this source usable in ways that avoid any discussion involving economic theories? Is it proper to dispute the reliability of material within a source that has been published reliably, if none of the writer's peers make objections? BigK HeX (talk) 14:59, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The work by Herman Daly seems to be a conventionally-published book, so to that extent it meets WP:RS. Over at Talk:Monetary policy of the USA, I see that editors are discussing its credibility as a work in economics. If the submitter believes a noticeboard discussion about the Daly book is needed, Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard is a more appropriate place. Otherwise, anyone interested could certainly join in the RfC over at Talk:Monetary policy of the United States#RfC Daly. Whether the Daly work should be cited in that article is more a question of WP:UNDUE weight, since we may ask ourselves whether views that are far off the mainstream should enjoy a central position in what appears to be a plain-vanilla economics article. In that kind of an article, we would normally expect to find mainstream material. We should find non-standard views only if they are widely recognized and commented upon in the field generally, which does not appear to be the case. (Daly's work does not seem to attract comment from conventional economists, a fact that is already quoted from Daly's own book by a participant in the RfC). Daly could be appropriately cited in an article that focuses on a minority viewpoint in economics such as Ecological economics. EdJohnston (talk) 16:19, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Well .. that's the thing. No information that derives from ecological economics (nor even neoclassical economics) is used in the wiki article at all. The argument arises specifically because the specific material in contention is not really a matter of opinion or any kind of subjective view.

"Daly's work does not seem to attract comment from conventional economists"

Well, it would seem that if Daly made egregious errors in relation to monetary economics, then it seems that any of his peers could have pointed out such a problem. Despite the vetting, none have done so.

In the end, I guess I'm wondering whether the discussion of heterodox economics, somehow 'taints' all of the other non-theoretical information within Daly's area of education. I suppose an analogy involving something fringe could be maybe ... an air force pilot's de-classified military report, which describes his encounter with an extraterrestrial UFO. If, within this fringe topic, he describes the difficulty of executing the Herbst manuever in modern jets ... would non-fringe statements within his area of expertise be impeached by his belief in extraterrestrial visitors?

Perhaps WP:BALANCE is a problem, but overall, the source seems reliable for the context in which it is used, no? BigK HeX (talk) 16:59, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Daly's work has been recognized by very notable peers. There was once a famous interchange involving him and Nicolas Georgescu-Roegen [[24]] against Joseph Stiglitz. It was not specifically about monetary but did criticize neoclassical assumptions. There was never any sense among the two other great economists that Daly did not belong in the discussion. That's just one example off the top of my head. Moreover, over the years mainstream economics has been obliged to recognize many of the ecological economics ideas that Daly pioneered, even if some of them do not so overtly. BernardL (talk) 19:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The point is not that Daly's work is contentious in the field of ecological economics. It is, however, being used to support a specific phrasing in monetary economics. There has been a specific, longstanding request to provide a cite that makes the same point from a credible mainstream source; this has not been provided. If there was, for some reason, a shortage of academic work on monetary policy, one might understand, but in this context citing an ecological economist is undue and out of place. Please note that the article which is being cited is not even on the subject of monetary policy or economics, but treats it only tangentially.

The point above about pointing out "errors" is a classic in terms of turning around the question: it can be technically correct (I reserve judgment for this space on whether it is or not) and yet totally irrelevant; no-one has disproven it precisely because it is outside any normal phrasing. And yet, of course, this precise phrasing is important enough that it absolutely must be retained - because it is biased and emphasizes something that mainstream sources do not.

The question that arises should be: what is so "unusual" about the specific citation in question that a mainstream quotation cannot be found that makes the same point? No attention is paid to it whatsoever in monetary economcis. Using it in an article in monetary policy is wp:undue.--Gregalton (talk) 20:17, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Whoa, whoa. There are *multiple* mainstream sources (textbooks, and such) provided that support the exact same conclusion on monetary policy. The "specific phrasing" is provided from Daly because a certain editor demanded an explicit quote, and made it quite clear that nothing less would be acceptable to him/her. Summations of mainstream sources were not satisfactory to the opposing editor ... now, even direct quotes from experienced economists are not sufficient. Also, Gregalton has never explained what is so "unusual" about the specific branch of "monetary economics" that an experienced economist cannot touch into basic concepts of that area without explicit specialization. BigK HeX (talk) 20:37, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Provide those other sources then please. It's not that monetary economics is so unusual, but ecological economics, which Daly himself repeatedly notes is outside mainstream economics.--Gregalton (talk) 04:43, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

.... back on topic (the Daly source), maybe? :o(

This *is* extremely helpful feedback. Thanks to everyone so far! BigK HeX (talk) 06:47, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I've issued a posting on this matter about User:BigK HeX on WP:ANI. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 07:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Use of court documents as reliable sources

Hello folks, a few questions have arisen on the Ilchi Lee talk page about use of court documents as reliable sources, specifically under two circumstances: First, when posted second-hand on a site that is not agreed to be a legitimate source itself. Second, when available only by calling the county to request a copy through the mail. Does anyone have any information about how to judge the verifiability and reliability of official documents in these cases? Thanks! Forestgarden (talk) 04:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Court papers are primary sources, and should only be used with great care, and without interpreting them. Final court decisions are reasonable, but depositions have much lower value and probably shouldn't be used at all. If the court papers are scanned then there's little opportunity for changes, but if they are transcribed then there's a chance that it's been altered. If this is the only source for a controversial assertion then it's probably not good enough, IMO. But if it's just a minor, supporting assertion that supports what is found in secondary sources. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 05:07, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! That is helpful, although of course not conclusive. I have had trouble finding Wiki policies about primary sources -- can anyone provide a specific reference? And Will, the documents in question are scanned not transcribed (which increases their value) but one is just the initial set of accusations by the prosecution (which decreases its value), one is described as a coroner's report (does this increase or decrease the value?), and I haven't been able yet to access the third, apparently including a "Register of Actions" which might include a final decision of some sort. Does that information help with determining useability of the documents? Forestgarden (talk) 07:52, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The policy/guideline is at WP:PSTS. It's hard to set clear boundaries. One thing that helps is to attribute assertions - "The coroner's report said X". The other thing is to avoid drawing conclusions from primary sources. The last point is to find secondary sources that say the same thing. If there's a newspaper report on the same issue, then the primary source might be used to add a detail with less risk of overstepping. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 08:36, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I do not think that court rulings are exactly primary sources as originally envisioned. I do however, think that laws should not be quoted and then interpreted, that would be original research. Opinions from the bench however, are reviews and opinions and interpretations of those laws. I think depositions can be used as sources of statements of the deposed, but should not be taken as statements of fact. --Blue Tie (talk) 10:47, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Polemic and Apologist Sources #1

I have a general question about polemic and apologist sources on religious topics.

Religious topics, say Scientology, Catholicism, Islam, Mormonism, Jehovahs Witnesses, Zionism are focii of opinion and disputes.

• Polemicists seek to subvert, attack, criticize or reject positions against these and other religious views or history.
• Apologists seek to support, defend, harmonize or accept positions supporting those religious views and history against attacks.

Query: To what degree are Polemic and Apologetic sources considered "Reliable Sources"?

In particular:

• Secular press sources will gladly publish cherry-picking, one-sided, controversial books with minimal fact checking if they can make money from them. Are the conclusions of polemic / critical books and periodicals considered reliable sources for statements of fact?
• Adherent sources will easily publish responses, which may not be entirely one sided and may have some good fact checking, nevertheless often express subjective views and cherry pick information as well, drawing their own conclusions, sometimes from the same information used by the polemicists. Are the conclusions of appologetic/ supportive books and periodicals considered reliable sources for statements of fact?

I understand about NPOV and showing both sides. This question involves the presentation of material: Should these things be expressed as facts or as opinions that should be attributed?--Blue Tie (talk) 11:14, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The various conclusions reached about Robert Spencer earlier on this board are generalizable to other apologist/polemical sources. This does not extend to genuinely reliable sources - people with tenure in major universities writing peer-reviewed material or from academic presses. See also the section on Naggar above. Relata refero (talk) 13:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Polemic and Apologist Sources #2

Separately: How would one detect and thus discriminate between polemic, apologetic and "objective" sources? (Each side would call their favored sources "objective".)--Blue Tie (talk) 11:14, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Sources are only more or less reliable, or more or less mainstream as far as we're concerned. Relata refero (talk) 13:16, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Blogs

At Cloverfield (creature) various users have attempted to add that the "creature"'s name is "Clover" and other such details. The source of this comes from this website: [25]. It directs you to "click here for the production notes." That takes you to a page that has a list of quotations, but no mention of authorship, copyright, source, nor any verifiable set of information. The section that claims the crew believed the monster was called "Clover" is not quoted nor given a direct citation. The author of the page, "Jeff Giles" does not back up his data or cite sources, and that I believe he is a blogger, since he is posting in a user area for regular user critiques of movies, and that his homepage, according to [[26]] is the continuation of his blog, "http://www.jefitoblog.com". I do not believe this meets Wikipedia verifiability, because there is no knowledge of the owner, no knowledge of the author, and the individual comment (the production crew calling the creature "clover") appears once and is not attributed to any one person, without any claims of its legitimacy. It appears that it is a piece of rumor inside an unverifiable source linked via a blog. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:05, 1 February 2008 (UTC)