Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

"WP:RSN" redirects here. For "Wikipedia will be ready real soon now", see meta:Eventualism.

Editors can post questions here about whether given sources are reliable, and editors interested in sourcing issues will answer. The reliability of sourcing is heavily dependent upon context, so please include not only the source in question, but the article in which it is being cited, as well as links to any relevant talk page discussions or article diffs. This is a good place to get an outside perspective or a second opinion on an issue, but please use common sense; individual answers are not official policies, though an overall consensus of several editors can generally be relied upon. Do not rely on the first answer that is posted, as that answer may not reflect consensus. Please post new topics in a new section.

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

This noticeboard is not a place for general discussion of issues or for disputes about content.

If your question is about whether material constitutes original research, please use the No original research notice board.

If your question is about undue weight, or other neutral point of view issues please use the NPOV noticeboard.

This noticeboard deals specifically with sources, not articles. General questions about articles, including "which sources in Article X are reliable?" may be beyond the scope of this noticeboard and may be better handled on the article talk page or the talk page of an interested WikiProject.

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Arabic Wikipedia

Again, user: Osm agha is reverting, deleting what he doesn't like about Arabic biased content, i think some intervention is required about this article. thank you.

I don't know what the underlying articles are, but in exploring whether they are RSs this may be of interest -- especially if they are papers in Syria, Saudi Arabia, or Yemen ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index --Epeefleche (talk) 05:33, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

• Hello, the issue has to be adressed, it's a flaming war here, thank you.

• Nothing is done yet, with abnima, or with me!

mako.org.au

Is the website mako.org.au ever a reliable source? It is a kind of public list of convicted (or not) criminals (" 98+% of offenders listed in the MAKO/Files Online and MAKO/Files Online- (WTC) have been convicted by a court of law."), without any kind of official backing, reputation for fact-checking, ... As this is used for extremely sensitive information (identifying paedophiles, murderers, ...), I don't believe that this source is good enough. It is currently used on 36 pages.[1] Any ideas?

Shakespeare authorship question source

Can Terry Ross and David Kathman’s Website, The Shakespeare Authorship Page at http://shakespeareauthorship.com/ be used as a reliable source for the orthodox opinion at the Shakespeare authorship question page? Kathman is profusely published in Shakespeare studies for the past 15 years, and his article “The Question of Authorship”, concerning the Shakespeare authorship question, appears in Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide (2003), edited by well-known Shakespearean scholar Stanley Wells, and published by the Oxford University Press. In addition, according to his CV at http://shakespeareauthorship.com/kathman.html, in April 2001 he was the co-leader (with Jonathan Hope) of a seminar on “Theory and Methodology in Authorship and Attribution Studies” at the World Shakespeare Congress in Valencia, Spain. He has also discussed Shakespeare and the authorship question in newspapers and on radio, including the BBC and National Public Radio. The Web site is recommended by academics to those seeking information about the authorship question, and is referenced in several books as a reliable site for information on the topic. Tom Reedy (talk) 21:23, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, I'll note that I'm not an uninvolved commentator here, since I edit the relevant page and support Tom's view that the website should be used as a crucial resource on this issue. I think it's important to point out that Kathman is a widely published expert on Shakespeare and the Elizabethan theatre [2] [3] and so his website falls under the specific exception to the use of personal websites: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications". Tom is correct that academics themselves reference the site, as for example in Zachary Lesser's article Mystic Ciphers in which he states that "the 'authorship debate' is for academic Shakespeareans what creationism or intelligent design is for evolutionary scientists", and notes that he always refers students to the website, which is "the best introduction to the 'debate' for the intelligent nonspecialist" (p355) [4] The principal opponent of the use of the webpage user:Smatprt will argue that Kathman is not an established expert on the "authorship debate", because he has relatively few peer reviewed publications on that specific topic. IMO, this is an absurd argument since "authorship debate" does not exist in academia and is not part of mainstream scholarship at all. It's like arguing that Richard Dawkins' views on creationism can't be quoted, because he has not actually contributed to "creation science". In the real world of Shakespeare studies Kathman is an undoubted expert. Paul B (talk) 22:44, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Seems like an acceptable WP:SPS to me... like any self published source, it should be used with attribution. Dlabtot (talk) 01:45, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I find it distressing that Paul would first, speak for an opposing editor, then label an argument "absurd" that hasn't even been made yet. This kind of attempt to poison the well, as they say, is unfortunate. I hope that any commentators will take those comments with a grain of salt.

I also wonder why Tom and Paul feel that because some academics recommend this blog, that would make it reliable. The website is clearly a favorite of the most strident and abusive Stratfordians, the kind that ridicule and insult authorship researchers, and label them as insane nutjobs and "heretics". Kathman does the same in print and on his website - repeatedly. Any editor of this page that glances through the site, or pages 620-627 of the Wells book, can easily form their own opinion on this. In the meantime, I would like to offer the following information for consideration:

• The issue is covered extensively by the leading scholars of the day - Matus, Schoenbaum, Bates, and especially, the foremost Shakespeare scholar of our day - Stanley Wells, who has (most recently) issued a point by point rebuttal of the main arguments. In his own words " I have taken part in debates on the authorship, broadcast about it on radio and on television, and written about it in newspapers and in my own books. In general I have tried to be rational, courteous, and tolerant." With acknowledged scholars addressing the issue in every major medium, the need to rely on a self-published website/blog - especially one that has such serious problems - is simply unnecessary.

• The authorship question involves many, many disciplines - including English literature and punctuation, graphology, Palaeography , greek and latin translation, law, medicine, astronomy, etc. Kathman's website delves into all these areas as if he were an expert in everything. Quoting from it would be entirely inappropriate. If there is anything in his book on apprentices that is appropriate for these pages, I have no objection, but nothing I have found (and I have looked) establishes Kathman as an expert on Shakespeare or the multiple issues involved in authorship studies.

• The two references provided by Paul above are not convincing as to establishing expert status. The lone book does indeed establish Kathman as an expert on the Apprentice system during the 1500's. In fact, the Kathman CV mentioned above states "I've done extensive archival research focused on livery companies, apprenticeship, and places other than playhouses (such as inns and taverns) where plays were performed in sixteenth-century London". This hardly establishes Kathman as a RS on Shakespeare or the more refined subject of Authorship studies.

• The CV also mentions Kathman have written "two chapters (on "Players, Livery Companies, and Apprentices" and "Innyard Playhouses") forthcoming in the Oxford Handbook on Theatre History. Again, I think it is clear where his expert status applies. In fact, on Project Muse, the list of Kathman's publications [[5]] total 3 book reviews and the book on Apprentices. Hardly extensive and certainly does not establish him as an expert on Shakespeare or the authorship.

• Kathman's "chapter" in Wells' Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide, consists of 7 pages devoted to the authorship question being debated here - 7 pages, that's it. In it he offers no new research, compares the issue to UFO's, and throws around labels such s "heretics" "debasing", "elitism" and attacks such as "Oxfordians typically twist". He also makes numerous unsupported statements that, from a scholarly standpoint, are impossible to prove (and would never be made by a real scholar). Yet he states them as fact (page 626 for example, states beyond doubt when both Lear and Tempest were written (impossible to prove and orthodox scholars are still arguing about them). On page 627 he advocates the theory that Shakespeare was not well educated - an old theory that has clearly been disproved. Also on page 627 he states that there is no evidence that Oxford and the Earl of Southampton knew each other - an interesting assertion since Oxford's daughter was engaged to the man. And the list of inaccuracies goes on and on. If this represents what Wells would approve, can you imagine the kinds of statements he makes on his blog - with no peer review, no editor, and no need to cite sources?

I think I have laid out my objections fairly clearly. I look forward to hearing the thoughts of the uninvolved editors on this page and will certainly clarify any of the information I have brought forward. Thanks for your consideration. Smatprt (talk) 02:41, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

The argument I labelled absurd has been made repeatedly by you, so don't be disingenous. And there is nothing wrong in supporting another's editor's POV. As for the notion that Kathman's views are on the 'lunatic fringe' to use Crum's characterisation of your claims, that is absurd indeed. Only someone who truly is on the lunatic fringe would think that. As I and Tom have pointed out with evidence, the site is recommended by experts. I challenge any uninvolved editor here to read the website and to assess Kathmen's method of argment. I am convinced that that they will find nothing whatever to justify Smatprt's bizarre portrayal of it as an extremist "blog" that accuses opponents of being "insane nutjobs and 'heretics'". Paul B (talk) 09:59, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I have to admit, I'm a bit confused by this entire discussion. Perhaps that is because editors Barlow and Reedy are so much more well versed in the wikipedia canons of sourcing than I, but it had been my impression that the standard for inclusion was peer review or some similar certification of authority. David Kathman and David Ross's website is just that -- a website started by two individuals. As for citing the fact that in other, more academic, contexts David Kathman has been published, well the same certainly goes for myself, and for quite a number of other Oxfordians, for instance WSU's Michael Delahoyde, who in fact is an editor of the Rocky Mountain Review of Languages and Literature (published by the NW MLA), as well as operating a nice website featuring Oxfordian perspectives. If we are matching academic qualifications, Delahoyde's leave Kathman and Ross in the dust. So, if this wikipedia page is going to include Kathman and Ross's site as a source of authority, simple logic dictates the following sites must also be included as authoritative with respect to their contents:

http://www.shakespearefellowship.org

http://www.shake-speares-bible.com

http://www.shakespearestempest.com

http://wsu.edu/~delahoyd/shakespeare/

And, certainly, http://www.briefchronicles.com, the content of which are, of course, entirely peer reviewed.

There are, I'm sure, more that meet the same test.

Paul, here is a friendly suggestion: when you post comments which are full of basic spelling errors, you greatly diminish your authority as an editor of this page. I'm spelling-challenged myself, but the wiki gurus have supplied you with a spellchecker for this composing space. Why don't you use it? When you don't use it, you look like someone who doesn't care about correct usage, or about the wikipedia community standards. Is that how you want to come across. --131.118.144.253 (talk) 19:42, 3 February 2010 (UTC) (Ben Jonson)

These remarks exemplify the resons why we have WP:RS. Even leaving aside the infantile comments about spelling, always a sign of desperation, we have in both user:Smatprt and 131.118.144.253 (user:Ben Jonson) examples of the claim "I know better than experts, so experts must be overridden". That's why WP:RS and WP:V were introduced in the first place: some editors thought that they could "disprove" experts by force of argument, putting forth their own pet, usually fringe, theories on main pages. Both these editors epitomise this POV, declaring that they can show that Kathman is stupid and that professor Stanley Wells is incompetent. Screeds of WP:OR are introduced to support this. But this board is not for evaluating such claims (rebuttals would take too long). Indeed, we have RS policy precisely to ensure we do not get into such arguments. Ultimately, it does not matter whether Kathman, Wells, or Uncle Tom Cobbley are right or wrong; what matters is whether or not we can properly say what they argue. There is not justification whatever for suppressing the views of a respected and published scholar in the relevant field. Paul B (talk) 20:31, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

As an uninvolved editor, it seems to me that the source meets the SPS "expert" exclusion as RS, since we accept "expert in the field" fairly broadly. But the issue may boil down to WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE, not RS. If, as User:Smatprt seems to argue, his opinions are on the remote lunatic fringe, they should not be mentioned at all. If he is just a small but visible minority, then his views should be presented as such, with the appropriate weighting. In all cases, if his views are mentioned, they should be directly attributed to him (in-text attribution). Crum375 (talk) 03:30, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Smatprt’s first two points—that he is being treated unfairly and that Kathman is abusive (in Smatprt’s opinion) to anti-Stratfordians—have no bearing on whether the Web site is a reliable source. (In fact, Smatprt tries to make the very argument that Paul said he would: that Kathman is not an expert on the Shakespeare authorship question.)

• I find it a strange argument that seeks to limit sources because other academics have also written on the topic. As I have argued at the talk page, there are literally thousands of anti-Stratfordian books and articles—all of which, by the way, promoting a fringe theory that Shakespeare didn’t write his works—but very few works refuting them, because, as Paul points out, it’s not really considered an academic subject by orthodox scholars. David Kathman is a well-known and often-quoted independent scholar (one only has to search his name on Google Scholar to find out) whom academics trust for information on the Shakespeare authorship issue. I don’t know how long Smatprt has been interested in the topic, but Kathman has been writing on the issue for 15 years or better.

• Also, whether Kathman does original research on the authorship question is beside the point. He doesn’t have to be an expert on English literature and punctuation, graphology, paleography, Greek and Latin translation, law, medicine and astronomy. He is a tertiary source, that is, he researches the academic Shakespeare literature to put together arguments that refute anti-Stratfordian claims. My understanding is that those types of sources are preferred for encyclopedia articles, and in any case none of the sources used by Smatprt can be considered experts on anything. His most oft-quoted source, Charlton Ogburn, was a military man, not a literary scholar or historian, and is considered by most academics to be a crackpot.

• Smatprt’s summation of Kathman’s scholarly work is deceptive. Kathman has numerous publications about Shakespeare and Early Modern theater to his credit, as both Google and Google Scholar searches attest. He is also the author of the Biographical Index of English Drama Before 1660, an on-line resource that is cited in such scholarly publications as The Cambridge Introduction to Early English Theatre.

• And how exactly would Smatprt know what arguments “would never be made by a real scholar”? Most of the sources he uses at the Shakespeare authorship question page are only allowed because the topic is a fringe theory, which allows all sorts of otherwise unreliable sources to be used simply because there are no other.

• Finally, I believe Crum375 is confused by Smatprt’s representation. Kathman represents the scholarly consensus, not the lunatic fringe. It is the anti-Stratfordian theory that is a fringe theory, not the orthodox view. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Mr. Reedy, anyone who compares Kathman's arguments about, for example, The Tempest, as made [here], with those of Stritmatter and Kositsky, [here ], cannot fail to see that the length of time that David Kathman has been opining on the authorship question is irrelevant to the question of his reliability. His mistakes in his online Tempest article are in retrospect both obvious and gratuitous, the the sort of errors that only a poorly advised undergraduate or a someone who knows better but believes that the ends justify the means, would commit. Kathman's errors are only underscored by the fact that, although Stritmatter and Kositky's rebuttal has been posted online for FIVE YEARS now, he has not responded to it. Really, who the heck does David Kathman think he is? He posts material on his internet site which has been if not entirely discredited, at least called into serious doubt by any reasonable standard of scholarship, and he leave his original article unmodified, without even providing his readers to a post to the critical response. And yet, at the same time, given the opportunity he attacks one of the two others of the critique as someone with "pretensions to scholarship." This is not scholarship. This is not even "pretense." Its self-serving ideological obstinance of the most pathetic sort.--131.118.144.253 (talk) 19:42, 3 February 2010 (UTC) (Ben Jonson)

Now that you've vented your spleen, counted coup on your hated enemy, and touted your own expertise, I suggest you read the guidelines at the top of the page about what is relevant to this discussion. 19:47, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• • I was not confused by it, I simply used Smatprt's view as an example. I said that the SPS appears to be a RS, and it is up to the editors of the page to decide how to classify and handle it, per WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE. Crum375 (talk) 15:36, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Apologies for my mistake. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:31, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Writing seven pages on this drivel and correctly comparing it to other crackpot theories seems to qualify as extensive writing on this topic. The source seems to meet WP:RS as a WP:SPS. I'd also note that WP:BLP applies here, and WP:NPA, so no more personal attacks such as those by 131.118.144.253 please. Verbal chat 21:38, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I assume you are also condemning the personal attacks made here today by both Tom and Paul? And the attempted outing by Tom (a severe non, no)! If so, I heartily agree! Smatprt (talk) 23:05, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

As an uninvolved editor, I too think the website qualifies as a reliable source for the authorship article because:

1. Kathman is a published expert in Shakespeare studies (see last sentence of WP:PARITY for why restricting scholarship to "Shakespeare authorship studies" is not warranted),
2. We have other scholars attesting to the value of the website,

Of course, whenever possible peer reviewed and reputable publications should be preferred in the article, and the content should be adequately attributed, but using the website as a source is consistent with WP:RS requirements. Abecedare (talk) 23:30, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

There are literally thousands of reliable, extremely high quality sources on everything related to Shakespeare. Therefore there is no reason whatsoever to rely on a WP:SPS in this case. It should not be used. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:27, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Jayig, this is a fringe theory. Academics don't publish articles rebutting specific arguments in these texts. Yes, there is a huge amount written on Shakespeare in standard scholarship, but not on this. Really. If you can provide evidence for your claim, fine. But if Tom, who specialises in this, can't find these "thousands" of books and articles, I doubt you can. Paul B (talk) 18:22, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

There are literally thousands of reliable, extremely high quality sources on everything related to Shakespeare, except for the authorship theory, because the overwhelming majority of professional and amateur Shakespeareans alike consider it a fringe theory with no convincing evidence. Academics don't write about things they don't accept as valid scholastic topics.

FTFY. Tom Reedy (talk) 17:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, this is incorrect. The top Shakespearean scholars of the day have written about the Shakespeare authorship issue. Matus has, Hope has, Schoenbaum has and, most importantly, the great Stanley Wells has. In Wells' own words: "I have taken part in debates on the authorship, broadcast about it on radio and on television, and written about it in newspapers and in my own books. In general I have tried to be rational, courteous, and tolerant." I will add that it's not about quantity - it's about quality, and these four top scholars, among others, certainly represent the top quality sources one could ever hope to find. In addition, mainstream scholars McMichael and Glenn published "Shakespeare and his Rivals - A Casebook on the Authorship Controversy" in which they document the issue with verifiable historical data, rebut at length the top contenders Oxford, Bacon and Marlowe, and make the case for why Shakespeare of Stratford is the mainstream choice. To say there are no high quality reliable sources on the authorship issue is simply inaccurate. Jayjg is correct. Smatprt (talk) 19:41, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure why Tom is having such trouble finding reliable sources. I took me 30 seconds to find this lengthy article [[6]].Smatprt (talk) 20:02, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

No-one disputes that sources exist. What is in dispute is that they exist in sufficient numbers, and that all specific anti-Statfordian claims are addressed by them in sufficient detail. Paul B (talk) 11:11, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

And I'm not sure why you seem to think this issue is about how many reliable sources there are or aren't out there or why you misrepresent my motivation. I want to get it settled whether we can use the Web site. I haven't challenged any of the Web sites you use because I don't care what you use to support anti-Stratfordism--in fact, the nuttier the better is the way I feel about it. Why you fear Kathman's Web site so much, when it is routinely recommended by academics and even in published academic books, I have no idea. And I daresay you could count all the pages of the academic response to anti-Stratfordism and they'd still be less than the two Ogburn door stops. Tom Reedy (talk) 21:55, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The Kathman-Ross website should not be considered a reliable source because the so-called "expert opinions" expressed there are not kept current. The field of authorship studies is dynamic, with new articles on research, arguments and perspectives published all the time. Yet the Kathman-Ross website takes no notice of any of this. Kathman has said repeatedly that his mind is made up, and he has moved on to other topics. As a result, to take one example, the section of their website on The Tempest is very out of date. They ignore the work of Stritmatter and Kositsky (metioned above). They ignore Nina Green's refutation of their claim that The Tempest is based on the Strachey letter. Her refutation, titled "David Kathman’s false parallels between the Strachey letter, the Jourdain account, the anonymous True Declaration and Shakespeare’s The Tempest" is at the bottom of the documents page on her site at: http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/documents.html. This refutation was brought to Kathman's attention, yet he has ignored it, as if it did not exist. Books are immutable, but there's a presumption that a website regarded as a "reliable source" will be kept reasonably up to date. This is not true in the case of the Kathman-Ross website. They have made it clear that they are closed-minded ideologues who no longer pay attention to others' views, and do not take them into account on their website. That being the case, their website should not be regarded as a reliable source for purposes of determining the current state of orthodox views. Schoenbaum (talk) 05:04, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:SPS is the policy to be applied here, and nothing you've written seems at all relevant. Dlabtot (talk) 00:13, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Summarizing policy/guidelines here:

1. Everything notable about Shakespeare, including who wrote the plays, has been covered by many, many, high quality, reliable, non-self-published sources.
2. Wikipedia does not include fringe theories in its articles, per WP:FRINGE, WP:REDFLAG, WP:UNDUE. If a fringe theory is inserted into an article whose topic is covered by many high-quality reliable sources, one does not rely on a WP:SPS to refute it. Instead, one removes the fringe theory.

Is anything unclear about that? Jayjg ^(talk) 01:30, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's very unclear to me how you can say "Wikipedia does not include fringe theories in its articles". Here's the very first sentence from WP:FRINGE: "This guideline advises which fringe theories and opinions may be included in Wikipedia, and to a certain extent how those articles should approach their subjects."

In fact, the entire Shakespeare authorship question article is about a fringe theory, and I doubt it's going to be removed anytime soon. It's an authentic phenomenon and probably the grand-daddy of all conspiracy theories. Tom Reedy (talk) 02:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

If a fringe theory is discussed in reliable sources, such as Holocaust denial or Moon landing conspiracy theories, then of course Wikipedia can describe them, in the articles on the fringe theories. However, even there, Wikipedia must rely or reliable sources for any claims and rebuttals. Not just any proponent or advocate of a fringe theory can be documented in a Wikipedia article, even one on a fringe theory. WP:V and WP:RS still apply. In the case of Shakespeare, and even of fringe theories regarding him, the Reliable Sources are so abundant that we need not and should not rely on WP:SPS. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm still a bit confused by your syntax, but never mind; it's enough to know that you oppose the site as a reliable source. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:00, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I think we are talking about two different subjects here. Jayjg's example would apply to an article like William Shakespeare, where the authorship issue is mentioned very very briefly. If it were given abundant space there, WP:Undue would apply. Whereas significant notable fringe theories (which by Wiki's very broad standards include theories that "depart significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view in its particular field of study" as well as "hypotheses, conjectures, or speculations") are covered in their own articles. What we are talking about in this section is what is whether Kathman's website is RS for the authorship article. Thanks. Smatprt (talk) 14:30, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Exactly so, Smarprt, that is what I was referring to. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Well I suppose I was confused about why you would give the example for an article such as William Shakespeare when we're discussing the article Shakespeare authorship question. Regardless, Paul's point is still relevant. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:00, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, we know what we are talking about, but Jayig's evident confusion about the relevant policy renders his judgement questionable. He dogmatically asserts that "Everything notable about Shakespeare, including who wrote the plays, has been covered by many, many, high quality, reliable, non-self-published sources" And yet he provides no evidence that this is the case. In any case this is irrelevant to the question of whether or not Kathman's site meets the exception. Even if other sources existed it would have no bearing on that specific issue. If other published sources existed for the relevant points we would, of course, use them in preference, but what is at issue is the legitimacy of using Kathamn where necessary. 16:04, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I have no"confusion about the relevant policy"; mind your manners. Now, are you actually claiming that the issue of "authorship" has not been discussed by many reliable sources? Including the ones already mentioned above? Jayjg ^(talk) 22:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Since you made a clearly false statement ("Wikipedia does not include fringe theories in its articles"), I beg to differ about the confusion. So far you have failed to justify your claim that there is extensive discussion of authorship issue in RS. Even if there were, it would be irrelevant to the specific question of the usability of the Kathman site. This kind of issue crops up a lot on this board. Say Richard Dawkins makes a comment on his website which an editor wishes to use. The specific point may not have been made elsewhere, despite the seeming mountains of creation/evolution literature. It is up to the editors to decide whether it is worth using. This board is for determining whether it can be, not for saying "there must be other sources". Paul B (talk) 04:35, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

An incomplete statement is not "clearly false". In general Wikipedia does not include fringe theories in its articles. Yes, as with every rule, there are exceptions; in this case, that Wikipedia allows discussion of fringe theories in articles about those theories, as long as reliable sources discuss those theories, and the article is sourced to those reliable sources. Also, I'd like to see you state here that the authorship issue is not extensively discussed in reliable sources. Please refer to Smarprt's comment above of 19:41, 4 February 2010 before responding. If you're looking for other sources refuting the "Shakespeare wasn't the author of the plays" theories, would you argue that this WP:SPS website complies more closely with Wikipedia's WP:RS guideline than, say, Scott McCrea's The case for Shakespeare: the end of the authorship question? Jayjg ^(talk) 02:37, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I note that you are not answering the question, merely stating what has never been disputed by anyone - that there are some reliable sources from mainstream authors on this issue. This is a truth universally acknowledged, and not pertinent to the issue under dispute. Paul B (talk) 23:58, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

In what way are these reliable sources inadequate, such that we must loosen the WP:RS guidelines and rely on a WP:SPS? Please give an explicit example. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:11, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

We don't have to "loosen" anything. We have a specific exception that is part of the rules by which we operate. If you don't agree with the existence of WP:SPS then lobby to change the policy. That exception exists for a reason. There are practical reasons for using the website - everyone can read it and affirm its contents. Other literature is much less accessible. Sometimes it might be desirable to footnote both the site and a "dead tree" text. There are specific arguments that are made on the site that are not readily to be found elsewhere - such as the discussion of the Queen Elizabeth portrait. Paul B (talk) 12:23, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I think you have an inflated view of the number of reliable sources there are rebutting anti-Stratfordism, but it is far from "many." Yes, several notable scholars have done so (although I have no idea what Smatprt is talking about when he says Stanley Wells has made a point-by-point rebuttal; if he has, I don't know of it), but books devoted to refuting the anti-Shakespeare claim such as McCrea's are rare. In fact, I can think of only two others: Irv Matus's Shakespeare, In Fact (1997) and the soon-to-be-published Contested Will, by James Shapiro. Yes, other notable Shakespeareans have written about it: S. Schoenbaum wrote a 65-page survey of the phenomenon (without refuting the claims) in his 600+ page Shakespeare's Lives (1970, 1991); Jonathan Bate gave it 35 pages in his The Genius of Shakespeare (1998); Harold Love uses it as an example of how not to do it in his primer, Attributing Authorship (2002); and Stanley Wells gives it a scant 18 pages in his Is It True What they Say About Shakespeare? (2007). Total up all the pages and I doubt they'll amount to 1 percent of the amount of anti-Stratfordian literature that has been published in the past 150 years, all of which is still cherry-picked by anti-Stratfordians to give their movement a gloss of scholarship. Nor do most of them directly address particular anti-Stratfordian or Oxfordian claims in detail the way Kathman does on his Web site, Matus being the exception.

I think that these three topics from the WP:FRINGE page might be appropriate, especially the sentence, "If independent sources only comment on the major points of a fringe theory, an article that devotes the majority of its space to minor points that independent sources do not cover in detail may be unbalanced."

It appears to me that we have a consensus that Kathman's Web site is a reliable source, but I thought that these points would help in assuring the independent editors that the decision stretches none of Wikipedia's policies. Tom Reedy (talk) 22:42, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, there's no consensus on that. Now, are you saying that there are reliably sourced theories of alternate Shakespeare authorship that are not responded in Matus's Shakespeare, In Fact or McCrea's The case for Shakespeare: the end of the authorship question? Keep in mind, we're not talking about an authorship theory on some website somewhere, but rather a theory that's attested to by multiple reliable sources. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:50, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom wrote nothing whatever about "reliably sourced theories of alternate Shakespeare authorship". He was describing reliably sourced rebuttals of theories of alternate Shakespeare authorship. And no one has ever disupted that these exist. What matters is that they do not address some specific issues that Kathman addresses. Their existence is not pertient to the question at issue here. Paul B (talk) 00:08, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Apparently your idea of what a consensus is and mine are different; it is not a synonym for unanimity.

As to your question, there are no reliably sourced theories of alternate Shakespeare authorship and I have never said there were; they are all creatures of fantasy. I think you're confused about the topic, based on your question, or perhaps misread my statement.

The issue at hand is the reliability of David Kathman's Web site based on his expertise and scholastic reputation. His site does not espouse any alternate authorship theory. Four uninvolved editors have said it is a reliable source used in accordance with Wikipedia guidelines. You've said it shouldn't be used, but not for reasons based on the content of the site nor an assessment of his expertise. And I was also under the impression that this is not a place for general discussion of issues or for disputes about content. Tom Reedy (talk) 00:28, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

To begin with, this is not a "general discussion of issues or for disputes about content". I don't see how it could be, in fact, since we have discussed no specific content. However, Reliable Source assessment has to be taken in context of the topic itself, which is what we are doing. The general quality and availability of reliable sources related to, say, World War II is vastly higher than those related to, say, Pokémon. Thus an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times that mentions World War II might not be considered reliable for that article, but might be one of the most reliable sources available for the Pokémon article. Second, you say I reject Kathman's website "not for reasons based on the content of the site nor an assessment of his expertise". The issue here is not whether he qualifies as an expert WP:SPS, but whether we should be using WP:SPS in articles related to Shakespeare. Finally, regarding your statement that "there are no reliably sourced theories of alternate Shakespeare authorship", please refer back to my comments of 01:30, 5 February 2010 and 22:14, 5 February 2010. If reliable sources don't discuss a fringe theory, then it has no place on Wikipedia. Not in a general article, nor in an article on fringe theories. When Wikipedia discusses Holocaust denial, it does so based on reliable secondary sources, not based on the contents of Holocaust denial websites or publications. Now, what I think you're trying to say is that there are certain fringe theories that are not discussed in reliable secondary sources, but are discussed on Kathman's website. Is that correct? Jayjg ^(talk) 01:41, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but for the life of me I don't have a clue about what you're getting at, and I have a post-graduate degree in English. Would some other editor please tell me what Jayjg is asking for? The only fringe theory discussed on Kathman's Web site is anti-Stratfordism, which is what the Wikipedia article we are discussing is about.

As for your contention that Wikipedia only uses reliable secondary sources to discuss a fringe theory, I beg to differ. The only support for the anti-Stratfordian side at the Shakespeare authorship question page is anti-Stratfordian websites and publications, which are intrinsically polemic publications promoting their fringe theories. The only reliable sources that discuss the theory for alternate Shakespeare authorship are those debunking it, such as Kathman's Web site and the books I listed above. If you go to the page in question, you will see that it is not an encyclopedia article at all, but more a debate about the relative merits of each side. Before I began editing there in mid-December, it was largely a propaganda piece for anti-Stratfordians. If I had my way, it would be cut down at least in half, with none of the point-counter point style of debate that is there now. The Oxfordian theory and Baconian theory Wikipedia entries are also nothing more than promotional screeds for their fringe beliefs that are largely ignored by regular editors. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:33, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom, looking through your edit history, I now realize that you've really only edited a tiny number of articles, almost all related to Shakespeare. In fact, of your 617 Mainspace edits, 262 (42.5%) have been to William Shakespeare, and 239 (38.7%) to Shakespeare authorship question, or over 80% of your edits to just two articles. So perhaps it would be helpful if I went over some of the basics here.

O.K., Tom, to begin with, Wikipedia has a verifiability policy, which says that, as regards Wikipedia articles, "Any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations, must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." Another important point in the policy is that "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—what counts is whether readers can verify that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true." The latter is quite significant, and often trips up inexperienced editors. It doesn't matter what any editor believes to be the truth, since opinions on that will vary wildly; instead, what matters is that we can verify that material was taken from reliable sources.

In addition, Wikipedia has a related reliable sources guideline, which gives editors guidelines as to which sources Wikipedia considers to be reliable. As you review the guideline, it is important to note that it does not claim any specific source or type of source is 100% reliable; rather, it gives a general description of types of sources, explaining which are more reliable, and which are less reliable. Note also in the Overview the statement "Proper sourcing always depends on context". One of the implications of that statement is (as I explained in my previous comment) that a source that might be considered very reliable in one context might be considered less reliable in another. And finally, please note that the definition of how reliable a source is doesn't depend on the specific views held by a source, or on whether or not we agree with them, but on a number of other factors typically relating to editorial oversight of one kind or another. Self published sources are typically denigrated in this context, as it is obvious that when one self-publishes, one need not answer to any editorial process, whether peer review, or merely the typical editorial oversight provided by a reputable publishing house. This can also be confusing for inexperienced editors.

Now, in relation to your question about reliable sourcing, as I explained in my previous comment, "If reliable sources don't discuss a fringe theory, then it has no place on Wikipedia. Not in a general article, nor in an article on fringe theories." Keep in mind, here we are talking about reliable sources according to Wikipedia's definition, not what you may personally consider to be reliable. For example, the Holocaust denial article does not explain what Holocaust denial is by pointing to a series of Holocaust denying websites or books and describing their contents. That is because such sources are not reliable (by Wikipedia's definition). Instead, the article relies on reliable secondary sources that discuss Holocaust denial. This is also the editorial policy Wikipedians must follow when editing the Shakespeare authorship question article; one cannot use unreliable sources to describe the topic, but must stick to reliable ones.

Next, regarding your statement that "As for your contention that Wikipedia only uses reliable secondary sources to discuss a fringe theory, I beg to differ." You are no doubt correct in a narrow technical sense, in that many Wikipedia articles (unfortunately) do not yet conform with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. That is not, however, an indication that they need not do so! Rather, it merely indicates that they have not yet been brought into conformance with guideline and policy. Bringing sources here for discussion is one part of that process.

Next, I feel confident that there are fairly reliable sources that discuss the Shakespeare authorship question; indeed, we have already mentioned several. What you appear to be saying is that many "Shakespeare authorship"-related articles currently rely on unreliable sources to discuss their topics. Is that correct? If so, those sources should be removed, and the material based on them either sourced to reliable sources, or also removed, if no reliable sources can be found. Please remember, however, that when we say "reliable sources" we mean "sources that comply with WP:RS", not merely sources we agree with or believe to be telling the truth.

Finally, regarding the self-published website you wish to use, you have not presented any compelling evidence that Wikipedia need relax its sourcing requirements specifically to rebut "Shakespeare authorship" theories. Perhaps you can provide an example of a specific claim made in the Shakespeare authorship question article that you think you need Kathman's website to rebut. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:11, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate you taking the time to explain, because you are right, I describe myself more as a Shakespearean than a Wikipedian, and I'm unfamiliar with many Wikipedia policies, although by the reading I have been doing it seems to me that common sense is pretty much followed in those policies.

My statement about Wikipedia allowing unreliable sources to discuss fringe theories was confined to the articles discussing anti-Stratfordism, such as the Shakespeare authorship question, the Oxfordian theory article, and the Baconian theory article. All of them most certainly do explain their topics by pointing to a series of polemical anti-Stratfordian books or websites and describing their contents, as is evident to anyone who peruses the sites, so I assume these are the types of articles you are talking about that do not yet conform with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Am I correct in that assumption? Or do I still misunderstand Wikipedia's policies on reliable sources?

Since it has been established that David Kathman is an expert on the subject, having been published on the subject by leading university presses (you can't get much better than Oxford UP), led seminars on the topic at world conferences, and whose opinion on the topic is sought out by the media, I really don't understand why I would need to provide an example of a specific claim where I would need to use his website, since he is obviously "an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications", as per WP:SPS policy. Currently I don't have any edits that rely solely on Kathman's site. However, I happen to have one that is discussed here, which is the discussion that beget this opinion request. But once the rebuttal was fully understood, the relevant material in the section was deleted by the opposition (for lack of a better word) editors, rather than face such effective refutation. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:45, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom's view on why the small section in question was deleted is certainly... interesting, but more on point - I think he is still mistaken as to what is considered a reliable source here on Wiki. In relation to the authorship question (which, while debatable, can also be classified as a significant minority viewpoint), there have been numerous third-party publications that, do in fact represent both sides of the debate. The mainstream opinion has been held up by the examples we have already mentioned. The minority viewpoint has been researched and published in several RS books including those by Ogburn, Michell, Price, Sobran and Anderson, for example. As Jayjg so wisely noted, "Please remember, however, that when we say "reliable sources" we mean "sources that comply with WP:RS", not merely sources we agree with or believe to be telling the truth". We know that Tom does not agree with the authors I just mentioned, but they are RS according to wiki policy, as are academic and peer-reviewed journals (even if Tom does not agree with them), finished PhD dissertation which are publicly available (such as that by Dr. Stritmatter on Oxford's Geneva Bible), as well as major news organizations and third-party documentary producers (the type that do fact-checks). We should also note this section of the policy - "Primary Sources are not OR but "source-based research" and is essential to writing an encyclopedia". One has to be careful in applying this, but it does have applications here. I hope that helps to clarify the situation.Smatprt (talk) 22:09, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Whether third-party publications or no, all but one of the sources you list are promotional texts for the anti-Stratfordian theory, not research on the "minority viewpoint." It would be interesting to how they would fare on this board as reliable sources, especially Ogburn, who is the second most important prophet of Oxfordism, right behind Looney. Tom Reedy (talk) 02:07, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Wow - you just don't get it. That would be like saying Wells, Matus & Schoenbaum are merely promotional texts for the Stratfordian theory. Will you ever understand that it's not about whether you agree with what they say or not? Smatprt (talk) 04:05, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid you are the clueless one. Read Jayjg's comment directly above mine. Note the sentence, "For example, the Holocaust denial article does not explain what Holocaust denial is by pointing to a series of Holocaust denying websites or books and describing their contents." Both Holocaust denial and anti-Stratfordism are fringe theories, as even you admit. Now substitute "Shakespeare authorship question" for "Holocaust denial" in the statement: "For example, the Shakespeare authorship question article does not explain what the Shakespeare authorship question is by pointing to a series of Shakespeare authorship questioning websites or books and describing their contents." As anybody who peruses the references at the article can see, it most certainly does that. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:10, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, the next step we would take would be to examine one or two of the sources used to describe the "anti-Stratford" theories. Presumably Smatprt considers them to conform with WP:RS, which Tom Reedy does not. Smatprt, could you bring one or two examples of "alternative authorship" sources you consider to conform to WP:RS? Jayjg ^(talk) 20:23, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure - in keeping with this (from policy on Fringe Theories) "fringe theory proponents are excellent sources for describing what they believe", the two main sources that describe anti-strat theories would be:

• J. Thomas Looney Shakespeare Identified in Edward de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford. (London: Cecil Palmer, 1920). 1446 pages "'Shakespeare' Identified". ISBN 0-804-61877-1 (The first book to promote the Oxford theory.)
• Charlton Ogburn The Mysterious William Shakespeare: The Man Behind the Mask. (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1984). ISBN 0-939-00967-6 (Influential book that criticises orthodox scholarship and promotes the Oxford theory).

Please note that in keeping with the above mentioned policy ("the best sources to use when determining the notability and prominence of fringe theories are independent sources"), the sources abore are not used to discuss the prominence or notability of the theories, only to describe the theories themselves.Smatprt (talk) 17:28, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

O.K. Looney's a pretty old work, and he was a school-teacher. While he might have some notoriety, it's not clear that the source is particularly reliable. Ogburn appears to be a freelance writer of popular (not scholarly) works. It would be hard to classify either of them as an expert, or particularly reliable source, when it comes to the topic of Shakespeare. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:20, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

We've already established on the William Shakespeare page that on the general topic neither are R.S., and I was not saying that they would be RS in any such way. The article is Shakespeare Authorship Question and they are used to describe their appropriate theories of authorship , nothing more. Sorry - was I not clear about that? Smatprt (talk) 00:44, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

To the contrary of what you are now claiming, you were clear that these were RS. Read your post above: "The minority viewpoint has been researched and published in several RS books including those by Ogburn, Michell, Price, Sobran and Anderson, for example." Tom Reedy (talk) 01:35, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

The question you were asked was "Smatprt, could you bring one or two examples of "alternative authorship" sources you consider to conform to WP:RS?" You provided sources that do not conform to WP:RS, but to specific exceptions under WP:FRINGE. In other words you did not answer the question. Paul B (talk) 01:13, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Smarprt, the point I have been trying to make for some time now is that there are no exceptions to the WP:RS rules, even in articles that discuss WP:FRINGE topics. A Wikipedia article that discusses alternative theories of Shakespeare authorship must still cite only reliable sources. Just because the topic of a fringe theory may be encyclopedic, it doesn't therefore allow the article to cite any fringe source that happens to discuss that theory. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:31, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for being clear. However, what you are saying is in opposition to the stated policies that say what fringe writers are the best source for what they "believe". Now this still requires third-party publishers and not self-published material. Your position is also in opposition to the judgement of mainstream senior wiki editors who repeatedly advised, during the William Shakespeare FA process, that Ogburn was not RS on thw Shakespeare page, but only on the Authorship related pages, as he is clearly and expert in the area of Authorship studies, as well as one of the more recent researchers who have been published by major printing houses (those with reputations for quality and fact checking). I'm not sure what else to say on this. The related policies seem pretty clear and have been stated so for the several years that I have been editing.Smatprt (talk) 04:06, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Smatprt, I'm not sure which stated policies you think this is in opposition to, but you cannot get around WP:V and WP:RS. You must still use reliable sources to describe what fringe writers believe, and that generally excludes directly quoting or citing the fringe writers themselves. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:24, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, there is this one from wp:fringe "fringe theory proponents are excellent sources for describing what they believe" (which is qualified to note that independent sources are required to discuss the "notability" of the theory. And then there is this one from WP:PARITY - "In an article on a fringe topic, if a notable fringe theory is primarily described by amateurs and self-published texts, verifiable and reliable criticism of the fringe theory need not be published in a peer reviewed journal or other reliable sources." Now I'm not suggesting using amateurs or self-published texts but this policy obviously allows for that particular instance. This makes your comments even harder to understand as this seems to be saying that amateur and self-published texts can also be used, but if it is, then criticism of the theory can also come from sources that are not considered reliable.

Weird. Well, policies take precedence over guidelines, and a guideline can't create a special loophole for itself that contradicts WP:V. I understand that there is a great desire among some Wikipedians to debunk fringe theories, to the extent that they have, at times, demanded special exemptions from the WP:NOR policy, or, as was apparently done here, a special exemption from the WP:V policy. These exemptions, however, are neither permitted nor required. If reliable sources don't discuss any aspect of fringe theory, then that aspect of the theory simply does not belong on Wikipedia. One needs no special exemption to rebut something that does not belong on Wikipedia to begin with. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:20, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Summary of discussion so far

So far, the opinion request on whether Terry Ross and David Kathman’s Shakespeare Authorship Page can be used as a reliable source has resulted in comments by five uninvolved editors. Four of them, Dlabtot, Crum375, Verbal, and Abecedare, say it is an acceptable source within WP:SPS guidelines. One of them, Jayjg, says it is not.

It appears to me the consensus is to use it. Is that about it? Tom Reedy (talk) 17:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Nonsense. I have neither stated nor implied that the article should be deleted. Please review this policy, particularly item 2d. Please also modify your post accordingly, and don't attribute to me desires I have neither stated nor implied. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry. I misunderstood your position. There's no reason to be snippy; it was an honest mistake, as evidenced by another editor's misapprehension also. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:53, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Consensus is not about vote counting. It's about (if at all possible) building a consensus from all interested parties. It implies give and take. And sometimes, it relies on compromise. You really need a major course on wiki terminology and definitions. For starters see WP:DEFINECONSENSUS. Smatprt (talk) 04:05, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

You're correct, I am not near as expert in Wikipedia guidelines as almost anybody here. At that site it also says consensus is not unanimity. For the record, what would you say the consensus is among the five uninvolved editors right now? Tom Reedy (talk) 21:26, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Could anybody explain to me why this source, http://wsu.edu/~delahoyd/shakespeare/vere.html, is reliable, while Kathman's is not? Very little on this page is referenced, and he offers suppositions as fact throughout. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:35, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

The site with the .edu prefix? That would be a university website and as such, is presumed to have be under academic oversight or review.

Not so. Most universities give professors space on their web sites for their personal use. This is one of those, as can be seen by exploring the linked pages. Tom Reedy (talk) 01:34, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Add me to the list of uninvolved editors who think David Kathman's website conforms to RS. Kathman has authored over 108 articles on Elizabethan biographies for, respectively, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and for the Encyclopedia of Shakespeare, shortly to be published by Greenwood under the general editorship of Yale Phd. and Stanford academic, Patricia Parker, who is editing three Shakespeare plays, for Norton and Arden. Kathman, unlike Nina Green (I've corresponded with both long ago), is reputed by Elizabethan scholars like Sir Brian Vickers and Stanley Wells as a colleague whose views are worth citing. I'm sorry to say this Jayjg but your remark that 'Everything notable about Shakespeare, including who wrote the plays, has been covered by many, many, high quality, reliable, non-self-published sources,' is wrong on many counts, not least because research is on-going, discoveries or novel hypotheses are made or advanced every year, and, crucially, ignores the fact that the whole tradition, revived by Looney and Ogburn, both completely erratic unprofessional kibitzers on a sphere of scholarship they were wholly untrained in, tends to be systematically ignored or not taken seriously, except as an example of popular mythmaking, by ranking Shakespearean scholars. Kathman, the quality of whose work is recognized by those scholars, specialized precisely in doing the bleak drudgery of exposing the methodological incoherencies and fatuously circular reasoning of the cultish amateurs who thrive on lunatic fringe theories about Shakespeare, work that most major scholars think below contempt or notice. Indeed, with few exceptions, their work is unreadable. To annotate the errors they make often exceeds the space provided by the page margins. Kathman is one of those experts who are troubled by the unintended consequences of scholarly hauteur, the tendency to ignore fringe ideas that, if unopposed by authoritative scholarship, capture the public imagination and lead to the establishment of popular myths, usually grounded in theories of conspiracies, cover-ups and occult mysteries. His site is therefore an indispensable guide for those who wish a vademecum to thread their way through the bewildering labyrinths of mental confusion, slipshod methodology, and counter-intuitive cloud-gathering that characterize the de Verean-Ogburnian lobbyists. Nishidani (talk) 17:54, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani, you're hardly "uninvolved" when it comes to anything I do or say, which you almost invariably oppose. In fact, I strongly object to your appearance here, per WP:STALK. I thought I was finally rid of your harassment when I stopped editing I-P related articles, and subsequently also stopped editing the unrelated Islam and Antisemitism article, after you followed me there to oppose me. I did not expect you to follow me here, to oppose me on RS/N threads related to Shakespeare authorship! What next? Will you start opposing my AfD closures? My edits to synagogue articles? Will G-Dett show up to oppose me as well? Jayjg ^(talk) 20:35, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Well after that diatribe filled with ad hominem attacks on anyone who disagrees with Kathman, I would hardly call you uninvolved. Your personal bias simply overwhelms everything you have to say. Smatprt (talk) 22:01, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll probably go to my grave without once seeing an anti-Stratfordian use the term ad hominem correctly. Tom Reedy (talk) 01:36, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom, as other editors have noted, and as you admit, you are not really up on how wikipedia uses certain words and phrases. This is from wp:NPA, a policy you continue to demonstrate complete ignorance of: Sample Wiki definition of what constitutes a personal attack: "Using someone's affiliations as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views—regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream." Smatprt (talk) 07:25, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I doubt other editors have noted any such thing, however you are the one who is confused. WP:NPA applies to attacks on other contributors to Wikipedia, and even then does not include attacking their arguments, which is legitimate. It does not apply to "attacks" on the academic value and scholarship of authors. WP:BLP might apply to those who are living, but that does not include Looney or Ogburn. Paul B (talk) 14:49, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

One can cite the wiki rulebook ad infinitum, and get away with (the) murder of commonsense. One can ignore the precise meaning of words, and make argument wearisome. You called my remark a diatribe, which it is only in the classical Greek sense of 'wasting (one's) time'. There is no ad hominem attack, since I did not attack any individual in here, and, as Tom understood, to characterise a negative judgement of a fringe tradition of pseudo-scholarship in strong terms is not to violate WP:NPA, for the simple reason that I wrote of the general nature of a cultish vein of mystery-mongering. Ad hominem is a singular in Latin. One might reach for WP:BLP to indict 'completely erratic unprofessional kibitzers' with regard to Looney and Ogburn, but they are dead, and the charge falls, in the sense of abusing wiki rules, since that is a singular in Latin, and I made no personal attack on anyividuals writing from the de Verean-Ogburnian fringe. Elizabethan scholarship is, above all, about using and understanding words correctly. Once you master this, the taste for bizarre historical hypotheses, based on the snobbish theory that people of poor or non-university backgrounds cannot write artistic masterpieces (Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Dickens, Ferdowsi, Li Po, Cervantes, Murasaki Shikibu, Rumi etc.etc.etc.) generally vanishes.

I spoke of the effects of mythmaking on the 'public imagination', and I had in mind the effect on the credulous public, unforearmed with any knowledge of the rigours of historical scholarship and Elizabethan textual analysis, of this trash. If you wish to see yourself as the intended victim of this generic description, you are at liberty to do so, but do not call the process of identification with my broadbrush description, a personal attack. Unfortunately for wiki, there is no penalty for consistently misreading what plain words in English mean, and then taking supererogatory offence at an imagined slight.

There is a technical problem here for wiki. In summary terms, the Shakespeare authorship question is a fringe, extreme minority hypothesis. It is generally disregarded by Shakespeareans. Even those who do look at it in glancing, like Alan Nelson in his biography of de Vere, do so en passant. Most treat it en pissant. Therefore, to get quality RS on it, is like asking for quality RS on flatearthers, Velikovsky's planetary theories or chronological reconstructions, or Gurdjieff's invisible moon theory. So Tom Reedy's complaint is legitimate. Kathman is one formally trained, and recognized Shakespearean academic, who has devoted years to untangling the mess caused by the endemic misprisions of those amateur textual sleuths who create these fictions. To document the hypootheses using the otherwise academically unreliable texts by Ogburn, Looney, Price and co., and then challenge one of the authorities on this freakish cult on the pure technical grounds that he published his findings on the web, and not in a book issued by a university press, is to attempt to out perhaps the major source for the academic demystification of this fringe tradition. Ogburn, Looney and co., are only sources for their own beliefs, not for any question regarding Shakespearean scholarship. Kathman, by contrast, is a source for Shakespearean scholarship, since the doyens of the field cite him, and his publishing record on the era is substantial. To source a wiki text freely from the disiecta membra of a ragged fringe school of pseudo-scholarship, while using the rules to deny full critical reference to perhaps the major academic who took the time to do what no serious scholars think worth the trouble, exposing the methodological incoherencies of the movement, looks like a shabby attempt to game the system, to the advantage of what is a fringe, slightly lunatic, omnium gatherum of conspiracy theories. Nishidani (talk) 08:53, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom, you asked what I felt the consensus at this point is. Let me answer as best I can.

• While its true that no true "consensus" has been achieved it certainly appears that the majority feeling is that the Kathman site is useable, but with some caveats attached:

• Most editors (here and in general) would always prefer, whenever possible, to see sources that are of higher quality (what ever that means) and have greater accountability than a self-published website.

• Several editors (Dlabot, Crum375) also noted that clear attribution (in-text) should be used. For me, a key to this consensus it the use of in-text attribution as it will assure readers that certain statements are the opinion of Kathman and not a statement of undisputed fact, or that one researcher is speaking for the "academic consensus" - a claim that would be classified as extraordinary, and would require RS of the highest quality (not just the fact that certain Stratfordians recommend him).

• One (Crum375) also mentioned that in any case, "how" to use the site should be discussed by the article editors.

Now that we have a pretty good picture on how these editors feel, I think we can continue working on the article and decide how and when to use the website back on the article talk page. I acknowledge the feeling of the majority here and will provide greater leeway for the Kathman site as we move forward. Though I would have preferred a different outcome, I want to thank the editors here for providing input. I will copy this post to the article talk page so we can resume work there and on the article itself. Smatprt (talk) 22:27, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Smatprt, I've made a request above. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:23, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Answered above. Thanks. Smatprt (talk) 17:28, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Den Store Danske Encyklopædi

Power.corrupts (talk · contribs) has been removing several unsourced BLP tags and adding links to Den Store Danske Encyklopædi, claiming that is a reliable source since it was once professionally manged. But since then it has been converted to a wiki that anyone can edit and that is the source that Power is linking to. He claims there is editorial oversight, but according to their editing guide anyone can edit it. I contend it is an invalid source per WP:SPS and WP:BLPSPS and would like him to stop adding links to it to articles claiming it is a source to support the verifiability of the topic and to comply with the BLP policy. MBisanz ^talk 06:29, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

It would be useful to find other sources discussing this. I've looked at the links, and find:

"It is our goal with a free, ad-funded online encyclopaedia to create a site that Danish Internet users choose as their primary source of information retrieval.

How to reach us is through a credible and updated lexicon, which provides answers to most - a national reference work. This will be achieved in collaboration with users, since anyone can update and nyskrive articles by editors, assisted by a large group of experts can subsequently edit and in most cases also verify. It also provides longer term, other sources of information than the traditional Encyclopedia article such as book titles, relevant text passages from books, internet links, etc.

The main difference between the large Danish and other websites with factual knowledge such as Wikipedia is that we offer verified versions of articles. Not all the articles and not necessarily of recent developments / detail in the articles. But nearly all the articles there will be a verified version, so our users always have a base of information they can trust.

We want to create a genuine, open knowledge project that at once can gather and disseminate the collective knowledge of Danish. Collective, because everyone can contribute and provide their insights. Spread, because the content generated by users may be freely used in all other contexts, and because it has been easy to do just that through an open API.

By opening in February 2009 contained the Great Danish all articles from Gyldendals encyclopedias; majority come from the Great Danish Encyclopaedia. In addition, we have supplemented with a number of other works. In total, there were initially collected from more than 161,000 articles. All edited and verified by leading Danish academic experts.

Who are the people behind? Work on the Great Danish performed by an editorial team consisting of around 15 of Denmark's most talented public lexicon. All of them have years of experience in writing and editing the best lexicons. Our main role as editors is to assist and support users and experts to write so readable, credible and timely articles as possible. You can read more about the editors here."

Dougweller (talk) 08:41, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Power.corrupts is correct, that encyclopedia is edited. I believe they use a system that is somewhat similar to flagged revisions. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:24, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I updated the article Den Store Danske Encyklopædi with some facts. MBisanz is correct that "anyone" can edit it (if you register an account, I believe submitting personally identifiable information) - but the material issue here is of course if there is editorial oversight over contributions, and there is. This can be seen in the Poul Schlüter article, last edit is by "Redaktionen" (the editorial staff) - sort of a flagged revisions system. I would like to emphasize the innocuous nature of the Poul Schlüter article, terse and factual information on the prime minister for 11 years, no contentious information, and no unchallenged information. What precisely is the BLP concern per WP:BLP policy? Power.corrupts (talk) 12:40, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the personally identifiable info part, the registration translation says:

Fill with username, your real name, email and password. The username is the name that you now wish to apply at The Great Danish. The user name can be your real name or an alias. The user name is unique and can not be changed retrospectively. Two users can have the same username. Other users will see your username and your real name, but not your e-mail address.

Also, it doesn't matter who is doing the edits, if it is a registered user or an "editor" since neither has cited their sources on that article, so any of it can be whatever they wanted it to be. It is no more than what Flagged Revs is on WP, and no one says that transforms WP into some more authoritative source. Also, "Redaktionen" in this context means any one of a dozen people, so we really have no idea who approved the content. Looks no different than a moderated web forum. MBisanz ^talk 14:04, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

A "moderated web forum" - are we enjoying ourselves, MBisanz? You are not a law school, do not let finesse overshadow the material issue, which is that BLPs should be sourced -- I have used Denstoredanske as a source to verify name, DOB, that this particular individual was indeed Prime minister, member of the EU parliament, etc, etc, trivial, factual and benign information that is highly unlikely to challenged. Yes, we can criticize Denstoredanske for not revealing its own sources (a trait it shares with many other encyclopedia), which does not readily facilitate independent verification of claims. Denstoredanske do have a reputation for fact checking, there is oversight by a permanent editorial staff, articles are "approved" or "verified", and it is probably the most readily available online source in Danish, as almost all paper media (far more exhaustive and authoritative than online media) hide articles older than three(?) months behind a pay wall. Can we agree that it may not be suitable for contentious information, or for information likely to be challenged. But for benign information it is acceptable for the time being. I have sourced a number of other Danish BLPs, and accessed and referred to in-depth profile/portrait articles in Danish media, mostly to preempt future foreseeable WP:N discussions. It not only takes darn long time, but these sources are not readily available online, you either have to seek a library, or pay to get past the pay wall. Should we try to be constructive and non-dogmatic in these turbulent BLP times. Power.corrupts (talk) 21:04, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I've never seen the exception in WP:V or WP:RS (or especially WP:BLP) that we can use poor quality sources just because it is hard to get good sources. For the Poul Schlüter article, I don't see why these free sources were so hard to find as to rely on a self published wiki for sourcing: Danish gov't, NYTs, The Independent. Those three sources took me, a non-Danish speaker 10 minutes to find and none of them are behind a paywall, so I do question your reasons for relying on Den Store Danske Encyklopædi for the exact same benign, factual, information. MBisanz ^talk 03:06, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Perspective, please! It took you 10 minutes to source an innocuous article to your own standards on the longest serving prime minister in Denmark in the 20th century (please add the sources btw). It takes me about the same amount of time to source less internationally known individuals (still passing WP:N) using less accessible sources; and much more time if the topic is difficult. I see BLP articles being PROD'd at a rate up to three per minute for being unsourced, I see you AfD articles with few minutes apart, and I'm told that 50,000 BLP articles are in need of urgent attention. I have cleaned up the backlog of unsourced Danish BLPs for 2007 and 2008, more or less single handedly I feel. What exactly are you thinking of with "we can use poor quality sources just because it is hard to get good sources" - in the present context, it's a comment from outer space. Power.corrupts (talk) 09:11, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

It's based in the original paper encyclopedia, reviewed and edited by over 1000 experts selected by a reputable publisher and the approval status of each article is flagged. As described in our article: "While registered users may contribute with content and upload images etc. a professional and long-time editorial staff will maintain oversight over contributions.[5][4] The status of an article shall be clearly flagged, if it is user-generated content or if it has been approved by the editorial staff.[6]" This is enough for the approved articles to qualify as RS's, imho good enough for BLPs.John Z (talk) 19:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

It does not however identify which editor reviewed it. Some of the editors have specialties only in images, popular culture, etc. That would be like saying WP has admins who review content with flagged revs and some of them have doctorates in religion, so therefore our articles imported from the Catholic Encyclopedia must be reliable. Just doesn't hold water to impute that accuracy when we can't verify the authorship or the authority. MBisanz ^talk 20:07, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Many encyclopedias' articles are not signed. A reputable publisher affirming that an article has undergone competent review is enough. Many newspaper articles are written and edited by unnamed staff, for instance.John Z (talk) 22:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The only exception in Wikipedia:V#Self-published_sources_.28online_and_paper.29 is if the author is attributed, the author isn't attributed here, only a group of authors. MBisanz ^talk 16:05, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

It isn't self-published.John Z (talk) 20:47, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't follow you here Matt. The Economist doesn't contain a single author name (except Letters to the Editor) but no-one really doubts its reliability as a source. (Do they?) The site claims to have an editorial oversight process, on what grounds do you claim the process is insufficient or erroneous? Certainly for uncontroversial facts, using them as a source shouldn't be a huge problem. Franamax (talk) 21:07, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

www.debating.net

I am doing some work on a number of articles on University Debating. Most, if all reference on them come from www.debating.net or flynn.debating.net.

While this is clearly a Primary sources, however is it a reliable one ?

The reason I ask is I am planning to tydy up Grand Finalist & ESL Champion Team Members section of the European Universities Debating Championship article most of which is referenced to one or other of the above sites. However before I do I just wanted to check that it is appropriate to use those sites as references. Codf1977 (talk) 13:48, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• Since Codf1977 has brought this up, let me give some background about the sources in question on the European Universities Debating Championship page. The flynn.debating.net website is now largely a blog website, but it hasn't always been so. The website started in the 1990s. The blog section was added only in 2005, and over the past few years has become very popular and so has largely taken over the site. But it was originally a debate wesbite with information about debating tournament results and general information about debate, not a blog. Most of the references on the European Universities Debating Championship page are from the older pages of the website and not the much newer blog section. Singopo (talk) 14:16, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I would add that neither source says BDU hosted the event, they both say Berlin, and only Berlin. As such to claim these two sources can be used to say that the BDU hosted the championships is OR, and possibly Synthsis.Slatersteven (talk) 16:04, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I have tried to find other sources, there are precious few. I am wondering if this is even notable givven the dearth of sources.Slatersteven (talk) 14:47, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Another issue the BDU web site says they compeated in 2001, but the flynn.debating.net website does not [[7]] (though there is something called BSU which is similar). So do we have another source for compeating teams in that year? As some one has to be wrong.Slatersteven (talk) 16:37, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

could be a typo - 'D' & 'S' are next to each other on a British keyboard - Not that is an excuse. Codf1977 (talk) 16:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

If that is the case then I would say that (given its the only thing they are talking about) they would not be RS, becasue they obviously do not check thier facts. It also makes me even more unsure about notability, its so notable even they can't be arsed to get it right.Slatersteven (talk) 16:59, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

University debating is notable, but the articles have too much detail. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:40, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is saying University debating is not notable, I am however concerned that the articles on WP are making the subject look a lot more notable than it is and that all the results and being drawn from one guys website, which is clearly a closely linked Primary source.Codf1977 (talk) 16:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I am sort of. I am not saying that university debating is un-notable perse. But what I am asking (and therefore if the answer is to hte negative that its not notable) is that there appear to be no third party RS we can use to establish the notability of the EDC. Effectivly the competitions notability rests soley on the fact they say it exsits and that people take part.

You may, unfortunately, be right - another example of that is IONA Debating Circuit‎. Codf1977 (talk) 17:10, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

So can we treat the above sites as WP:RS ?Codf1977 (talk) 17:55, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Can someone (unconnected with the above articles) please advise on this. Codf1977 (talk) 19:30, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Please someone must be able to give some help ? Codf1977 (talk) 19:58, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'm unrelated to the sites in question, and to the subject of university debating for that matter. As an outsider, but fairly experienced Wikipedia editor I find it hard to classify the sites as reliable sources. Even for the old, pre-blog part, it is unclear to what extent the information was checked, what the editorial policy was, etc. It may have some "street cred" in the debating community, but I believe more is required in order to be considered a reliable source. A site like IMDb, for instance, though highly regarded by film buffs still fails to clear the barrier. Favonian (talk) 15:04, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Amazon.com for digital music release info

Tonight, I discovered via Amazon.com that a second digital release will occur for the song Bad Romance (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). I added the content to the article using the Amazon.com MP3 store page as the reference. It was reverted by Legolas2186 (talk · contribs) the first time around because it was a "retail link". I brought this up on his talk page where he suddenly changed his reason for removing it stating that "Amazon fails as a WP:RS" where the only discussion concerning this has been when I brought up the issue with his reverts on his talk page. The third time he stated that if I added the content back it would be considered vandalism.

A good portion of the other releases concern the content existing on iTunes, so stating that Amazon.com is a "retail link" and should not be used is pointless. He has told me that my addition of this information with a source is considered vandalism, and I have never encountered anything in WP:RS or WP:VAND that states that this. Clearly, there needs to be some outside input concerning the use of this Amazon MP3 Store link. Legolas2186 states that "Amazon chooses to sale a product irrespective of the owner's agreement, while itunes only sells licensed and copyrighted products released to them". All of the Amazon.com MP3 store is mirrored on iTunes, so I do not see why this would be a reason against using the Amazon.com link as a source. If next week, the iTunes Store has this content and I add it, there would be no opposition against my addition of the content it seems.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 08:11, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Basically, can Amazon.com be used as a reliable source when it comes to (digital) music release dates/content? And where the hell was there a discussion that says Amazon.com cannot be a reliable source, as Legolas2186 suggested?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 09:14, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Amazon is not a particularly good source for future releases. The most appropriate source is the publisher of the material, and even then you should say that the publisher has plans to make the release. As we all know, publications can be delayed. In the case of books and recordings already published, then they are their own source. They should usually be found on Amazon, which will usually have the publication date correct, and will probably be in libraries as well. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:29, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

But this is a music release, for which there is a defined date by which the content will be able to be purchased and downloaded from the website. This is presumably because the digital content is already available via the website, but not available for purchase.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 21:46, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:CRYSTAL applies here. Amazon may believe it will have the material available on a certain date, but that doesn't mean they will. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:40, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

But the reference is to be used to show that the digital album exists. Not what the release date is.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 06:29, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

If they are selling it now, then it's reliable to show it exists. If they will be selling it, but they not yet, then it isn't reliable. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:47, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

So because it cannot be bought currently, but they state that it will be available for purchase in the near future and they list all of the content that will be available on this future date, this link cannot be a reliable source?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 07:53, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Very OR alert about my comment. Amazon often list items (such as books) that they say will be published then are not (they eventualy send you an e-mail telling you htat the book has not been published). As such I do not beleive that they are RS for future releases being released, onlt that they might be released.Slatersteven (talk) 15:02, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The book thing happens with music, but it's not the retailer(amazon,itune,books etc) pulling/changing it, but the originator(labels/record company etc). In essence the problem is that future dates for music are planned dates and thus they are subject to change or cancellation. Maybe future dates in music are WP:CRYSTAL or at least many of them are because they fail 'almost certain to take place'. SunCreator (talk) 02:17, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

The issue here is that I added a statement (or a list) that said that this digital album exists. I did not use the Amazon.com page to say when the album is going to be released but that it is going to be released. The reasons as to why Legolas2186 removed it seems to just be because the reference is to Amazon.com and not, say, the iTunes Store which is certainly not accessible to everyone. I have not gotten a good enough response as to why this particular link cannot be used, other than from Peregrine Fisher in that it should not be allowed just because the album has not been released yet. I think that this is ridiculous. Why should a link to the iTunes Store page following its release be the only reference used on the article? Why can't a link to an Amazon.com page prior to its release be used? And what if after the album is released it is only available via Amazon.com? Would I have to argue against Legolas2186's reasoning here that just because it is only available on Amazon means that the content cannot be added to the article?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 20:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

FWIW Amazon mp3 download pages (as well as iTunes) are linked to from both lady gaga's official site discog and Interscope records release pages so whatever reasoning is given about licensing issues seems bogus to me.--Glumboot (talk) 08:07, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Legolas2186 reasoning is most likely incorrect, but he is trying to save himself time. The subject is perhaps best discussed elsewhere. Links to iTunes are likely the standard (or standard for that editor). iTunes has a website also, you can link to them without installing iTunes. SunCreator (talk) 02:17, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

None of the sites are reliable for release dates. Not because the site it unreliable but because for commercial/logistic reasons it is often advantageous to move the release dates at the last minute. I do think it's fine to use amazon as a wp:rs. I will comment more on the above issues when at a PC(currently on iPhone) and above section is to big to add comments. SunCreator (talk) 05:19, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

One week later

• Bad Romance - The Remixes Part 2 on Lady Gaga's website
• Bad Romance (The Remixes, Pt. 2) - EP on the iTunes Store
• Bad Romance - The Remixes Part 2 on Amazon.com's MP3 store

Clearly, Amazon.com's MP3 store is a reliable source for information on digitally released music. Legolas2186 should not have edit warred to remove the link to the Amazon.com store, which was probably just because he does not want to use it as a source. It turns out that after he reverted me for the third time, he added a hidden comment.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 05:35, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

And you instead chose to revert for the fourth time. Nice 3RR? Anyways the concern over Amazon which I feel is that its WP:CRYSTAL ways as pointed out above. Many times I have noted that they start selling music, without any official release from the recording association and even selling starts, leading to street date violations. A similar thing happened to 50 Cent's latest studio album where retail outlets like Amazon, Walmart and some others started selling the album before release date compelling the recording company to push back the release, holding the street date sales. If so, then do we really consider Amazon a reliable source in that case? We need a consensus here instead of Ryulong going on adding it without achieving the desired result. I left a hidden comment in the Bad Romance article urging editors to contribute in this discussion. --Legolas ^(talk2me) 05:49, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

3RR concerns a series of three reverts over a 24 hour period. The last edit I made to the page before reverting your removal of the tracklist was on February 4. It is currently February 9. That is a 120 hour break between reverts. The article currently uses the iTunes Store's link as the reference, so you cannot remove it because now it is reliably sourced (I am currently listening to the MP3s I bought from Amazon.com). None of the editors who contribute to Bad Romance made any comments here. You didn't make any comments here until just now.

Clearly, when it comes to digital downloads of music albums, singles, or extended plays, Amazon.com's MP3 Store can be used as a reliable source until the album becomes available on the iTunes Store, after which the Amazon.com MP3 Store link can be replaced by the iTunes Store link.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 05:55, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

LOL LOL! This is getting beyond ridiculous. So you actually want to add an unconfirmed link for temporary reasons untill the album comes out? Why can't we just wait for these few days and add the reliable iTunes link? What's the hurry? Are you affiliated to Amazon or something? --Legolas ^(talk2me) 06:00, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

In practice, it is confirmed. If you aren't paying attention to what I am saying Amazon MP3 is a reliable source when it comes to digital music releases.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 06:01, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

It is reliable for digital music releases. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 06:26, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Just to repeat Amazon is a reliable source. I see no reason to amend the source now or in the future. Lady Gaga's website doesn't have a date so that's not much use. WP:CRYSTAL doesn't apply because the date has arrived. Lastly the issue that above is called 'street date sales' has some basis, although it happens to all retailers. For commercial reasons or even human error sometimes a digital release is stopped or moved even after sales start. SunCreator (talk) 22:37, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Per suncreator, crystal would only apply if the date was in the future, thanks. Okip (the new and improved Ikip) 13:23, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Why would WP:CRYSTAL apply to a tracklist of a digital album?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 11:01, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Why not? Both future release dates and future tracks selections can change. SunCreator (talk) 17:54, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Granted track listings change less often then dates - and most changes I've seen are to add an additional track, but if something happens like a band member leaving suddenly then things can rapidly change. SunCreator (talk) 18:00, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Why would WP:CRYSTAL apply to a tracklist of a digital album where the website that is providing the digital album has samples for all of the tracks that are intended to be sold?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 14:22, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I think I answered that already. SunCreator (talk) 17:24, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

iTunes

Like to add this in while it occurs to me. This track which in the UK is only currently on the album Jay Sean Featuring Sean Paul And Lil' Jon - Do you remember. iTunes have recently revised the album date to 12 February 2010 - two days ago. However that is not correct it has been there for ages, it's been in the UK charts(based on album track downloads) for a while now see chart info (you'll find it as #23). So iTunes are not without faults! SunCreator (talk) 17:24, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Venezuelanalysis Reboot

The issue of the reliability of the website Venezuelanalysis, which has long passed too long, didn't read status above, merits a reboot in an attempt to actually resolve the issue. The site now has its own entry - Venezuelanalysis.com. It is argued that Venezuelanalysis is widely considered reliable, and that it "offers useful detail and analysis on pivotal issues that is unavailable from other media sources," and as such is a necessary complement to other media sources. Any present overuse of VA should be fixed by adding more sources, not removing VA sources.

• Widely referred to in Google Books (200+ hits) [8] and Google Scholar (300+ hits) [9]
• Specific academic views: Analyzing Venezuelan media, Darrell Moen calls it "A major source of non-corporate controlled information regarding the process of social transformation that is occurring in Venezuela ... This website offers critical analyses by dissident scholars and grassroots-based accounts by social activists involved in the various social movements in Venezuela as well as links to a number of alternative media sites and access to documentary videos that depict recent events in Venezuela.". Writing in New Political Science, Walt Vanderbush calls it "a valuable resource for Venezuelan news and analysis."
• Endorsed by 4 academics on Venezuelanalysis' "donate" page: [10]. Links to their homepages: Anderson, Grandin, Hellinger. (Ellner's page I can't find; Venezuelan university websites are generally not great.) Ellner and Hellinger are Venezuela specialists (political science); Grandin and Anderson have broader Latin America interests. A book Hellinger and Ellner co-edited (Venezuelan Politics in the Chávez Era: Class, Polarization and Conflict, 2003) was described by Foreign Affairs as "An extremely valuable and balanced overview of Venezuela".[11].
• Ellner's endorsement ("In short, Venezuelanalysis offers useful detail and analysis on pivotal issues that is unavailable from other media sources."[12]) is particularly significant, being a (if not the) leading English-language academic on Venezuelan left politics. Ellner's 1988 book was described by Foreign Affairs as "A well-researched analysis of Venezuela's small but innovative third party..."[13]. In the foreword to that book, Michael Conniff described Ellner as "a leading analyst of Venezuela's left politics"[14] That was in 1988; "Steve Ellner"+Venezuela gets 150+ hits on Google News [15], many from the New York Times and Christian Science Monitor asking Ellner for his opinion on events of the day. He is described in neutral terms such as "a political analyst at Venezuela's Oriente University"[16] Even Fox News described him neutrally as "a political science professor at Venezuela's University of the East."[17]
• Used by Human Rights Watch as a source in its 2008 report [18], and multiple times by UNHCR Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, eg here.
• Lonely Planet: Venezuela deems it "the best English language news site" to "keep track of the country's political and economic affairs."

In the face of this evidence that Venezuelanalysis is widely considered a reliable source, some Wikipedia editors wish to substitute their personal opinion that it is unreliable, because links they allege between the website (the alleged links are weak and the sourcing generally unreliable) and the Venezuelan government allegedly render it unreliable. They also argue that in their opinion the website editors' political views, which differ dramatically from their own, render it unreliable. In addition they argue that those wishing to use VA as a source must prove the site's 8 editors have "journalistic credentials" (whatever that means). (It was generally ignored that I had noted - to suggest that "journalistic credentials" are not everything - that Venezuelan media, formerly one of the most respected presses in Latin America, had after the election of Hugo Chavez become part of the opposition: "media owners and their editors used the news - print and broadcast - to spearhead an opposition movement against Chavez... Editors [...] began routinely winking at copy containing unfounded speculation, rumor, and unchecked facts." Dinges, John. Columbia Journalism Review (July 2005). "Soul Search", Vol. 44 Issue 2, July-August 2005, pp52-8. US media reporting on Venezuela has also been critiqued [19] [20])

In discussing this issue in the RSN thread above, the editors opposing use of VA have introduced irrelevant sources; complained about Wikipedia's Venezuela articles not matching their POV; and made many accusations of bad faith. Since the old thread remains open for any more accusations of bad faith that may be required, as well as any more detours into complaints not relevant to the issue, hopefully this thread can focus on resolving the question: can VA be considered a reliable source? Rd232 ^talk 14:17, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks for the additional data. I stick with what I said earlier: the site easily meets the minimum threshold of RS, it had best be used for attributed opinion, and where it is used for contentious facts, these facts should also be attributed. (That last point, of course, also applies to other sources.) --JN466 21:54, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• I will also stick with what I said earlier. Venezuelanalysis meets the minimum threshold of RS, but it is a highly partisan source and opinion site. Since pro-Chavez opinion is a significant viewpoint in Venezuelan politics, we should include the pro-Chavez opinion with attribution. This source must attributed if used, and should not be used for contentious information in BLPs. --Defender of torch (talk) 13:12, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Sigh. I dislike things that begin to seem like WP:IDIDNOTHEARTHAT issues after a while. It's a reliable source, my comments from the last thread on this (a week ago) have not changed. I have better things to do than debate this ad-nauseum. Simonm223 (talk) 15:01, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

This looks like "ask the other parent" to an issue that was already well debated; I suggest that anyone weighing in here not take Rd232's summary at face value, rather re-read the entire previous thread. Venezuelanalysis is funded by Chavez, media in Venezuela is state-controlled, the writers for Venezuelanalysis are highly partisan and affiliated with the Chavez regime, have no journalist credentials, and VenAnalysis is largely cited by the extreme radical left. It has been used on Wiki to source an egregious BLP violation, and its reporting is rarely comprehensive or neutral; the people responsible for it are funded by Chavez and associated with him. VA has a very limited place on Wiki, if any, and people willing to use it as a source often do so to the exclusion of more reliable sources. It rarely covers info that is not available in non-biased mainstream reliable sources, and because it is affiliated with Chavez, should never be used to the exclusion of more reliable sources. I also notice Rd232's several distortions and one-sided presentation of the issues in his new thread here, and am concerned about his tendentious editing in Chavez/Venezuela articles. He states that media owners spearheaded opposition to Chavez, but fails to mention the serious press freedom issues in Venezuela and that the media is state-controlled, by Chavez, and you can be jailed or shut down if you criticize Chavez; if Wiki allows VenAnalysis a larger role here as a source, we become one more arm of Chavez's very successful Venezuela Information Office. We already see Rd232 writing entire articles sourced to the highly partisan VA website, and excluding mainstream views (that alone speaks to the bias of VA as a source). We also now have an unbalanced article venezuelanalysis.com that uses a tour guide to prop up this partisan website. And I strongly object to this "ask the other parent" reboot, since most people are probably tired of this discussion and considered it settled. WP:V is a pillar of Wiki; overreliance on VA turns Wiki into another arm of the Chavez PR and propaganda machine. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:16, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Sandy, I understand your concern. But at this point, we are helpless because we are yet to find reliable sources which document the Chavista connection of this site, even though we know the persons associated with this site are lackeys of Chavez. This is why I said this site should be used with attribution as an opinion site, and should not be used for sensitive information in BLPs. I agree the article Venezuelanalysis.com is horribly biased and will try to add some information to make it NPOV. --Defender of torch (talk) 16:30, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

This is yet another example of Sandy attempting to derail or shut down dispute resolution (she virtually accuses me of forum shopping on the same forum). She repeats the unsourced and/or irrelevant claims made ad nauseam in the TL:DR thread, which had driven away external input and made an actual resolution of the issue this dispute resolution board is actually for impossible. This summary of the issue is an opportunity to actually settle the question asked. Rd232 ^talk 17:11, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Also it appears that the above comment, insofar as it has any actual relevance to the question, boils down to the argument that Wikipedia should counter the alleged press freedom issues in Venezuela by excluding a source widely considered reliable - as some sort of political counter-balance. This has the merit at least of being the closest Sandy has come to expressing her motivation on this issue. Rd232 ^talk 17:15, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I have seen no evidence that Venezuelanalysis has a reputation of poor fact checking so it can be used to source uncontroversial facts; uncontroversial understood as not being in conflict with the facts reported by other reliable sources, any conflict with WP editors' opinions is irrelevant. JRSP (talk) 16:35, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I have edited the article venezuelanalysis.com to make it clear that the site is left wing and pro-Chavez. However I am not sure if my edit will stay. --Defender of torch (talk) 16:44, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like its reliable and biased. Use attribution, and don't use it for super controversial stuff related to Chavez. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 17:14, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. We need to put enough restrictions on the use of this partisan website, with ties to Chavez, to stop Rd232 from writing entire articles sourced to it to the exclusion of mainstream non-partisan sources, and it should never be used in BLPs or to source contentious claims. It should only be used to support non-contentious information that is not available in other sources (and that means, rarely, since most of anything they report on is available in other sources or highly contentious and dubious). Rd232's editing in Venezuela articles has evidenced extreme tendentiousness, and he has written entire articles sourced largely to VenAnalysis, excluding mainstream sources and a preponderance of reliable sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:27, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

• Comment. I was asked to comment here. [21] I don't think venezuelanalysis.com can be regarded as a reliable source within the sourcing policy, WP:V. It's what the policy calls a "questionable source": "Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts, or with no editorial oversight. Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, or promotional in nature, or which rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions. Questionable sources should only be used as sources of material on themselves, especially in articles about themselves." See WP:V#Questionable sources.

  It is also a self-published source within the meaning of the policy, in the sense that it seems to have no employees, no bosses, no office, and no formal editorial oversight. It describes itself as "an independent website produced by individuals ... its contributors are all working on the site from their homes in various places in Venezuela, the U.S., and elsewhere in the world." [22]

  The reliability of individual articles on the site therefore boils down to whether the person who wrote the article is a reliable source within the meaning of the policy. The policy says: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." See WP:V#Self-published sources (online and paper). So each article on the website that's being proposed as a source will have to be examined individually to decide whether the author has previously been published in that field by an independent publication. Then that article could be used with a link to the site as a source. But I would caution against using self-published material for anything contentious, and it can never be used as a source of information about a living person, per V and BLP. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 19:11, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

In view of the range of sources noted at the top of this thread citing it or endorsing it, I do not think it should be considered "self-published"; and I would say that the fact that other sources rely on it matters more than a debatable interpretation of "self-published". It has editorial oversight at least insofar as the 8 individuals listed here [23] are just some of its many contributors. Rd232 ^talk 19:19, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

You've added "widely acknowledged as extremist, or promotional in nature, or which rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions." from policy, in support of it being a "questionable source". Citing policy is not enough, it needs to be shown that it applies. The fact that it is relied upon by others (as noted at the top of the thread) suggests that it is not "widely acknowledged as extremist"; and claims that any other part of the policy applies need to be evidenced. Rd232 ^talk 19:25, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter who relies on it, Rd. What matters is our sourcing policy. The eight people who have may editorial responsibility are unpaid individuals working from home. They're not providing professional editorial and legal oversight, or any kind of fact-checking process. They make this almost a point of pride: we are not professionals, we are just volunteers working from home. Are any of them known experts, do you know? SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 19:24, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Wilpert is a professor of political science. It is endorsed by Steve Ellner, whose credentials are noted above, as well as VA being widely cited in academic sources. And what matters is not just the nature of sourcing policy, but arguments on how it applies here. Rd232 ^talk 19:27, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

If Gregory Wilpert has previously been published in this field by an independent publication, then self-published articles by him on this website would be allowable within reason, but not for use about living persons. It doesn't matter who endorsed it or who else cites it. We care only about our policies. The point of the sourcing policy is this: if push comes to shove, and we publish some terrible, false and libellous thing, and a court comes to us and says, "Wikipedia, show us your due diligence. Why did you publish this dreadful lie?", we have to be able to point to The New York Times or to Cambridge University Press or to Routledge. We don't want to be pointing to a website that's suddenly disappeared, published from home by eight volunteers, now untraceable. That's not due diligence. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 19:36, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Wot? Legal liability has nothing to do with this (only comes into play for failure to remove specific information). And given the falsehoods published by the NYT (as acknowledged by themselves), as well as by Venezuelan media which despite the Columbia Journalism Review information we're still happy to use, the value of "editorial oversight" and "journalistic credentials" is a lot less than it appears (as evidenced by the external citation of VA). Rd232 ^talk 19:42, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

"a website that's suddenly disappeared" applies to a vast proportion of WP sources, actually or potentially. It's mitigated by archive.org and use of WebCite. Rd232 ^talk 19:44, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Legal liability is only part of the story. I am talking about due diligence—morally, legally, intellectually, editorially. And when I talked about the website disappearing, I didn't mean where we couldn't find the article. I meant in a "ships that pass in the night" sense, not a source that has a history, a reputation, that we could rely upon. The bottom line is that you're trying to reinvent the wheel to some extent, because the policy is pretty clear about sources like this. I'm sorry. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 20:53, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I think Rd232 will also find that if he begins to use more enduring, high-quality reliable sources, he won't have to keep chunking up citation templates with that obnoxious WebCite info, or resorting to archive.org. We don't have to archive The New York Times (Disembrangler=Rd232); I tend to use high-quality enduring sources rather than websites operated out of people's homes that will disappear in a few years, under regime change. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:25, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

"We don't have to archive NYT" - I told you in relation to the linked edit that NYT unlimited free access is disappearing in a year, as a result of which some efforts are underway to WebCite key uses of NYT. Do you have a problem with this? And by the by, talking about citation templates as something I "chunk up" suggests you're really not paying attention to my edits: I hate citation templates with a fiery passion and avoid them wherever possible. Rd232 ^talk 02:13, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

On-line links are not required for a printed source like The New York Times. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• I have been asked to comment about this. You got to love the moral ambiguity and circularity of argumentation of Rd232. Venezuelanalysis is reliable, among other things, because HRW mentioned it in a report the very spinmeister of the site, a.k.a. Gregory Wilpert, protested for allegedly not having followed academic standards. But Rd232, as far as it remains known, lacking any credentials on Venezuelan studies or indeed international law, called the report he now uses as proof as "biased and manipulative". Worth of note also, the fact that said HRW report also quoted me, to which Wilpert et al reacted by saying, without providing a shred of academic evidence, that I was a mentally unstable opposition blogger. My exchange with Chomsky demonstratetd that none of them had any evidence to support such spurious arguments. Rd232 calls tenuous the Gaceta Oficial de Venezuela, for those ignorant on the topic the official gazette where all legislation, appointments, etc, need be published BEFORE reaching legal and official status. This debate is a joke. Rd232, his alter ego and JRSP, have a notorious track record of utterly biased and tendentious editing in pages relates to Chavez and Venezuela. They give far too much weight to the radical left, to obscure academics that lack peer reviewed publications related to Venezuela, while ignoring reputed left sources, such as NYT, BBC, etc., or indeed, HRW, when these report on the horrendous crisis Venezuela is undergoing. I declare myself out of this, there is no good faith here. Venezuela/Chavez related entries are nothing but a crude exercise in propaganda, and I will go as far as stating my belief that there is a connection between the editors in question and chavista propaganda efforts. Otherwise, how else can their attitude be explained?--Alekboyd (talk) 20:07, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
  • • Also, obviously and unsurprisingly misleading. For example the criticism of HRW's report involved 118 academics. And I did not specifically call the Gaceta tenuous, I called the whole argument which relies on Gaceta as source for part of it tenuous. And if Alek thinks it is not significant that HRW cited VenezuelanRd232 ^talk 20:58, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
      • I did actually say in the opening post of this thread that "the old thread remains open for any more accusations of bad faith that may be required". Obviously, anyone who disagrees with you must be a paid propagandist! Only possible explanation! For the record, I joined WP in October 2004, becoming an admin in October 2005. I made a few edits to Hugo Chavez (the centre of the Venezuela disputes, so I've checked the history for that article) for the first time in summer 2005; 3 in 2006 (including a vandalism rollback), zero in 2007 and 2008 (OK, I was mostly absent from mid-2006 to early 2009 - but it's a hell of a way to collect a paycheck, doncha think??). In any case, as Soxred's tool and some careful thumbing through my history shows (especially pre-2009, when I seemed to get a lot more involved with Venezuela), Venezuela is just one of many topics I've edited, and only a relatively small proportion of my edits (especially on the edit side rather than the talking - reams of talking here). Rd232 ^talk 20:48, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

• It's a deep plot :) But the circular reasoning employed by Rd232 is utterly astounding, but not apparent to other editors who might not be as familiar with Venezuela and its issues with lack of press freedom and control of the judiciary. He's virtually begging us to let him use VenAnalysis (why the urgency, I wonder?), while decrying other mainstream reliable sources as "corporate" or "US" or "UK" biased, and making claims about the Venezuelan press-- which has been severely muzzled by Chavez. From what I've seen of his editing-- creating quite a few POV articles-- Rd232 seems to think VA is the only reliable source on Venezuela. Considering its connections to Chavez, that is very interesting. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:18, 7 Februay 2010 (UTC)

• One last comment: It is not true that UNHCR has used Venezuelanalysis as a source in multiple ocassions, as RD232 misleading and deceitfully argues. Rather it has posted reports from the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, which has cited Venezuelanalysis in some of its writings. This is a quintessential example of the quality of editing, objectivity and fact checking that Rd232 brings to Wikipedia. In said report the Venezuela Information Office, and the International Journal of Socialist Renewal (in reference to comments from the Australian-Venezuela Solidarity Network) can also be seen. Does that mean that VIO and clueless Australian activists from the 'solidarity network' meet WP:RS standards? I think not. Same goes for Rd232 statement about Ellner being the leading English-language leftist academic of Venezuela, because some obscure and totally unrelated to Venezuela academic had said so once.--Alekboyd (talk) 20:47, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

• , My bad. It so much weakens the case for it as a source that the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, "Canada's largest independent administrative tribunal",[24] used it as a source. As for your comments about Ellner - you clearly read my post enough to dismiss Michael Conniff's view of him, so why do you ignore 150+ cites in Google News, many from sources like NYT quoting him? Rd232 ^talk 20:52, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
• Cheap shot to mention the VIO citation when it is relied on purely for the number of people elected in the 2008 elections. Even you can't find something objectionable about that. Rd232 ^talk 21:03, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

• 99.9999% of the comments on this topic here have absolutely no relationship the question of whether this source meets our reliable source guideline. Please stop cluttering up this page with this off-topic ideological dispute. Dlabtot (talk) 21:09, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
  • This is exactly why I started a new section (and complained at ANI when the same thing happened as before). Rd232 ^talk 21:13, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
    • Um, but that didn't prevent you from starting this very thread with your ideological distortion, did it ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:35, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
      • Case in point. Don't address the content issue with relevant sources or arguments, just attack other contributors with vague accusations. It's a surefire way to make sure nobody else will want to comment on the content issue. Rd232 ^talk 02:16, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Where is the quid pro quo here? If we agree that a Chavez-biased source can be used, why can't the Washington Post or NY Times, normally recognized as left-wing biased publications, be used? Only because they publish what is accurate about Venezuela?

BTW, WP:AGF also says, "This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of contrary evidence." We have seen a lot of "contrary evidence IMO." Student7 (talk) 01:24, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Where does the claim come from that these sources cannot be used? The issue is treating these (indeed, any) sources as Gospel. Different sources should be used - the issue here is the attempt to suppress VA - the repeated and unfounded claims that criticisms of other sources imply a blanket unwillingness to ever use them are ludicrous. Rd232 ^talk 02:09, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Post/NYT "normally recognized as left-wing biased publications"? Even by US standards, that just isn't true. Of course rightwingers would, and do claim this (and they point mostly to op-eds, which is irrelevant - it's the news reporting that's the issue). Rd232 ^talk 02:18, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

SlimVirgin's analysis is correct, and I appreciate her more thorough review. The website is essentially a WP:SPS, and has to be treated as such. Its political views, and whether or not various professors write a laudatory paragraph for the website, are both irrelevant. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I have to disagree with SlimVirgin's analysis. I see little basis for classifying it as a questionable source. The website could be considered a WP:SPS, though this is not perfectly clear, but that does not preclude it from being considered a reliable source, even if it is not published by well-known experts. Frequently enough sites even more clearly self published, by obscurer individuals, have been judged to be RS's here at WP:RS/N based mainly on their citation by and reputation described in definitely reliable sources. This is more important and has more to do with interpretation of the WP:V policy and the WP:RS guideline than with this particular source. Some of the issues were just inconclusively debated here; I didn't have the time to contribute before that was archived, I think the subject should be reopened at WT:V.John Z (talk) 08:20, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Which parts of WP:V and WP:RS are you using to make that assessment? Jayjg ^(talk) 01:43, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree it is WP:SPS – although a number of the people involved are previously published experts, and they are exercising informal editorial control over contributions from others. --JN466 22:19, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Replying to Jayjg: Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#Usage_by_other_sources and WP:SPS. This usage by other sources section was written precisely to cover the situation of often self-published sources widely quoted, cited, reviewed or used by clearly reliable sources, but which may be difficult to analyze in other ways. It was (re)inserted in the guideline after the case of boxofficeindia.com at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_13#Boxofficeindia.com which was such a source on the Indian film industry. Since then, other such websites have had a clear consensus on their reliability here based (mainly) on such evidence, most frequently in the case of military history sites often run by amateurs - if such sites are so good that dozens of academic or reputably published books cite them, it can be arbitrary and artificial for Wikipedia to exclude them.John Z (talk) 06:57, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

The problem with WP:RS is that it is a guideline, and people have a bad habit of editing it so that it no longer conforms with WP:V (a policy), specifically for the purpose of allowing them to use non-reliable sources. And because it is watched less closely, these changes often stick for a while. That's why the RS guideline has a bold statement in the first paragraph: In the event of a contradiction between this page and the policy, the policy takes priority, and this page should be updated to reflect it. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:21, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Reboot the reboot: Exhibit I

Exhibit I, since people have been asking for examples, which I just happened across while looking into the curiously orphaned article, Corruption in Venezuela, whose original content seems to have gone desaparecido and orphaned. This VenAnalysis report is used to source a completely biased accounting there of the cases of Manuel Rosales and Raul Baduel (and others). Since I have cleaned up Rosales, and done a wee bit of work on Baduel, I invite those participating in this discussion to compare this VA article with the reliable sources listed at Rosales and Baduel, see if they think VenAnalysis has presented both sides of the story. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:50, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I went and checked the original article and copied two paragraphs not moved when Corruption in Venezuela was spun off. One mentions corruption in a general context of crime; the other based solely on ...er... Venezuelanalysis.[25] Well anyway there it is. I can still userfy if you want to check anything else. And do you not agree that it's more useful to the reader to have the content in Corruption in Venezuela than hidden away in a subsection of Criticism of Hugo Chavez? Rd232 ^talk 15:20, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

How typical of Sandy to insinuate instead of clearly stating the supposed problem. The only substantive difference I can see between the current version and the old version, in terms of the paragraph where Venezuelanalysis is used as a source is that Sandy has added "He is in prison, for an investigation ordered by Chavez, awaiting trial" sourced to a newspaper source which [26] relies heavily on opposition journalist Roberto Giusti's opinion (find-in-page here about his take on journalistic ethics). Despite that, the source doesn't obviously support the specific claim that "Chavez ordered the investigation", which is ironic in view of Sandy's crusade to strengthen policy requirements to provide foreign language quotes in articles to back up their use. Elsewhere Sandy for some reason is deleting content sourced to Venezuelanalysis with nothing more than a claim of "bias"[27]. Rd232 ^talk 08:20, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

There are two camps in Venezuela. Similar to what we see in the States. As Wikipedia is more liberal it is not surprising that it has a liberal bent as apposed to a conservative one. I think Venezuela analysis is a sufficiently reliable source to use of Wikipedia. The fact that it is released under a creative commons license is a plus. If there are other sources that disagree add them to provide balance. On Wikipedia we are not attempting to match this paper but create something better. Hopefully no page will be based on a single source / single opinion. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:37, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

There are two, and more, camps everywhere. At stake in this discussion, is not whether to turn Wikipedia into National Review Online, but rather to stop using a source that beyond reference by some radicals, has been given far too much weight by Rd232, his alter ego Disembrangler and JRSP over the years. Take for instance the entry Human Rights Venezuela, and how the opinion of Gregory Wilpert, editor in chief of Venezuelanalysis, sociologist, married to Hugo Chavez's Consul in NY, funded by Venezuelan taxpayer money, is provided as balance to a 230 page odd report produced by one of the world's most respected, and liberal BTW, human rights NGOs: Human Rights Watch. Now to some around here that seems perfectly kosher, to those of us who know who Wilpert is, it is crystal clear that his opinion, as much as he's entitled to publish it in his propaganda rag, carries no weight whatsoever in the debate about whether or not human rights are systematically violated in Venezuela. Wilpert has no credentials to participate in such debate, and has been described by HRW, rightly so, as "unhelpful critics who opt instead to disseminate baseless allegations" link. The Inter American Court of Human Rights has ruled against the Chavez regime in a number of occasions, Amnesty International keeps warning the regime about the dangers of disrespecting supra constitutional and inalienable rights, yet Wikipedia visitors of the entry are meant to take the opinion of an utterly discredited propagandist on an equal footing as that of HRW. So I'll go with SlimVirgin, Jayjg, SandyGeorgia, Defender of Torch, Student7 opinions and stress that Venezuelanalysis should only be used for stuff that can't be found anywhere else, and has to be properly identified as a propaganda rag of Hugo Chavez's ever growing media empire.--Alekboyd (talk) 20:28, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Just so one does not get to carried away one can say the exact same thing about Fox News / Rupert Murdock. His media empire is even a little bit larger :-) I remember seeing this clip [28] were Fox had on someone who called for Chavez to be murdered. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:05, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Comparing a military putschist cum president of a nation to a businessman, however much hated, does your position no good whatsoever. This debate is not about whether Murdoch has a bigger media empire, but about using as trustworthy a source riddled with conflicts of interest, and with far too many connections to a military regime.--Alekboyd (talk) 16:54, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Stepping over the red herring of Murdoch, I'd have to say I agree with Alekboyd. VA is a reliable, but biased, source. It can be used as a source for simple questions of positive fact if no other source is available, but should be avoided entirely if other sources (such as HRW) address a question. It is also not reliable for negative facts (did not, never, etc.) Note that even in cases where laying out a he-said-she-said debate is appropriate, the pro-Chavez position should be sourced to something more official. Homunq (talk) 17:48, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Use as required reading in university courses

I've noticed that the site is included in required reading lists and bibliographies for courses at a number of universities. The following list (by no means exhaustive) provides some examples:

• Harvard University: Required reading.
• University of California, Santa Barbara. Listed in course bibliography. Quote: "http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/. This website is dedicated to critical news coverage and analyses of events in Venezuela and in particular regarding the Bolivarian revolution."
• University of Pittsburgh: Reading list (twice)
• University of Colorado, Boulder: Reading list
• De Paul University: Reading list
• Cornell University: Reading list
• Evergreen State College: listed 18 times in course reading list

I would think that tends to affirm RS status. At any rate, it clearly has some considerable academic standing. --JN466 22:40, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

It depends what we want to use it for. Are we agreed that it's a self-published source? If yes, it can't be used as a source about living people. As for using it elsewhere, the dichotomy is this: if we want to use it to support material that's published somewhere else too, why not use that other source? But if we use it for something that doesn't appear elsewhere, then we have to ask ourselves why that website is the sole source. So either way, I can't think of a situation where I'd feel happy using it, unless the issue was so uncontentious that it barely needed a source at all. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 10:58, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I am doubtful. Your argument could be made to exclude any source: "If it's only in this book, then why should we use it?" If it is a book that is widely cited by scholars (as venezuelanalysis is), and it has enough standing to be used as a means of instruction in universities, then excluding it from Wikipedia seems to me to result in a different standard for inclusion than the one the most reputable actors in the real world are applying. Cf. Wikipedia:Rs#Usage_by_other_sources. --JN466 11:34, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

My argument is indeed often used to exclude self-published sources. If something appears only in an SPS, and it's a contentious point, what does that tell us? We have no way of knowing how to proceed. Do you agree that it's an SPS, or are you also challenging that? SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 12:07, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Just as a general point, there is no way that the use of something as required reading automatically makes it a reliable source. For instance, there are courses on cult archaeology that have some dreadful stuff as required reading -- there must be lots of courses in other fields that ask students to read what we would call unreliable sources to demonstrate the way such sources mislead/misrepresent etc. Dougweller (talk) 12:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

As a general point, you are of course quite right. You can find university courses asking students to read all kinds of unreliable sources for illustrative purposes. But I looked at the course outlines in that light. I've read the papers included in the Harvard reading list; their messages broadly match each other (and the official analysis of the referendum by the Carter Center). So it's not like one paper is set off against the other. In the Evergreen State College case, a full third of the entire reading list is articles on venezuelanalysis.com. The University of California course outline simply includes the site in its supplemental bibliography; no qualifier. --JN466 13:24, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Rs#Usage_by_other_sources and WP:SPS we accept even self-published sources as reliable sources if they are routinely cited for fact by reliable sources, or if they are published by previously published experts. Both of these apply here.

Jay, sorry to interrupt your post, but the first part of your sentence is a misreading of both those sections. Bear in mind too that V is the policy, so even if RS did say that about self-published sources, it should be removed, but it doesn't. We accept self-published sources if they are acknowledged experts on the topic of the article, who have been previously published in that field by independent reliable sources. None of that applies to the people who run that website, as I recall. And we never accept them, expert or not, as sources about living people. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 14:30, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

As for whether the site is a SPS in the first place, I was swayed earlier by your argument about it being SPS. Looking into it more closely, I confess I now tend to lean the other way. It is clearly not a private website or blog. The site itself says "Venezuelanalysis.com is a project of Venezuela Analysis, Inc., which is registered as a non-profit organization in New York State and of the Fundación para la Justicia Económica Global, which is a foundation that is registered in Caracas, Venezuela." It is the joint website of these research foundations, and employs an editorial team of internationally published scholars. That, combined with its scholarly reception, makes me think it's okay. --JN466 14:18, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

When I last looked at it, it said it was run by a group of people from their homes. They were named, and they weren't scholars that I recall. And it has no employees. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 14:30, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

The editorial team work for these foundations. I'll research all the editors and put up what I find here.

• Gregory Wilpert is "a former US Fulbright scholar in Venezuela, and is currently [2002] doing independent research on the sociology of development". Books by Gregory Wilpert, google scholar. As "Greg Wilpert: [29], [30], [31].
• Eva Golinger is a widely published Venezuelan-American writer and attorney and the author of several books on Chavez: google news, google scholar, google books, books by her. --JN466 14:50, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
• According to this book which he co-wrote, Michael Fox is not a scholar, but "a journalist, a reporter, and a documentary filmmaker based in South America." Here it says he is a "former staff-writer for Venezuelanalysis.com". --JN466 15:07, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
• Federico Fuentes is described as an "author, journalist and political activist". The article also says he "is actively involved in the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network, of which he was a national co-convenor (2008-9), and has organized several solidarity delegations to Venezuela. He is also a member of the Socialist Alliance (Australia)." Elsewhere it is said he is "a frequent writer for the Australian socialist newspaper, Green Left Weekly, and maintains the blog Bolivia Rising". Google News: [32], Google Scholar: [33] --JN466 16:06, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
• Jan Kühn appears to be a German student of history and sociology, studying in Berlin and Caracas, as well as working as a translator and in "independent media". Not anyone with any academic track record. --JN466 15:15, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
• Same for Tamara Pearson: "Tamara Pearson is an Australian activist and writer as well as a member of the Australian-Venezuela Solidarity Network. She currently lives in Venezuela." --JN466 15:31, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
• No evidence that James Suggett is significantly published outside VA.com: [34]. --JN466 15:31, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
• Kiraz Janicke is described as "a member of the Green Left Weekly Caracas bureau", "a Resistance member who has been based in Venezuela for the last 12 months", "a participant in the first Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Brigade" etc. --JN466 15:48, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

So the editorial team looks like 2 or 3 people with a notable track record (albeit decidedly left-leaning/alternative, judging by their publishers), and some minor players. Golinger's two main books are held by 419 and 221 libraries respectively; which is sort of respectable, but there are definitely more widely held bios on Chavez. --JN466 15:48, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Even just looking at the Harvard page I get the impression that the site is being presented not as a reliable source from which students are expected to derive facts, but as one of a number of competing analyses that students are going to be comparing. Also, note that the very next reading on the list is a Wikipedia article. Clearly, being on a course syllabus like this does not imply that a source is reliable in the Wikipedia sense. —Largo Plazo (talk) 13:35, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Addressed above. Note that the paper's conclusions about the 2004 referendum match those of the Carter Center and the US government. --JN466 14:26, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm curious as to why this one website has been getting so much attention. Can someone point to an example of an edit that relies on it that couldn't otherwise be made? SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs}

It's been getting so much attention because it is apparently broadly pro-Chavez. The people on it are seen by conservative commentators as propagandists for Chavez. There have been several attempts here on WP to link people on the site to the Venezuelan state-funded Venezuela Information Office (for example, there was an edit war in our article on the site about inserting the – tenuous – info that VIO once wrote to Golinger asking her for help). Clearly, some or all of the people writing on Venezuelanalysis.com are socialists or at least liberals. At the same time, some of the editors arguing forcefully against any use of Venezuelanalysis.com have proposed the inclusion of material sourced to sources like discoverthenetworks.org. I am concerned about throwing out sources that have scholarly credibility because the authors may have socialist or liberal leanings. --JN466 14:25, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you there, but it's not clear there are scholars involved. The volunteers who run the site are Federico Fuentes, Michael Fox, Eva Golinger, Kiraz Janicke, Jan Kühn, Tamara Pearson, James Suggett, Gregory Wilpert. [35] Are any of them academics? And can you give an example of the kind of edits it has been used to support? SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 14:35, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I've posted what details I found on the editorial team above. Of course the site hosts articles by other writers as well. In the Evergreen State College course, which makes most use of the site (and describes it as "Good writing about contemporary Venezuelan developments, links to other good sources. Extensive archive. Co-founded by Greg Wilpert."), about half the articles are by members of the editorial team, and the other half by outside authors. The one that they include at Harvard is co-authored by Mark Weisbrot, who is a notable economist and columnist for The Guardian. I'll have a look how and where the site has been used. --JN466 16:22, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Looking over the list, it doesn't appear that they are generally what Wikipedia would consider to be experts in the subject; that is, they're lawyers, activists, filmmakers, etc. A university may have many reasons why it would want its students to read the views of these people, but university courses aren't encyclopedia articles, nor do their curricula have our sourcing requirements. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:26, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Having researched the team's credentials, I was less impressed than I thought I was going to be. ;) The site is currently cited on 200+ WP pages: [36]. About 115 of those are articles in mainspace. --JN466 16:35, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Having gone through this exercise, I can't fault SlimVirgin's analysis above, posted at 19:11, 7 February 2010. In particular, it seems more than likely from the affiliations of the people involved that the site does have a promotional agenda. That does not mean everything on it is bad or invalid; as SlimVirgin said earlier, we should look at the credentials of each individual author whose writings are hosted there, and base our decision on that. Thanks for your input. --JN466 17:02, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I would say that self-published articles by the two published authors, Wilpert and Golinger, can be used, though according to V and BLP, they can't be used as sources on living people, and that includes Chavez, even though he's one of the issues it seems they specialize in. But for general political issues in that country, articles with their byline on that website could be used as sources. Fox, I'm not so sure of—his contributions to that book probably don't amount to an acknowledged expertise. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 17:13, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. :) Where their guest authors are reputable, like Weisbrot etc., those articles could be used as well. And Wilpert and Golinger have written books on Chavez; these would obviously fine to use (in moderation, given that they are somewhat left of mainstream) if someone wanted to use them as sources on him. --JN466 20:49, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Having expended more than enough energy on this issue, I'm staying out of it. However I will correct the error introduced above by relying on the Harvard reading list: the source given for the Mark Weisbrot contribution is "Black swans..." [37], which is a straight re-publication of the CEPR paper here: [38]. Weisbrot hasn't written for VA, as far as I know; but seemingly is quite liberal in allowing republication by anyone that wants. Rd232 ^talk 22:01, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Georgism

This article currently lists a great many notable people as "Georgists." (Ambrose Bierce [22] Matthew Bellamy [23] Ralph Borsodi [24] William F. Buckley, Jr. [25] Winston Churchill [26] Clarence Darrow[27] Michael Davitt [28] Henry Ford[29] Mason Gaffney David Lloyd George [30] George Grey [31] Walter Burley Griffin[32] Fred Harrison William Morris Hughes Aldous Huxley Blas Infante [33] Mumia Abu-Jamal[34] Tom L. Johnson Samuel M. Jones Wolf Ladejinsky [35] Ralph Nader[36] Francis Neilson Albert Jay Nock Sun Yat Sen[37] Herbert Simon Leo Tolstoy[38] William Simon U'Ren[39] William Vickrey [40]. Frank Lloyd Wright[citation needed] ) The main problem is that some of the references are from a group dedicated to Georgism, and many of the other cites do not actually call the person "Georgist." It also relies heavily on such sites as "cooperativeindividualism.org" which is part of [39] the Council of Georgist Organizations , which also may not qualify as a third party publisher either. Can someone kindly review the claims made in that article about notables being "Georgists" whether or not anything outside the Georgist community makes the claim? I fear this is like using any organization's publications as proof that famous people were part of it <g>. Collect (talk) 16:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

cooperativeindividualism.org appears to be the personal website of Edward J. Dodson. Or am I missing something? Jayjg ^(talk) 21:00, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Sources which appear to be copies of reliable sources

I've come across a couple of articles that include citations to copies of reliable sources, and I'd like some input on them. The articles in question are Grief Recovery Institute and Ebsco Publishing, although other articles may have similar issues so a centralized discussion is appropriate. Each of these articles contain citations to copies of reliable sources which are hosted on the subject's own site. It's significant that each of these articles was created by editors with a likely conflict of interest. I attempted to replace the references with ones that linked directly so they could be verified, but was unable to do so. This could be because copies are not available online, or because copies simply do not exist. I'm here because I'm hesitant to remove sources which may be reliable, but uncomfortable leaving them in because they can't be verified. Thoughts?--otherlleft 18:02, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, some of those are probably copyright violations, and shouldn't be linked to. Others would probably require a trip to the library to confirm. The WSJ ref on the GRI article is likely both. There's enough info on its page to create a non-hyperlinked reference to the WSJ article. It's probably real, but you can't know for sure. You might look at this policy, although it doesn't talk about copy vios. Tough call. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 19:02, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

So either it's a primary source (from the company's own site) or a copyvio, so in neither case does it demonstrate notability and the reliability of the hosting site must be considered. Doesn't sound nearly as tough after your reply. Thanks!--otherlleft 19:38, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Here's the problem. Say they have perfectly copied a WSJ article (and I think they have). It's a copyvio that can't be linked to, but it's a pretty good lead on a source and establishing notability. The WSJ puts their stuff behind a pay wall, so it's always hard to verify their articles. So, it's then up to us experienced editors. If we want to delete the article, we can say "doesn't count, since it's a copyvio and I haven't seen the original". If we want to keep it, we can say "there's a good WSJ article on the subject, can someone help me check that it says what we think it says". (I think User:Hunter Kahn has an account that would let him check, and he's pretty nice about this kind of stuff). It's a weird situation, because it's experienced editors on one side, and COI newby editors on the other. So, do what you think is right, but be aware that you are the one making the decision: it's not out of your hands because some policy is forcing your hand. Basically, how nice do you want to be? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:48, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

See if WP:ELNEVER and WP:LINKVIO apply. --JN466 22:23, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The pay wall issue can be overcome easily... Most public libraries will have a subscription to the WSJ's web archive. Blueboar (talk) 17:10, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Why are you so sure their copy is a copyvio, on the web illegally? It's an article about them, after all; news organizations allowing their subjects the right to reprint articles about them is hardly uncommon. The author's email address is hyperlinked right on the page if you want to confirm that they have the right to it. Here is another copy.[40] --GRuban (talk) 21:50, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:ELNEVER says it is okay to link if the site has licensed the work. There is no evidence of that here. If someone has licensed a work, they explicitly say so. If you have further doubts, I'd suggest you contact User:Moonriddengirl, who has an excellent grasp of copyright issues. --JN466 21:59, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

"If someone has licensed a work, they explicitly say so." Not at all. In general reprinters just write the equivalent of "This article originally appeared in X", and don't add "and we're not stealing it from them, honest." Here are, oh, 8 million examples, at least the first few dozen seem to be from highly respectable sources, including not a few law firms.[41] You seem to think we should assume they're all breaking the law unless we have proof to the contrary. That's not how it works. If we have reason to believe they are breaking the law, that's one thing, but we shouldn't just assume it. --GRuban (talk) 14:30, 11 February 2010 (UTC)http://www.grief.net/Media/Wall_Street_Journal.htm

I believe we shouldn't just "assume" that they have licensed the material without any evidence indicating so. I believe such evidence might look like this: [42] --JN466 18:58, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

JN asked my opinion here. My opinion is "It depends." :) I've seen plenty of subjects that have taken material about them to republish at their own websites (or repost on Youtube) where licensing was highly implausible. Immediately comes to mind a DJ and model whose manager has had some COI issues. They seem to think that their website can serve as a resume/scrapbook, and (of course) this isn't so. I believe GRuban is right that a good many of them do obtain permission, and JN is right that a number of them do acknowledge it (even if they don't think it's that kind :)). Practically, WP:ELNEVER provides us a little more leeway than much of the other prohibitions of WP:C. I think we need to exercise some individual judgment here to determine if content is likely licensed, which might in part be made up of the stature of the hosting organization and the other contents of their website. I also think that where possible we should view and verify the original, since it isn't impossible that reproduction could be altered. And, of course, it seems very likely that they will have cherry-picked what sources they reproduce to serve their own purposes. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:07, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I have (legally!) accessed the WSJ article via a commercial news archive (Factiva) and compared it to the alleged copy at [43]. The two have identical text except: (1) The Factiva version does not have the side-bar (the list of statistics in the box labeled "THE GRIEF INDEX"); (2) the Factiva version does not give the URLs for GRI and SHRM. Apart from this, you can cite the information in the article to WSJ. Whether you can also link to [44] is a separate issue. Zero^talk 02:27, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Juan Cole and List of charities accused of ties to terrorism

This is a mutually agreed upon request from a mediation cabal mediation (parties: Bonewah, GRuban, mediators: Vicenarian, PhilKnight). The Wikipedia article List of charities accused of ties to terrorism has an entry for the Capital Athletic Foundation. The entry is based on multiple sources, but this RSN question is about this one: "Lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s “Charity” a Front for Terrorism", by Juan Cole, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2006, pages 28-29. Is this a reliable source for the entry?

The arguments against are that:

1. this is an opinion piece, which is unacceptable per RS "Some sources may be considered reliable for statements as to their author's opinion, but not for statements of fact. A prime example of this are Op-ed columns that are published in mainstream newspapers." The article even states at the bottom that this is "commentary" first appearing in Mr. Cole's blog.
2. the only place this editorial directly accuses the CAF of supporting terrorism is in the title, the statements in the body are weaker
3. that Juan Cole is a dubious source for such a statement, being a professor of middle eastern history does not make one an expert on everything that occurs in the middle east.

The arguments for are that:

1. the entire List is a list of accusations, not of facts, and is clearly labeled as such; it makes no statements of fact other than that the accusations are made. The facts of all accusations in the list are highly disputed, except for one which is admittedly wrong.
2. the title is an important part of the source article, and quite clear
3. The New York Times calls Juan Cole "a Middle East expert at the University of Michigan" [45]; Harper's Magazine calls him "one of the nation’s leading historians focusing on the Middle East"[46]. He has published multiple academic peer-reviewed books on the modern Middle East, and is widely cited as an expert on it by PBS [47], UC Berkeley [48], the New York Times, [49] (>2000 results), MIT[50], NPR[51] and so forth, meeting WP:RS "established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications", while the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs is a 17 year old magazine, published in by some pretty heavy hitters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bonewah (talk • contribs)

1. Speaking as someone who's written lots of op-eds, op-ed authors very rarely get to title their own pieces: the titles are chosen by newspaper staff, and usually to fit the space available. If the only evidence for the "link" is the title of an op-ed, it can't be attributed to the op-ed author, so the author's reliability is presumptively irrelevant to the question.

2. Generally, "terrorist" is not acceptable nomenclature unless the organization named as terrorist has been so identified by a government. Juan Cole's hyperbole (and reading that overwrought op-ed makes it clear that the "terrorism" appellation is rhetoric rather than scholarship) doesn't count.

So all in all, I say no. THF (talk) 17:30, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

"A" government? Is there a specific list of acceptable governments? Is there a reason why political maneuvers, such as the back-channel lobbying that saw the MEK listed, then removed, on several of these lists would be allowed but opinions of academics would not be? If we do actually need "a" government to make the accusation that a groups is a "terrorist" group the article should be retitled List of charities associated with groups designated as terrorist by one of six governments nableezy - 17:39, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

It is obviously, unambiguously, and indisputably RS. Dlabtot (talk) 15:22, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

There is no question that Cole is accusing Abramoff of funding terrorism... so it seems to be a reliable source for the existance of the accusation ... WP:RS is only part of the issue. The guideline does not exist in a vacuum. It must be considered in conjunction with our other polices. So, while the source may be reliable for a statement as to the existance of the accusation, we also need to ask whether mentioning the existance of the accusation at all gives the accusation undue weight. I am not convinced that Cole's opinion is note worthy enough to pass WP:UNDUE. The issue of whether a source is reliable for demonstrating that "opinion X exists" becomes moot if, for other reasons, we should not say "opinion X exists" in the first place. Blueboar (talk) 19:46, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Are websites recommended by articles in established newspapers considered reliable?

The reason I ask if because of this article in the Toronto Globe and Mail[52], which uses and recommends the self published Road Scholar website (but also is a verification that the author is an employee of the Ontario Ministry of Transportation). Does this make that website reliable in any way? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 05:10, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

It adds just a little bit to indicate that it might be reliable, but only that little bit. We have to apply our own criteria. As you'll see from WP:RS, we're looking for authorship and for a history of fact-checking. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:25, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Reading the article, however, helps. It says that Shragge was a professional writing for the Canada Department for Highways for 30 years. Looking around a bit more, seems he edited a book called From Footpaths to Freeways: The Story of Ontario’s Roads published by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation.[53][54] That added to the Globe and Mail and National Post relying on him [55] seems to weigh in favor of Shragge meeting "an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications" bit of WP:RS. --GRuban (talk) 18:21, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Awesome. I have that book (Just got it yesterday) actually, but it only says "produced by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications". Who knew? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 18:12, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Does this mean that http://www.michiganhighways.org meets the criteria for inclusion? Chris Bessert and his website are regularly featured in the Detroit Free Press, his he's a professional cartographer with the Grand Valley Metropolitan Council, which works in transportation and infrastructure planning for the Grand Rapids Metro Area, and his site has come recommended by the Library of Michigan, the FOIA Office at the Michigan Department of Transportation, the Grand Rapids Public Library and other official sources. Imzadi1979 (talk) 21:26, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

For such questions, also see Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#Usage_by_other_sources.John Z (talk) 20:33, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

blogs and myspace as references establishing the occurrence of specific concerts of a music group.

Some confusion has arisen in the band Lesser of Two's editing process regarding whether certain blogs and myspace content is acceptable to verify that particular concerts occurred. I have contended that such self published references are acceptable in the WP:SELFPUB exception for non-reliable self published sources especially given the context. They are relevant and there is little doubt to the authenticity of the information. I believe that some editors believe any "blog" or myspace site is never acceptable as a reference. I do not see that to be the policy. Could someone help clarify who is an administrator?noodle 07:02, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not an administrator, but being an administrator isn't required to make a statement about policy, though the experience most admins have helps. (Also, you haven't gotten an administrator's response for a week, so I'm feeling a bit bold.) A self-published statement, such as on band's personal web page, myspace, or blog, is considered a reliable source for non-controversial information about the author, in this case, the band, as long as you can be sure the statement was actually written by the band. That a specific concert occurred seems non-controversial enough, though it would help if you gave the specific context. (If the statement is that they gave a concert in space hosted by Greys from Zeta Reticuli that might be a bit controversial.) --GRuban (talk) 13:59, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

World of Martial Arts Video Site

I would like to ask for opinions about the video web site World of Martial Arts [56]. It does not appear to be a video blog: the videos are selected by the staff of WOMA. There is no statement about their editorial policy and there is no information about the copyright status of the videos on their site. There are interviews with popular martial artists [57].

Would these videos be acceptable as Primary Sources? Would inclusion in this site help a claim to notability? jmcw (talk) 11:51, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

There's not a lot about it that I could find. From http://www.alanorr.com/htdocs/articles/Wherecaniseethat.html and http://www.woma.tv/docs/about.html it seems a limited number of people can upload content, so I would say they could be primary sources for the views of those specific people, which could be useful if those specific people are considered experts. But since there isn't much about WOMA elsewhere, I wouldn't be able to say that the site as a whole is a reliable source, or that inclusion in it as a "Guru" is a guarantee of expertise or notability. It certainly doesn't hurt, but I don't think it would be sufficient. --GRuban (talk) 19:25, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I will consider it a Primary Source of the people interviewed. jmcw (talk) 12:23, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Debka.com

Is the Debka.com website a reliable source? Mjroots (talk) 21:27, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't trust any 'exclusive' from them, and their spin on verified stories is extreme neocon/likudnik.--Glumboot (talk) 05:34, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely not reliable. It isn't a matter of bias, it's a matter of record of accuracy. That site publishes things on the basis of poor information and rumors, sometimes scoring spectacular scoops and sometimes dismal failures. It should not be treated as a normal news source. Zero^talk 06:13, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that confirms my suspicions. Mjroots (talk) 14:01, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Woah, there. Which article is it being used in, and what statement is the citation used to support? It's pretty clear that this source will be RS for some topics but not others, and we should be having a real debate over this. For example, if this is for a biography, you can seek other sources. On the other hand, if this is about a military event in Israel that was mentioned on Debka before the mainstream media, then it may be appropriate to cite Debka. Squidfryerchef (talk) 00:09, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes Debka itself gets into the news by being the first to report something. This reporting might be notable enough for WP in some cases (it amounts to using Debka as a source about itself, which is permitted). However if the report is true and relates to something notable, mainstream news sources will be available for it. It is hard to imagine a case where a claim made in Debka and not confirmed anywhere else can be cited as fact. Zero^talk 02:07, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Per a request on my talk page, the article in question is Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409. An editor cited Debka as the source for the accident being the result of a terrorist attack. I looked at the source, decided it wasn't reliable and reverted the edit. I also brought the issue up on the talk page. So far, no reliable source has claimed an Al Qaeda involvement. Mjroots (talk) 06:25, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I've studied the issue and while I don't think it's appropriate to cite Debka out of the blue as it is now, if we had a paragraph about the debate on whether the incident was an accident or sabotage, and sabotage by whom, then we would have sufficient context for Debka'a opinion.

Here's a Times Online article about whether it was "storms or sabotage", with cautions against taking eyewitness reports of "explosions" at face value;[58] here is a UPI article about claims and denial of Hezbollah involvement;[59] and an AP/Washington Post article entitled Lebanese minister rules out bomb on Ethiopian jet;[60]. There was also an article in the Canada Free Press about the crash that went out of its way to mention Ethiopia's campaign against al-Shabaab.[61], so we no longer have an extraordinary claim relying solely on Debka.

I've looked through Google Books for information about Debkafile and examples of how it is cited, and it appears their opinion is notable even if prelimary reports shouldn't be taken as gospel. I think Debka could become an RS in this context if all those other sources I provided were used to build a paragraph, and if Debka's opinion was attributed as such, and if it was quoted as something like "counterterrorism news outlet Debkafile pointed out...", so the reader will know this came from a specialized source. Squidfryerchef (talk) 15:04, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Software Top 100: a reliable source on large software companies

The Software Top 100 is verifiable, as it quotes material from annual reports, and clearly displays its methodology and calculations on its website. The Software Top 100 is online since 2003, and it is used by large software companies to review their competitive position and inform the public of their size. The point of view is neutral and objective: companies are only included on the basis of sufficient software revenues. Companies can not pay to be on the list, or something like that. The Top 100 Research Foundation makes the Software Top 100 on best effort, using its database with currently 10,000+ software companies. In doing the ranking, they do not differ from the makers of other rankings such as the Forbes 400 or the Fortune rankings, which do not claim to be complete, but do have a stated research methodology and a verifiable way of working.

Some time ago, it was decided by user Esoteric Rogue that the Software Top 100 is not a reliable source, and he proceeded to delete all links on Wikipedia to that source. His post on this noticeboard can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_38#softwaretop100.org . I do not agree with him. At the moment there is really no better source online for software company size than the Software Top 100. Try and compare with other sources and their methods: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_largest_software_companies (Software Top 100 references were deleted from this page by Esoteric Rogue).

In general, it looks reliable because most of the data comes straight from SEC filings with no calculation involved. For comparison, we report Alexa Internet rankings for web sites, and that's also not completely reliable, and arguably less so than financial data; in fact, there's no completely reliable Internet ranking, and the same is probably true for software revenue. Where softwaretop100 is not so reliable is for entries where the actual software revenue had to be estimated (by them). That was the case of Sony, which only declares their "game" revenue; softwaretop100.org estimated that 10% of that is software revenue for instance. The same is true for Cisco; the estimate there was 30% of "service revenue". So, when citing individual entries, care should be taken to see how each was determined. That also makes the overall ranking less than absolute, but still informative. I'm concerned however that the site is mostly cited in press releases of companies that want to boost their standing. I did not find direct citations in WSJ, Forbes, or CNN Money articles (only in press releases reproduced on those sites). So, it's probably preferable to cite just the figures, and the method used to derive them, rather than rely on the rankings much. You could also try to find other tops of this kind. For Europe at least, IDC made one in 2006 Template:Nl icon [62]. Pcap ping 11:40, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

http://www.thekingshighway.ca

Before we begin, yes I know it is a self-published website, and that nothing on the website itself establishes notability. Cameron Bevers, the writer, is a regional planner for the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario. However, he is certainly considered an expert on the topic, as the city of Toronto archives uses this website as the source for its description of the Highway 401 archive category. I can't link directly to the archives but if someone wants to see it before commenting.

I'm fairly certain I could find a recent newspaper article from a major newspaper that discusses him as well if the archives is not enough. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 18:17, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Can you provide examples of other sources using this website as a source? Where does the city of Toronto archives use this, for example? Jayjg ^(talk) 20:56, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

On the online toronto archives, many pictures have been digitized. Amongst these are pictures along the highway, and construction pics. When you go into a picture, they are organized by categories, such as "Highway 401" or "Road construction". When you click the 401 category, it brings up a synopsis of the history available from thekingshighway.ca (I'd provide a link to this, but it expires quickly. If you want a screenshot or step by step directions to get to it, I can do that).

He is also practically the subject of a Toronto Star article on cottage country highway traffic,[63] (The article essentially "stars" him) as well as a brief mention in an article in the Hamilton Spectator.[64] - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 05:18, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Where are the online Toronto archives? Jayjg ^(talk) 02:00, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll give you step-by-step instructions to get to the description of Highway 401:

First, go to this page, and click on "Search the Archives' Database". This will open up a new window. In this new window, search for Highway 401. The first result should be "File 1 - Oblique aerial photograph showing Labatt's Brewery at Highway 401 and Islington Ave. - October 19, 1970". Click on it, and it opens in the right frame. Click on Subseries 5; Etobicoke Clerk's Dept. aerial photographs, and another new window will open. In this window, you should see Highway 401. Click it, and a new window will open with the description from Cameron Bevers website. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 03:15, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Does the City of Toronto website use Bevers' site for other material? Jayjg ^(talk) 01:22, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Not that I can find, unfortunately, but they don't have a Highway 404 or Highway 400 (the other two highways within Toronto) category as they do a Highway 401. Just the one instance that I can find, as well as those two newspaper articles. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 02:08, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

What do you want to use the website as a source for? --Insider201283 (talk) 02:14, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Mostly as a secondary source to back up primary statistics (items which can be verified by going to the subject yourself and measuring, for example, or items which are verifiable through Google satellite/street maps), and to fill in the occasional missing piece of history. I just don't want to be hassled when one of my 45 references is to a self-published source at WP:FAC... Though it would be nice to use it as a source in general for histories and routing, as the Ontario Ministry of Transportation kind of gave away its archives to its employees 10 years ago, and keeps sparse current records. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 18:15, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The mentions in a couple of newspapers aren't a strong indication of reliability, and the single use on a specific municipal website isn't strong either. I wish I could say it was reliable, but so far it's pretty weak. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:02, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Don't forget though that that municipal reference is from the 4th largest city in North America, through which the highway that his website is used as a reference for travels. I believe it qualifies as an established professional (both articles mention him being a highway historian) who is covered in third party publications. There certainly isn't anything out there that hampers the reliability of the site. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 15:08, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I suspect that a city that large would have many websites, though, maintained by many different individuals, departments, etc. This isn't a ringing endorsement by "the 4th largest city in North America", this is a single use on a specific website. And regarding the newspaper articles, one is from a relatively small newspaper that briefly mentions him, while the other is from a short article in an admittedly high circulation newspaper. I think that if you tried to create an article on Cameron Bevers it would quickly be deleted by AfD. I wish it were otherwise, as he seems to have an interesting website that he obviously does his best to maintain accurately, but he's still effectively a WP:SPS, and there's no real indication he's an "expert" in the Wikipedia sense (an academic who has published on the subject in various reliable sources). Jayjg ^(talk) 16:31, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I think being a planner for the province where the highway is, is enough expertise for basic facts. This isn't an academic topic, and we shouldn't shoot ourselves in the foot with academic standards. Squidfryerchef (talk) 20:35, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

You can think whatever you like, but the source fails WP:RS. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

A government highway planner writing about a highway certainly meets SPS. Squidfryerchef (talk) 03:10, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, yea... Thats what this board is for, sources that don't meet the generalized criteria of WP:RS to be discussed to see if consensus overrides the criteria. Also, the Hamilton Spectator is on par with the Toronto Star (it's the leading paper in Hamilton, which at 850000 people isn't just a dot on the map). Also keep in mind its being mentioned by the Toronto Archives, which is a government run ministry that deals with historical facts (as Cameron Bevers site does), not the personal blog of the mayors assistant. He is a regional planner for Central Ontario (established expert) who has been published in multiple reputable sources with regards to his expertise. It's not just a mention in an editorial in the Scarborough mirror, its an article devoted to him in the most published newspaper in the country. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 03:07, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Emporis

Is Emporis considered a reliable source? They review and include sourced submissions [65] per "To add new information to our database, we need a reliable source. A source can be newspaper articles, the official website, architectural reports or blueprints." ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:20, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

According to our article Emporis, they are frequently cited as an authority on building data, and that's cited with a number of good news articles, so I'd say yes, for those purposes. What's the specific question? --GRuban (talk) 19:44, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Here's a diff [66] and here's the edit history [67]. Let me know if you need more information. I don't want to be seen as trying to bias the outcome. ChildofMidnight (talk) 08:21, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Wow, what an innocuous list of information to war over.

1. This romanesque revival structure served as Springfield's City Hall until 1979. It is almost 10 times long as it is wide. [68] (referring to Municipal Building (Springfield, Ohio))
2. Sandstone, neo-gothic structure [69] (referring to St. Raphael Church (Springfield, Ohio))
3. Brick, beaux-arts structure [70] (referring to Shawnee Hotel)
4. Brick, beaux-arts structure [71] (referring to Tecumseh Building)

Is that really it? I could even see the argument that these last 3 don't even really need a source, you can see a building is brick by looking at it, we have photos, or you can use Google Maps photos or the equivalent. For something as innocuous as this, Emporis, which is used by the New York Times and Washington Post for much more controversial things, [72][73][74] should be plenty good enough. --GRuban (talk) 20:20, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

gibnews.net

There has been some discussion on wp:ani about the above site as a reliable source for wikipedia, with one editor calling for it to be blacklisted.

Can I request an independent review of the site from uninvolved editors and not the 'usual suspects' with an agenda one way or another.

I wrote the software behind the site, but the content is provided by established authorised users. It is NOT a wiki or blog but a repository of press releases.

If there are any suggestions on improving it, eg by including a statement from the content providers, that can be implemented. --Gibnews (talk) 19:25, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

From [75] it appears to be nothing but a publisher of press releases and opinion pieces. This makes it at best a primary source. Hut 8.5 23:07, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

• Who ensures that the press releases have been faithfully and/or accurately transcribed by the owners of the website?
• How can a reader tell that the owners of the website are choosing to censor certain material - ommitting words, sentences, or paragraphs? Especially when the owners "reserve the right to remove any content without giving a reason."
• This begs the question, who is behind gibnews.net? The "company" and its staff are anonymous. Who is it that can remove content without giving a reason? If I want to find out who runs the GBC or FSC I can [76] [77].
• You are the site's webmaster. Do you wield editorial discretion? If you do not, can you demonstrate that you do not, for example, by providing the name of the owner of the site who will attest to that fact?
• If you do, is it not a serious conflict of interest that you are attempting to use the site as a source in Wikipedia, yet you wield editorial discretion over what is posted there?
• How can a reader tell that the owners of the website are not cherry picking certain material to publish?
• How can a reader tell that anyone wishing to post a press release or opinion there is free to do so? (e.g. would one of the very small number of Gibraltar residents who voted to return to Spanish rule be able share their opinion or post press releases free of censorship?).
• Who are the people who share their opinions? Are they experts in their field?
• Do any other reputable organisations demonstrably use gibnews.net as a source of information? If so, please provide them.
• Governmental bodies and media outlets in Gibraltar have their own distribution channels, e.g. [78] [79] [80] [81] and extensive archives [82] Why does Wikipedia need to resort to this private repository of information?

These questions at the very least need answering. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 00:00, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Generally the metric used for web sites that are referenced as news sources is whether or not there is editorial oversight. The Gibnews.net site seems to have a disclaimer that makes it clear that there isn't any. WP:RS states that reliable sources should have a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". Again, the Gibnews.net site disclaimer asserts that it makes no claim on accuracy and doesn't check anything it publishes, it only presents it "as-is". In general, press releases themselves are not considered reliable sources on Wikipedia, except as sources for what one entity might "claim", so should a site that simply publishes press releases be treated differently? As Hut 8.5 suggests, they may be useful as primary sources. WP:PSTS describes how primary sources should be used. -- Atama頭 00:37, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

If I may comment - Red Hat, while I understand your concern with this site and Gibnews's affiliation with it, I also have to say that you need to keep this all in perspective. Don't all news sites "cherry pick" content, to some extent? Does it matter if anyone is free to post? Before you react to that, realize that my gist here isn't to say you are wrong - it's that you're barking up the wrong tree. Concentrate on why the site, as-is, doesn't meet our criteria for a secondary source. Don't push the same buttons over and over; let's try to all get somewhere here. Assume good faith that Gibnews wants to help build an encyclopedia, and try to reject any notions of some nationalistic ulterior motive. If we show that this site doesn't work for a secondary source, then all the other stuff doesn't matter, including Gibnews's affiliation with the site. Simply being involved in a news organization doesn't exempt one from participating in this project, or even using said news source. I hope you see what I'm trying to say here - Atama is on the right track for an acceptable answer for everyone involved. Gibnews seems like a reasonable person; let's treat him like one and maybe he'll respect our views, also. Tan | 39 01:18, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Tan, I disagree with what you say there. The info on self published sources is clear [83] and conflict of interest is a very serious matter. For better or for worse, Gibnews does hold a strong political view on Gibraltar's sovereignty (as is his right), it is a political hot potato, and it would be highly dubious if he were using a website he controlled to advance a POV. My questions were merely attempts for him to show that this is not the case, so I consider the "pushing buttons" comment not to be assuming good faith. Also I think you are confusing the reliability of a source with whether its usage constitutes original research/synthesis. That is not the point of this page.

Anyway, it may help to examine an example usage by Gibnews, without dragging the content dispute here. We were trying to establish on the Talk:Gibraltar page Gibraltar's level of self-government in order to choose an acceptable wording for the article. An editor put forward a series of sources from governmental and international bodies [84] supporting one view, one of which I picked out as especially definitive wording, which was from the Government of Gibraltar [85] Gibnews, who holds a differing view, replied that these references were "out of date" [86] and he then asked us to read a press release on the Gibnews site [87] calling for applicants to join the Gibraltar Police Authority as supporting evidence that Gibraltar enjoyed full self-government with respect to internal security, contradicting the aforementioned governmental sources. Comments? The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 02:19, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

ps I notice a similar discussion above Sources which appear to be copies of reliable sources in which an editor commented "So either it's a primary source (from the company's own site) or a copyvio, so in neither case does it demonstrate notability and the reliability of the hosting site must be considered." The important part is italicized. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 02:31, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I guess what I was trying to say, in a nicer way, was for you to step out of the room for a bit. We know your stance, you've reiterated it a lot, and I think it's a fair request of Gibnews for uninvolved people to review and comment on this. Look at the sheer mass of text you've added; this is yet another battleground for you, right or wrong. Tan | 39 02:36, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Merely explaining the background and responding to your reply directed at me rather than on the subject at hand (that you could have placed on my talk page), that's all. Being "involved" doesn't bar me from adding my views - which were no lengthier that some of the posts you'll find above on this page. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 03:03, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, I still don't think you understand what I'm trying to say, but thank you. Tan | 39 03:08, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Per Atama I suggest that reports on gibnews.net can be used as a primary source. Gibnews writes at [88] "There is scrutiny of content, and content providers are told that in the TOS. But the contributors are REPUTABLE ORGANISATIONS. Anything libelous would be removed to comply with Gibraltar law which is very different to that in the US. So far I am informed nothing has been removed.The site provides an archive with permalinks of press releases in Gibraltar, 'as-is' without alteration. Some of the material is not available anywhere else, and even where it is, the links are guaranteed permanent.The rationale for 'banning' references to it is not clear, Yes I wrote the code behind it. No I do not write the content referenced in wikipedia."

I understand that it runs scripts, written by Gibnews himself, which aggregate external reports, many of which are not available elsewhere. It would be nice to have some external confirmation that the site is regarded as an accurate reporter - Gibnews may well be able to point us to one. But in the meantime, given that we have the above statement from Gibnews himself that nobody at gibnews.net actually changes text or adds content to this site (perhaps he'd like to make this absolutely explicit?), I feel that we should assume good faith.

Red Hat mentions that Gibnews has used reports on this site to support his position. I suggest that this is not relevant to the reliability of the site itself, and that issues of possibly-inappropriate use of primary sources to support an oversimplified position are best left to the relevant talk page. Where indeed I hope they are already being dealt with. Richard Keatinge (talk) 12:35, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Can I make the point that I have specifically asked for an independent review of the site and not the biased opinions of the editor who is trying his best to get it banned because he does not like the content. Thank you Richard & Tan for putting the record straight. The site policy, which can be read here. If I have strong views on the sovereignty of the country I reside in its no surprise! Those views are shared by 99% of the population However, gibnews.net carried material from ALL political parties in Gibraltar without bias. --Gibnews (talk) 13:00, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi. Totally uninvolved. Can you show me where other, obviously reliable sources have cited Gibnews? Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 13:15, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll work on that, it needs some research. Good point. --Gibnews (talk) 18:00, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree with Hipocrite, I think this is a pretty fair point. My other concern is that while it's nice to assume good faith about other editors, I don't think we should apply this to sources. I think a source should be verifiable and reliable, and certainly I believe that a news site needs some sort of editorial control. If the news site is an aggregator of other news sites (forgive me if I've misunderstood something here) then I don't see why we can't reference those news sources directly. And if we can't source the news sources directly, then are those news sources in turn reliable or verifiable? - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 13:32, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Gibnews.net acts as an archive of press releases and news stories from a number of contributors. Not all of them present the material online, and even where they do, their archives are not always complete or in good working order, indeed I just found an example Here Click on any of the press releases for 2006. --Gibnews (talk) 18:00, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

So why can we consider that the press releases you have on the site reliable? - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 07:05, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Just because Red is involved, that doesn't make his points any less valid. If you want your site to be used here, I suggest you answer his points.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 05:19, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

As someone whose entire knowledge of this subject comes from this section, I think that most of Red's points are irrelevant to this discussion. There is an obvious conclusion that gibnews.net (the site) as a republisher of primary sources is not a secondary source and so can not be used as such. The only question remaining to be answered is "Is gibnews.net a reliable republisher of primary sources?".

If the answer is no, then it should not be used as a source on Wikipedia and no more discussion needs to take place. If the answer is that it is reliable, then the primary sources it republishes can be used in articles where there is a consensus among editors of the individual articles to do so. Any personal attributes of gibnews (the Wikipedia editor) are irrelevant to this discussion, as are any views he does or does not hold about any topic.

Whether gibnews.net (the site) hosts content from all points on the spectrum of opinion regarding the sovereignty of Gibraltar is also irrelevant as it is not the only possible source for reliable references regarding Gibraltar - each article needs to be balanced, and if primary sources supporting only one side of the debate can be found on gibnews.net then references supporting the other side can be found from other sources.

In a hypothetical dispute between Russia and France, it is conceivable that ITAR-TASS and AFP would each only carry primary reporting that supported their country's side of the dispute. This does not mean that we cannot use either as sources, just that we cannot use either as the only source - something we should never do anyway. Thryduulf (talk) 12:59, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Strongly disagree. The questions are an attempt to get Gibnews to demonstrate that the site is a reliable and faithful archiver of press content. (It is fairly obvious that a press release is a primary source.) The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 13:03, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

The following is moved from my talk page, as I do not feel it is approrpriate to try and sidestep this discussion in that way:

Hi, posting here because I don't want to fill up the RS page. This site demands special attention, because of the potential conflict of interests involved. This editor is very active at Talk:Gibraltar, and holds very strong views about its relationships with Britain and Spain. Maintaining a NPOV at that page is at times very difficult. A Wikipedia editor is using material from a site that he runs (even if it's just storing away documents he didn't write) to edit a page which has constant POV problems, so there is a very real potential conflict of interest. For example, it would be very easy to twist the meaning of a press release by editing out certain sentences. Or indeed, to omit a press release entirely from your archive, because it contained something you didn't like. Such a selectively operated collection of primary sources would be implicitly biased, and the site would not be reliable. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 13:19, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Taking your points individually

• Potential conflicts of interest are dealt with at WP:COI. Just because one user has a potential conflict of interest with a source, does not mean that source is not reliable.
• If the press releases are edited then it is not a reliable source, regardless of who or why they are edited.
• If the press releases are not edited, and it can be verified that they are not, then it is reliable. This is what the discussion is attempting to determine. If they are not edited it is irrelevant that they could be.
• If it cannot be verified either way whether they are edited or not, we cannot verify whether the site is reliable and it should not be used.
• Just because a press release is not in an archive does not mean anything, other sources exist, and we should never rely on just one source.
• It does not matter whether primary sources are biased or not. What matters is that the articles are not biassed. This is done by citing multiple sources that verify all sides of an argument. For example the governments of Spain and Gibraltar hold differing views about the sovereignty of Gibraltar, as so both sources are biassed about the topic. However both sources are citied in the article, because they are reliable sources that verify their respective positions.
• The appropriateness of a single reliable source for verifying a specific article is a matter for discussion on that article's talk page.

I think that you would do well to remember that "reliable" and "biased" are independent qualities. For example, the Government of Gibraltar is a source that is both reliable and biased, while an unsourced Wikipedia article can be both neutral and unreliable. Also, I would caution you to comment on the content and not the person as several of your contributions to this debate are aproaching personal attacks against user:gibnews. Thryduulf (talk) 13:42, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Erm, that is exactly what my questions above which you dismissed are trying to establish. Anyway, it is a moot point because Gibnews has already kindly given answers to them below. And, I disagree with your understanding of bias. For example, in statistics we have something called selection bias. Anyone whose sayings or writings have been taken out of context and (mis)quoted in the media will understand the importance of selection bias in that context. The lead of that article sums it up nicely. "If the selection bias is not taken into account then any conclusions drawn may be wrong." The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 13:55, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Some Answers to editors questions

• Hipocrite Q. References to material on gibnews.net

ACE Encyclopaedia, An online repository of election information

Gibraltar Environmental Safety Group - a large respected NGO

Gibraltar Stock Brokers

London School of Economics

Forces Family Support Group

Mercopress Uruguay

Universidad Complutense de Madrid UNISCI Discussion Papers, Nº 12 (Octubre / October 2006) ISSN 1696-2206 LO ESTRATÉGICO EN LA CUESTIÓN DE GIBRALTAR by Luis Romero (in Spanish)] Link used

• Tbsdy Q. why can we consider that the press releases you have on the site reliable?

The site is published and read in Gibraltar, it would not last a week if there were disputes with the content shown and the providers, However, as noted some press releases are available on other sites, feel free to check that the versions agree.

For an example of policing of websites see This item

• Dædαlus Q. Answer Red Hat questions.

I'd rather not get into a long debate with that editor as there is a long history of conflict. BUT as you ask.

Who ensures that the press releases have been faithfully and/or accurately transcribed by the owners of the website?

The content providers do that.

How can a reader tell that the owners of the website are choosing to censor certain material - ommitting words, sentences, or paragraphs? Especially when the owners "reserve the right to remove any content without giving a reason."

The mission statement for the site, and the terms of conditions state specifically that does not happen. The reference to removing content is a legal requirement to avoid litigation. In the event it would be necessary the entire item and the content providers access would be removed. This has never happened. All sites and hosting services TOS contain similar provisions.

This begs the question, who is behind gibnews.net? The "company" and its staff are anonymous. Who is it that can remove content without giving a reason? If I want to find out who runs the GBC or FSC I can [89] [90].

Neither of your references give the name of their webmasters. However the issue is the content which is provided externally, so the question is inappropriate.

You are the site's webmaster. Do you wield editorial discretion? If you do not, can you demonstrate that you do not, for example, by providing the name of the owner of the site who will attest to that fact?

See above

If you do, is it not a serious conflict of interest that you are attempting to use the site as a source in Wikipedia, yet you wield editorial discretion over what is posted there?

See above.

How can a reader tell that the owners of the website are not cherry picking certain material to publish?

It really does not matter. If the material there is both accurate and provided by the content providers, then its a valid reference. Its hard to cite material that is not there ...

How can a reader tell that anyone wishing to post a press release or opinion there is free to do so? (e.g. would one of the very small number of Gibraltar residents who voted to return to Spanish rule be able share their opinion or post press releases free of censorship?).

That is rather scraping the barrel, The terms of use say: We invite organisations based in Gibraltar who issue press releases on a regular basis to participate in this website by entering their content directly, or emailing us. As of today there are no organisations in Gibraltar proposing any political relationship with Spain. But a news site does not have to express EVERY opinion, the issue here is whether the material presented is reliable.

Who are the people who share their opinions? Are they experts in their field?

The website does not have 'an opinion' it presents the material submitted by its content providers, who are named and listed.

Do any other reputable organisations demonstrably use gibnews.net as a source of information? If so, please provide them.

See answer to the other editor above for people citing material from it. including:

Luis Romero in an academic paper for a Spanish university.

Luis Romero Bartumeus es periodista, Master en Paz, Seguridad y Defensa (UNED), jefe de Relaciones Externas de la Mancomunidad de Municipios del Campo de Gibraltar. Miembro colaborador del Instituto de Estudios Campogibraltareños. Autor de El Estrecho en la política de seguridad española del siglo XX (2003), Algeciras, APCG. Su principal línea de investigación se centra en la seguridad en la zona del estrecho de Gibraltar.

Governmental bodies and media outlets in Gibraltar have their own distribution channels, e.g. [91] [92] [93] [94] and extensive archives [95] Why does Wikipedia need to resort to this private repository of information?

Not everyone has an online archive of their press releases.

1. The GoG archive does not always return documents and they are in .pdf format 2. The Gibraltar Chronicle limits access to its archive and it has changed recently.

The links on gibnews.net are by design permanent.

3. www.gbc.gi does not provide a public archive of its news stories, only todays.

4. The FSC has its own arangements and I don't think they contribute to gibnews.net although they would be eligible to do so. As their site changes regularly maybe they should.

Similarly the GSLP publish press releases on their own website, but only from 2009 and the site format changes regularly and the CMS used has been troublesome. But again you can cross check material there against gibnews.net.

SUMMARY

For the avoidance of doubt, I registered my username here shortly after doing some work designing templates for that website, and it seemed a good idea at the time, not realising the amount of hassle I might encounter on Wikipedia from some editors. Later realising there might be some confusion - although its a sufficiently general term - I tried to change my username to something else but it did not work.

I also registered the domain ecrg.eu - the content on the European Conservative and Reformists Group is not mine either any more that the content of Wikipedia belongs to Jimmy Wales and whoever wrote the wikipedia software, but I expect they would defend its integrity robustly.

The issue should be reliability of the content not an implied personal attack on the site owners or myself.

--Gibnews (talk) 12:44, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate the answers to my questions, Gibnews (still digesting them). In the meantime, I have one more:

• What is the financial relationship between you/the owners, the site, and the organizations whose press releases you post there? For example, do organizations have to pay to host content there, and do you receive compensation for operating the website, either directly because the money goes into a bank account owned by you, or indirectly because the money goes into a bank account owned by a registered company who then compensate you for your work on the site?

The reason I ask is to establish whether there is any possibility of source soliciting. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 13:05, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

The reply comes in three parts.

1. My finances are none of your business, and quite irrelevant.

2. The site makes it quite clear there are no charges to content providers.

3. The content providers are organisations like

• The Government of Gibraltar
• The Police
• The Governors office
• The Opposition
• The Ministry of Defence

Are you seriously suggesting I bung the above organisations brown envelopes in order to write press releases to win arguments on Wikipedia ?

--Gibnews (talk) 20:38, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

This is really more appropriate at WP:COI (I didn't know about that page until another editor posted it here), but I was just asking you to clarify that by linking to your site - and let's be clear about this - it is your site, and it's only you that so desperately wants to use it - that you would not be in a position to financially benefit, because, say, you were being paid by organisations to promote their material on the interweb. If you did that on Wikipedia, that would be everyone's business here, not just yours. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 21:19, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Lets say it again, I wrote the scripts and templates. The domain is owned by a company. That is a separate legal entity to me. I find it to be a useful resource and others do too. It has primary sources which are not available anywhere else. The information is from significant reliable entities. The website is FREE and a handful of links from Wikipedia do not get me excited.

The content providers listed above, who comprise the bulk of the contributions really are not the least bit interested in 'being promoted on the net' They are not-for-profit organisations, not commercial companies - Stop barrel scraping, its empty. --Gibnews (talk) 00:08, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree, the question about finances is out of line. Gibnews, I don't think you need to answer this question. For the record, you've done enough to convince me now, you have turned my previous negative opinion around about the site and I now believe that for things such as press releases the project is reliable enough to use on Wikipedia.

It might have been more helpful if you had edited under another username, but as you have been here for so long I don't think it's an actionable point :-) While you built the site, I'm going to AGF on this one and believe you when you say that you don't have a negative COI with regards to this source. If anything, that you are willing to explain that you built the site goes to my mind that you are being honest about your position. I apologise if my comments in the block proposal were out of order, but I was particularly concerned over a number of areas, all of which you have now addressed. Thank you. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 07:53, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Financial journalists disclose whether they own stock in ABC Corporation if they write a report on ABC Corporation. Companies must disclose if they have funded research into their product that they then publish. Executives must disclose if they have given presents to government officials. My financial questions to Gibnews were no more intrusive than those kinds of disclosures are. I was not asking how much he gets paid or what is in his bank account. It is frankly rather naive to say my question is out of line, and anyway, I was asking no more than what is written at the COI behavioural guideline section on financial matters [96]. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 13:15, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I have raised this at WP:COI as on two occasions now, my COI-related questions have been dismissed out of hand. As I said there, if there are no COI objections, I won't pursue the matter any further and will continue to deal with usage of this site as a source on a case by case basis. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 13:47, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I'd say that the financial questions have been answered perfectly satisfactorily - Gibnews (the editor) has no financial relationship with any of the organisations that publish press releases on Ginbews.net (the site), and gains no financial benefit from the site being mentioned on Wikipedia. Publishing press releases on the site is voluntary and free, there is no financial incentive given to organisations to publish their press releases on Gibnews.net and there is no restriction on them publishing their press releases in other locations as well. Based on all the answers given by Gibnews (the editor), I believe that Gibnews.net is a reliable republisher of primary source material. Thryduulf (talk) 17:00, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Inter-Disciplinary Press

Are these papers reliable for citations about politics in black metal? I guess they are, since they look like academic publications and therefore may be the most reliable sources for such citations. Though some people in Talk:Black metal have doubts about it. Black Kronstadt (talk) 21:58, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

At a glance, I'd say the summary of the paper from the academic at McMaster is a reliable source, and the paper from the radio station music director might be if it's a significant radio station. What assertions specifically are these sources being used to justify? Barnabypage (talk) 17:49, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's about the existence of anarchist / radical leftist black metal bands. If the paper by J.Davisson is a reliable source, then that kind of black metal is notable enough to be mentioned in the article (the other sources are either not reliable enough, or are primary sources). Black Kronstadt (talk) 17:51, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

You might want to look into Davisson a bit further and see if s/he is generally a respected commentator on the subject. The source doesn't seem obviously unreliable... Barnabypage (talk) 12:37, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Famous Pictures Magazine

Is the Famous Pictures Magazine [97] a reliable source for a copyright status of the photos presented there?--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:18, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Er ... no. http://www.famouspictures.org/mag/index.php?title=User:DeanLucas "Hello. My name is Dean Lucas and I'm the admin and as of this moment the only contributor to the Famous Pictures Project. I'm something of a history nut and have always been fascinated by famous pictures and the stories behind them. I started out this project as a book concept. I've tried to submit the idea to a number of publishers but no luck. Plan B was this webpage. I've recently added ads in hopes of paying the bills to keep this site going." I think we want a bit more in the way of qualifications than "history nut". --GRuban (talk) 13:22, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

No. WP:SPS websites make all sorts of claims regarding the copyright status of the material contained in them. These claims are often incorrect. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:54, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Gideon Levy

This is a contentious article on a controversial Israeli dissident journalist. As such, it suffers frequent edit wars and disputed sources. The latest dispute raises some issues which I think require general clarification.

A hostile comment has been added to the article, sourced to the Israeli news aggregating site "Omedia".[98] This site is currently undergoing upgrade, and none of its content is available. Following the link originally cited in the article gives a 404 page unavailable error.[99] In an attempt to check the validity of the source and the context of the comment, I discovered the same text at a different site -- a blog by an Israeli settler in the Golan Heights, Uri Heitner.[100] The blog asserts that Heitner wrote this text, as does a second website quoting this.[101] These appear to be the only two sites where the text is currently available.

Despite this, another editor claims that the text was actually written by Ran Farhi, an editor at Omedia, and is repeatedly restoring the text, sourced to Omedia.

I have two questions here: 1) Is there any justification for repeatedly citing an unavailable link, rather than an alternative site where the text is available? 2) Is a blog a reliable source for extremely hostile comments about a living person? Would Omedia (if the material originated there, rather than on a blog" be acceptable?

Please note that all of the sources here are in Hebrew. There is a separate issue, which can probably be resolved, over the accuracy of the translations used. I am asking here merely about the reliability and relevance of sources.RolandR (talk) 14:39, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

On your 1), a live link is only a small part of an RS. Many RS have no weblink at all, for example books. One could cite a Ha'aretz article with the date, article title, author and no link; its reliability would not be affected. We give links where possible as a courtesy to the reader, and a dead link should not be included as it is just wasting the reader's time. On 2), you must on no account use a blog as a source on a BLP. Would Omedia be an acceptable source? I don't think so. This looks like op-ed rather than news, not good for a BLP, unless perhaps you can show it was written by a notable commentator. If Omedia is really a "news aggregating site" then it is probably a reprint, but from where? If you cannot even be sure who authored it, if different websites have given different authorship, then it should not be in the article. You might want to post on WP:BLPN for further views. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:45, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

But Omedia exists only as a website. If it is down, there is no way another editor could verify the alleged contents of a page there. I should have added that the relevant page is not even available from the Internet Archive/Wayback Machine. This has been discussed round in circles on the BLPN noticeboard; but the offending passage has still been repeatedly restored to the article. I agree with your assessment of the sources and their reliability, as it seems do most of the editors on this page; but this has not prevented the continued war of attrition going on there. RolandR (talk) 17:19, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

My view is in line with those of the two uninvolved editors who commented on WP:BLPN. There is no indication that this source is reliable. The burden of proof is on the editor who wants to add material from it. It should be kept off this BLP unless it can be shown to be RS. 1RR applies on a BLP. Repeated attempts to add it should be regarded as vandalism. I think that is all the can be said on this noticeboard. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:33, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, the two editors on BLPN are involved but that's not really the issue. As for the BLP, there is no BLP concern since the source is just one of 3+ that say the same thing and all are reliable. The crux of the problem, for me, was that RolandR saw the Omedia article and suddenly insisted that he'd never seen it there (contradictions in his comments on this matter are in abundance). Moving past that, there's really nothing special in the Omedia article and, preferring to keep the article moving than to insist on reviewing the gaming problem, I'd rather not use this source while Omedia is down.

Warm regards, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 03:54, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

This is about the fifth time that Jaakobou has accused me of lying in this matter; if he does so again, I will file a complaint about his behaviour.

In any case, this is irrelevant. He can provide no sources for his claim, while I can provide two for mine. As the person wishing to add this smear, the onus is on him to prove that it is relevant, reliably sourced, and not in breach of BLP. So far, he has failed on all three counts. RolandR (talk) 10:30, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

On BLPN, another editor reports that he wrote to Heitner, who confirms that he wrote this piece on his blog.[102] So that should resolve this matter. RolandR (talk) 14:39, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Citizendium (aka, sub-academic-quality peer review)

Citizendium has been discussed before here ("OK if not spam") and here ("it's a mess"). Neither discussion mentions the (new?) distinction within citizendium between "approved" and nonapproved (draft?) articles. I believe that unapproved Citizendium articles are no better than wikipedia ones (ie, not RS) but that "approved" articles there have gone through a peer review that should make them RS.

The reason I bring this up is this proposal in the Voting Systems wikiproject. The point is that there is a lot of expertise on voting systems which is not published in any RS. My idea, in line with what User:Abd proposes, is to use existing forums (electowiki and the election methods mailing list) to bring enough expertise to write and peer-review some articles on Citizendium, then use those articles as reliable sources for wikipedia. I'm not talking about cutting-edge "I just thought of a great voting system which obeys criteria X, Y, and Z"-type stuff - that will never be stable enough for Citizendium - but about getting basic simulation data like Yee's pictures "vetted" as being accurate and unbiased. Homunq (talk) 20:35, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Our goal is to cite the most reliable sources on any given topic. Citizendium is a tertiariy source, and as such will never be the most reliable source on any given topic. Anything it says will have been said more reliably and in better context by a secondary source. Because of this, it should be used as a research tool for finding these reliable sources, not as a reliable source in itself. so... go to Citizendium, sure, and see what they cite in their articles... then go read those sources and cite those sources, not Citizendium. (By the way, this is the same advice I give my students about doing research on Wikipedia.) Blueboar (talk) 20:43, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

My point is that this is an area where there is a community of knowledge and practice which, in general, has little access to reliable sources. Although there are a number of mathemeticians, economists, and political scientists on the Elections Methods mailing list, papers on these topics - even high-quality papers - tend to languish, because the subject is in a no-mans-land between these disciplines. (It is also, admittedly, an area that attracts amateurs and POV - but I would distinguish that from a more-typical fringe set of theories, because voting system theory is mostly considered too trivial for academic mathematics, not too inaccurate; and although there is a fair amount of POV, the mathematical ground rules are accepted by consensus). The point of publishing on Citizendium would be to use an existing infrastructure to peer-review sources which meet all Wikipedia criteria for RS except peer review. In other words, in this case, it would take on functions akin to those of an academic journal, and thus, while themselves sourced, its statements would become effectively a secondary source for the purposes of Wikipedia. Homunq (talk) 20:51, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah... you want to use Citizendium as if it were an accademic journal... to publish original research, claim it has been peer reviewed, and then cite it here? I don't think that would fly. Blueboar (talk) 21:08, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

No. I want to actually peer review it there. There is a real group of peers already existing on the EM mailing list, including most of the top acknowledged experts in the field; a diverse and contentious bunch, who nevertheless IMO have the ability to agree on the standards for certain consensus and NPOV work. This would take time, but it is clearly more feasible than founding an academic journal for the purpose. I understand your skepticism, but please consider it from my perspective. There is decades-old work which is accepted as valid within certain unquestioned limits by a community of experts, work I have found out about third-hand through ideological opponents of its authors, which still constitutes WP:OR by wikipedia standards. Citizendium represents a good-faith attempt to create a peer review process for reliability, and this process appears to me to meet the explicit standards of WP:RS. My proposal would allow an improvement of the relevant articles in Wikipedia, which, in many cases, already reference or include the "OR" (but people let it slide because the various POV groups can accept that it's NPOV as it stands, and it's in no-one's interest to denude the articles of accepted facts.) Homunq (talk) 21:22, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I should ask it concretely. Assume for a moment that a vigorous expert peer review process had happened on Citizendium, and that through that process, an article there had reached "approved" status (equivalent to FA here). What, if anything, would constitute sufficient evidence of the vigor of that process to use it as an RS here? To me, if the EM list were aware of it, it's continued "approved" status would be enough, but I infer you see things differently.

(On a broader note: yes, I know that some unapproved parts of Citizendium are just effectively POV forks of Wikipedia. I do have some faith in their process, though, and would be gratified to see the two encyclopedias work in complementary and not just competing ways.)

Homunq (talk) 22:02, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Some characteristics of a reliable peer-reviewed source are

• authenticity – once peer-reviewed and published, articles cannot be changed
• acceptance by other publications, that is, a decent impact factor.

A publication can't start a peer-review process on Monday and be considered a reliable source on Tuesday; it would take years of consistent high-quality articles, acknowledged as such by other publications in the field, before it would be a reliable source. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:25, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that's a good response. As to factor 1 (authenticity), that's part of the Citizendium process: an article version is, once accepted, always accepted; that is, it's still considered valid although superceded by other versions (provisional or accepted in their own right). Factor 2 (acceptance) is, of course, much much harder. So hard in fact that a whole lot of what counts as RS in wikipedia is a long way from that. (Just as an example from another RS question I've been involved in, NarcoNews is not a high-impact source, for instance, but it has enough of an editorial policy to be an RS on simple facts.) So what's different about the case I'm proposing? Just the fact that it's an academic topic? And yet the relevant credentials of those I'd (hope to) involve would not be a factor? Homunq (talk) 22:54, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

It might be Citizendium's goal to have a reputation for academic level peer review... but it ain't there yet. And it is that reputation that we need. Another wiki can not be used as an end run around WP:NOR. Blueboar (talk) 23:04, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

No, it's not their goal. However, they do have an editorial policy easily more stringent (for approved article status) than many edited online news sources which are commonly accepted as cites in Wikipedia such as (looking above here) Huffington Post (for non-editorial content... perhaps a better example would be TPMMuckraker).

"Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." The question here is: if there are several "established expert"s who have not "produced" the material, but who have reviewed and approved it (through a formal, rigorous, but sub-academic process like that of Citizendium), would that still count? If so, how many experts would it take, and how could one demonstrate that such experts were independent (ie, not a POV clique)? Homunq (talk) 00:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

What independent reliable source thinks Citizendium's accepted articles are just fine, and are suitable for citing in serious work? If you give us quotes from these independent sources, Citizendium is a non-starter. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:25, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

In my last message, I wasn't basing any (hypothetical) reliability on Citizendium's own subject-specific reliability. The reliability would be that of the "established expert(s) on the topic of the article" who vouched for the Citizendium article. Citizendium itself would only be validating the fact that these specific people had gone through a formal process in which they vouched for the article.

If not Citizendium, aside from academic peer review, is there any way for a special-interest community which includes such "established expert(s)" to produce an RS survey of common knowledge in their field of interest, if that knowledge is not already otherwise published in an RS? The facts in question are not novel and advanced enough to be publishable in the academic press, yet are generally too technical to be publishable in for an audience of the general public. There have been books on the area which, though meant for a general audience, do include some technical aspects, but these books are rare, and do not systematically survey the common ground of knowledge. Homunq (talk) 00:51, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure... an established and acknowledged expert could publish a book... we could probably even accept the information if it were published on a website. The key is that it has to come from someone who is acknowledged as an expert. Blueboar (talk) 01:24, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Could they edit or otherwise review and approve a book or a website? The point is that the community does the work, and the experts provide the review and a verifiable seal of approval. (Thus the Citizendium proposal, though that's not central; I'd love suggestions of other accessible and transparent review mechanisms.) Homunq (talk) 01:55, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

bump (on question directly above) Homunq (talk) 02:47, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

BB, your recommendation often won't work, because CZ, unlike WP, doesn't have a policy of giving citations for everything. I agree that, as a tertiary source, it's less reliable than secondary sources, but WP has to make do with whatever sources its own editors may have found by any given point in time, which will often mean tertiary ones.

It might help if I summarize the CZ procedures here. Firstly, note that the term"editor" is used in a different sense. Over there, it means an expert, ordinary contributors being described as authors. An editor's qualifications are stated on their user page for all to see. They've been verified as true along with their identity by the CZ authorities, who've also judged them sufficient to qualify as an editor.

An approved article must have been approved by 3 editors, or 1 if that 1 has made no contributions to the article other than minor copyediting. The name(s) of the approving editor(s) can be found by a link from the article. Note that this is different from the normal procedure in peer-reviewed publications, where the reviewers are anonymous. Peter jackson (talk) 11:16, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I found a directly applicable guideline: "An Internet forum with identifiable, expert and credible moderators with a declared corrective moderation policy may, exceptionally, be considered reliable for some topics. In this sense, where moderators act as editors to review material and challenge or correct any factual errors, they could have an adequate level of integrity. This exception would only be appropriate to fields that are not well covered by print sources, where experts traditionally publish online." Personally, I'd say that CZ meets the forum qualifications, and voting systems meets the field qualifications. Can I get a second opinion on both questions? (Then I'd start the work of creating a quality voting systems article on CZ, and convincing enough acknowledged experts to register there and approve it.)Homunq (talk) 15:20, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

So what articels and information do you want to use this to cite for? Also how does this site check the credentials of its editors?Slatersteven (talk) 15:48, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

What information: I'd like to create a version of the Voting system article here, over there. Honestly, the article here has big holes in its citations. For instance, over half of the central table on criteria is just allowed to exist by consensus - it's verifiable mathematically, not by citation. Such an article could also use results which are verifiable through open-source software (such as Warren Smith's IEVS or Ka-Ping Yee's visualizations) and draw conservative, consensus conclusions from such results which would constitute OR here (note that the conclusions Smith himself draws go far beyond that. I really do mean "conservative, consensus".) I believe that I could then get a diverse group of voting system experts with relevant credentials to vigorously review and eventually approve such an article.

I expect that there would be a healthy similar role for CZ in other areas in which there exists a diverse community of credentialed experts with a substantial body of common knowledge that's not published in reliable sources.

How CZ confirms qualifications: When you apply as an editor (not just an author) there, you are asked for documentation of your credentials, which is checked by the "constables" (roughly equivalent to WP admins, though their role there is more as enforcers and less as facilitators).

So, does anyone (dis)agree that, if I get 3 acknowledged experts to approve it, this would fit under the guideline I cite in italics above? If nobody agrees, there's little point really to doing the work.

Homunq (talk) 16:40, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Homunq, you are asking for a theoretical approval (not binding!) of a theoretical possibility, and Wikipedia doesn't work that way. Sure, I proposed a similar idea, more or less (more than two years ago!), as you mentioned, but I would not expect it to be approved here if it hadn't actually happened already, if there were not a publication already in existence that could then be judged on reliability. So if you need approval first before the work is done, it won't happen. My recommendation is to help develop a Citizendium article! And then try to put material in articles here based on it, if there aren't better sources, or ask here at the time if necessary. I'll say it could be useful, it could be better than the status quo. Or maybe not. Depends. --Abd (talk) 04:17, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I did not ask do they check the credentials I asked how mthey check them? Moreover what are thier criteria for expertise, do they for exampple accept the university of pay and you get a degreee?.Slatersteven (talk) 13:58, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Abd: You're probably right. Basically, I was pre-checking to see if there were any insurmountable obstacles, not to get a binding pre-approval.

Slatersteven: "How" depends on the documentation. I don't know the exact details, but basically they look for some kind of third-party confirmation on the web, or for scans of official documentation. They look at your whole CV - degree, publications, employment. They are not looking for best-in-field, just for everyday credentials. Your confirmed CV is posted for all to see. Homunq (talk) 14:38, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

So basicly their 'experts' may not be of a high calibure but any one who has a qualification. As to Cv's we have this [[103]] which tells me nothing about how he obtained his credentials, unless this is not his CV. We have this [[104]] Who claims that a hobby interest makes him able to work on that subject. Many of the others read like either hobbyists or ordinary profesionals (in the sence of working within an industry), not experts in thier fields. Certainly there are also many high level proffesional but how can we tell who will edit the material?Slatersteven (talk) 14:56, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

CZ, even their "approved" articles are not reliable sources. There are serious lapses in quality control. Hipocrite (talk) 22:46, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Hipocrite, I'd be interested to hear more. Still, I think I've explored it enough to expect it would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, and that with good enough experts, CZ could be a citable source. (It's only to fill the gaps in Voting Systems, to get it back up to its erstwhile FA status without losing information) To work. Homunq (talk) 14:38, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

The only way Homunq's hypothetical could ever work would be if it could be clearly demonstrated that every one of the citizendium reviewers were previously established experts in the topic field (ie considered experts not because citizendium considers them so... but because they have written academic quality papers/books etc. that have been published outside of citizendium and have a non-citizendum reputation). This senario could concievably place a particular citizendium article on a par with other traditionally published encyclopedias. However, since citizendium does not currently work that way, nor is it ever likely to work that way, the hypothetical is not realistic. We must continue to say that citizendium is not a reliable source. Blueboar (talk) 15:59, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I mostly agree with Blueboar. I think that, technically, just one (very high-calibre) expert reviewer would be enough, though of course 2 (solid) would be better; there's no need for every one of the reviewers to be "expert" by WP standards, since each is independently approving the whole of the article. Also, while I agree that it is (very) unlikely that CZ as a whole will work that way, I think it's not unlikely that individual articles could meet this standard. So my take-away is that CZ is not per se reliable, but it does contain enough information to potentially establish reliability, which is good enough for me. Homunq (talk) 19:13, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

But is there any method that we can use to determine if an article has been edited by experts in thier fields, or just any one with the right qaulifications (by thier standerds)? Also where would we stand over articles that have not yet approved (the site seems to be full of them).Slatersteven (talk) 19:28, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

1. We're not talking about who edited the articles, but about who reviewed and approved them. This information, along with a confirmed CV, is linked from an approved article. That should be enough to establish whether or not they're relevant experts by a WP definition. 2. Unapproved articles would NOT be RS (in principle no better, and in practice often worse, than corresponding WP articles). Homunq (talk) 19:34, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes we are, those who create articels appear to be called Authors, editors are the persons who review and approve articels it would seem.

So you are sugesting that we shuokld check each article each time some one wnats to use one to see if its been peer reviwed by relevant experts. Moreover what happens when an article has had an expert review it, but changes have been amde after this by non experts?Slatersteven (talk) 19:45, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

(EC) Homunq, it seems to me you have already gotten a very clear, firm answer, but are continuing to try to pick it apart. Citizendium is not a reliable source, at all. no matter how you try to twist the "approved" thing they are doing, or try to say "well this one was reviewed by one claimed expert", it will still not be a reliable source. It is not a "peer reviewed" anything, its no different from Wikipedia and is not usable as any sort of source. And if, as you note above, they are not required to provide sources, they obviously are not experts nor professionals writing reliable sourced materials either as no peer review work would accept a lack of valid scholarship. And no matter how much you twist it, not it is not something to be decided on a case by case or article by article basis. It is not a reliable source. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 19:47, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Collectonian, you put me in an untenable position. If I disagree with you in any way, I am confirming your charge of "picking it apart". Since this whole thread is based on a hypothetical, I'll drop it, but I reserve the right to pick it up later if it becomes a concrete question. I agree with Abd and Blueboar - I made a mistake in pressing a hypothetical. Homunq (talk) 16:42, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Who's Who not RS?

http://www.marquiswhoswho.com/products/WAprodinfo.asp

Is this not a RS? You can nominate a friend. You can write your own biography. (see lower left) To me, that is a paid directory, not a RS. If you disagree, I am open to listening. JB50000 (talk) 06:56, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

• Not even close to a RS. Niteshift36 (talk) 06:59, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Long established on wiki as not a RS. Ty 07:02, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I will now not write a new article based on a biographical entry that I saw there. I was debating what to do. Thank you. JB50000 (talk) 03:20, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Ahem. You can nominate a friend, but there is no reason to believe he/she would necessarily get in. And, it's not a paid directory. (They try to get people named to buy copies for themselves, or to give to friends, but they don't charge for listing.) That being said, the entries are written by the individuals in question, so the details are not usable, although the fact of listing may be a general indication that the person is notable. (Disclaimer: I am listed in "Marquis Who's Who in America". I assure you that I didn't pay anything for the entry.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:26, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm... the notability issue is interesting... the entire concept behind Who's Who is to be a listing of notable people... however, WP:NOTE calls for notibility to be established by reliable sources... if Who's who is not reliable, then it would not qualify for establishing notability. So we have a listing of notable people that can not be used to establish that they actually are notable. I love a good paradox. Blueboar (talk) 16:42, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Who's Who only pretends to be a listing of notable people, so there's really no paradox at all....~

There is a difference between (A&C Black's) Who's Who and Marquis Who's Who. Kittybrewster ☎ 19:30, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Is this the way Wikipedia works?

After 11 days on this board, the discussion on the topic Shakespeare authorship question source is bogged down with no clear consensus. Four uninvolved editors say the source meets Wikipedia standards as an acceptable WP:SPS. One uninvolved editor dissents. I tried to summarize, but when I said it appears to be a consensus I was slapped down and a long, non-productive discussion followed. Who actually makes a decision as to whether the source is reliable when four editors say it meets standards and one doesn't? Whatever you call it, the status quo is not a consensus. Is this the way Wikipedia works? Tom Reedy (talk) 16:48, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

You'll never get a definitive opinion on WP, because we are all volunteers, and all equal. All you can get out of a board like this is a "sounding" of opinions of people not directly involved with your topic. If you feel your source is reliable, and there is no overwhelming consensus against it, go ahead and use it. Unless it's a BLP issue, a source doesn't have to be stellar to qualify as a reliable source; the bottom line should be common sense and general agreement on the article's talk page. Crum375 (talk) 17:06, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

There's the rub - there is no general agreement on the article talk page.

• As you noted, there actually is a clear consensus, notwithstanding the desire of some to ignore it. Consensus is not unanimity. Dlabtot (talk) 15:33, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Err, there's a clear on-going discussion, which is making progress. A number of issues are still unresolved. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:52, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

RS discussion Talk:Xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus#Proposed addition to Xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus.23.2FTransmission

Are these 2 citations reliable sources for the two sentences proposed for the XMRV Article?:

Dr. Jerry Holmberg of the DHHS OPHS Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability stated at the CFSAC meeting on 30 Oct 2009 that, because studies have now associated XMRV with prostate cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome, the committee will investigate the blood safety threat from XMRV.[105](pgs 22-23)

A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Blood XMRV Scientific Research Working Group has been formed according to the Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome Association of America, and included in the planned investigations are validation studies for XMRV testing, evaluation of the incidence of XMRV in the populace and blood supply (including subgroups), XMRV transmission studies, and human disease associations.[106] Thanks. Ward20 (talk) 21:33, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Please see the discussion at WP:MED. Medicine-related articles must have sources satisfying WP:MEDRS; none of these sources does. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 22:54, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:MEDRS does not apply here, there are no medical claims, only details on formation and scope of a working group investigation on blood safety. Ward20 (talk) 23:18, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

If so, then you're engaging in speculation based upon the opinion of one individual as reported in a primary transcript. Such information is of no consequence and should not be included in an encyclopaedia, especially not in a medicine-related article. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 23:46, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Not quite, Ward20 was summarising a written statement read out at a CFSAC committee meeting read out by the senior technical advisor for blood policy within the OPHS HHS on behalf of his boss the Assistant Secretary for HHS responsible for Blood Safety. -- TerryE (talk) 20:31, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Schoolbook map(s)

These maps, File:Serbia_ethnic_6_8_century.png , File:Romania ethnic 6 8 century.png, File:Albania kosovo macedonia 6 8 century.png are based on "historical atlas for schools, published in Belgrade in 1970, representing a view of Yugoslav historians from that time". They claim that ethnic(Albanians the 1 and the 3) groups that were not present in the location shown some 500 years before they are considered to have made their appearance (See Origin of the Albanians). This has been pointed out, they have been discussed (Talk:Albanians#RfC:_RS_use_.28encyclopedia_of_6th_century_and_map_from_school_atlas.29) and the maps have been removed many times. But the creator (that does not deny that the source is a schoolbook from 1970's Yugoslavia) has readded them repeatedly and may have even used Sockpuppets to do so. diff, diff sock, diff, diff, sock diff. Despite being a prolific map maker in general he still seems to ignore WP:RS. Here he uses a random googled site(Remember Sarajevo) to compare his map with talk diff.Megistias (talk) 15:34, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

As you are an opponent of the inclusion of these maps, it strikes me that it is only fair to hear from a proponent before opining. Megistias, would you mind notifying the person who offers these maps of this discussion?--Wehwalt (talk) 15:39, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I have , i was actually looking for a tag to put there but i did not find it.Megistias (talk) 15:44, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Here he random googles websites again diff Megistias (talk) 15:50, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Take note that 1970's Yugoslavia was a Totalitarian state,in which the only legal political party was the League of Communists of SerbiaMegistias (talk)

General view among most World historians is that Albanians are descendants of Illyrians and that they always lived in Albania and maps that I made reflect exactly that. User:Megistias is an Greek nationalist who have very negative ethnic attitude towards Albanians and he push here his POV that Albanians came from somewhere else and that they did not lived in Albania in 6th century. It is a minority view among historians and one that is not generally accepted and he attacking my work and want to discredit my maps simply because I made them in accordance with generally accepted historical view. Also, I do not see why an official historical atlas for schools should not be reliable source, especially when it only reflect generally accepted view, not minority one that user:Megistias trying to push. As for maps, I made them few days ago, and it was user:Megistias who was removing them because of his claim that they are wrong. I made many maps for Wikipedia related to various countries and recently when I made few maps related to Albanian history (note that I am not Albanian, but Serb from Novi Sad), user:Megistias started to attack my work, first in Wikimedia Commons, and now here, simply because my maps are not in accordance with his nationalistic anti-Albanian views. PANONIAN 16:03, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

As for Yugoslavia, it was not Soviet-type totalitarian state, but a country with its own more liberal form of socialism. I, however, fail to see how form of the state government of Yugoslavia would affect opinion of historians from that country, especially about subject (ethnic Albanians) that is unrelated to politics of Yugoslavia. Finally, does user:Megistias want to claim that all sources that come from China are unreliable because of the Chinese form of government? PANONIAN 16:08, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

All 3 maps are based on schoolbooks by a Totalitarian state.(No need to comment the rest as they are irrelevant and Panonian's personal viewpoint)Megistias (talk) 16:09, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Are all school books from China unreliable source then? PANONIAN 16:12, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, I do not see that user:Megistias presented here any reliable (or even unreliable)source that would support his claim that Albanians migrated to Albania in year 1300. As I see it, we have only his word for it. PANONIAN 16:27, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

This is not a forum for chit-chat so stay on topic ,Reliable Sources. Since you completely ignore the Albanian origin issue (only Albanian ultranationalists claim that they were always there and old theorists).

• Basic fact from a secondary source,Imagining frontiers, contesting identities by Steven G. Ellis,Lud'a Klusáková, "The Albanians arrived in Epirus from the north, but also from Thessaly where some clan had settled in the first decade of the 14th century,..."Megistias (talk) 16:34, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
  • You obviously do not understand this source - term "Epirus" in this case means modern Epirus in Greece, not medieval despotate of Epirus, your source clearly say that "in 1337, the Albanians of Epirus Nova" "apperared for the first time in Epirus" (clearly, not in modern-day Albania, but in modern-day Epirus in Greece). PANONIAN 16:50, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Albanians arrived in the region in 14th century AD.Epirus Nova is the term used for the Roman province that was most of Albania, Epirus Vetus was the Old Epirus, the one in Greece. I perfectly understand my source.Megistias (talk) 16:54, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I know what "Epirus Nova" means, but your source does not mention that Albanians settled in Epirus Nova - it mention that "Albanians from Epirus Nova (Albania) settled in Epirus (Greece) in the 14th century". It does not mention that they settled in Epirus Nova - in fact it confirming sources from my atlas that they already were there. PANONIAN 16:59, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

American journal of philology, Tomes 98-99‎ -page 263,Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, Tenney Frank, Harold Fredrik Cherniss, JSTOR (Organization), Project Muse - 1977,"It seems that the original home of the Albanians was in Northern Albania (Illyricum) rather than in the partly Hellenic and partly Hellenized Epirus Nova."Megistias (talk)

Original home from which century? There is difference between Albanian presence in different regions in different centuries. This source also does not contradict to my sources. PANONIAN 17:01, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

You have no sources, you have a book from a Totalitarian state. All secondary sources contradict you.Megistias (talk) 17:03, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

That is just empty rhetorical claim - it is obvious that you do not have sources and that two sources that you presented here are not contradicting to my original source. Can you present to us something else or not? PANONIAN 17:07, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

As always you ignore what Reliable sources are which is the issue at hand. You "source" is a schoolbook by a Totalitarian state, that even makes an unreal claim, thus no WP:RS.Megistias (talk) 17:14, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I cannot ignore something that you never presented: you first have to present a source here and then I can say my opinion about that source. Also, how many times you will repeat words "totalitarian state" without answering my question are all sources from China then unreliable according to you? (and Yugoslavia was certainly more liberal country than China). Finally, you only objected here to presence of Albanians in south Albania, but why you removing from the articles my maps of Romania or Serbia? PANONIAN 17:21, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, if you avoid to give an answer to my question are all sources from China unreliable, you will show that you in fact do not have an opinion about sources from "totalitarian states", but that you simply trying to find all possible ways to discredit my sources (and my sources only) only because info presented in such sources do not confirm your personal POV. PANONIAN 17:30, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

China? Take it to a forum.Stay on topic, your source is unreliable, Schoolbooks are for children.Since the beginning it has been noted that all 3 maps are rejectable as their source is unreliable.Megistias (talk) 18:18, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Schoolbooks are for children, but were not written by children. Schoolbooks are written by their school professors and if you claim that school professors are not reliable source then, according to your idea, all children would leave schools as ignorants and idiots (and then you will come to enlight them, I presume?). You can act like a parrot, repeating over and over that my sources are not reliable, but I fail to see any proof for that. PANONIAN 19:24, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Collected Studies: Studies in Greek literature and history, excluding Epirus ... by Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond,page 499,"The Byzantine theme or province of Epirus Nova had in the extreme north Albanians, but the rest of the are had probably a mixed, mainly Greek-speaking people in the 11th and twelfth centuries. The first movement of the Albanians comes after the fall of Constantinople to the Latins in 1204."

• You are 600 years offMegistias (talk) 19:42, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

"Had probably"? Obviously, what you presenting here is just an theory whose author use word probably since he himself is not sure that it is correct. Also, as far as I know, Epirus Nova was not an administrative unit of Byzantine Empire in the 11th century, so your source obviously contains errors regarding historical timeline. Even if we forget these errors and fact that it is only assumption of that author, claims about Albanians from that source are only one theory about their origin and my map show another theory. I clearly noted on map page that it is a view of Yugoslav historians and I did not claimed that it is a "divine truth". If there are different theories about one subject, then I do not see why we cannot have several files illustrating each theory. Wikipedia is created as a project that is open for various ideas and points of view and it is not a church-type dogmatic project where only certain ideas and theories are forced and other are forbidden. PANONIAN 20:08, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Photobucket? Hammond is world-class scholar and you waste my time with answers like this? Read what Reliable sources areMegistias (talk) 20:14, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Then you perhaps quoted him in wrong way - how else could Epirus Nova province appear in the 11th century? PANONIAN 22:29, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Dear Pannonian, names of themes,provinces the such are used in convention by scholars to define relevant regions.It is just like using familiar vs non-familiar toponyms for the sake of necessity.Megistias (talk) 22:34, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Even if he used name of Epirus Nova for wrong time period, he still refer to 11th century, not to 6th century (i.e. to the time after Slavic conquest of the Balkans). 11th century Greeks from that area could be settled there after Byzantine empire reconquered that area from Slavic/Bulgarian states in that century. Your source does not say anything about origin of these Greeks and it is hard to assume that they lived in Albania during Slavic rule. PANONIAN 22:50, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Read the source. What it states.Megistias (talk) 23:01, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Maps in 1970s Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia schoolbooks are not reliable sources. They're old and unscholarly, and come from a source not noted for factual accuracy or editorial oversight. Well, actually, yes for editorial oversight, but of a particular political kind. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:46, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

What is a base for such conclusion, Jayjg? Do you have any background on which you would claim that schoolbook sources published in Yugoslavia in 1970 are not reliable? And where is proof that such source is "not noted for factual accuracy"? Finally, what political motive Yugoslav authors would have to falsify data about presence of Albanians in Albania or Romanians in Romania? These questions should be answered before final conclusion about accuracy of this source. PANONIAN 22:15, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, what is a point of a claim that source is old? See this category full of old ethnic maps: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Historical_maps_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_Balkans - the map from 1970 is no different from these maps, but since it is not old enough to be used as a file free for usage in Wikipedia, I made new maps based on it and included them with a description that it is "according to Yugoslav historians from 1970". In similar way this Megali Idea article have a map made by the pro-Greek cartographer E. Stanford from 1878, illustrating his point of view (and this map is proved to be unreliable and contradict to other sources, while such contradictions were not proved when 1970 Yugoslav atlas is in question). PANONIAN 22:26, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Very old maps are like primary sources. That category in the commons is for actual old maps. From 100 years ago and more.Megistias (talk) 22:44, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Why cant you simply accept the simple fact, that a schoolbook is not RS and a schoolbook from Communist Yugoslavia is even more not RS?Megistias (talk) 22:47, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I will accept any opinion that come from reliable person with good faith and good knowledge about the subject. You do not have good faith in this question and you are known nationalist and POV pusher, and therefore your opinion means nothing to me. However, this issue is to be discussed further with other users. PANONIAN 22:55, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

You have insulted me many times and you used Sockpuppets as indicated in the beggining of the section. Megistias (talk) 23:01, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

And now you remove my map based on Hammond with no reason at all....[107],[108] Megistias (talk) 23:04, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

First, I do not have sockpuppets - I am not much active in English Wikipedia in recent times, so I do not logg in every time I edit some article. IP number of user who is not logged in is not an sockpuppet. Second, you are the one who harrasing me in various Wiki projects and you are one who disrupting my good-faith work, so how you excpect that I react to that? You expect that I love you or something? As for your map, info presented in it is different from what Hammond claims according to you, so I suspect that you did not based that map on Hammond, but on your own POV. PANONIAN 23:16, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

STOP NOW - this is not the location for the two of you to continue an endless argument. My suggestion... place two maps side by side, so that both POVs are visually represented. Blueboar (talk) 23:10, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Fine by me - placing two maps side by side is a good solution and I agree with it 100% PANONIAN 23:16, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Hammond is not POV, the 70's schoollbook is. This is a simple issue and Pannonian has made it big for no reason.Megistias (talk) 23:20, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

It was Pannonians old browser. diffMegistias (talk) 23:30, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Your maps are based on unreliable sources thus they cannot be used. Its that simple.Megistias (talk) 23:32, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I see that according to Origin of the Albanians the claim of Albanians as autochthonus is highly disputed, not to mention that before 11th century they were never recorded. Moreover the Albanian-Ilyrian link is also something historically questionable. As far I see the map isn't historically correct even with the presence of Vlachs, not to mention other minor issues.

The main point is that the map avoids the entire western bibliography and can't be explained by any academic historical means. Alexikoua (talk) 23:39, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Here is western bibliography for you: http://books.google.com/books?id=ORSMBFwjAKcC&pg=PA3&lpg=PA5&vq=maps&output=html - I do not see why I cannot made maps based on this source. PANONIAN 18:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with placing highly pov material. Placing to pov is even worst, but Hammond is an expert in this field and I hardly believe its pov. @Megistias: You need to provide the specific pages with the relevant texts&maps, I remember that somewhere on the net I found a similar map directly scanned from Hammond's work.Alexikoua (talk) 23:44, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Hammond's map is here [[109]], it's identical to the one Megistias proposes. So it seems that is is quite reliable. On the other hand the 6th-8th century map is still of questionable value.Alexikoua (talk) 00:09, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

As was proposed on this page, both maps can be used, mine based on this and one made by Megistias, so that readers can see both points of view about the subject. PANONIAN 18:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Another source confirming data from my map

Here is an Internet source with similar map showing Albanian presence in the 8th century: http://books.google.com/books?id=ORSMBFwjAKcC&pg=PA3&lpg=PA5&vq=maps&output=html - I do not think that even Megistias can claim that this source is unreliable and not good enough to be used in Wikipedia. PANONIAN 18:06, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

As far I see this book, which is completely contradicting the entire western bibliography in this part, does not explain why the ancestors of today's Albanians, should been placed there. No descriptions, no explanations, no prove, no nothing. Moreover this book is focused on modern post 1800 history. If the authors believe this it's not our problem. Typical wp:fringe.

For example this: [[110]], is not enough to claim that Columbus was Greek. Alexikoua (talk) 20:13, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

That is false analogy. I provided links to other sources here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Origin_of_the_Romanians#Schoolbook_map - you may claim that my souce is wrong because of two reasons: 1. if there are no other sources that confirming data presented there (and I presented several other sources with similar data), and 2. if it contradict to most other sources (but, contrary to your rhaethorical claim that my source "contradicting the entire western bibliography", you failed to provide any quotation from that bibliography that would really contradict to my sources. In fact those quotations provided by user:Megistias are not contradicting to my sources). PANONIAN 21:16, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry you didn't presented a single reliable work that confirms this. You still need to show this, and please do not post again questionable school atlases of past decades. Existing articles like Origin of Albanians, which are sourced, are in favor of Hammond's version.Alexikoua (talk) 06:46, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I presented two reliable sources, if you think that these sources are not reliable, it is your problem and your problem only. I have no time for your childish games. Get life, man... PANONIAN 02:00, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

What you presented here: [[111]] doesn't meet wp:rs. Moreover I see that in this discussion you are not convincing the rest of the editors.Alexikoua (talk) 21:41, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I am convinced about the validity of the maps made by PANONIAN and so are a lot of other editors that the maps are wp:rs, but the Greek editors (Athenean, Megistias, Alexikoua) work to prove that the Albanians have no connections with the Illyrians. Their theory can be summarized as follows: Illyrians have disappeared. Thracians have disappeared. Albanians? We don't know where they came from: they are mentioned only in the 11th century. Probably moesians? Probably Thracians? Probably this or that? No theory is plausible because they are strange and no one knows who they really are. We just don't know and no one can. Casting a shadow of mystery seems like a very good plan to make today's Albanians seem as if they are foreigners in their own land, not autochtonous, which in the Balkans would be only the Greek population. No other population in the Balkans can enjoy the autochtonous status but the Greeks, according to these three editors. This is the standard that these three editors are following in all the history articles especially in the Illyrian Albanian articles that have been usurpated by them and that no Albanian editor dares to edit anymore because they will be provoked to edit-warring and then reported by any of the above three editors (most likely athenean) who work full time to assert the above ideas, and then an admin who will see the reaction of who took the bait will inevitably block the daring editor. Take a look at the cemetery of editors that this war has produced (Wikipedia:ARBMAC#Log_of_blocks_and_bans). It's full of Albanians and it's the biggest graveyard of truth you'll find in Wikipedia concerning the Balkan topics. The Greek editors above by working in tandem will make every edit possible to "forget" their own sources (read Ptolemy, Polibus and Stephanus of Bysantium - all Greeks), that the Albanoi Illyrian tribe has been mentioned by Ptolemy in the 2nd century BC as Arbon, in the 2nd century AD by Polibus as Albanoi, and in the 6th century as Albonios by Stephanus of Bysantium as, see Origin_of_the_Albanians. That is proof of the continuity of the Illyrian-Albanian population and the world's historiography has already accepted it. It's the way it's studied in Albania, Russia, Germany, France, USA. In Greece there are other orders, I am affraid, but this is not the Greek Wikipedia. sulmues (talk) --Sulmues 22:19, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I did not read all the above stuff, but here is what makes those maps unreliable: the source is an old schoolbook published during the Serbian communist period — a regime known for it's propaganda — while there are a lot of modern sources to follow. Another strange thing is that PANONIAN inserted those maps across all Wikipedias, making me sceptically.—Sebitalk 11:14, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I expanded my reference list on map pages and provided new sources in which similar maps can be found. There are some slight differences compared to the map from 1970 history atlas, but basic info about presence of ethnic groups is same in all these references. One of these references is The Times Atlas of World History published in 1984 (or more precisely its Yugoslav translation from 1986). I hope there is no objections to reliability of that source. Also, I do not see what propaganda Yugoslav regime might have regarding origin of Romanians or Albanians? Historical propaganda of Yugoslav regime from that time was mainly based on World War II liberation struggle and criticism of pre-war Yugoslav regime. 6th century ethnic relations in the Balkans were simply too unrelated subject to the political ideology of Yugoslavia. As for observation that I "inserted those maps across all Wikipedias", I always insert all my maps across all Wikipedias, so what is a problem with that? PANONIAN 17:02, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

To repeat what should not need repeating, maps in 1970s Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia schoolbooks are not reliable sources. They're old and unscholarly, and come from a source not noted for factual accuracy or editorial oversight. They cannot be used in Wikipedia articles, or as sources in Wikipedia articles. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:18, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

100-year old Catholic encyclopedia

Does the 100-year old Catholic Encyclopedia qualify as a reliable source? If so, what if about when it's contradicted by more recent scholarship? It's commonly cited on religion pages. Catholic Encyclopedia Leadwind (talk) 17:40, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Catholic encyclopedia, is not reliable, age(100 as you yourself say) , and it is full of grammar and syntax errors as well. Thebans written as Thesbians and other such "gems"Megistias (talk) 19:48, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

It depends, in this case more than in others. It's a reliable source for Catholic positions in the early 20th century, in particular in the US. It's not a reliable source for current doctrine or other viewpoints. In most cases, it should probably be be treated as a primary source. That said, I doubt that it is "full of grammar and syntax errors". There may be some shifts in English usage, but Thespians and Thebans are simply two different things. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:00, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Stephan has it right... The old CE is reliable for a statement as to what Catholic thinking was 100 years ago... but not for a statement as to what Catholic thinking is today. Blueboar (talk) 20:02, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes i know but it was ThesBians in CE, not Thespians :). catholicMegistias (talk)

Do you think the authors of the CE were referring to this? :>)

Seriously, even the most modern and up-to-date reliable sources contain the occasional typo. Blueboar (talk) 20:16, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

As always, reliability depends on what it is being used for. If it's about some obscure saint of a thousand years ago, and there are no more recent sources - of course reliable. Just use common sense. If more recent scholarship contradicts it, usually go with the more recent source, how much so being a matter of judgment and consensus.John Z (talk) 20:20, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

How words are being born!But yeah its just oldMegistias (talk)

It's generally not considered reliable, much like other century-old tertiary sources. As far as I know, it wasn't even an official church publication, so it's really the author's/editors' views on a topic, not the Catholic church's. While it might be possible to use it as "a reliable source for Catholic positions in the early 20th century", that would essentially be using it as a primary source. And while it might also be used for information about "some obscure saint of a thousand years ago, and there are no more recent sources", if in fact there are no more recent sources, then it's unlikely the topic itself is appropriate for Wikipedia. It's best avoided. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:42, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any evidence it is considered particularly unreliable, via searches on gscholar and gbooks, and note it is used as a reference or resource in some articles at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I strongly disagree about the unsuitability of such a topic if there are no more recent sources; wikipedia shouldn't be censored by recentist bias. Common sense and consensus deals very well with such old sources, in my opinion. Reliability questions are much easier to answer if they are more specific.John Z (talk) 21:15, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

"Censored" is a very harsh word, John, and, I think, entirely unwarranted here. Wikipedia typically judges notability based on reliable sources discussing a topic. If no sources besides the 1907-1914 Catholic Encyclopedia discuss a topic, then it is not likely the topic satisfies Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:54, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I would only use such a harsh word in a discussion with a friend who I respect and esteem (and to say so out of place but publicly, who has been unjustly treated by the wiki-powers-that-be). I can only speak from my own POV, that of a rabid inclusionist who believes that there is a greater and more present danger of eliminating articles, sources and editors rather than including them, and with my own prediction that such an article would squeak past an AfD, based on the reliability of the encyclopedia.John Z (talk) 11:39, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you John, I really appreciate your saying that. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:07, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

We use it a lot for biographies of popes, and as was said above, for obscure saints. But scholarship moves on and it isn't recentism to give preference to newer sources. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:32, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

For obscure saints it sounds very appropriate. After all, our articles on botany rely heavily on century-old editions of the Brittanica. Squidfryerchef (talk) 14:48, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Acronym Finder

Is Acronym Finder a reliable source for the use of neologisms? "While the database is not open content, users can help to expand the database by submitting new definitions, which are subject to editorial control" - is it enough for reliability? Black Kronstadt (talk) 23:22, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

EInsiders.com

Is EInsiders.com a reliable source? The website has been around since before 1996, it has several very well known and well respected editors with editorial oversight to their content. EInsiders is on the internet, on several TV stations and has a radio show. Information is 3rd party verified. The editors are all long-term members of the Film Critics association and are high level professionals in the field of their expertise, the film industry. Other large publications use them for a source and often cite them as a source for information. They are on the list of approved film critics with Rotten Tomatoes and show up in the Rotten Tomato movie reviews as an official film critic. (I use Rotten Tomatoes as an example because they are used as a reliable source on Wiki and EInsiders.com is the source for some of that info) They attend film festivals and press-only movie screening by invitation from film PR firms and do live interviews with cast and report directly from the events. I can't find anything that would make EInsiders not a credible source. Please let me know if that is enough for reliability. Pharaway (talk) 05:29, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Please see the background of this dispute here. The issue at first was not that the site was not "reliable", it was that in every one of your edits, you were adding that site. That was back in December and then in January and it was explained to you and you were warned. Now you are not only doing the same thing, you are removing existing reliable sources and adding that site claiming "the Einsiders report was posted 24 hours before the Daily Mail". [112] However, I am glad you finally brought this issue up here. —Mike Allen 05:59, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

And here is the source of the conflict - Mike Allen, who for some reason is making false allegations and harassing my edits and mytalk page. My "claim" as you call it after you posted lies on mytalk page, was that I cited EInsiders originally. EInsiders was removed and replaced with yours. I simply reverted it back to the original as I believe it is valid and reliable. So stop making stuff up Mike. Pharaway (talk) 06:08, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

This is absolute nonsense! "False allegations and harassing"? That was your fist time adding the EI source on that article (link above) and I reverted your edit (clicked one button), which in turn reverted back to the original source, Daily Mail. I didn't manually go in .. never mind it's late and I can't believe this. I'll let the edit summaries speak for themselves, as all of this is documented. Also, your talk page is there for issues like this, which I exercised AGF (at first) and then BRD and if this keeps escalating, I will take this to WP:ANI or WP:DISPUTE (which ever is the correct party to go to). —Mike Allen 07:08, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Mike, why don't you just take a second to calm down. EInsiders was the original source. I am the original author on the article and I put Einsiders as the source. It was changed to the Daily Mail. I reverted it to EInsiders. A simple viewing of the history will show you that. The purpose here is to have others weigh in on if EInsiders meets Wiki's guidelines as a reputable source. It is my position that it does and, since other authors have also used it, I believe the general consensus will be in agreement with me. You need to stop the accusations and your shrill behavior. Pharaway (talk) 19:47, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Since you forgot to sign in with your user name and post here, your IP is now in the page History. Now that I look at the page, it was the IP (yours) that first added the site of that page. You didn't bother to tell anyone that. I'm done speaking with you, I would like someone else to speak about this mess. —Mike Allen 20:03, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

What "mess"? Are you really this upset because you don't like a cite that I use? None of the information has been proven inaccurate and thank goodness you now realize that your accusation that I replaced a cite with an EInsiders cite is wrong. You don't seem to have a problem with the information that I post. You aren't disputing the validity of any of my edits. You are just this upset because you want a different reference used as the cite for the same information?? Don't you think you are over-reacting?Pharaway (talk) 03:23, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I am going to bypass the above for now, and look at the original question posed by Pharaway. EInsiders does not have an "about us" link on its site. I can see nothing about who creates it. Its creators appear to be good at media marketing / linking - they've got facebook links, twitter etc, but at its core it is an unverifiable site for which a google search, and a google news search, fails to turn up other obvious commentary that might attest to its reliability. Sorry, Pharaway, but my examination suggests it fails the test. Assuming the source happens to get those death dates correct, your best bet is to use that as a heads-up, go to the newspapers online in following days and find a reliable source. If other editors replace an EI ref with a reliable source, i recommend those revisions be allowed to stand. hamiltonstone (talk) 04:57, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to bypass these last few days also, and comment if you will. ;-) The site has no "About us" and that is frowned upon. There's no way to find out who the website belongs too, who runs it and how do we know these editors are part of the Film Critics Association? The "editors" seem to be just regular people that review films. [113], [114]. Who is Jonathan W. Hickman? His profile doesn't say anything about being part of the FCA. [115] What makes this obituary significant over other obituaries, such as this one? Who is Kathy Stover, where did she get her sources? The site just looks like a big community site, where anyone can review films, add people as friends, etc I just can't see it being used as a reliable source for BL(and dead)P or well.. any article. I'm sorry. —Mike Allen 05:55, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Regardless of whether einsiders.com is a reliable source, the discussion at WP:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#User Pharaway shows a consensus that there has been an undue promotion of the site. Above, Pharaway states that the site is well known, with well respected editors and editorial oversight. However, I do not see anyway to verify these claims and I see no reason to regard einsiders as a reliable source. Johnuniq (talk) 01:51, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

On the EInsiders site itself, there are video interviews with Jonathan Hickman and Scott Mantz, among others. Most recently, there are videos of the two of them as official press at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. If yous listen to the videos, as I have, a good bit of these questions are answered. [Here is a link to who Scott Mantz is - he is a producer at Access Hollywood http://www.accesshollywood.com/moviemantz]. On it is a movie review that he also licensed to EInsiders - not as an aggregator, but as an owner and official writer. How do I know this? Because Scott Mantz is on the video saying it on the Einsider's website. Also, he told me that in person - I had the opportunity to meet him. To prove my statement that EInsiders is well respected, here is a [link to awards and nominations within the industry for Scott Mantz http://www.accesshollywood.com/showdown/access-scott-movie-mantz-nominated-for-icg-publicist-award_article_13082]

(moved from a talk page) Off the very top of my head, Kim Walker and Ashleigh Aston Moore would be examples that illustrate my point. Both actors are obviously notable but their deaths were merely blips on the radar in the media. I spend quite a bit of time working on fairly obscure dead actors' articles which means I know where to look for even the smallest mention of a obit. In those cases, none can be found except for Einsiders. While I'm fully aware that any unsourced content can be removed or challenged by anyone, I do not believe a notable person's death should fall into that category. In both cases, the deaths were covered by an outside source. For whatever reason, this source is being called into question. If possible, I'd like to be pointed to the discussion regarding the reliability of this link. Aside from it being spammed by some person for whatever reason, I've never found any problem with the actual site itself. Again, if there's something I'm missing please about this situation, feel free to clue me in. Pinkadelica^♣ 05:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

See here for the RSN discussion. The site doesn't cite where they get their information, there is no About Us, no one knows who those authors are. For example this is not a professional obituary:

"DANNY DUKES Died Dec. 3, 2007

Adult film actor Danny Dukes (real name Danny Salas Jr.) died of a drug overdose at age 33. Mr. Dukes acted in several adult films between 2002 and 2004. He was also a sometime agent. He leaves behind a young son. Prayers of comfort for his family and friends. Some say that the adult film industry leads to drug abuse. Of course there are enough examples of legit film industry insiders getting hooked on drugs to make one wonder about such blanket condemnations. However, the bottom line is this, drugs will kill you. First they will kill your soul, then your body. All that remains is the pain you leave behind because you didn't care enough to fight the addiction" There are more examples, but their site is down, again for me. —Mike Allen 06:06, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Is Danny Dukes on Wiki cited by EInsiders? Aren't there other deaths noted on EInsiders that are more formal obituaries? - YES. Pinkadelica is absolutely correct and is one of the reasons I use EInsiders regularly. The answer to who the authors are has been answered repeatedly with links to outside websites covering awards that some of the authors have been given within the industry. So Mike Allen's claim that he doesn't know who they are just doesn't hold up. Mike Allen in on a vendetta, it looks like there is a cOI with him affiliated with a competing entity. Why else this vehement stance? He has literally taken down almost TEN YEARS worth OF CITES from EInsiders and replaced the EInsider's cite with cites from his "pet" references but he has NOT changed the text/content that is EInsider's content including photos pulled from EInsiders website! No one has that much of an issue unless they are competing. A COI should be opened against him. EInsiders has met the Wiki guidelines for a reliable source - 1. longevity: EInsiders has been on the web since 1996. 2. Editorial oversight: the editors have been pointed out and shown to be high-ranking, respectable professionals in the industry with industry awards to their names. Pharaway (talk) 22:29, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I think consensus has been established here. Thank you. —Mike Allen 01:44, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

What the best way is to offer further 'proof that Einsiders.com is not a bona fide source; information on ownership, persons involved, etc. — that is, without violating terms here, etc.842U (talk) 03:46, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure what you are asking. You have asked me previously to "vet" EInsiders as a source. Then when I went out and vetted them, finding as much information as I could about their editors, etc, you claim I "know too much" about them and use it to try and prove that there is a Conflict of Interest, and attempt to get me banned. Seems like foul play to me and a damned if I do, damned if I don't situation. Bottom line is that you don't intend to allow EInsiders as a reliable source no matter what. You could find out that they are owned by the New York Times and overseen by their editors and you still wouldn't allow them as a reliable source. EInsiders meets all of Wiki's guidelines to be a reliable source. Pharaway (talk) 15:14, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Because of your behavior, others have vetted your sources and discovered that EIinsiders.com is operated by an advertising company, the same advertising company that you posted from, when you inadvertently posted your ISP. Several of your edits into Wikipedia articles inserted the very name of a key person at both the advertising company and the EInsiders.com site. So in a short period of time it became clear that EIinsiders.com, being owned and operated by a company whose job is to among other things promote and create demand where there is none... and rather pertantly, optimize search engine results... isn't a reliable source; they are a highly biased source. It became very clear as well, that someone from that very same company, you, was doing the ref-spamming. This is a conflict of interest, and highly discouraged. The other issues, the photo issue (which is self-resolving) and your aggressive suggestions that Mike Allen or others in the discussion are sinister representatives of other media outlets (are, in other words, your competition) are ruses, meant to divert attention from your behavior. So, essentially, game over. There may be some formalization of these findings, blockages, etc. In the meantime, take care.842U (talk) 16:19, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

What edits have the name of an advertising company? I put in mostly death notices? The rest were film edits. This is becoming ridiculous.Pharaway (talk) 16:45, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

You made edits including quotations from a "film critic" who happens also to be [[116]] self-described as "president" of EInsiders.com, whose web site was created by a certain advertising company... for whom said "film critic" is also listed under that same advertising company's website "who we are" section, which lists... three people. Here the "film critic" and "president" is listed as "producer." 842U (talk) 19:08, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

The "film critic" Jonathan Hickman. Which is the editor-in-chief of einsiders.com. Funny that you didn't bother to post the company that owns einsider.com, about us. BrightNight Media, which is an advertising company. Source —Mike Allen 19:20, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I brought the issue up about Scott Mantz on Pharaway's talk page, Scott Mantz is a critic for Access Hollywood, but his profile on einsiders says nothing, on RottenTomatoes the same search for Scott Mantz gives you his full bio and links to his original reviews, einsiders passes him off as one of their reviewers. Scott Mantz et al. are legit reviewers, einsiders is not. Darrenhusted (talk) 01:09, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

And so EInsiders, which stands for Entertainment Insiders, appears more comprised of... outsiders.842U (talk) 19:01, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Move of WP:Reliable Sources, and implied promotion of RS to WP:V policy

My apologies if this isn't the normal place to post this, but apparently a significant change was made to WP:RS and I wasn't aware of the debate, despite being very active in reliable sourcing debates, and I'd like all the regulars here to know about it. For some reason, the WP:RS guideline was retitled as "Identifying Reliable Sources". Which seems a little stilted to me though not too bad, and a new shortcut WP:IRS was created.

However, the shortcut WP:RS was moved to a section within the policy WP:V, which is a very big deal which seemed to happen without a separate debate. To me, this has the effect of promoting the reliable sourcing guidelines to the level of a policy, because when most people discuss reliable sources, they think "RS". Also there are many links to the RS guideline all over Wikipedia, including anchor links which will be broken if the shortcut is changed.

There's also been a large amount of instruction creep within WP:V, which is supposed to be only the basics of citing your sources; compare a 2006 version with today. I've decided to "be bold" and change RS to point back where it belongs. Squidfryerchef (talk) 14:55, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Good for you. Jezhotwells (talk) 16:35, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Gay Erotic Video Index

I would like an opinion on the Gay Erotic Video Index. It seems to have editor control, but it lacks an "About Us" page.

Warning: contains pornographic images. - Stillwaterising (talk) 16:47, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Citation: ^ "Who are the most prolific performers?". Gay Erotic Video Index. www.wtule.net. Retrieved 2010-02-15.

• This suggests that it's unreliable: "This is a not-for-profit Queer Community site that ... counts on content contributed by the Public such as Yourself." Epbr123 (talk) 11:58, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
  • The same page that makes that statement also clarifies what user contribution ought to be - "Of particular interest are reviews, information on older videos, profiles of performers, directors and studios." - the index itself was compiled by the site editor from multiple sources and invites readers to suggest corrections. Compared to, say, IMDB, this seems far more controlled. In particular where user submitted information is added, these are clearly marked as such and so distinct from the principle facts quoted in the listings. This may not be as credible as a publisher's catalogue but seems a suitable source for checking an actor or director's general body of work, including highlighting awards won, printed sources that the site editor has checked and clearly marking information that is not verified (such as uncredited performances). I suggest this site is suitable as an external link or for use as a general profile reference or to confirm professional awards but as not all information has primary sources, unsuitable to confirm detailed biographical data or to be considered a fully comprehensive listing of works. As a source for comparative analysis (the "who are the most prolific" list on the FAQ for example) the site editor's research seems reasoned and credible. So long as it is made clear that the analysis is quoted from this website, I find this as credible as almost any independent book one can find that includes "interesting" film facts. Ash (talk) 21:13, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

• • • COMMENT I relisted this source in RSN (See below) specifically asking that users involved in the porn project post their comment in this listing instead. Again I received two comment from two opposing view points from two users involved in the porn project who are actively debating each other. I was hoping for fresh, neutral, expert opinions. I regard the above opinions to be biased (as is own) and request unbiased opinions in relisted posting below. - Stillwaterising (talk) 05:32, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Pakistani and Iranian media, and Cageprisoners

Hi. I would appreciate peoples' views on whether the below news sources (primarily Pakistani and Iranian) are RSs for controversial reports concerning Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani accused of being an al-Qaeda member (who was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and attempting to kill U.S. soldiers and FBI agents).

There has been a deep divide over many Pakistani reports (which the Boston Globe, for example, has described as "sketchy")[117] and many RS reports in this area.

1. Daily Times (Pakistan) (Discussion here suggests no). whoops -- as pointed out below, prior conversation (which mentioned DT in passing) is about different paper.
2. Press TV (Iran) (Discussion here suggests it is questionable for a range of topics).
3. Tehran Times (Iran) (also mentioned in the above Press TV discussion)
4. Cageprisoners (an organization, not a newspaper)
5. DAWN (Pakistan)
6. The News International (Pakistan)
7. Associated Press of Pakistan
8. The Nation (Pakistan) (Discussion here suggests possibly)

Thanks. --Epeefleche (talk) 23:33, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, the Globe article doesn't say which reports from Pakistan it thinks are sketchy; they could be refering to anything. If we're writing about events in Pakistan, we're going to be citing some Pakistani newspapers. One jumps out at me; the Daily Times of Pakistan is not the same as the Pakistan Daily which is what the linked debate is about. Squidfryerchef (talk) 23:56, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Quick notes: The Dawn is arguably the most influential/reputable newspaper in Pakistan. The News is published Jang Group (which IIRC is the largest newspaper publisher in the country) and is also a well-established mainstream source. Daily Times (Pakistan) is relatively new but a legitimate and mainstream newspaper. Associated Press of Pakistan is also a genuine and well-established newswire service. FWIW, Nexis archives, Daily Times and The Nation among these Pakistani sources. Though I am sure that all these sources can be faulted with a pro-Pakistan bias (not same as pro-Pakistan government bias, except that APP is partially govt. controlled), I'd regard these newspapers as reliable sources, as defined on wikipedia. Of course, we need to take the usual precautions i.e., consider due weight, use attribution when warranted, and beware of redflag claims, or claims contradicted by other sources etc. Abecedare (talk) 00:42, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Note: Boston Globe saying that "With her whereabouts unknown, sketchy reports in Pakistani papers suggested ..." simply means that the newspaper reports are not detailed/confirmed, which reflects the difficulty in obtaining verifiable information, and is not a comment on the Pakistan newspapers reliability. Abecedare (talk) 01:08, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I guess my first question would be, is there freedom of the press in Pakistan? Any people here particularly knowledgeable in that arena? IronDuke 02:12, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Well it gets complicated. The newspapers are not state controlled and are often known to take confrontational position with respect to the government of the day. There is no widespread press censorship per se, or administrative review of articles before publication. On the other hand, the government can restrict reporters (esp. foreign media) from geographical areas citing security, and there are many tools (licensing, advertising support, paper prices, political pressure, general harassment) that it can and does use to pressure journalists and newspapers. There is no equivalent of the first amendment right, and finally the journalistic standards are themselves not as high as the most highly regarded media in US and Europe. So it's not as bad as North Korea, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia or communist era USSR etc, but not really comparable to Western countries either. Don't know if this helps much. Abecedare (talk) 03:42, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah, this might give a rough idea: Press Freedom Index. Note that the conditions can change considerably depending on the prevailing political situation. Abecedare (talk) 03:45, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Some background on freedom of the media in Pakistan (or lack of it) can be found here and here, and info on pressures on the media in Pakistan can be found here and here. Information on Iran's freedom of the press can be found here.--Epeefleche (talk) 04:03, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Dawn (newspaper) it seems clearly reliable and important to use for neutrality, for such edits as the one removed here. Despite the recent conviction, the fact that the people and government of Pakistan strongly and formally contend that she is innocent should be represented better. Such Pakistani sources are surely reliable when used with attribution in text, and the US government version should not be presented as fact, but as a (majority) view where there is a discrepancy. Abecedare's statements seem sensible to me.John Z (talk) 11:59, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I think Abecedare has got it right. --JN466 12:48, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Subcontinental newspapers sometimes just make stuff up to sell more papers sometimes and get a bit of attention as well, and are far more sensationalist than western media, generally YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 05:11, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Toon Zone

Toon Zone (www.toonzone.net), sometimes credited as ToonZone, is a news and information website on the animation industry, ranging from American cartoons to anime. A search on Google News yields several pay-per-view articles from the Oakland Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and Kansas City Star that cite toonzone.net. It was also cited by Anime News Network [118][119] and Space.com [120], among others. Of course, their forums and wiki would not be considered reliable per policy. Arsonal (talk) 02:16, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't look good based on this. Some of their writers may be experts and able to stand on their own, though. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:09, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I considered that as well but wanted to get a broader opinion. There is a listing of the "army of volunteers" here. Arsonal (talk) 05:03, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how this can be considered a reliable source as a whole. Most of the "staff" are just random animation fans, and it is primarily hosted content of other people rather than an actual legitimate content provider and news agency itself. One of the "site owners" qualifications is "I love cartoons". Its basically a large fansite that gives hosting to apparently anyone and I couldn't find anyone in the list who is an actual expert. While some folks may site them sporadically (those two ANNs are from 2002), I think it would be better to just citing the reliable sources rather than ToonZone (i.e. if the Chicago Sun-Times chooses to site them in a story, then we're trusting that the reliable source itself checked/confirmed what they reported). -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 07:16, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Glantz/House Kursk

i have big doubts regarding this book. i explained on the discussion page of battle of kursk. first of all the book is convicted with using rotmistrovs steelguard as source, the book is claiming that the myth of prokhorvka is true. furthermore the claims of the strenghts are rediculous. i explained on the dischussionpage. while i think glantz is a reliable historian his book kursk seems to be punked by russian sources ( rotmistrov for example ). without checking german archival sources this book printed claims created by soviet propaganda. glantz is supporting the opinion that the red army was superior in many cases ( which is maybe possible but this is not the point) , he supports this claims with taking wrong strenght numbers and comparing them. his "ratios" are cited in the "battle of kursk" articles. for example he gives and overexxagrated number of german tanks and "forgots" the steppe front. so his ratios are simply ridicolous... . newer research is discrediting many statements of him. zetterling/frankson , have written an book about the statistical analyse of kursk and we see that glantz simply faked the numbers. "Das deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg Vol.8 " (2007) has an entire chapter regarding the prokhorovka myth. i explained this problem on the discussion page but nobody responed glantz is still even cited for the prokhorvka battle which is very sad... Blablaaa (talk) 16:01, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Can you give a more complete description of the source please? Jayjg ^(talk) 03:25, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Glantz, David M. & House, Jonathon (1995). When Titans Clashed; How the Red Army Stopped Hitler. University of Kansas Press. iam not sure if the user who makes the dubios statements is citing this book because he seems to own Glantz/ House ... Kursk too. but most of the dubios statements are from when titan clashed. i can present more dubios statements of the book about kursk. again i have to say that i dont think glantz is not reliable, but his statements about kursk are more than wrongBlablaaa (talk) 11:38, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

This user has misquoted from sources and trying to elbow this author out because his figures don't fit with his distorted view of events. Please ingore this. David Glantz is one of the most formidable academics in the field of Soviet military art. It is a disgrace that some anon of the internet questions that he 'ain't releiable'. Dapi89 (talk) 11:46, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

ok than explain to me why he is forgeting entire fronts for his strenght ratios. explain to me? u cant... explain to me why he is using rotmistrov. u cant.... . Rebut my points and dont say "ignore the user"....

so i ordered the newer book Kursk 1943, i will check what this book says then we can go on. Blablaaa (talk) 21:44, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

to make my point clear, iam not disputing the reliability of glantz in general but his book when titans clashed. and here particulary his numbers . now the examples. operation zitadelle is the name for the german pincer attack for kursk. glantz(i can only say what the user is citing ) lists 3,xxx russian tanks. when i check the latest sources i see this number are correct but only the numbers for two of three fronts. the first defensiv lines were manned by 2 fronts and behind them the steppe front as reserve (reserves are always listed in strenght because they are important for the outcome used or not doesnt madder), this steppe front was used very ofthen with more than 1000 tanks in action and fighting. even if this front would not participated it should be mentioned but it was used. so if glantz really gives this numbers for zitadelle he simply faked the numbers. after this he takes his numbers to create tank ratios, he explaining 1:1,5 tanks , because russian only had this 3000 tanks.... than the user is arguing glantz uses this ratio to explain their was no numerical superiority . this totally absurd because this tanks were fighting . and i not even mention that the brijansk front with its 1xxx tanks started to attack the 2nd Panzerarmy. iam not sure what glantz really says but this dubios. the user who cites glantz own both books "when titans clashed(1995)" and "kursk 1943(2070)" but he is always citing the older one so i think glantz himself uses other numbers in his newer book. if the user only owns the old book than forget what i wrote. there are more examples if u want i can explain. dont hesitat to ask meBlablaaa (talk) 20:50, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I am an interested editor from the Kursk article. David Glantz is a well known and respected WWII historian. I believe that to consider his book, or just some specific numbers from it, as unreliable, it will take more than having differences with another reliable source. Grigoriy Krivosheyev's recent study is considered seminal for Russian figures, but I don't think it's enough to prove Glantz unreliable in the wikipedia sense; that would require exceptionally good sources who specifically opine that Glantz's research was flawed. My understanding is that when reliable sources differ, editors don't get to play favourites unless there is consensus to prefer particular sources (and so, Krivoshe(y)ev's figures should also be considered reliable.)

I'd suggest that trying to play one source against another to decide that another must be "wrong" is Original research/Synthesis, unless the evidence is so overwhelming as to prove one is a fringe opinion. I note there is no bulk of reliable sources to criticise Glantz.

Also, I would ask fellow editors to be civil, and focus on the question, not other editors. Hohum 21:09, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

lets stick to the point. i dont say he is unreliable but i think his numbers for zitadelle are. thats why iam really interested in his book Kursk, we talk here about "when titans clashed" this book is 12 years older. and please hohum tell me your opinion about "forgeting" the steppe front? i know our opinion is irrelevant....

he only lists central and voronezh front. why? and again i have to repeat myself iam not sure if glantz says this or the user who cites him. glantz doesnt count the reserves, while he is counting the germans reservers which took not part. hes counting german passiv reserves but not russian activ ones. who can we use his numbers then ? we have zetterling 200x and frieser 2007. even if we say glantz is reliable than his numbers should be not used for this article. Blablaaa (talk) 21:19, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

If two experts disagree, we generally write the disagreement. "The Soviet forces included 5000 tanks (according to Glantz[ref-giving-details]) or 10000 tanks (according to Krivosheyev[ref-giving-details])". Experts do sometimes disagree. But we do need to be able to cite the disagreeing experts on each side, we can't just write "Glantz writes 5000 tanks, which we're sure is wrong." --GRuban (talk) 21:56, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

they both have the same number but one of them is missing a front/armygroup/Heeresgruppe. i think we can give both numbers but than the infobox becomes very huge. is there a possibility that somebody decides which source is better for the box. zetterling frankson wrote a book only about the numbers of kursk.... .the other numbers can be explained in the text, in the text its easy to explain the numbers and the reader will see fast that glantz simply missed a front which took part and his numbers are nonsense.... . another issue: glantz is quoting the myth of prokhorovka , what now? Blablaaa (talk) 22:14, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The purpose of wikipedia is to reflect the information provided by reliable sources, not compare a bunch of reliable sources and then only use our favourites, even if the others seem wrong to us (whether it be authors, their books, or a specific number). It's not up to us to critique why one author came up with one number, and another author a different one. As long as they are both/all reliable, and Glantz, Krivosheev, Zetterling, and several others are, then we repeat what they say. If the quality of particular sources is obviously higher - as decided by knowledgeable book reviewers, then it's suitable to prefer one, but I don't much difference in praise for Glantz, Krivosheev, Zetterling, etc.

If the numbers quoted are for different groups of troops, then we ought to point out those differences, not just keep the ones a particular editor likes. Hohum 22:21, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

• " not just keep the ones a particular editor likes."

argh, this has nothing to do with "like" or POV or bias, here its : correct or wrong. its simply wrong. and we have more then one historian saying this. most historian include all participating troops and one does not! and what is with prokhorovka, what is neccessary that wikipedia dont uses historians which are punked by the myth? Blablaaa (talk) 22:32, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

No, we have you saying you think one author is wrong, because you think another author is right, while another editor does the opposite.

Read WP:V:

"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—what counts is whether readers can verify that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source (see below), not whether editors think it is true."

"Most" historians disagree? You've given one, and he isn't disagreeing with Glantz, he's just presented different numbers, since he is using different sources. Hohum 22:49, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

no he is not using other sources -.- frieser and zetterling and frankson are counting all participating tanks and glantz not. i explained it so well i think, glantz is giving the number for central and voronez and the other historians give central voronez and steppe, which is the "truth" because steppe fought in the south. but when your green sentence is correct than the discussion is over because glantz is glantz. but its a bit sobering, isnt it ? i only hope that glantz dont decide to say germany won WWII because than wiki will start publishing this . iam sure there is a wikirule against being funny. so sorry for this.... Blablaaa (talk) 23:00, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

If Glantz ever says that, there will be no shortage of reliable sources specifically criticizing his reliability on that point. Hohum 01:11, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I have, however, heard people say that Japan won WWII. They were mostly from Detroit... --GRuban (talk) 14:28, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

David Glantz is a respected historian, with many published works to his credit. The book was published by a university press. As such, it would generally be considered to be a very reliable source. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:11, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Britball Now

Hi. For a while I've been using www.britballnow.co.uk as a source for a number of articles relating to American football in the UK. During the course of a peer review, the question was raised about whether this could be counted as a reliable source or not. So far I've seen no errors or causes for concern and I can personally vouch for one of the main contributors but I would like to gauge other people's opinions on this. Bettia (talk) 16:11, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

The fact that this is written in the first person indicates that it is a WP:SPS, and should be treated as such. And because there is no indication that the author (who is apparently anonymous) is an expert, it does not meet Wikipedia's WP:RS requirements. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:14, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. Thanks for your response. Bettia (talk) 12:43, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Nice guys and HBI

My question is whether Heartless Bitches International, http://www.heartless-bitches.com, can be considered a reliable source for the article Nice guy. I don't think it can be, as they call their essays "rants", which suggest they fall under WP:RS#Statements of opinion, even if not questionable. I have pointed the participants there to this discussion. As I seem to be alone among the editors there, I thought I'd bring the matter to the relevant noticeboard. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:16, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Statements of opinion are reliable sources that such an opinion exists. (Notability is a separate question, which I'm not going to address - I have no idea whether HBI is enough to establish notability of an opinion.) However, it appears that the article in question is proferring the "not-really-nice-guy" idea as a possibly-correct explanation for a phenomenon, not just as an unsubstantiated opinion on that phenomenon. This goes somewhat beyond what can be established from this source. Homunq (talk) 19:29, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

ps. As always, you should seek consensus when addressing this issue. Homunq (talk) 22:14, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

If a source isn't reliable, then it isn't reliable, and can't be used, even to indicate "that such an opinion exists". There are millions of websites out there, and there's no indication that this one has significant editorial oversight or a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Looks like a fun site to read, but it can't be used as a source. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:20, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I disagree wtih Jay. Context is important in reliability... In the context of verifying that an opinion exists, any source that contains the opinion is a "reliable source". However... we need to remember that "reliability" is not the be-all and end-all of Wikipedia... there are other policies and guidelines that need to be considered, and there are other questions that need to be asked. The most important being: Should the article be discussing the existance of the opinion in the first place? If the best source you can find for the existance of an opinion is some nut job's website... then the answer to this question is probably "No, we should not include discussion of the opinion, because doing so whould give the opinion undue weight." The issue of whether the nut job's website is reliable in the context of the statment becomes purely accademic, because you should not be making the statement in the first place. Blueboar (talk) 03:47, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I see no evidence of having earned a reputation for accuracy and fact-checking. No, it's not a WP:RS. Without third-party reliable sources addressing HBI's opinions, it also fails on WP:UNDUE. Unfortunately, we have editors who think that just because something is one a website, that means we can use it to source an article. Completely untrue. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:48, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Blueboar, context is indeed important, but you are completely incorrect when you say "In the context of verifying that an opinion exists, any source that contains the opinion is a "reliable source"." Remember, Wikipedia is simply not interested in the opinions of unreliable sources, not what they are, nor even if they exist, except if reliable sources comment on them. If reliable sources discuss the opinions of www.heartless-bitches.com, then Wikipedia may also do so. Otherwise, their opinions are not relevant to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an encylopedia, not a summary of the internet. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:15, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

As to whether reliable sources are commenting on the content of the HBI website, some mentions of HBI in US, Canadian, Irish, Danish, UK, Australian and New Zealand media can be found at the following url, including several interviews/articles specifically devoted to the 'Nice Guy' issue: http://www.heartless-bitches.com/press/sitings.shtml

If there are doubts about the prevalence of the opinion expressed on the HBI site within popular culture, then logically there are at least two remedies: 1. remove the source, or 2. provide additional sources of the same opinion appearing in art and popular culture. One such source is the XKCD web comic which treated the subject along the same lines as the HBI site (http://xkcd.com/513/). --Distinguisher (talk) 16:57, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

One can cite reliable sources that discuss the opinions of www.heartless-bitches.com, not the website itself. I'm not sure why you think a web comic would qualify as a reliable source. And citing "additional sources of the same opinion appearing in art and popular culture" is quite blatant original research based on a Wikipedia editor's analysis of primary sources. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:25, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

There is also a long list of links to media sources discussing the HBI site among the references on the Wikipedia entry for Heartless Bitches International. Yes, it has its own entry. When there are differing opinions on a subject, citing sources of those opinions is perfectly legitimate. If the nice guy article were using the HBI to support claims of fact about nice guys, then we could question whether it is a reliable source for that purpose, but to support the claim that such a view exists, it is unquestionably reliable. A web comic can also function in the same way, so long as the article also refers to it as an example of the way the concept has been treated in internet culture.--Distinguisher (talk) 09:50, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Have you reviewed WP:V and WP:NOR? We only cite reliable sources, and we don't draw our own conclusions from them. That means we don't scour the web looking for primary sources to support our view that "such a view exists". Instead, we scour reliable secondary sources, to see what they say about such a view. www.heartless-bitches.com cannot be cited in any article except the Heartless Bitches International article, and even then with caution. Nor can a web comic be used in that way, unless a reliable secondary source brings it as an example of such views. This is very basic, elementary policy. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:20, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I encourage you to review the text of the section in question to see why WP:V is not an issue (Note that a misleading edit was made at around the time this issue was posted to this notice board which I have now reverted). Summarising content of a source does not constitute WP:NOR, and it would only be the case that "www.heartless-bitches.com cannot be cited in any article except the Heartless Bitches International article" if HBI did not meet notability criteria WP:WEB, but I think you have reached a conclusion about notability prematurely. The site "has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself" (you can review these among the references to the HBI article as already mentioned) and has also been nominated for a Webby Award (http://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/current.php?season=6).--Distinguisher (talk) 12:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Notability and reliability are unrelated concepts. A website does not become reliable simply because it is notable; we still, for example, cannot cite Wikipedia as a source, and it is far more notable than www.heartless-bitches.com. Please review WP:SPS, which is what www.heartless-bitches.com is. The website can only be used in an article about itself. Please also review WP:SYNTH. Drawing conclusions based on primary sources is not "summarizing content of a source". Drawing conclusions about "Nice guys" based on interpretations of the contents of web comics falls under WP:SYNTH at best, and in any event, it's unlikely any of those sources can be cited to begin with, as they do not qualify as WP:RS on the topic. Again, this is very basic, elementary policy; one cannot draw conclusions based on one's interpretation of a series of unreliable websites, as doing so is a fundamental violation of both WP:V and WP:NOR. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:08, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

"Drawing conclusions about 'Nice guys'" is simply not what is being done in the article with respect to the HBI sources. HBI is sourced in support of the claim that HBI published a number of essays about the subject (verifiable), a claim about what these essays say (verifiable), and the claim that they received many emails in response (they have 36 pages of these emails published on their site, so this appears to be the case, but a rewording along the lines of "HBI claims to have received many emails..." would be unambiguously verifiable since they do claim this). Hence, I strongly disagree with your assessment. The web comic is not referenced in the article. I mentioned this comic here as evidence of the prevalence of the opinion, an issue raised by Homunq. Your responses indicate that you haven't read the section in question, and I again encourage you to do so. --Distinguisher (talk) 11:25, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

You have, unfortunately, again misunderstood policy. Since www.heartless-bitches.com is not a reliable source, we don't care whether or not they published issues on the subject of "Nice guys". And since we don't care whether or not they published issues on the subject of "Nice guys", we certainly don't care what the content of those essays are either. And since we don't care that they published essays on the subject, nor what the contents of those essays are, we absolutely don't care about any emails they received on the subject. The only place www.heartless-bitches.com can be used in a Wikipedia article is in the Heartless Bitches International article itself, and even then with caution. There's no need to read the sections of the article in question, because policy is so obvious and clear on this point, that www.heartless-bitches.com cannot be used in any article except Heartless Bitches International. Furthermore, I already explained this to you in my post of 22:20, 19 February 2010; please review it and my other posts. Again, the website can only be used Heartless Bitches International article itself, and even then with caution. Rather than arguing against policy, please recognize it, and start abiding by it. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:55, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Jayjg, we disagree about whether it violates policy. No source is reliable for all purposes. Reliability depends on the purpose a source is being used for, and even a source known to be unreliable about any subject one cares to mention is still a reliable source about things like its own existence and its own content. If you were writing an article about the lead up to a political riot and one of the factors that sparked it was a rumour circulated by an unreliable source, the content of that source would still be relevant to the article because of its role in events and, although not a reliable source in general, would still constitute a reliable source for establishing its own existence and the nature of its own content. The situation here is similar. The Nice Guy article speaks about an event in internet culture that was sparked by postings made on HBI without speaking to the truth of the content HBI published. Please respond to these points rather than merely repeating the assertions you have already made.--Distinguisher (talk) 17:34, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Distinguisher, you have made 218 total edits, including 165 mainspace edits, 84% to just 4 articles. You have edited 10 articles in total. You are wrong. Accept it, stop arguing, and move on. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:34, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

From WP:UNDUE: "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public." HBI is not a reliable source from this perspective. A blog on The Atlantic, for example, would be. But unless other sources are profferred, it's still just a throwaway line in just one source and does not merit a whole section in the article. Homunq (talk) 16:59, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

No. I'd suggest cutting the HBI section to a stub and moving it to our article on HBI. The "Nice Guy" issue is apparently a major thing with the HBI site, plus it's better-sourced in the Nice Guy article. Just move the sourced content to the HBI article, and either leave just a one-sentence mention of HBI or a "See Also" wikilink at the bottom. While in the past I've stood up for blog-like sources that are at some level really published by an organization, this is a case where pseudonymous bloggers are publishing anonymous contributions, so there's no way for HBI to be considered as a secondary source nor an expert SPS, and a little attention on Fark.com is not a strong indication of notablity on the topic. HBI can be a primary source in the article about HBI. Squidfryerchef (talk) 19:01, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree, except that there should be no "one-sentence" mention of HBI in the "Nice guys" article. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:35, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

gibnet.com (separate discussion to gibnews.net)

Following on from the discussion on gibnews.net above, I would like to raise another site, gibnet.com, also operated by User:Gibnews. I have also raised it at WP:COIN [121] because, separate to the reliablity matter, there is a COI matter too.

This site is a totally different kettle of fish to gibnews.net. It's a clearly partisan site which is doing much more than archiving the material - there is also opinion there, unsourced research, and yet it's being used as a factual reference and promoted in External Link sections.

This site is used in the following places [122].

To pick some examples:

• At Disputed status of Gibraltar (a very hot potato), this clearly partisan page is being used as a reference
• On numerous pages, this clearly partisan page ("The Struggle Continues...") is appearing in External Links [123]
• On several pages, this appears as a reference [124] - a piece of original research which is totally unreferenced.
• This page (note the "no 2 id" logo) is being used as a reference at Identity document

I submit that - even before we consider the COI issues (please note, it's Gibnews' site and he himself is adding many of the links to it [125] [126]) - this site is totally unreliable for usage on Wikipedia. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 23:18, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree entirely. This is plainly an unreliable source and from your description, that's a completely inappropriate use of it. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:21, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

No indication that it satisfies Wikipedia's WP:RS guidelines. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:23, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Unreliable on it's face. Hipocrite (talk) 13:17, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Why not propose it at MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#Proposed_additions? JamesBWatson (talk) 13:54, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to come to this late. I agree also. It's just a personal (or at most small-company) website. There's no way it's up to the level of reliability - e.g. known reputation as a publication - expected by WP:RS. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 00:03, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I have just found this discussion by accident, and am really amazed how quickly a lynch mob assembles on wikipedia.

gibnet.com has been around for a very long time, longer than most websites and it has a lot of content. It would not be appropriate to link to a lot of the material presented there, and I have not done so. HOWEVER the section www.gibnet.com/texts contains original texts related to Gibraltar which are a useful resource and are presented and labelled accordingly. Some are not available elsewhere in a computer readable form, for instance all the UN resolutions are there and some are very hard to find.

That section is cited by the House of Commons Library as a source, and is included in the UK National Archive of websites.

The features section is different. I fail to see how the comment that it is 'original research' is significant, it is NOT wikipedia. Features in other media are generally original research, they are cited. The section on the Eurovote details the steps that Gibraltar went through in order to exercise the right to vote, obstructed at every stage. These things are a matter of record and references are given. Its the ONLY detailed explanation of what went on over a period ten years that is around.

From the point of view of RH of course its unreliable because he does not like the content. In the same way he asserted that gibnews.net was unreliable, and also tried to get me banned by claiming I was a sock of user:gibraltarian.

The features section on the fishing dispute does not actually offer 'an opinion' but presents original documents of the time. The site presents a view of things important to Gibraltar. It would be a bad source of things related to Blackpool.

I read the page [March 2002 - Demonstration is 'partisan' I suggest you read it. The description is factual and the statement shown at the end was the one read out on the platform. The BBC and SKY covered the event. I expect they said much the same thing and had much the same pictures. Not that you can find any record of it on their website, what exactly IS the problem with that page? not that it is AFAIK linked in any way to wikipedia excepting I donated a copy of that picture to the wikipedia commons. Any event where nearly the whole population of a country take to the streets to protest something IS pretty notable though.

So what IS the game? Get everything from Gibraltar banned because it IS from Gibraltar? and RH does not like it? Gibnet.com does not have to have a NPOV in its content. But the reference documents are presented 'as is' comment is labelled as 'comment' and other material in that section strictly according to its source. --Gibnews (talk) 23:17, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Based on the views of editors here, at COI/N and at ANI, I have submitted gibnet.com for inclusion on the blacklist here [127]. I will also remove all links to it from Wikipedia articles once that has been actioned, as I wish to preserve the record of links for the editor who deals with it. Gibnews, this noticeboard is for RS matters - please stick to those rather than discussing me: I'm utterly irrelevant to the reliability of the source, on which - unlike gibnews.net - there has been a unanimous response. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 00:19, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Although I agree that this is not a reliable source, I do not see a level of abuse that warrants blacklisting, and have as such suggested to mark that as declined. I do believe that a (maybe careful) cleanup should be performed. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:30, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Although all things could be better, some of the material in the reference section there is simply not available anwhere else in a computer readable form, and it is presented in a consistent reliable manner. I note that RH has tried very hard to have me and gibnews.net banned and started this particular discussion when he knew I was not active on wikipedia and did not notify me until some time afterwards. some of his descriptions of pages on Gibnet.com are as missleading as his recents attempts to get me banned from editing claiming I was a sock of user:gibraltarian. --Gibnews (talk) 16:05, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I support blacklisting as well, given that pattern of WP:COI edits, in addition to the site not appearing to meet WP:Reliable sources. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 16:11, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't support a blacklist. It doesn't seem even slightly warranted, read WP:SPB. A blacklist is for a site that is being spammed all over Wikipedia and all other attempts to keep it away have failed, either because someone is using multiple sockpuppets or there are a lot of people adding it. Nothing remotely like that has occurred here. Gibnews certainly has a conflict of interest in regards to the site, but that just means he shouldn't be linking to it, that doesn't mean that everyone on Wikipedia should be disallowed from thoughtful use of the contents of the web site. -- Atama頭 00:54, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I've removed all the links, replacing them with "fact" tags, and have started on the process of finding reliable sources to replace those. As I stated elsewhere, I'm finding this relatively easy, thanks to the power of Google. There really is no need to link to gibnet.com. (There is, however, one potential exception. The Bahá'í organisation's own website links to gibnet.com [128]. So, should we link to the Bahá'í website which lists Gibraltar, or should we link to gibnet.com too?) The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 01:03, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Reliability of Mark Weisbrot, The Nation.com and Common Dreams.org on Haiti

Hey everybody. I was wondering if I could reach out to the wiki community at large to get an outside opinion on the reliability and neutrality of some sources that keep being brought into the article on Jean-Bertand Aristide. To me, these cited articles come across as editorials, but I, myself, may be biased against them in that I do not believe the extent of their claims. Can we get some outside opinions?

Here are some examples of cites in question:

[129] [130]

--Bertrc (talk) 04:09, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

These two seem to be different. The first is an article from the Inter Press Service, which is a news service. They may have a slant, but if they say a specific person said something, I would tend to believe them. Statements by Sachs can be attributed to Sachs, by Boyle to Boyle, etc. The ones that are from anonymous sources or otherwise not attributed probably shouldn't be used. The second is an article by Mark Weisbrot in The Nation, and is basically an editorial. The Nation is a noted journal, but unabashedly "left", and Weisbrot is a noted expert, but also has a definite point of view, so this article is not neutral. So, for example, if it's being used to cite that the CIA destabilized Aristide's regime, that should definitely be marked "according to Mark Weisbrot" or something like that. Can you please be specific what statements these two sources are being cited to support? --GRuban (talk) 19:41, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

encyclopedia.stateuniversity.com (AKA "Cambridge Encyclopedia")

An editor wanted to use this as a source with this edit [131] (and back through redacts) and seemed pretty adamant it was a valid source [132]. But AFAIKS the site states that "Portions of the summary below have been contributed by Wikipedia.". I have added it to [133]. This entry is added should the other editor want to question this addition. If there is no questions then I'll zap whatever link we have in other articles. Ttiotsw (talk) 04:54, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

One hint that a web site is a reliable source is contact information, including names of the editor-in-chief or equivalent, and a snail mail address to write to. Since this site has nothing like that, I would dismiss it as a reliable source. Jc3s5h (talk) 05:04, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

How about this...

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia and the Former Soviet Union (Cambridge World Encyclopedias) ~ Archie Brown (Editor), Michael Kaser (Editor) # Hardcover: 622 pages

1. Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 2 edition (November 25, 1994) # Language: English # ISBN-10: 0521355931 # ISBN-13: 978-0521355933
   

Is this a reliable source? LoveMonkey (talk) 16:32, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

That book has nothing to do with the web site that you quoted from and linked to. Please check that the source you link to is the actual source you mean. We are not clairvoyant. Ttiotsw (talk) 17:57, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know how stateuniversity.com gets away with calling something Cambridge Encyclopedia, but it has nothing to do with Cambridge University or CUP, and it definitely can't be used, see Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/Stu. It isn't globally blacklisted anymore though. Dougweller (talk) 19:22, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

???? So if the article I quoted and linked to is in the Cambridge book I posted and that article is then also mirrored on the State University Website you are saying I have to use the book to source the article rather then the website. Even if I have the book on my book shelf and confirm that it contains the article mirrored on the website? As the wiki article here on the Russian Orthodox Church seems to have "lifted" allot of it content from the book I posted here which is then only mirrored or reposted or copied to the website in question.LoveMonkey (talk) 13:39, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Also what is blacklisted? Where can I check that to confirm my sources here on Wiki?LoveMonkey (talk) 13:40, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

In answer to your question about the book, yes, you have to reference the book directly, not stateuniversity.com. Among other things, the book is stable, the website is not. Dougweller (talk) 06:46, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Last.fm

Is Last.fm [134] considered a reliable source? I always felt it wasn't, it depends on user-submitted content. For example, the band genres are based on users "tagging" the band with their own opinions on what the band is. MrMoustacheMM (talk) 05:08, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

It might depend on what the source was being used for (eg. info about last.fm itself might be OK), but in general would say not. hamiltonstone (talk) 05:46, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

RS issues at Codex Escalada and Our Lady of Guadalupe, possible WP:REDFLAG issue

The issue is an alleged 16th century document which is claimed to have been discovered in 1995, a timely event as it coincided with the deliberation of the canonisation of Juan Diego. It purportedly described the apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1531. This is, unsurprisingly, highly contentious. An IP is adding a claim from the Texas Catholic Herald, which is the official publication of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, that ""This document has been subjected to several scientific tests and all of them indicate that it is an original of that period of time.". See [135]. I removed this as I can find no sources saying anything about these tests other than this 'house organ', which I don't see as a reliable source. In any case, I think this is a WP:REDFLAG issue. I've made my reasons clear in the edit summaries I've made, the IP's response was " Sarcasm is what it is, but hey, let the reader judge. Reliable source? Please point me to the rule that distinguishes "reliable" from "unreliable")". Dougweller (talk) 08:31, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

A further red flag is that it contradicts the most reliable sources on the issue that are extremely sceptical (to say the least) about the codex's authenticity.·Maunus·ƛ· 08:57, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

In this case it is clear that the Texas Catholic Herald can only be used as an example of a source making a claim, not as a source of fact. Zero^talk 09:29, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Zero is correct. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:50, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Gale Group or Gale Research or Gale (publisher)

Previously:

• Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_27#Gale_Group_Source.3B_Reliable_or_not.3F
• Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_51#Google_Books.2FGale_Research

I acknowledge that Gale Group has previously been thought of as reliable, and they certainly have the trappings of reliability. However, I am very concerned that they are not actually reliable: editors have used Gale Group works to insert two (and arguably three) factually questionable items into the Bill Moyers article relating to his 1967-70 tenure at Newsday.

The editor claims (I cannot verify, as my library does not hold, and the source is gated) that the Gale bio says:

Moyers was hired by Newsday, a Long Island-based publication, as its publisher in 1970. Before Moyers, the paper had a conservative bent and was somewhat unsuccessful

-- "Bill Moyers." Contemporary Heroes and Heroines, Book IV. Gale Group, 2000. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2010

But this contradicts contemporaneous sources.

• conservative

The newspaper endorsed Lyndon Johnson in 1964, John Kennedy in 1960, and Adlai Stevenson in 1956, all before Moyers got there. I don't see how it can possibly be considered "conservative" in any meaningful sense. (I acknowledge that newspaper owner Harry Guggenheim was conservative, but he gave the paper independence--demonstrated very much by the fact that Moyers had free rein while Guggenheim owned the paper.)

• somewhat unsuccessful

This claim contradicts contemporaneous views of the success of Newsday. Contemporaneous and other encyclopedic sources say that Newsday was successful, or even "one of the most successful new newspapers of the postwar era".[136] Also saying Newsday was succesful: New York Times, Time Magazine ("highly successful" "the most profitable big daily paper started in the U.S. in the last 20 years"), Time Magazine again ("highly successful").

Separately, another editor points out that Gale Group used the anachronism "progressive" to describe Moyers's role on the paper.

All in all, when a reference work makes so many basic errors, I find it hard to treat as "reliable." What say others at RSN? THF (talk) 11:50, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

As for political differences, they seem to be a big deal, and backed by most sources. Here's Texas Monthly saying that Moyers moved the paper noticeably to the political left, enough so that Guggenheim viewed him as a traitor, and sold the paper because of it.[137] Here is an entire article about their political differences, contemporary: "The Captain and the Kid", New York Magazine, 1970 So I'd support Gale Group on that, unless you find some specific sources saying Newsday was considered liberal. The successful point is different, your first link isn't a great source, being a hagiography of Patterson, and it's not clear who wrote it, but your Time Magazine article statements are quite strong; I'd bring those two to the other editors, and see if they could re-read what their source says. If they don't change their minds, I'd at least cite them as a strong counterpoint to the Gale group statement that Newsday was not successful before Moyers. --GRuban (talk) 14:53, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Gale is a reliable reference publisher. that does not mean a perfect one: all reference sources have inaccuracies and outright errors. They are mostly prepared by summarizing other sources; some of Gale's publications do that quite explicitly, and are used for that very purpose. "liberal" and "conservative" are not words capable of exact definition, and neither is the political bias of most newspapers and other news sources. DGG ( talk ) 16:58, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

South Florida Gay News

Is [138] a sufficiently reliable source for a claim that Arthur A. Goldberg is a convicted felon? I worry that the allegation is not sufficiently backed up for WP standards (WP:BLP and current lengthy discussion on deletions). It is possible that there might be some dislike for the person, to be sure. Collect (talk) 13:05, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Do other, obviously reliable sources use this source without specific attribution? Hipocrite (talk) 13:10, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The Advocate in its blog section gives a precis of the article and a link to the SFGN site. No other sources are provided, nor do I find any on a Google search, so clearly no RSs appear to use this source without specific attribution. Collect (talk) 13:20, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Wait, did this website hire the entire staff of the South Florida Blade? Hipocrite (talk) 13:24, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

• Comment, I was concerned about this as well but as the talkpage notes "There were not two NJ Deputy Attorneys General named Arthur Goldberg" and in a 2007 interview Goldberg, of the ex-gay groups, is noted as "a former law professor at the University of Connecticut and past deputy attorney general of New Jersey". To me that settled that this was one and the same person. As to the Gay News article I rewrote the content, which to me seemed a bot POV to now read

“ In February 2010, a joint investigative report by activist organization Truth Wins Out, formed to counteract what it refers to as the "ex-gay" myth, and South Florida Gay News reported that Goldberg was fined $100,000 and sentenced to eighteen months in prison for fraud in 1989. They tied the conviction for fraud to what they see as his "dishonest present-day work" with JONAH and NARTH. ”

Looking at the current easy-accessed sources there is a long history here of the man forming groups and championing causes as well as books discussing his finance work including starting a credit union which was central to the fraud case. There is a lot there but it can be presented NPOV and RS'd. -- Banjeboi 13:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Definietely an improvement - though is the primary source for the court case which reduced his punishment needed or proper here? Is the reduction of penalty a source for the conviction? Collect (talk) 14:01, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to allow the two editors there interested some latitude to piece together a larger narrative. Frankly in every source I found another organization or business or thing he did, it's a bit endless and IMHO has to be woven chronologically whereas all this ex-gay stuff seems his retirement hobby. His notability as far as I can tell was first as a pillar in the Eastern US Jewish community and as a bond financier/semi-public figure. Then after jail his two sons came out as gay when they were in college which prompted the whole ex-gay stuff largely because Goldberg was uncomfortable with the ex-gay groups/movement which is dominated by the charismatic Christian/right-wing experience. At some point it may be clear that he singlehandedly legitimized the ex-gay movement to many by having another religious ex-gay group that wasn't intertwined with the rest. Consequently this latest revelation of his fraud will likely by picked up by the LGBT press and many in the US are sensitive to bank fraud issues so all that legitimacy he brought may melt away. There was a similar ex-gay scandal, or I may be combining a couple, where ex-gay leaders were caught doing "research" in gay bars. Many of the other ex-gay groups have been funded and used as political pawns. Clearly people believe what they write and go to their meetings, what happens from there I haven't a clue although Will & Grace did an episode that was amusing. BUt back to the point I'd rather leave it at least temporarily, I have a feeling the article is about to significantly grow. -- Banjeboi 14:22, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Gay Erotic Video Index (relist)

I'm relisting this because previous post had been commented on by users involved with WP:PORN and I was hoping to get a fresh perspective. If you're involved in the porn project and wish to comment please use previous post.

• I would like an opinion on the Gay Erotic Video Index. It seems to have editor control, but it lacks an "About Us" page.

• Warning: contains pornographic images.

I'm embarrassed I hadn't seen that and I've been looking for sourcing and leads. The general rule is that exceptional claims require more exceptional sourcing and the intro is upfront that it's just an index but pulled from primary and secondary sources to compile information. This is exactly the kind of index a museum or archive specializing in sex or sexuality looks to guide their work. So there is some editorial control and they look to reliable sources to make changes which is a good sign. As long as you are clear in the cite and clarify any exceptional claims with "Gay Erotic Video Index lists ___ as ____ " it keep the line clear that the fact asserted rests on that source rather than Wikipedia making the statement. Similarly if we state "Gay Porn Blog notes ___ as one of the top ten male porn actors over the last decade" we clarify what source is asserting something so the reader can decide what weight to afford it. -- Banjeboi 15:57, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The site's intro notes the lack of accuracy "This INDEX was compiled from many sources, the videos themselves, the internet and printed matter. If all the videos had been viewed by this author, he would have no skin, time or money left, so the veracity of each detail is only as good as the resources. The porn industry is known for supplying erections, not accurate data and with this much data, even this author has trouble keeping things 100% accurate. If you have a proven source and would like to correct or add to the INDEX please let the creator of this web site know via the contact page." Although it may be useful for finding information that leads to reliable sources, this should not be considered a reliable source in itself. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:26, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Note Both users above are involved in a debate concerning the notability of gay adult movie stars. Still looking for neutral opinions. -Stillwaterising (talk) 01:20, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Disagree, the site notes it's a repository of primary sources. Likely one of the few exist and only the second online I've ever seen. If someone independently catalogs 100 movies and it's actors and asks for sourcing to dispute alleged inaccuracies that does suggest they have a degree of fact-checking. How we use the source is a different matter but the comprehensive index showing actor X is listed doing Y number of films would seem helpful to our readers. As always care should be taken but I don't expect someone's personal website in a niche porn industry to have the same standards as every other porn website which tend to be for profit where as this mostly does not. They also seem independent but there may be formatting and US-centric bias which should be considered. -- Banjeboi 03:08, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Comment The results of this RSN have been split 50/50. If I could cast a tie-breaking vote I would have to say that Benjiboi offered the most useful opinions and it would seem that using it as an attributed source to be an acceptable compromise, providing both useful information and verifiability. Note: Wtule.net is down right now, a cache of main page can be found here. - Stillwaterising (talk) 00:41, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

The Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century

Is the Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century a valid and reliable source to provide in whole or in part estimated statical information for articles here on Wikipedia? [139]LoveMonkey (talk) 17:01, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely not... if you go to the author's home page and then to the link "Who Am I?" you quickly discover that it is a personal webpage run by someone who admits that he is "No one in particular... " and that "My academic credentials are pretty slim -- a couple of years of college and that's about it. I'm not a university professor or anything like that, and I currently earn my living as a librarian." Blueboar (talk) 17:22, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Blueboar has pretty much nailed it here. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:46, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Just an observation but- Ha, by that standard Wikipedia is pretty hypocritical...Thanks for clarifying though.LoveMonkey (talk) 13:42, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Not if you think about it. We don't consider ourselves reliable sources either. That's why it's so important we do have reliable sources, because "a Wikipedia editor says so" doesn't mean much. --GRuban (talk) 03:49, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

KavkazCenter

Is this a reliable source? In my eyes of-course not if you look at the header of this website you will see some of the most cruel terrorist of the world who committed a lot of terroristic acts around the world. http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/ But a lot of wikipedia articles rely on this source.
A short quote of an article:
"At least 3 US invaders were killed and another 3 injured during gun battles in which the enemy coalition forces were forced to retreat, said the report, adding a bomb tore apart a US invaders tank while trying to flee from the certain areas, killing the US invaders who were on board."
And Headlines such: "Clarification of the invaders propaganda in Afghanistan" http://www.kavkaz.org.uk/eng/content/2010/01/31/11329.shtml

well, from an Afghani POV, the US forces are "invaders"... and to the Taliban they are definitely the "enemy". Just as a US source might call the taliban the "enemy". The question is... rhetoric asside, does the source have a reputation for accuracy on the underlying facts? If not, then it should probably be limited to statements as to what the Taliban POV is. Blueboar (talk) 20:31, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

We have a page about this site, Kavkaz Center. It published numerous statements by Chechen rebels during Chechen wars and still publishes interview with people like Doku Umarov. It is reliable in the sense that interviews with Doku Umarov (or earlier with people like Aslan Maskhadov or Basayev) are indeed their interviews. It can be used as a WP:RS in this regard. During wars, they also reported losses on the Chechen side, and such reports can be regarded as official reports of losses by the Chechen side (which does not mean that their numbers are the "truth", just as numbers by any other combatants). However, any claims by the Kavkaz Center about their "sworn enemies" like Russians are hardy reliable and should be used with care.Biophys (talk) 20:46, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Apart from Islamist press releases and as a gauge of ISlamist thinking, no YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 05:09, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

There's no indication of significant editorial oversight or a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Regarding the content, here's a story I picked off their front page just now:

2 apostate policemen eliminated in Caucasus Emirate's Dagestan Province
Publication time: 20 February 2010, 12:54

Puppet officials say two apostate police officers were fatally shot in attacks in Dagestan Province, Caucasus Emirate.

Regional "Interior Ministry" gang's spokesman Mark Tolchinsky said Saturday that "a group of unidentified assailants fatally wounded the two officers at a roadside police station in the Gergebil district of Dagestan province late Friday".

Kavkaz Center

I think that pretty much sums it up. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:44, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

John Birch Society

Are the following reliable sources for the statement in the John Birch Society (JBS) article that it "has been described as far right":

Danielson, Chris (Feb 2009). ""Lily White and Hard Right": The Mississippi Republican Party and Black Voting, 1965-1980". The Journal of Southern History (Athens) 75 (1): 83.[140]

Lee, Martha F (Fall 2005). "NESTA WEBSTER: The Voice of Conspiracy". Journal of Women's History (Baltimore) 17 (3): 81.[141]

My objections to these sources are that 1) they are being used as primary sources for the conclusion that the JBS has been described as far right and 2) the articles are not about the JBS or the far right and therefore not relevant to the topic. It is not as if there is a lack of relevant sources for this article.

The Four Deuces (talk) 22:34, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

This is being discussed at great length in talk:John Birch Society. The Four Deuces omitted the third source being used:

• Oshinsky, David (January 27, 2008). "In the Heart of the Heart of Conspiracy". New York Times Book Review: p. 23.

And those are just three of 44 sources that call the group "far right". See ]]. We're already bending considerably by not simply saying that the JBS is far right and by simply saying that it has been described that way instead.   Will Beback  talk  23:31, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that an editor is using a laundry list of adjectives for the JBS, each of which is "sourced" but which concatenated would be the equivalent of having a sentence "Hitler is claimed to have been 'insane,' a 'nut case' an 'extremist', a 'killer'" and so on ... Once you establish that critics frequently call it "far right" that is sufficient. Adding more stuff does not improve the article, and actually harms any image of articles as being written for reference. The tendency for citation overkill (Ossa on Pelion) is quite regrettable indeed. Collect (talk) 23:40, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

With 44 sources perhaps we should alter the article. With that much unanimity between sources from all over the political spectrum we can flatly declare the JBS to be "far right" rather than just saying it's described that way.   Will Beback  talk  23:49, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Let us leave all that discussion to the talk page and let other editors reply to the question posted. The Four Deuces (talk) 02:19, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Given the preponderance of reliable sources describing the John Birch Society as "far right", there is no issue with Wikipedia describing it that way too. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:45, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

The issue goes beyond one adjectival phrase - the issue is one of a laundry list of such phrases in the article, concatenated in a single sentence. Collect (talk) 11:18, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

That's not really a reliable sources issue. Do you have any comments about the sources, either the two listed here or the 44 listed on the talk page?   Will Beback  talk  11:35, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

There's a strong potential for cherry-picking here. There's tens of thousands of writings about the JBS out there, and whether a few op-ed pieces use a certain label doesn't mean a whole lot. Far-right isn't the most accurate label we could use; some authors use the term "hard right" to avoid lumping political groups that might be slightly to the right of Reagan with radical groups. Other adjectives that come to mind would be "anticommunist" or "ultraconservative".

The part of the article in question is basically an attempt to put the criticism section in the lead paragraph. For the lead paragraph, we should be using only the most general and top tier of sources, such as a book about conservative politics in the US that comes from an academic press. I could also go for tertiary sources such as dictionaries or political science textbooks.

Some of the other adjectives used in that part of the lead are distortions, such as "radical right" and "extremist". This group certainly doesn't advocate radical change or political extremism, and the sources are cherry-picked from old newspaper articles that don't discuss the JBS in depth. Squidfryerchef (talk) 19:48, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Journal of Genetic Genealogy

JOGG seems to be a zine for genealogy hobbyists, albeit with upmarket "academic" aspirations. As has been pointed out (JOGG was mentioned once before on this board, but not discussed), JOGG is an outlet for non-geneticists, and even non-scientists, to publish research that may not be acceptable to established scientific journals. (quote: "The main emphasis of this journal will be to present a forum for articles that may not be appropriate for other established genetics journals since they may be based on datasets in which a statistically random sample cannot be guaranteed (i.e. surname studies).") Further, only one person in their entire staff (Editor, Associate Editors and Editorial Board) has credentials in genetics. So, even though there is a "peer-review" system, JOGG is clearly a journal for hobbyists.

The quesion therefore is to what extent, and for what kind of material, could JOGG be considered a reliable source in subjects pertaining to genetics? What is acceptable to cite, or to quote, or to incorporate?

In particular, is the content of a research paper -- a primary source -- suitable for inclusion in a WP article when it is clearly original, i.e. not treated in any of the usual reliable academic sources, such as articles in high-impact journals by established experts? This goes beyond cases of WP:REDFLAG to apparently "reasonable" ideas which may not have been covered yet in the regular outlets, i.e. are in the nature of WP:OR with respect to the established literature. rudra (talk) 22:53, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

It is in no way a reliable source. The current editor is "a student at the Syracuse University College of Law where he is studying intellectual property law", with no background in genetics. The past editor was "a retired physicist" with the F.D.A.

The editorial board consists of

• "a retired engineering manager who earned his MBA in mid-career",
• "an attorney in private practice specializing in family law",
• "a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois"
• a "Coordinator of Reference Services at the University of Houston M.D. Anderson Library" with a degree in law, and
• and someone who "received her undergraduate degree in biology in 1964 and her M.D. from Stanford University in 1970".

The associate editors are

• an economist with the World Health Organization with "a Ph.D and M.A. in economics from Clark University, MA, and a License-Doctorandus degree in economics from the Catholic University in Leuven (KUL, Belgium)."
• an "Associate Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Memorial University of Newfoundland", and
• a retired "research geneticist", the only person with a genetics education or profession.

It is a hobby journal, for non-geneticists who like to play geneticist on the internet. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:31, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

So, citing (an article in) JOGG cannot save material from being WP:OR, because the requirements of proper attribution are not being met. That's basically what I wanted to confirm. Thanks. rudra (talk) 17:56, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I depends on the JOGG article. Some are really quite poor, while a few have been noted by geneticists. In all likelihood the current complaint somehow involves the recent pair of articles by Klyosov, which though of some value are overreaching and unreliable. It's fine to cite most JOGG articles for their samples and basic results, and ignore their conclusions. We do the same thing with many properly 'academic' conclusions/speculations in multi-authored peer-reviewed studies. Professional geneticists themselves tend to make uninformed conclusions on language spread, archaeological cultures, and peoples. DinDraithou (talk) 19:08, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

That's right, and people put those uninformed conclusions in our articles and then argue that the journal article is a reliable source - which is true only to the extent the author is working within their area of expertise. I was waiting for someone to say that it depends on the article, that's what I've been told when I asked. User:Dougweller (talk)

It isn't just bad, it's worse. They do it for the attention (and possibly for the funding that attention might garner). This is an open secret. The effects have been singularly disastrous for the noxious mess posing as research on what R-M17 might have to do with Indo-European languages and/or "peoples". It has seriously compromised the integrity of academic research in India (where the barely concealed agenda now of all ostensible "research" is actually the seriously political business of "proving" that all Indians have been in India since time out of mind.) In fact, this entire "deep ancestry" field is a crock, a cottage industry founded on and sustained by geneticists pronouncing on subjects outside their competence (linguistics, archaeology, anthropology, sociology, ancient history, whatever.) None of this has been critiqued, because no secondary, evaluative literature exists. It's all primary source, and it's all blather. All the more reason to apply WP policies strictly and disallow marginal sources. rudra (talk) 20:57, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

JOGG really can't be cited for anything, not even "their samples and basic results". I suppose, if pushed, one could treat articles on it as self-published sources; that is to say, if a real geneticist published an article there, one could treat it as if he or she had published it on his or her blog. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:29, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I think that's an extreme position. Personally I trust what they publish at JOGG more than I trust anyone associated with Oxford, e.g. Stephen Oppenheimer and Bryan Sykes, also Spencer Wells. Their sort are the real problem. DinDraithou (talk) 01:53, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

In a scientific context, a reliable source would have to show its contributors are established experts in that area, with appropriate academic publications and credentials, and/or citations by other scientific publications. They could also be journalists reviewing published scientific work. But in general, a source which consists of amateurs could not be used to present scientific information. Crum375 (talk) 02:07, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

While you may personally trust JOGG, that doesn't make it qualify in any way as a reliable source. That's not "extreme", it's just the way the WP:V policy works. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:21, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the WP:SPS exception, but it needs to be used sensibly. Klyosov has already been mentioned; that's a good case. He is a biochemist/molecular biologist, so depending on his specializations he could know plenty about genetics, but still he is not an established geneticist (i.e., it is not what he is known and noted for in the academic literature). Therefore, in JOGG he is jut another hobbyist, and to cite or use his material (on time depths of haplotype diversity) is some combination of WP:OR, WP:UNDUE and perhaps WP:REDFLAG. rudra (talk) 04:17, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I did not say I trust 'it', just not Oxford at the moment. Of course what you say about policy is right but you also need to need to have read an article or two from the journal to make sure 'they' are actually contradicting whatever it happens to be. I'm not getting that sense regularly. In fact many of the articles they publish are in unexplored areas, and can derive from the results of legitimate haplogroup projects under FTDNA and other companies, of which the authors are sometimes the managers and leaders. This is why we can generally trust their results but are safest ignoring any speculative conclusions, which again can be found anywhere. DinDraithou (talk) 04:13, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

No, actually, you don't need to read any articles on the site, in order to ensure they are "contradicting" something. It is a hobby website produced by non-geneticists. Therefore we cannot "generally trust their results" regarding genetics; not their samples, results, conclusions, or anything else found on their website. WP:V and WP:RS are very clear about this. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:26, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

JOGG clearly fails our RS requirements and should be essentially treated as a self-published source. Further, the fact that it publishes papers not "appropriate for other established genetics journals" and in unexplored areas, raises WP:DUE concerns (if the relevant academic community hasn't made note of the research why should wikipedia give them any weight ?), and is another reason not to use it as a source. The only scenario in which I can imagine citing JOGG articles is if other reliable have cited them positively; in such a case the JOGG paper can be cited simply for convenience of the reader, in addition to the reliable source. Abecedare (talk) 04:52, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree that JOGG should be considered for wikipedia purposes a self-published source. It is not a journal of geneticists, and is essentially a hobbyist's rag, no matter how well-meaning. MarmadukePercy (talk) 06:14, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm still not sure why I've gotten into this discussion, and am defending what I more often criticize. I've cited a JOGG article only once in Wikipedia and was wishing at the time that I had a better source. See Talk:Haplogroup R1b (Y-DNA)#Uí Néill if you can stand it when the occasional Wikipedian starts a discussion and rambles while unfortunately drunk. That said I defend my right to cite that paper because all I needed it for is M222 among the Connachta. DinDraithou (talk) 06:37, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

This motion is based on a mixture of misunderstanding and very deliberate ill will by rudra, apparently with some support from other people interested in India-related articles. It is not justified. The JOGG is not an academic journal and does not claim to be, but academic journals are not the only type of reliable source. Marmaduke Percy is wrong to say that it is self-published. There is a board and an editorial process. If you look through the Wikipedia rules on these things, that is what is important. Is it respected? Yes. The JOGG has been referred to in more traditional academic journals, and the authors in JOGG correspond with and meet the academics and are respected by them. The role of non-academics in the field of understanding haplogroups is acknowledged in print by the academics, and indeed there is no way of denying that the "hobbyists" are leading the way in many aspects of the work being done. Population genetics as discussed in JOGG requires a few things: data, and understanding of statistics and certain other mathematical concepts. Some of the authors in JOGG such as Nordtvedt and Klyosov have superior mathematical skills than those normally found amongst geneticists. I note that none of the people in this discussion are generally people involved in working on articles in this field. The motion was moved by the latest of a myriad of Balkans versus India nationalist edit warriors with an axe to grind on R1a. A big part of the brand new strategy is to try to call the article my personal article, which it is not, and then to attack me personally, with Rudra creepily pretending that he is familiar with me off-wiki, which he is not, and referring to me as "just a genealogist" etc in a pseudo knowing way. (Who on earth is just a genealogist and why on earth would this need to be used as an argument?) See this. Attacking JOGG, where I have published, is clearly just one part of this. Rudra also uses his anonymity to carefully pretend he is qualified in this field which his edits and remarks on R1a show he is not. This whole discussion makes no sense if it is being led and managed by a group of edit warriors. I would not have heard about it if Doug Weller had not told me and I presume all other active editors in this area are also not aware of it. Any agreement reached here semi-secretly can and will be ignored. Is the JOGG important for Wikipedia? Yes. For anyone who cares about the quality of Wikipedia I think it is important to understand that one of the biggest challenges in getting good genetics haplogroup articles is the lack of any academic secondary literature. If we were to restrict all citations to articles already mentioned in secondary literature we would have to get rid of this whole field from Wikipedia because it would mean making articles based on information 10 years out of date. All people who know something of the field understand this. The JOGG does at least partly fill this role. It is also in many ways more neutral than the papers by the professionals with all their old articles to defend, BECAUSE it is written by educated and experienced non professionals. OTOH Rudra's accusations above concerning the "open secret" should be explained by him please. He is throwing nasty accusations all over the place without ever justifying them. What on earth is he talking about?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:20, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Again, it's a hobby website, written by non-experts in the field, whose "main emphasis... will be to present a forum for articles that may not be appropriate for other established genetics journals". A website on astrophysics could also have a very rigorous editorial process, but if those reviewing the submissions happened to be chiropractors and accountants, then it would also not qualify as a reliable source. What you describe as "the lack of any academic secondary literature" on the topics in question is what Wikipedia would view as a red flag. And while you may view non-professionals as "more neutral than... professionals with all their old articles to defend", Wikipedia generally views them as fringe. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:56, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Andrew Lancaster is correct that some of us participating in this discussion don't contribute to literature in the field. He is also correct, in my judgment, that some of the edit warring has descended into personal attacks, to which I have objected on the appropriate talk pages. But just because some editors don't contribute to journals in the field doesn't preclude us from taking part in this conversation. I have no credentials as a geneticist, but I do have some idea of assessing reliable sources. In the case of Klyosov, for instance, some of the more pseudo-nationalist claims in his work bother me. As do some of the same sorts of biases in other work that appears in JOGG. I am sure that there are good reasons both for and against considering JOGG a reliable source, and I am glad that the discussion has been opened here. And once again, I would ask editors to refrain from making personal attacks on other editors, which are unhelpful in trying to reach a concensus. MarmadukePercy (talk) 21:13, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Which "personal attacks on other editors" are you referring to? Also, consensus has already been reached on this source. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:16, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I meant reaching a consensus in the various genetics-related pieces, not this discussion. As far as personal attacks, I was referring to some of the edit warring in the R1a1 piece. MarmadukePercy (talk) 22:33, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

JOGG is only the tip of an iceberg. There is a serious degree of WP:PRIMARY policy non-compliance in the "haplogroup" articles such as the one on R1a. Some idea of the impedance mismatch at work can be had from trying to reconcile the ease with which consensus was achieved on this board about JOGG with the fact that using a source like JOGG is routine in these articles, nary a second thought, i.e. that clearly a very different consensus is operant among the active editors of those articles. While this is a subject better suited to the WP:NORN board, Andrew Lancaster's diatribe can be put in context by simply comparing the article as I found it a few days ago and the result of my partial cleanup. That enormous bibliography of WP:PRIMARY material is a smoking gun I've left alone. rudra (talk) 02:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

While I happen to agree with you about JOGG, I disagree with you about editor Andrew Lancaster. He is a hardworking wikipedia editor, and I believe his edits are made in good faith. Both he and you are, in my opinion, doing your best to make the R1a article an exemplary piece. Ben Bradlee of The Washington Post used to routinely send out two reporters to cover a story – in the belief that two competitors would come up with a better article. That's how I view the two of you. If you could stop the personal attacks and work with each other, you'd go far to making this a better piece. You may disagree on sourcing. That can be worked out. But you're both smart and making valuable contributions. I hope you can see that at some point. MarmadukePercy (talk) 03:03, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you have it wrong. I'm a generalist, I have no specific abiding interest in haplogroups, and it isn't a specific concern of mine that the R1a article in particular become exemplary. I simply ran across some problems and tried to fix them. (Anyone who thinks I'm actually a troll can undo this diff and revert to the status quo ante, though merging this diff in the process would be a courtesy.) The problem in "working out" things, like sourcing, with Andrew Lancaster is that the choices necessarily are either to accept the deeply irrational or to escalate. What could be rationally worked out with someone who insists that 21-2/3 West Bengal Brahmins testing positive for R1a1a is a "formatting error" that needs to be treated with a "neutral point of view"? What could be rationally worked out with someone who insists that a journal with an impact factor ranked 74th out of 138 in its field is "major"? This sort of thing just goes on and on. Working on the R1a article has uncovered the deeper problem of WP:PRIMARY policy noncompliance. Maybe I should be escalating this to the WP:NORN board (as the R1a article isn't the only case), or maybe I should be letting this all go and leaving the Andrew Lancasters alone to play in their sandlots of choice. I don't know. rudra (talk) 05:41, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

As Andrew says, any consensus reached here can and will be ignored by editors familiar with the material. I plan to. And I have respect for everyone here, but I think this discussion will prove of no consequence. Clearly it is not supposed to be about JOGG, which has not been the source of the problems. I do not think it is a proper soft target as it is better defended than may appear at first glance. DinDraithou (talk) 06:01, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

'Better defended,' in what sense? MarmadukePercy (talk) 06:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Anonymous testimony in journalist piece

Do anonymous testimonies in a RS journalist piece count as RS? The source in question is this, specifically in this passage:

Neighbors recalled there was something both strange and sad about Liu Chunling, that she sometimes hit her child, that she drove her elderly mother away, that she worked in a nightclub and took money to keep men company.

It is a piece originally by the Washington Post, and is disputed primarily in here. Specifically whether it's acceptable to describe that woman as "night club worker" and "took money to keep men company" without the neighbour caveat. Although I am not here to dispute whether the Washington Post is a reliable source or not, I do strongly dispute whether that also covers anonymous testimonies from unreliable sources. This is nothing more than neighbour hearsay, the tabloid type material that would be instantly rejected if that woman was alive (WP:BLP). The article gave its reader a caveat ("Neighbours recalled") on the unreliability of the source, and it can not be treated as something that Washington Post itself endorses. --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:50, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

If the information is potentially important to the article, the simple solution is to phrase it that The Washington Post reported that X said Y. Barnabypage (talk) 01:12, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree, and the caveat is "if it is potentially important". I would argue it's not. Some of the information in the piece is already used in the article. Admittedly, it's a bit selective, but if we cite the more outlandish claims, the risk is that this type of anonymous testimony may give even greater prominence to a fringe or unsupported position than is already given or warranted. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:54, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the information is important to the article. I fail to understand the eagerness to exclude this small piece of information. It's relevant, yah? Readers can make up their own mind. To say that something like a few dozen words in a several thousand word long article is pushing undue, is pushing it! (imho)--Asdfg12345 13:47, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Is TV.com a reliable source or wikipedia mirror?

This version [142] of Megan Connolly was virtually word for word reproduction of [143] at TV.com. I have edited the content to the point that I think any copyright violations have been addressed, but the sole source for the article is the TV.com article and if that is just a wikipedia mirror, then the whole article needs to be resourced. MM 207.69.139.138 (talk) 01:24, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

No. Notice on TV.com the little "edit" button at the top of sections. Anyone with an account can edit it, much like IMDb. It looks like either someone copied the TV.com bio over to Wiki or vise versa. TV.com should not be used as a reliable source.—Mike Allen 01:35, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

No, per MikeAllen. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:42, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

This came up before and it was determined that certain sections of the site are user generated while other sections aren't.[144] Pages with a URL of www.tv.com/story are professionally written and should be reliable (assuming they haven't reorganized their site or anything since the last time this came up). A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:04, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Ahem. Like IMDB, it's not quite true that anyone with an account can edit it, in that edits have to vetted by someone (perhaps the topic moderator). Still, we don't know that that someone has a reputation for fact-checking, so it's not generally reliable, except for signed sections. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:31, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Fake references

Editor Galassi is inserting "he was significant proponent of the Blood libel against Jews" in Vladimir Purishkevich. Galassi supports this with two refs.

• http://www.krotov.info/lib_sec/17_r/rez/reznik.html - Russian-language source that calls Purishkevish "leader of early Russian fascism" but says nothing about Purishkevich connection to blood libel. I guess, putting this fake reference, Galassi hoped that most readers of English Wikipedia will not understand what was really written in Russian-language text.
• http://sicsa.huji.ac.il/studies2.html - text by William Korey (lobbyist on international issues for B’nai B’rith). There are two sentences about Purishkevish in the text. "One of the Union's reactionary leaders, V. M. Purishkevich, was referred to by his Sovbiographer as a “fascist” who had set an authentic style for a movement that would blossom forth in Europe a decade later.", "While the Union's chairman was a physician, Dr. A. I. Dubrovin, and his two deputies were a nobleman-landowner (Purishkevich), and an engineer, the majority of the membership ranged from petty-bourgeois elements to unemployed workers, peasants, skilled proletarians, and professionals." Again, nothing is written about Purishkevich connection to blood libel.

Can this sources be used to support the content? Attention from uninvolved editors needed. DonaldDuck (talk) 06:32, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

If the sources do not back the claim then they are not reliable for that claim... you have essentially two options... 1) reword the passage so it better reflects what the sources do say (ie talk about his fascism, but not about "Blood libel")... or 2) remove the citations and tag the statement (don't remove the statement right away). If you go this route, leave a good edit summary and explain in detail what the problem is on the talk page.

There is no rush on fixing this, since the article is not a BLP. The key is to ensure that the article discusses the subject accurately and in a neutral tone. Be willing to work towards a compromise and build a consensus. Blueboar (talk) 13:58, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I can't comment on the Russian text, but I don't see any evidence that the William Korey reference is "fake". It says that Purishkevich was a leading figure in the Union and that the Union "was a major backer of the notorious blood libel trial of Mendel Beiliss". I don't think we can reasonably consider it to be WP:SYNTH to see these two statements together as inevitably implying that Purishkevich backed the blood libel trial. [145] Paul B (talk) 14:10, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

It is clearly WP:SYNTH since it is not at all unusual for leading members of organizations to disagree with some of their policies. The solution is to say just what the source says and no more. Zero^talk 14:38, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

That seems more than a stretch to me given that it was central to the Union's very role, but the sentence can be reasonably rephrased. Paul B (talk) 01:43, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I can speak to the Russian text. The entire article is about the blood libel, that's its title, "КРОВАВЫЙ НАВЕТ В РОССИИ", "Blood libel in Russia". However Purishkevich is only mentioned in passing, as an early Russian Fascist leader. The article does connect Russian Fascism to the blood libel, but doesn't specifically say Purishkevich did it. Not a good source for that. --GRuban (talk) 15:02, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

So far as we have seen here, we have no source that justifies the text inserted by Galassi. Zero^talk 00:40, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

The insertion involves too much original research. The articles establish some sort of link, but not one that warrants the claims being made. This is really a question for the WP:NOR/N board. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:32, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Can a reliable source become an unreliable source through its own admission?

I'd like some opinions pertaining to List of highest-grossing films in Canada and the United States regarding Avatar ticket sales in regards to Box Office Mojo.

Box Office Mojo is regarded as a highly reliable source on the film articles and is used almost exclusively on Wikipedia (and in the mainstream press) as the primary source for financial data. There is no question about its status as a reliable source, and that is at the root of the problem I am facing.

The chart mentioned above includes the film grosses adjusted for ticket price inflation, and also the number of ticket sales via the Box Office Mojo chart here: [146]. However, since ticket sales aren't tracked Mojo clearly states where the ticket sales are unknown it works it out using the average ticket price for the year the film was made. This is fine in most cases where the ticket price is static, but has caused a problem with Avatar, where it states that Avatar has sold over 87 million tickets in grossing $668 million.

Because ticket prices are different for the different formats Avatar was released in (2D/3D/IMAX), the simple model of dividing the gross by the average ticket price for that year no longer applies, as noted in their own article about Avatar's performance: [147]. They clarify the general methodology for how they calculate admissions: Unfortunately, the industry does not track admissions, only dollars. Absent proper admissions tracking, estimated admissions are determined by dividing the grosses by the average ticket prices, but this method is certainly iffy and should not be seen as definitive.. Their article provides a breakdown of teh ticket sales in each format (and at the different prices for those formats) to extimate that "All told, Avatar's estimated admission count is 60.7 million thus far" in grossing $600 million.

The dispute is over whether to include the ticket sales estimate from their chart, which Box Office Mojo clearly indicates is inaccurate in the case of Avatar. Avatar clearly didn't sell another 27 million tickets going from $600 million to $668 million. So yes Box Office Mojo is a reliable source, its chart is usually considered reliable, but the Box Office Mojo analysis indicates the estimate is not reliable in the case of Avatar.

So what should take precedence in a case like this? The chart or the article, both published by the same source? It seems to me the article acts as a kind or errata in this instance. Would appreciate any opinions. Betty Logan (talk) 12:16, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Why not account for both estimates... list it as "60.7 or 87 million", and explain the issue of calculation method in a foot note. Blueboar (talk) 14:05, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah... I see the article does this already. Blueboar (talk) 14:08, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I thought it might be the better solution. The other party may still contest it though. Betty Logan (talk) 14:33, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh really, from your reverts and discussion, I thought you were against using the 87 million altogether. I am assuming I am the other party you are referring to and no, I will not object to using both sources at all until and if the primary source ever decides to unify these counts on both instances. DrNegative (talk) 20:31, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

The stability of the article is the priority, but all things considered if Box Office Mojo have provided two estimates, I believe we should go with the estimate they consider to be the most accurate. Both Entertainment Weekly [148] and MTV.com [149] provide estimates that corroborate Box Office Mojo's revised estimate with ticket sales at 62 million and 59 million respectively. Betty Logan (talk) 00:58, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Sites providing birth info for Alexandra Daddario

Is ListOwn a reliable source for the birth info of entertainers? Nightscream (talk) 18:19, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

• I can't imagine it being accepted. They are a classified ad site. That is their function. Niteshift36 (talk) 01:02, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

What about this site for Alexandra Daddario's birth info? It looks like a fan site, but I wanted to be sure. Nightscream (talk) 01:43, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

• Again, I don't think you'll find many people that would consider that a RS. If it were the movie studios site, yes. But that is a fan site. Niteshift36 (talk) 03:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

• Try this link: [150]. Niteshift36 (talk) 03:51, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Encyclopedia Iranica

Encyclopedia Iranica is used extensively in Al-Farabi to prove that he was Persian. The author of the Iranica article about al-Farabi, Dimitri Gutas gives a different account about al-Farabi's ethnicity in a different article published on the Stanford University site. Sole Soul (talk) 19:59, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

There does not seem to be any conflict or contradiction between Gutas' two articles. In both he quite clearly states that there is no resolution for Al-Farabi's ethnicity.

So, do you really mean that EI has been quote-mined and cherry-picked to push a pro-Persian POV? Well, that's just your garden variety POV-pushers' tug of war, EI has nothing to do with it.

(obRS: Is anyone doubting that EI is a RS?) rudra (talk) 20:36, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I assume that most of the people here will not read the long Iranica article to make their conclusions about my claim. In the Iranica article, Gutas is "refuting" the Turkish ethnicity claim. He is saying that the primary sources that say al-Farabi was Turkish are pro-Turkish and should not be relied on.

Regardless, the main question is: Is Iranica a RS in a disputed matter that relate to Iran. Sole Soul (talk) 21:53, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

EI is certainly RS. However, your contention about Gutas seems mistaken. Only the first two out of the four sections of the article are relevant to issues of ethnicity and "refutation" (because the third section "STORIES AND LEGENDS" starts with this: "The above is all that can be said with certainty about Fārābī’s biography"). The second section ("LIFE") says nothing about ethnicity at all. So where in the first section ("BIOGRAPHY") did you find a "refutation"? rudra (talk) 22:23, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

People have to decide for themselves, but I doubt that Iranica would publish an article that talk about pro-Persian bias. Quote: "Ebn Ḵallekān, in line with his pro-Turkish bias, makes the outlandish claim that Fārābī knew no Arabic when he came to Baghdad but only “Turkish and numerous other languages,” and that he mastered Arabic only afterwards." Sole Soul (talk) 23:20, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

That passage is in the "STORIES AND LEGENDS" section. It has no bearing on the facts. Your problem is with tendentious editing in the Al-Farabi article, and quite possibly a misuse of the EI source. But not with EI source itself, which is still RS. rudra (talk) 23:46, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

That passage is related to the question of wether EI is partial or impartial. Sole Soul (talk) 00:03, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Ibn Khallikan's pro-Turkish bias is simply a fact, and properly explained by Gutas. Note that Gutas early on dismisses the third primary source, Bayhaqi. But he does not similarly dismiss Ibn Khallikan, which he clearly would have if he wanted to imply that only Usaibi was right and Al-Farabi was indeed Persian. But Gutas did not do this. Like a true scholar, he laid out all the facts. Anyone reading the article without an agenda should realize this, and not try to second guess his informed scholarly conclusion that, all said and done, Al-Farabi's ethnicity is not known. rudra (talk) 00:41, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I did not ask you about Gutas. My question: Would EI publish an article that talk about pro-Persian bias in the same way? Do you think EI is completely impartial in matters related to Iran? Sole Soul (talk) 01:03, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I see no reason to doubt it. The roster of scholars is stellar. There is no evidence whatsoever that Iranophilia, either of the author or in the content, is a precondition of contributions to EI. rudra (talk) 01:25, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

OK. You made yourself clear, you think that "EI is certainly RS", "Ibn Khallikan's pro-Turkish bias is simply a fact" and wondering whether Encyclopedia Iranica is impartial in subjects related to Iran is "a conspiracy theory" all emphasizes are mine. Sole Soul (talk) 01:45, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

When an editor says a reliable source is wrong

There has been a dispute on Union City, New Jersey regarding a local high-rise building called the Thread. A The New York Times article by Antoinette Martin that I cited as one of the sources says that that building is a former embroidery factory. But User:Djflem has asserted that this is not true, that the building is an original building, and that The New York Times is wrong. An anonymous IP editor whose IP is traced to Amsterdam (I don't know if this was also Djflem editing outside of his account) called the source "unreliable". I don't dispute that otherwise reliable sources can make mistakes, but for an editor to remove such info based solely on their assertion seems like OR, just as including such info on personal knowledge would be. What should we do? Nightscream (talk) 21:08, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

See if you can find more sources to either support or deny the challenged source you have. Try and discuss the issue on the talk page of the article to get a consensus. Removal of information is not OR. SunCreator (talk) 23:02, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

There are lots of old maps of the area on the web, maybe you can find one that settles the question. Zero^talk 00:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

This would seem to be a question of policy rather than consensus; I wouldn't want people in a consensus discussion to decide based on their persona feelings about the assertion. As for maps, I don't see how this would help. I actually have a number of old maps of the area, but none are going to indicate if a building on a given block was a factory. I've sent emails to the writer of the article and to the building itself to ask them. Hopefully that will do it. Nightscream (talk) 01:08, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Newspapers are often wrong, including The New York Times. However, we consider newspapers such as The New York Times to be reliable sources, and go by what they say, absent any other reliable sources stating something different. And an editor's personal knowledge carries little weight in such a discussion, and there's no need to e-mail the articles' author etc. Feel free to use the article to support the claim that the building is a former embroidery factory. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:36, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I have found another New York Times article which describes construction of the building as beginning in 2007. There are also numerous less reliable sources (such as ads for apartments in the building) describing it as new, and nothing else describing it as a former embroidery factory. I think it's fair to conclude that the originally-cited NYT article was in error. See Talk:Union_City,_New_Jersey. Barnabypage (talk) 14:24, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

It may have been in error. It may have meant that the building was constructed where an embroidery factory once stood. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:11, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Digital Spy

Is Digital Spy considered reliable? I've doubted its reliability for quite awhile, but I would like to get the opinions of other editors. –Chase (talk) 22:27, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_47#digitalspy.co.uk Do you have a particular aspect in mind? SunCreator (talk) 22:46, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I seem to have missed that when I searched the archives. It still seems pretty tabloidy and gossip blog-y to me. I don't think consensus was ever gained on the issue, so perhaps now would be a good time to? –Chase (talk) 00:05, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I think unless you have something specific then like previous comments I'd say it is a WP:RS but bear in mind the point that it tends to report much gossip and celeb type information careful reading of it's articles are required. For example this, if you read it carefully it does not confirm the headline, but rather says it has been 'claimed' and 'is allegedly'. SunCreator (talk) 22:38, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

The factual accuracy of some content (e.g. news stories, in-depth features, profiles etc) is implicitly guaranteed by mainstream publishers and sloppy errors will attract heavier libel damages than they would in other contexts, even in the same publication. I doubt that Digital Spy intends to publish news stories this rigorously. Nevertheless, parts of Digital Spy are deliberately presented as officially-sanctioned reviews signed by regular real-life-named contributors, and IMO these should be considered reliable sources for those reviewers' opinions, in the same way that a regular critic's reviews published on a newspaper's website would be reliable. However, any statements about facts (e.g. "245,000 people watched the final broadcast of Spooks: Code 9") wouldn't be reliable and would need to be verified elsewhere. Blog pages written by regular contributors and published by mainstream publishers are probably the same. But if there's any doubt about the contributor's identity (e.g. because the publisher doesn't verify it or can't be trusted to verify it) then all bets are off: the source is useless. - Pointillist (talk) 00:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Ian William op-ed

Question about the use of op-ed in articles, specifically in the UN Watch article, and the following excerpt which some users have advocated[151]:

Journalist and former anti-apartheid activist Ian Williams, writing in an opinion piece in The Guardian in 2007, wrote that the main objective of UN Watch "is to attack the United Nations in general, and its human rights council in particular, for alleged bias against Israel". Williams supported UN Watch's condemnation of the UN Human Rights Council as a hypocritical organization, but also condemned UN Watch itself of hypocrisy for failing to denounce what he called manifest Israeli transgressions against the human rights of Palestinians.

Ian Williams was twice president and twice vice president of the United Nations Correspondents Association, originated the UNCA award for best UN coverage in 1995 years ago, and is a judge in the New York Overseas Press Club Awards. He has appeared on ABC, BBC, ITN, CNN and contributed to Newsday, LA Weekly, Village Voice, New York Observer, Penthouse.[152] He is also the author of Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776, The Deserter: Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans and His Past, The Alms Trade and The UN For Beginners[153]

It has also been noted that Wikipedia doesn't have any article on Williams, Williams may not have ever been a staff writer for a "major" publication.[154]

Thanks,--70.225.142.161 (talk) 20:05, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Op-ed articles, especially those by guest writers, often are subject to less editorial scrutiny than news reports. So it is safer to say that Journalist Ian Williams described UN Watch as X, Y and Z, thus making it clear that this is Williams's take on matters, not necessarily a universally-accepted fact.

A couple of more general points here, just for your interest. Note that I don't bring out the common fallacy about op-eds, in contrast to news stories, not being fact-checked - it is (in the vast majority of cases) a myth that news stories are fact-checked anyway, other than by their author. Also note that in British newspapers the line between op-ed and news reporting is much more blurred than it is in North American newspapers. News stories in British papers, particularly those written by subject specialists (the political editor, the religion correspondent, etc.) frequently contain some subjective analysis as well as objective statements of fact.

Neither of these points is specifically relevant to Williams but I thought I'd mention them anyway, as this issue of op-eds as reliable sources comes up so often! Barnabypage (talk) 20:37, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

So your suggestion is that the material is acceptable as long as the material is clearly attributed and qualified as the opinion of Ian Williams? Thanks for your feedback,--70.225.142.161 (talk) 22:45, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes. I had a quick look at the most recent version of the article and I would consider it absolutely fine. It's a straightforward statement of what Williams, prima facie a responsible journalist and writing for a source that is generally regarded as reliable, said. What is the problem here? (I'm not familiar with the subject.) Is it a controversial point of view? Barnabypage (talk) 01:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Phrasing it as being the opinion of Ian Williams would make it acceptable in terms of reliability ... However, note that there may be other reasons not to accept it. Not all opinions are worth including. Stephen Hawking's opinion on partical physics is note worthy... his opinion on the Crimean War is not. Context is important. See WP:UNDUE for more on that. So it comes down to this... is Ian Williams's opinion on the UN Watch worthy of metntion in the specific article under discussion? I will leave it to others to argue that out. Blueboar (talk) 23:01, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

He was, per the original question, "twice president and twice vice president of the United Nations Correspondents Association". I certainly haven't checked it out in detail, but this would tend to suggest that his opinions on the UN are more noteworthy than those of Hawking's on the Crimean War! Barnabypage (talk) 01:22, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Would WP:NPOV/N be the place to collect input then? Thanks, --70.225.142.161 (talk) 01:16, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

www.americanboardofsportpsychology.org

Hi, User:BruceGrubb is wanting to use Terry Sandbek, Ph.D. "Brain Typing: The Pseudoscience of Cold Reading" Journal of the American Board of Sport Psychology as a source on Multi-level Marketing. The site is ostensibly a peer-reviewed journal however the "journal" appears to consist of a sum total of 8 articles appearing only on the rather unprofessional looking website [155] and the document in question doesn't even appear to be one of those. The "journal" itself seems to have racked up a sum total of one citation, in an obscure Pakistani journal [156]. Given the article in question is (a) not by an expert in, or about, the topic in question (multilevel marketing) (b) probably not peer-reviewed and (c) not in a journal of any standing even if it was, it would appear to me to clearly fail WP:RS. Comments appreciated. --Insider201283 (talk) 23:38, 19 February 2010 (UTC) ETA: I found the article in question listed here on the website. It's a "position paper" and listed with other opinion-type pieces. As noted, it's not listed in the "journal" articles section [157] --Insider201283 (talk) 23:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

contrary to what Insider201283 thinks a badly designed web site does not translate into unscholarly. The actual Journal of the American Board of Sport Psychology site clearly states: "The Journal of the American Board of Sport Psychology is a peer reviewed journal devoted to disseminating scientific and popular research-based articles in an efficient and timely manner. The Journal also publishes technical reports, editorials, opinions, special features, and letters to the editors, as well as classified and other advertising. Peer-reviewed articles are posted in PDF format, requiring that you have ADOBE Reader. If not you can download it for free at www.adobe.com."

Worse for Insider201283 a link to the American Board of Sport Psych. is provided by Adams State College http://www.adams.edu/academics/sportpsych/ who has the following accreditations: North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCA-HLC) Accreditation, Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE); Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP); and National Association of Schools of Music (NASM), Commission on Accreditation.

Carlstedt PhD, Roland A. (Editor) (2009) Handbook of Integrative Clinical Psychology, Psychiatry, and Behavioral Medicine: Perspectives, Practices, and Research Springer Publishing Company ("Springer Publishing Company is extremely proud of our history -- publishing academic and professional works for more than 50 years.") on page 3 clearly states that Carlstedt has published articles in The Journal of the American Board of Sport Psychology and Biofeedback, Cortex, Brain and Cognition.

So an accredited college recommends it and a publisher who had been publishing academic and professional works for more than 50 years uses it as why an author of its Handbook of Integrative Clinical Psychology, Psychiatry, and Behavioral Medicine: Perspectives, Practices, and Research is trustworthy. Oh just in case Insider201283 regales us with some other nonsense Springer Publishing Company also puts out A Guide to the Standard EMDR Protocols for Clinicians, Supervisors, and Consultants, Chemistry and Physics for Nurse Anesthesia: A Student Centered Approach, Handbook of Forensic Neuropsychology, Second Edition, and EMDR and the Art of Psychotherapy With Children: Treatment Manual and Text just to mention a few.

Talk about major egg on the face. Sheesh Insider201283 do you even know how to do actual research before posting this nonsense?!?--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:58, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

egg on the face indeed ... your own quote above says "The Journal also publishes technical reports, editorials, opinions, special features, and letters to the editors,.... Peer-reviewed articles are posted in PDF format". All other matters of reliability aside, what format is the Sandbek article in Bruce? --Insider201283 (talk) 00:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, it is in word but thes Journal also states--

RATINGS:

(*) for the researcher and practitioner (more technical/scientific)PEER-REVIEWED

(**) for coaches and athletes (research-based but less technical/more applied)

(***) research based popular article (written with the lay person in mind)

It is clear that not all PEER-REVIEWED papers were in PDF format as the

American Psychological Association Divisions 47 and 6 (Behavioral Neuroscience) 2004 Convention Symposium: Integrative Sport Psychology (*,**) Presented Papers section only one of the six papers is in the PDF format. All the rest are in powerpoint format even though the one star (*) denotes all as "for the researcher and practitioner (more technical/scientific)PEER-REVIEWED" and then you have three star (***) articles in PDF format even though the ratings only expressly states that one star articles are PEER-REVIEWED. I am inclined to trust the star ratings rather than the format especially as PEER-REVIEWED is in all caps and bolded.--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Bruce, I note again, even if one accepted it was a prestigious well known peer-reviewed journal, and clearly relevant to MLM (neither of which are true) the article in question is not even listed on the journal page. The front page of the site says "Journal of the American Board of Sport Psychology Inaugural Issue now Available", and following that link gives a page that does NOT include the Sandbek article [158]. The Sandbek article is instead listed at the bottom of the home page under "articles". Having an asterisk beside an article saying "peer-reviewed" on a clearly amateur website does not make something a reliable source. --Insider201283 (talk) 02:06, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Not listed on the journal page?!? Are you blind?!? "BE SURE TO SCROLL DOWN TO SEE ALL CONTENT" The entire page is the journal!

You have 'Sport Psychology in the News' followed by a book review followed by "ARTICLES ETC. (see Library below for Download)" and the very first thing you hit is

POSITION PAPER #1 on BRAIN TYPING

1. [*, **] Pseudoscience of Brain Typing by Terry Sandbek, Ph.D.HIGHLY RECOMMENDED article on Critical Thinking in Sport Psychology

IT IS THE VERY FIRST ARTICLE YOU COME TO!!! It is ranked as PEER REVIEWED in bold caps due to the one star (*) and then it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED also in bold caps in the text right next to it. How on earth do you miss that?!?

In the download section that says "SPORT PSYCHOLOGY ARTICLES" Sandbek article is the last one on page one (assuming 10 pages).--BruceGrubb (talk) 02:50, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

• Can you be specific as to what statements the paper in question needs to support? Different statements get held to different standards, there isn't such a thing as an expert on every subject (well, possibly Da Vinci or Asimov; but they're dead). Having a Journal and a PhD is nice in general, but what does sports medicine have to do with Multi-level marketing? --GRuban (talk) 00:17, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The claim made in the WP article, based on Sandbek, is Another charge is "By its very nature, MLM is completely devoid of any scientific foundations."--Insider201283 (talk) 00:26, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Straight from the paper: "In the following article our author Dr. Terry Sandbek addresses Brain Typing and pseudoscience in Sport Psychology." The just of the article regarding MLM begins in the section "Brain Typing as a Product" subsection "Multilevel Marketing (MLM)" which has this lead in right before it: "None of them have any direct link to applied science or scientific research. Multilevel Marketing and Positive Thinking, his two previous ventures, have no connection to findings within the scientific community."

Sandbek then sites one MLM critical website after the other for about two pages. Not only are Taylor, FitzPatrick, and Vanduff here but so are Lanford and Barrett. Sandbek then goes into "Pop Psychology of Positive Thinking" which tangentally touches on the methods MLMs use. Then you hit "The pseudoscientist uses testimonials as evidence." and the whole pseudoscience dynamic which is not just part of Brain typing but also Multilevel Marketing and Positive Thinking.--BruceGrubb (talk) 02:30, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Yup, he cites multiple non-RS websites as his sources. You're not helping your case Bruce. Let's just wait for some more 3rd party opinions hey? --Insider201283 (talk) 02:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Insider201283 claimed this before but the fact is one of these sources are referenced in a Juta Academic publication and Taylor is referenced four times in Cruz's peer reviewed 2008 "A System Dynamics Model for Studying the Structure of Network Marketing Organizations". In short Sandbek is not a one trick pony and there are other reliable sources that use these people or their sites as references.--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:41, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

This RS/N request is with regard Sandbek as an RS. If you want to query others, post them for discussion. --Insider201283 (talk) 14:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry Insider, but it was YOU who brought up the "non-RS websites" claim and so made it relevant the issue of Sandbek being an RS. The main page is referenced by an accredited college on their web page and is used a expertise qualifier on another book published by Springer Publishing Company.--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Bruce, this page is to get others opinions on the source in question, not for back and forth bickering. Let's wait for more 3rd party opinions. --Insider201283 (talk) 14:36, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Aha. Now it makes sense. From reading the paper, Sandbek is criticizing one specific person, Jon Niednagel, who is apparently is trying to do something called Brain Typing which has something to do with Sport Psychology (hence the sports medicine connection). As one of his criticisms, Sandbek mentions that Niednagel was involved with MLM. The sentence in context is:

Such is the case with Brain Typing. Mr. Niednagel is quick to claim a scientific basis for his product but is unable to offer any solid evidence that it is based on any scientific principles. This is not surprising when we look at the types of businesses that he has promoted in the last few decades. None of them have any direct link to applied science or scientific research. Multilevel Marketing and Positive Thinking, his two previous ventures, have no connection to findings within the scientific community.

The article, including the quoted sentence, is primarily a criticism of Niednagel specifically, not of MLM in general, and I suspect Sandbek would reject any claims of being an expert on MLM in general. Not appropriate for the MLM article. If we have an article on Brain Typing or Niednagel, it would be a good source there, but MLM is much bigger than Niednagel.

That said, however, surely there is no lack of better sources to criticise MLM. Consumer advocates, attorneys general, economists, all those would be much better critics than sports medicine experts. --GRuban (talk) 21:06, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Anti-Defamation League

Resolved

Can I use the website of Anti-Defamation League (www.adl.org) as a reliable source for the claims made in Current Communist antisemitism? I have attributed the claims to ADL, i.e. "according to the Anti-Defamation League ..." --Defender of torch (talk) 13:27, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Websites of known organizations can certainly be used as cites for official positions and opinions of the organizations. Collect (talk) 13:48, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. --Defender of torch (talk) 13:51, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

This is beyond the scope of this particular noticeboard but you probably also want to cite a third-party reliable source which mentions the ADL's view on this particular topic. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The ADL is an expert source on antisemitism; there is no need for additional third-party sources. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:13, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I wish you were around when I tried to make the same argument! A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:17, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Devin Sper

A book by this author entitled the Future of Israel is being used as a source in the article on the Battle of Yad Mordechai. The book uses flaming emotional language and is blatantly biased, including verses of poetry throughout. He keeps reiterating mention of Israeli struggle, sacrifice and heroism, talks about 26 martyrs in the battle who not merely sacrificed themselves but their enemies for Kiddush Hashem, and writes of how God seeks the blood of His enemies and that Israeli victories magnify and sanctify God in the eyes of the world. See page 196 and what follows in the book here. Can this really be used as a source in Wikipedia? --Sherif9282 (talk) 14:50, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Obviously this isn't a reliable source in general, but we need to look at what it's being used to source here. It is being used as a source for one of the estimates for the size of the Egyptian force. Repeat: one of the estimates. I therefore do not see it as harmful to the article. Other claims should not be attributed to this source though, or if notable enough, should be qualified. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 00:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Fan page article on James Wesley Rawles

I am curious about third opinion of the sourcing of the James Wesley Rawles article. I see that the key editor User:Trasel is an active participant on the blog of this self published survivalist author[159][160] raising questions of independence. Looking at most of the 75 references to the article I see that they are nearly all self referential, pointing either to his self published book or blog. I didn't check all 75 references, and no doubt there are a few that do barely mention this author in third party sources, but I see none that feature this author amounting to notability. Multiple links that point to independent sources come up as dead links. I notice the earlier article for AFD debate[161] in April 2008 was likely influenced by editor canvasing[162][163], and can guess that the 75 references now are in response to criticism then. SaltyBoatr (talk) 17:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

There are certainly a lot of issues with that article. First, while the article does establish that Rawles is notable within the survivalist movement, I think it needs to establish that he is notable beyond that fringe group. As Salty points out, the article is mostly supported by blog and forum postings. What is needed is some reference to Rawles by reliable secondary sources (mainstream Media coverage etc.) Even disparaging references that say the guy is a nut case would qualify.

Second, we need to look into the sources that are cited. Some of this qualifies as Primary SPS citations (ie SPS by the subject, not SPS about the subject) used to support the fact that Rawles holds certain views. As such, they might be reliable (assuming we can verify that the person posting is in fact Rawles). The other postings should probably be removed as being not reliable.

Finally, If this guy has a fan base who will overwhelm an AfD with WP:ILIKEIT arguments, then it is important to demonstrate that an serious attempt to properly establish notability was made (and failed) before the article is renominated for deletion. Blueboar (talk) 18:26, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Looking at Google News Archive I see very little about this author in the mainstream press[164] with one interesting article in Library Journal describing how libraries were caught off guard when this author's book was a hot seller at Amazon, but was a niche title not reviewed in any of the usual professional sources and was purchased by almost no libraries[165], with the conclusion that "It appeals to a small but vociferous group of people concerned with survivalism". That too seems the case with this article, being written by an ardent survivalist fan base. Considering the low threshold for notablity for fan base articles in Wikipedia, this author could win an AfD ILIKEIT vote. And, the problem still remains, I think, with the WP:RS standard for the 75 footnotes of the article. SaltyBoatr (talk) 22:46, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

OK... I will take a look at the citations and do some cleaning out. Blueboar (talk) 22:52, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Having looked at this further, I actually think this guy is marginally notable. But the article makes a LOT more of him than he deserves. The key is to trim down the stuff cited to his own writings and re-focus the article on what is important to an average reader... he is a survivalist author who has occasionally been quoted or mentioned in news articles about survivalism (usually in passing), and his blog has garnered some interest since the economy started sucking. Blueboar (talk) 04:41, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Reliable Sources?: Doug Saunders and Linda McQuaig

The below discussion was started on Talk:Tobin_tax

It was originally entitled, "Unreliable source: Linda McQuaig" and was started by "Cosmic Cube" (not myself)

I, Boyd Reimer, am seeking other editors to join this discussion for the following reason: If two heads are better than one, then I propose that three heads are better than two.

Boyd Reimer (talk) 18:19, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Discussion begins here

I would suggest that Linda McQuaig is an unreliable source. For example, in one article she claims that Paul Volcker is a transaction tax supporter (http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/762427--mcquaig-tory-chill-freezes-out-tobin-tax). She provides no support for this assertion. However, a Reuters article shows that Volcker opposes this idea (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BC0MH20091213) and they are able to quote him directly as evidence.

There are two possibilities regarding what could have happened here with respect to McQuaig (not necessarily mutually exclusive):

1. McQuaig is a mediocre journalist: I was able to find a direct source on Volcker's views in a few minutes. If I am able to do this and McQuaig cannot then it casts serious doubt on her journalistic ability.

2. McQuaig is biased (and, thus, willing to be loose with the facts when it comes to her bias): Here is a quote from McQuaig's article:

"What a tragedy that, as this rare opportunity approaches, we are saddled with the small-minded, Bay Street-beholden Harper government. Will we be doomed again to watch the Harperites stage photo-ops of themselves, this time hugging the CN Tower and straddling cannons at Old Fort York, while the rest of the G20 struggles to rein in reckless financial markets?"

A cursory review of articles by McQuaig suggests she is incapable of writing anything without directly attacking people she doesn't like (typically people in right-of-center governments). She is clearly spinning this against a political party she disagrees with (I don't think "staging photo-ops" is a characteristic exclusive to any particular part of the political spectrum). Would she still be saying the same thing if it were left-of-center party members engaging in the same behavior?

I don't know which of these cases is true, but at least one of them must be. In either event, this suggests that McQuaig is unreliable and I would propose to other editors that she not be used as a primary source in the future.

(The other possibility here, not having anything to do with McQuaig, is that Volcker changed his mind between December 13, 2009 (Reuters article) and February 9, 2010 (McQuaig's article). This seems unlikely given the short amount of time between these articles and the fact that he has had President Obama's ear during this period when the Volcker proposals were taking shape.)

Cosmic Cube (talk) 00:54, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

See below discussion Boyd Reimer (talk) 20:43, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

"Opposers" can "soften their doubts" as time passes

• On December 11, 2009, the Financial Times reported the following: "Since the Nov 7 [2009] summit of the G20 Finance Ministers , the head of the International Monetary Fund, Mr Strauss-Kahn seems to have softened his doubts, telling the CBI employers' conference: "We have been asked by the G20 to look into financial sector taxes . . This is an interesting issue . . We will look at it from various angles and consider all proposals."" see source

Notice that Strauss-Kahn took only one month to "soften his doubts."

It is possible that this can happen to others as well.

Therefore we must allow for this possibility in others also. For example Paul Volcker may have changed his mind between December, 2009 and February 2010.

Compare this edit and this edit

Also we must address the question of what is a reliable source: Is the Globe and Mail an unreliable source?

Boyd Reimer (talk) 01:04, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I noted that it was possible for Volcker to have changed his mind. I don’t think that he has since then he could have chosen to make a FTT part of his proposal to the President. However, that is just my opinion and that does not count for anything. The only things that do count are reliably sourced statements that are directly attributable to Volcker. The December article provides this. The February article does not.

As for the Globe and Mail, I believe you are referring to: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/a-tobin-tax-the-outr-is-back-in/article1458027. This is an acceptable source on Christine Lagarde’s views since the author directly interviews her. It is not an acceptable source on Volcker’s views. For all we know, the author is simply referencing something he read in McQuaig’s earlier article.

As editors, it is not our job to allow for the possibility of individuals to change their minds. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball (WP:NOTCRYSTAL). If Volcker wishes to change his mind, he is free to do so at any time. It is not our place to speculate if or when he might do so. If he updates his views and makes them known to the general public through reliable sources, then we will make note of that in the appropriate spot in the article. That’s our job. Nothing more.

Cosmic Cube (talk) 02:34, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Greetings Cosmic Cube: Thank you for doing the extra research in finding a quote directly from Volcker himself.

I agree with your approach of using such quotes as the ultimate authority in cases when there are conflicting reports. But if you hadn’t found that direct quote, then I would have, in good faith, trusted the prominent journalist Doug Saunders. Why? Because Saunders was covering a new event: the meeting in Canada. Therefore, in good faith, I assumed that he had new information coming from that new event.

Thank you again for your clarifying research.

As an aside, I titled this discussion "as time passes," because in the future it could be a place to discuss people other than Volcker. (I purposely prefaced my discussion of Volcker with the words, "for example.")

Thanks again for your research.

Boyd Reimer (talk) 20:05, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, I checked this Wikipedia policy about on the reliability of sources and found this quote: "The most reliable sources are usually peer-reviewed journals; books published by university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. Electronic media may also be used, subject to the same criteria. Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources .... Material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas, particularly if it appears in respected mainstream publications. Where there is disagreement between sources, their views should be clearly attributed in the text: "John Smith argues that X, while Paul Jones maintains that Y," followed by an inline citation."

The particular McQuaig article you are referred to in the above (previous) discussion is published by the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper.

Instead of discounting it outright, Wikipedia policy suggests that "Where there is disagreement between sources, their views should be clearly attributed in the text: "John Smith argues that X, while Paul Jones maintains that Y," followed by an inline citation."

A provocative style of writing is common among columnists from all sides of the political spectrum. (That is probably done to stir readers to write in, start a discussion, create a buzz, thereby causing more papers to be sold.) I am accustomed to seeing this from all sides of the political spectrum. Yet, despite that common culture of writing styles, it is still important not to tell an untruth. (Of course, an encyclopedic style of writing is very different from the columnist style of writing.)

Boyd Reimer (talk) 20:53, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, telling an untruth is precisely what McQuaig has done. This is not a case of "John Smith argues that X, while Paul Jones maintains that Y"; it is a case of "John Smith argues that X, while Paul Jones maintains that John Smith argues Y". That's a crucial distinction. There are only two possibilities for her behavior:

1. She did this unknowingly: If this is the case, then McQuaig is a sloppy journalist (and by extension so are the Toronto Star editors).

2. She did this knowingly: If this is the case, then McQuaig is a biased journalist. It need not be something as clear as outright lying. Maybe she really believed what she was writing. However, it then becomes an issue of her not bothering to check facts when the facts she believes support her position.

One of these cases must be true. In either case, McQuaig is unreliable. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and it needs better sources than this.

Cosmic Cube (talk) 05:18, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Greetings Cosmic Cube:

You said of Linda McQuaig that "I would propose to other editors that she not be used as a primary source in the future."

This is a proposal that is of a very serious nature, and it requires careful analysis before we ban all editors from using her again.

First point: The only way that McQuaig is proven false is if it is not possible for Volcker to have changed his views between December and February. But you have already admitted that it is possible that Volcker may have changed his views in that time.

Second point: You also said, "The only things that do count are reliably sourced statements that are directly attributable to Volcker." With all due respect I should point out that Wikipedia policy allows for a broader range of sources than that. See Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable_sources

Third: I should also draw your attention to the article on Linda McQuaig. She is a veteran journalist in the particular field of economics and business. She has written nine books which have been peer-reviewed (this is valued by Wikipedia policy). One of those reviewers was Noam Chomsky.

I admit that it is possible some of her statements may be proven false in the future. But until such time, we have no conclusive proof to ban references to her articles. I consider it a very serious step to deem a source as "unreliable."

Instead of banning a source outright, it may be better to attach a note to the edit. For example when a Wikipedia editor insisted on including a blatant untruth from an author named Cliff Kincaid, I simply responded by attaching a note to that blatant falsehood: Here is the note: .......According to Cliff Kincaid, Castro advocated the Tobin tax "specifically in order to generate U.S. financial reparations to the rest of the world," however a closer reading of Castro's speech shows that he never did mention "the rest of the world" as being recipients of revenue.

Boyd Reimer (talk) 23:38, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I reiterate. It is not our place to speculate on whether or not Volcker has changed his views (WP:NOTCRYSTAL). The best evidence we have for his views is in the article I provided. To claim otherwise either on your own speculation or McQuaig's vague assertion is unacceptable. If you reread McQuaig's article you will find that she provides no context to allow us to evaluate her claim. This alone makes it suspect given what is known about Volcker's views. Exceptional claims require exceptional sources (WP:REDFLAG). Some points from this policy:

Certain red flags should prompt editors to examine the sources for a given claim: 1) surprising or apparently important claims not covered by mainstream sources; 2) reports of a statement by someone that seems out of character, embarrassing, controversial, or against an interest they had previously defended...Exceptional claims in Wikipedia require high-quality sources. If such sources are not available, the material should not be included.

I do not understand why this is a controversial issue for you. I have made reasonable points regarding problems with a source and made a simple request of other editors to use better sources in the future. Why is this such a difficult thing?

As for the issue of peer review, you seem to have a mistaken view of what this entails. Peer reviews are not sympathetic persons writing kind blurbs to be printed on the backs of books. I suggest you read up on the process of how peer review works in scientific journals. By that standard, nothing McQuaig has written has ever come close to peer review.

Cosmic Cube (talk) 05:54, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Greetings Cosmic Cube:

Thank you for your comments. After reading my last comment I can understand how you may have been confused by it. Therefore, I should clarify: Here is the sequence in which things happened:

• December 3, 2009 - 22 supporters of domestic financial transaction tax (within the US only) - 22 representatives in the United States House of Representatives supported the US DeFazio financial transaction tax source

• December 7, 2009 - Supporter of international financial transaction tax in the "G20": Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives source

• On December 13, 2009 Michael Sheilds wrote the selected quotes in this paragraph: - Paul Volcker, chairman of the US Economic Recovery Advisory Board under President Barack Obama, said he "instinctively opposed" any tax on financial transactions. "But it may be worthwhile to look into the current proposals as long as the result is not predetermined. That would at least end all this renewed talk about the idea, but overall I am skeptical about these ideas." source

• On Feb 4 and 5, there was a meeting in Canada which was new. The reporters covering it were not simply repeating what had happened almost two months earlier (McQuiag writes: "last weekend as he hosted the G7 finance ministers in Iqaluit." source)

• On Feb 5, 2010 Doug Saunders wrote this (published by Globe and Mail): "Paul Volcker, the influential mind behind President Barack Obama's dramatic banking-reform proposals, spoke in its favour." source

• On Feb 9, 2010, Linda McQuaig wrote this (published by Toronto Star): "Even the U.S., which had been resisting, now seems willing to at least consider it, after former central banker Paul Volcker recently emerged as Barack Obama's key adviser on financial reform, pushing aside Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. Geithner is hostile to the tax; Volcker sees some merit in it." source

With all due respect, I do not see a dramatic "red flag" here. McQuaig's comment is corroborated by Saunders comment, and Saunders comment is corroborated by McQuaig's comment. Both are published in "mainstream" sources: the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star. Two months earlier Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives indicated support for a "G20 ... financial transaction tax."

Your use of WP:NOTCRYSTAL does not apply in this case. That Wikipedia policy applies only in case when a prediction is made. Neither Saunders nor McQuaig Saunders were making predictions. Doug Saunders wrote in the past tense when he used the word "spoke." Linda McQuaig wrote the word "sees" which is present tense. There is no prediction here. Therefore the use of WP:NOTCRYSTAL does not apply in this case. On Feb 4 and 5, there was a meeting in Canada which was new. The reporters covering it were not simply repeating what had happened almost two months earlier (McQuiag writes: "last weekend as he hosted the G7 finance ministers in Iqaluit." source)

Why am I going through all of this so carefully? I am not going through this explanation so that I can keep the Saunders (Feb 5) quote nor the McQuaig (Feb 9) quote in the "Tobin tax" article. In the above conversation I already thanked you for your discovery of the direct quote from Volcker.

The only reason I am carefully going through this is because you made the statement: "I would propose to other editors that she ([Linda McQuaig]) not be used as a primary source in the future." I would like to draw your attention to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Wikipedia, being the helpful community that it is, has provided this noticeboard so that we can get other editors opinions on this issue. With all due respect, I suggest that we bring this issue to the noticeboard before we delete every reference to Linda McQuaig or Doug Saunders in the "Tobin tax" article. I suggest that this action should be taken before any further deletions occur.

I am willing to live with the deletion of the Feb 5 and 9 writings. But it is a completely different situation to say "I would propose to other editors that she not be used as a primary source in the future."

Boyd Reimer (talk) 13:00, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the lengthy response. However, please note that what you have written is unrelated to the issues I raised.

1. The WP:REDFLAG policy does apply here and the chronology you have listed is completely unrelated to this. Some points from this policy:

Certain red flags should prompt editors to examine the sources for a given claim: 1) surprising or apparently important claims not covered by mainstream sources; 2) reports of a statement by someone that seems out of character, embarrassing, controversial, or against an interest they had previously defended...Exceptional claims in Wikipedia require high-quality sources. If such sources are not available, the material should not be included.

Volcker's views were known prior to the McQuaig article. McQuaig was making an opposite claim to these views. This is a red flag and qualifies as an exceptional claim, thus requiring exceptional evidence. McQuaig provided no evidence.

2. My reference to the WP:NOTCRYSTAL policy is related to your attempts to inject speculation about Volcker's views into the discussion. McQuaig has already failed the test of providing exceptional evidence. Your point that we would have to prove that Volcker could not have changed his mind in between December and February is an example of idle speculation and is inappropriate.

3. As for the Doug Sanders article, I have already stated that it can be used as a source for Christine Lagarde's views. It may not be used as a source for Volcker's views.

4. The only thing I am confused about here is why you expend so much effort in defending McQuaig. Perhaps you would care to explain this. What makes her so indispensable to you?

Cosmic Cube (talk) 15:55, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Greetings Cosmic Cube:

Thank you for your scrutiny of this very important issue. Scrutiny is healthy for pruning ideas. Two heads are always better than one.

I would like to focus attention on one of your statements: You stated, "Your point that we would have to prove that Volcker could not have changed his mind in between December and February is an example of idle speculation and is inappropriate."

I respectfully disagree with that particular statement of yours:

I have already given the example of Strauss-Kahn who took only one month to "soften his doubts." This example shows that my proposition is not "idle speculation."

Our job as Wikipedia editors is to draw upon sources, not to provide our own interpretation. Regardless of whether you or I think that the statements by Linda McQuaig and Doug Saunders are implausible, our opinions do not matter. Our job is simply to bring sources into Wikipedia.

If we would do that task without injecting our own interpretation, then all sourced evidence points to the justifiable belief that Volcker did change his mind between December and February. There are no sources yet which contradict the sources of Linda McQuaig nor Doug Saunders. If you can find such a source, I would be happy to rest my case. But so far, I haven't seen such a source. Therefore, all presently available sources support the justifiable belief that Volcker did change his mind.

See Theory of justification [of belief].

I will conclude with two logistical notes: First, I am combining this discussion with the above discussion entitled, "Unreliable source: Linda McQuaig." My reason for doing so is because this discussion quotes the earlier discussion. This might be confusing for readers who are following.

Here is my second logistical note: Like I said above, two heads are always better than one. By extension, this means that three heads are better than two, etc, etc. If there is a broader the range of input, then there is a better chance of coming to a compromise on this issue. So far my attempts at compromise appear to have failed. Please don't take this as an insult, but I feel that in order to come to agreement on this important issue, I feel that we need more input from more voices than just two. That is why I am posting this discussion on the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. The title will be: Reliable Sources?: Doug Saunders and Linda McQuaig.

Boyd Reimer (talk) 18:08, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

At this point I brought the discussion here to the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Boyd Reimer (talk) 18:19, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Rather than ask if an individual is a reliable source, we should ask whether what they wrote is a reliable source. News articles are reliable sources for facts but editorials are only reliable sources for their writers views. The Four Deuces (talk) 18:30, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for this. Boyd Reimer (talk) 19:41, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining in a succinct manner what I have failed to up to this point. We have a news article from December 2009 that interviews the subject (Paul Volcker) on his opinion on a certain economic issue (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BC0MH20091213). We then have an editorial/opinion piece by Linda McQuaig from February 2010 stating that Volcker holds the opposite view to what he has publicly (and recently) stated (http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/762427--mcquaig-tory-chill-freezes-out-tobin-tax). This activates WP:REDFLAG. McQuaig's claim is an exceptional claim that requires exceptional sources. Her article provides no evidence whatsoever. Moreover, her article is clearly an opinion piece. An excerpt from McQuaig's article:

"What a tragedy that, as this rare opportunity approaches, we are saddled with the small-minded, Bay Street-beholden Harper government. Will we be doomed again to watch the Harperites stage photo-ops of themselves, this time hugging the CN Tower and straddling cannons at Old Fort York, while the rest of the G20 struggles to rein in reckless financial markets?"

An article like this, where McQuaig openly ridicules people she does not like, is not an objective news piece (and a review of McQuaig's other articles reveal a similar tone). It is an opinion piece and is not an acceptable source to override what is known from reputable sources about Volcker's views in light of the WP:REDFLAG policy.

Despite this, the other editor (Boyd Reimer) insists on engaging in speculation that Volcker may have changed his views, something which I believe is inappropriate for an encyclopedia article (and that contravenes WP:NOTCRYSTAL).

Cosmic Cube (talk) 19:59, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

• The article by Linda McQuaig is an opinion piece and not a news article. Therefore, it reflects her opinion rather than a journalistic setting forth of facts. —mattisse (Talk) 20:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Aldricharchive.com

There's been an ongoing debate at Talk:Michael Aldrich about information sourced to AldrichArchive.com, which is a number of documents Aldrich donated to the University of Brighton. The website is being used to source a number of big claims added to a number of articles, including home shopping, online shopping, electronic commerce, among others. Most of the edits have been reverted([166][167][168][169][170][171] (except for those at Michael Aldrich), and the discussion now seems to be stalled due to a couple of issues, including the use of aldricharchive.com as a reliable source. Assistance in verifying this source or finding others that can be used for sourcing would be helpful -- the latest discussion is Talk:Michael Aldrich#AldrichArchive.com. Flowanda | Talk 03:17, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Grancafe

Please provide assistance in verifying sources, finding editors who can and/or communicating with the editor who's adding them. Since December 26, this SPA has made over 1,600 edits, adding an average of 33 edits to 48 articles using sources that have been questioned by multiple editors as to their verifiability and WP:RS. The editor continues to edit articles at an alarming pace and ignores any editor input that doesn't support his edits. I was able to check and add sourcing to a couple of articles, but I simply cannot keep up with the quantity of edits and I don't have the ability to verify the references, most of which are to non-English pages or to offline sources unavailable and unaccessible to me. I know I should provide diffs, but honestly, I just don't know where to begin, other than to provide links to his contribution page[172], a complaint [173] and related discussions on my talk page.[174][175] Flowanda | Talk 05:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

TV schedule

Hi,

I need input on whatever the TV schedules posted in this forum thread can be counted as Reliable to assert the X series broadcast on Y network/TV channel. Note that this thread is hosted in the official TV network forum and there is to my knowledge no other place to find broadcast information in the whole official website.

Thanks --KrebMarkt 08:50, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Bulletin/Message boards are not reliable sources. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:35, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I wanted a refined assessment not a mantra recitation. Cordially. --KrebMarkt 17:21, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Can you prove who posted the schedule? Is it by a spokesperson of the station? It's very strange that a TV network's website wouldn't contain a printed schedule. Squidfryerchef (talk) 18:45, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, taken at face value, the posting appears to be from the Executive Producer and Production Assistant. If true, this would qualify as WP:SPS, correct? As for it being strange, if this is a Japanese program broadcasting in a Spanish-language nation, this might be the only source in English (of course, that's pure speculation on my part.) A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm in conflict with editors from Philippine wanting adamantly to add broadcast information. Because i'm clearly not neutral, i was dropping here the less crappy reference i was provided for evaluation. You can read the Ip tantrum here.

My personal opinion on this one: It cannot constitute a RS because it's most likely TV schedules posted by a benevolent user with the tacit approval of the TV Network forum moderators. The information is certainly trustworthy and accurate but a step short to our standard for a Reliable Source. Checking this "Production Assistant" forum post history reveals a behavior closer to an user with privileged information access rather than a real TV network staff member.

Now if someone more neutral than me can give another opinion based on arguments that would be better than what i say versus what they say in such dispute. Thanks --KrebMarkt 19:44, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Here's a refined assessment: WP:SPS. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:59, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

It would help if you linked to the specific article where this is an issue. A lot depends on context. Blueboar (talk) 19:55, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

See Aria (manga) just the infobox information on network broadcast. Thanks you much for you time. --KrebMarkt 20:15, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross of the San Francisco Chronicle

Would Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross be considered reliable Sources? http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/matierandross/index Both are columnists for the San Francisco Chronicle, which in and of itself is certainly a reliable mainstream American newspaper. Both are certainly subject to editorial review by the editors at the San Francisco Chronicle. This being the case, can we disregard them as "gossip bloggers" and treat them as unreliable sources, or since they are subject to editorial review and published by a mainstream newspaper, would they be reliable sources? Ghostmonkey57 (talk) 19:59, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Would anything change regarding their reliability if the entire editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle published an opinion piece verifying the original story a couple of days later? Ghostmonkey57 (talk) 20:20, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Meets RS. Whether it's the best source for a particular article is up for discussion. Squidfryerchef (talk) 20:26, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

They would generally be considered to be reliable. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:00, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Current Psychology

I want to confirm whether Current Psychology a peer-reviewed journal or not. Sources say Current Psychology is a peer-reviewed academic journal. [176][177][178] Founded and originally published by the Transaction Publishers, [179][180] the journal is now published by the Springer Science+Business Media. [181][182] According to SpringerLink, "from volume 1 (1981) to Volume 2 (1982), this journal was published as Current Psychological Research; as of Volume 3 (1984), the journal merged with Current Psychological Reviews; and from Volume 3 (1984) to Volume 6 (1987), this journal was published as Current Psychological Research & Reviews." [183] The journal is subscribed by university libraries like the library of the University of South Alabama. [184] But a discussion at Talk:Hugo_Chávez#Antisemitism discredit it. Requesting third party opinion. --Defender of torch (talk) 02:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It certainly qualifies as an "academic journal". A reliable source per WP:RS. The exact reviewing policy by editorial board is not important. The citation index is low (0.2), but this is common for social sciences.Biophys (talk) 02:50, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

So one thing we can conclude, whether peer reviewed or not, it is certainly a RS. --Defender of torch (talk) 03:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Brief Chronicles

Is the Oxfordian journal Brief Chronicles considered to be a reliable source for the Wikipedia fShakespeare authorship question article? It focuses on a fringe theory, the Shakespeare authorship question, from an Oxfordian perspective (i.e. the assumption that Edward deVere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the Shakespeare canon). See the focus and scope statement.

Reading the “about” page, it is apparent that the journal was planned and carefully constructed to give the impression of a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal. However, the publication is controlled by general editor Dr. Roger Stritmatter, an Oxfordian whose commitment to spreading the gospel is well known to Wikipedia Shakespeare editors, and the 12-member board includes at least 10 identified Oxfordians, such as Dr. Michael Delahoyde of Washington State University and Dr. Richard Waugaman of the Georgetown University of Medicine and Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. While the accomplishments of these people should not be disparaged, they believe in a fringe theory (which is not all that unusual among certain percentage of academics) and participate on the board of a publication devoted to promoting a theory well outside the accepted scholarly consensus.

In its inaugural number, Brief Chronicles published 10 articles, ostensibly chosen by a double-blind peer review. Coincidentally, three of the 10 were authored by members of the editorial board. They included such articles as “The Psychology of the Authorship Question,” which according to the abstract, “Employs a historical/psychoanalytical model to understand why so many academicians are resistant to rationale discourse on the authorship question”; “Francis Meres and the Earl of Oxford”, which supposedly “Analyzes the numerical structure of Francis Meres' 1598 Palladis Tamia to show that Meres not only knew that Oxford and Shakespeare were one and the same, but that he constructed his publication to carefully alert the reader to this fact” (and incidentally marks the Oxfordian descent into cryptic number puzzles that formerly were the sole province of Baconism); and “Edward de Vere's Hand in Titus Andronicus”.

I believe that WP:PARITY applies to this publication, especially the sentence, "Note that fringe journals exist, some of which claim peer review. Only a very few of these actually have any meaningful peer review outside of promoters of the fringe theories, and should generally be considered unreliable. Examples: The Creation Science Quarterly, Homeopathy, Journal of Frontier Science . . . and many others." Tom Reedy (talk) 03:14, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

As I see from their editorial board [[185]] Brief Chronicles is obviously a peer reviewed journal with high standards. The editor in chief is Gary Goldstein, former editor and publisher of The Elizabethan Review, a semi-annual peer reviewed journal published from 1993 to 1999 on the English Renaissance. The rest of the editorial team has similar credentials. If that were not enough, the journal will be indexed by the Modern Language Association International Bibliography and the World Shakespeare Bibliography. Definitely RS. Smatprt (talk) 04:08, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Smatprt that Brief Chronicles is a peer reviewed journal with high standards. The editorial board is made up entirely of people with credible academic credentials. Both the editor in chief and executive editor have impressive track records. Those bringing this challenge ignore the fact that the journal will be indexed by the Modern Language Association International Bibliography and the World Shakespeare Bibliography. The journal clearly meets RS requirements. Schoenbaum (talk) 06:42, 22 February 2010 (UTC)