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Robert Almeder

Background

I would appreciate some uninvolved input to resolve a dispute about a source at Ian Stevenson. It concerns whether an article by Robert Almeder, professor emeritus of philosophy at Georgia State University, is a reliable source. Dominus Vobisdu has been removing it and the material it supports. [1] [2] Discussion here.

Ian Stevenson (1918–2007) was a professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, who devoted his life to interviewing children who claimed to have past-life memories. Several philosophers are interested in his research, because it has implications for the mind-body problem, namely whether it makes sense to think of consciousness existing independently of a brain.

One philosopher who has written about this is Robert Almeder, author of Beyond Death: Evidence for Life After Death (Charles C Thomas, 1987) and Death and Personal Survival (Rowman & Littlefield, 1992). Almeder is supportive of Stevenson, arguing that no one knows whether consciousness can exist without a brain. Against this is the philosopher Paul Edwards (1923–2004) of the New School of Social Research, who devotes a chapter in his Reincarnation: A Critical Examination (Prometheus Books, 1996) to criticism of Stevenson, and to Almeder's arguments in support of him.

Disputed source

In 1997 Almeder published a response to Edwards in "A Critique of Arguments Offered Against Reincarnation", Journal of Scientific Exploration, 11(4), 1997, pp. 499–526. I have used this article as a source for Almeder's definition of what he calls the "minimalist reincarnation hypothesis" in the second paragraph of of this section in the Stevenson article. See extended content below for the paragraph.

Extended content

Stevenson's research is associated with what Robert Almeder, professor emeritus of philosophy at Georgia State University, calls the minimalist reincarnation hypothesis. Almeder describes this as the view that: "There is something essential to some human personalities ... which we cannot plausibly construe solely in terms of either brain states, or properties of brain states ... and, further, after biological death this non-reducible essential trait sometimes persists for some time, in some way, in some place, and for some reason or other, existing independently of the person's former brain and body. Moreover, after some time, some of these irreducible essential traits of human personality, for some reason or other, and by some mechanism or other, come to reside in other human bodies either some time during the gestation period, at birth, or shortly after birth."

The definition is not contentious, and no one has objected to it. But there are objections to the use of this article as a source because it was published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration. The editor-in-chief of this journal is another philosopher, Stephen E. Braude, emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. [3] The journal is regarded by some editors as not an RS for anything, because it is not peer-reviewed (the journal says it is peer-reviewed, the editors say it is not; I don't know which is true), and because it specializes in anomalies (parapsychology, etc).

My argument in favour of the source

My argument in favour of using this article as a source is as follows:

1. A previous discussion on this noticeboard about the journal determined that it is an RS for the opinions of its authors, but not for "scientific fact" or "scientific statements." I am using it for an author's uncontentious definition of reincarnation.
2. Sources don't have to be peer-reviewed to be reliable sources, per WP:SOURCES, which is policy.
3. Reliability in this case does not lie with the publication, but with the author, Robert Almeder, an academic who has written two books about this issue.

   (WP:SOURCES says: "The word 'source' in Wikipedia has three meanings: the work itself (a document, article, paper, or book), the creator of the work (for example, the writer), and the publisher of the work (for example, Oxford University Press). All three can affect reliability.")

4. Even if Almeder had published this article on a personal website, it would still be an RS under WP:SPS because: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable 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." That provision would seem to confirm that, in the case of experts in the field, the credentials of the author matter more than the place of publication (except when it comes to BLPs, where the place of publication always matters).

I am currently using this article only as a source for Almeder's definition. However, I am thinking of extending the Stevenson article to say more about Edwards's arguments against Stevenson and Almeder, and Almeder's rebuttal of those arguments. The rebuttal is in the article that people are objecting to.

I would therefore like to be allowed to use this one article as a source in the Stevenson article. I feel the need to add that I don't myself believe in reincarnation, but I find it interesting that a psychiatrist spent so many years researching it, and I would like us to have a decent article on him. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:33, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Notifications: Talk:Ian Stevenson, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy, [4] and the wikiprojects with banners on the talk page: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Science and academia, [5] Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion/Interfaith work group, [6] Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spirituality, [7] Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Paranormal, [8] Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Alternative Views, [9] Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rational Skepticism. [10] SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:29, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

A couple of things that SlimVirgin didn't touch on.

1) The topic is considered pseudoscience by the scientific community, and appears to be a topic related to science, and not philosophy.

2) Stevenson was the founder of the publication in which Almamder's supportive statement appears, and so the source cannot be considered independent.

3) The statement to be included is not an "opinion", but an operational definition to be used in scientific research, in which are Almader has no demostrated competence.

4) There is no evidence that Almader is an recognized expert on the topic, because he has never published anything on the topic in reliable academic sources. The two books she mentions did not go any form of academic review, and were published by non-academic presses. There is no evidence that his competence as a philosopher extends to this topic, nor that his opinion on this topic carries any weight in the academic community at large.

5) There is no credible evidence that the journal is subject to any peer or academic review.

a)Their submissions policy does not conform to academic standards [[11]].

b) "peer-review" is not mentioned in their discription on ERIC [[12]], which reads as follows "Features original research papers in areas falling outside the established scientific arena. Attempts to provide an unbiased, professional, forum for discussion and debate about anomalous phenomena".

c) The only evidence produce for peer review are the publication itself, and an "index" called EBSCO, which appears to be a non-selective commercial web directory that simply reports what the journal submits about itself. No evidence of editorial oversite or responsibilty for that directory.

6) There is no evidence that the publication is widely cited by serious academics in peer-reviewed sources, nor any evidence that the publication is know, never mind highly regarded, within the mainstream academic community.

In short, I can see nothing that distinguishes this from a fringe pseudo-journal that Stevenson founded to promote himself and his work and evade academic peer review. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 17:39, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

The source should not be used for scientific/pseudo-scientific claims. Almeider's "definition" of reincarnation (not really a definition in the normal sense) is clearly such a claim and, SV, your suggestion that it is "uncontroversial" in plainly ridiculous.

In order to demonstrate it's noteworthiness, Almeider's position should be shown to have been discussed in reliable third-party sources. Formerip (talk) 18:10, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Almeder's definition (the minimum of what people mean when they use the word "reincarnation") is completely uncontroversial. It is not a scientific or pseudoscientific definition, but a philosophical one. And yes, it is a definition "in the normal sense" (as used by academic philosophers). No one involved in this discussion has objected to it. Their objection is only to the place of publication. I must say that I find it very depressing that I have to argue for a paper by a philosopher to be allowed as a source to support a philosophical definition. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:24, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Sources don't have to be peer-reviewed to be reliable, especially not in a biography. And this journal does seem to be peer-reviewed. It is listed on the Education Resources Information Center, [13] and on EBSCO Academic Search. [14] In addition the journal itself says it is peer-reviewed. [15]

But again, reliability is determined in this case by the author, not the journal. I am arguing only in favour of this one article, not the journal as a whole. If Barack Obama published an opinion on a paper handkerchief we could still use it as a source so long as the public could access it. Robert Almeder has published two books about arguments for life after death, and Paul Edwards refers to Almeder's arguments in his own work. To deny Almeder the status of expert in this area would leave very few experts, if any. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:20, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

If you are going to argue that the "Journal of Scientific Exploration" is legitimately peer reviewed (you appear to be changing your argument?), I'm afraid it's clear that it isn't, since it is a "major outlet for UFOology, paranormal activity, extrasensory powers, alien abductions etc", and "They seem to be interested in promoting fringe topics as real mysteries and they tend to ignore most evidence to the contrary. They publish 'scholarly' articles promoting the reality of dowsing, neo-astrology, ESP, and psychokinesis. Most of the prominent and active members are strong believers in the reality of such phenomena." It's clear that they have peer review which is inadequate in any academic sense. Let me quote their own author instructions: "the Journal of Scientific Exploration necessarily publishes claimed observations and proffered explanations that will seem more speculative or less plausible than those appearing in some mainstream disciplinary journals." You wish to use a source which admits to including "speculative or less plausible" material. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:04, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't know whether this is peer-reviewed, and it doesn't have to be. But they say they are, and they are academics in mainstream universities, so I see no reason to doubt them. I recall that someone tried to argue that a book on intelligent design wasn't peer-reviewed even though the publisher was Cambridge University Press. When that didn't hold, the argument became that it hadn't been "legitimately" peer-reviewed. But the point is -- and this is surely what academic freedom is about -- that sometimes educated people will write about things that other educated people find ridiculous.

You and Dominus have strong views (exceptionally strong views, in your case) about what counts as fringe and how none of it belongs on WP. I know that your aim is to preserve quality and I respect that. I just think you take it too far. When someone has to spend days begging to be allowed to use a philosopher's article to support a completely uncontentious philosophical definition then it's a sign that we're placing ideology over common sense, in my view. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:12, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

SV, I don't know how familiar you are with the publication. I hadn't heard of it until it came up in a previous discussion. It's important to understand that the problem with it isn't that it's low-status or has an inadequate peer-review process. It may have the appearance of an academic journal, but it isn't. It's a magazine that, generally, cranks who happen to have PhDs submit nonsense to on topics they are unqualified to comment on. So it features engineers writing about ESP, astrologers writing about ghosts, mathematicians writing about faith-healing and so on. Without risk of exaggeration, it has less intellectual integrity than Whizzer and Chips. Take a browse through the back-issues on their website.

In this specific case, the problem is that the material about Almeder gives the reader the impression that Stevenson has had an influence on something important within his field. But, on the basis of the sourcing provided, this would be a totally false impression. If other sources can be adduced to show that Almeder's view of reincarnation is in some way an important contribution to philosophy, then that might change the picture. Formerip (talk) 22:17, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it wouldn't. If Almader himself didn't think that it was valuable enough to publish in a real academic source, why should anyone else think it's important? Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 22:49, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, that's partly my point. But, FAIK, the article in question could be a re-hash of something Almader previously had accepted by Nature and has since been cited 8,000 times. Not particularly probable, perhaps. But if this were the case, that would change the picture. Formerip (talk) 23:04, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Of course it would change the picture. We wouldn't be having this discussion, for one, as this source would become irrelevant. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 23:34, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

We NEVER take a source's word for it that it is peer-reviewed. That would be utterly stupid. Not every book published by CUP is peer reviewed (don't know where you got that idea). Personal attacks and failure to assume good faith will get you nowhere except ANI. And absolutely no one is making you "beg". We're asking you to support your arguments with credible evidence. Besides, begging will get you nowhere, no matter how long you beg. Especially with me. My students tell me I have no heart, and that the words "pity" and "mercy" are not in my dictionary. I take that as a compliment. In case you haven't noticed, they don't appear anywhere in the WP policies, either. Anyway, an argument to pity greatly insults my intelligence, and an argument to common sense even more so. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 22:43, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

(ec; reply to FormerIP) Thanks, I hadn't heard of this journal before I looked at the Stevenson article. And I have no interest in pushing a pro-Stevenson POV there; on the contrary I've been adding criticism and would like to continue doing so. I'm asking only that I be allowed to use this single article from Almeder. The definition he provides is completely straightforward to anyone with a background in academic philosophy.

Stevenson has had a tremendous influence in this field. Obits in major newspapers (New York Times, Washington Post, Daily Telegraph); two in the British Medical Journal; an entire issue devoted to him in the 1970s in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. His work is impressive when you look at it casually. When you start to look closer, it isn't (I have only just started and am perhaps being unfair to him, but I see major flaws in the way he collected information from the subjects). However, other physicians, psychiatrists and at least one philosopher disagree and see his work as thorough and important. I can't explain that, which is in part why I'm interested in him. Anyway, here again is the definition I want to include. There really isn't a single contentious thing about it, except for its place of publication. And it's a good definition, because it distills the argument down to its essence.

Stevenson's research is associated with what Robert Almeder, professor emeritus of philosophy at Georgia State University, calls the minimalist reincarnation hypothesis. Almeder describes this as the view that: "There is something essential to some human personalities ... which we cannot plausibly construe solely in terms of either brain states, or properties of brain states ... and, further, after biological death this non-reducible essential trait sometimes persists for some time, in some way, in some place, and for some reason or other, existing independently of the person's former brain and body. Moreover, after some time, some of these irreducible essential traits of human personality, for some reason or other, and by some mechanism or other, come to reside in other human bodies either some time during the gestation period, at birth, or shortly after birth."

SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:47, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

I think you're still missing the point, SV. Whether Stevenson (or Almeder) has had a significant influence in his field is not the issue. The question is whether Almeder's views on reincarnation are at all significant in the field of philosophy. Given the outlet, that looks unlikely. It's not impossible, but it would certainly require further sourcing. If Almeder's views in this specific instance cannot be shown to be important to Stevenson's biography, then they should not be in it. Formerip (talk) 23:11, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

If you can find that Almader has published this definition elsewhere in a REAL peer-reviewed academic source, then we might be able to use the definition in the article using the REAL academic source, depending, of course, on whether it is relevant to the topic of the article or not. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 23:34, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

(reply to FormerIP) Your point would be fine were it not for the fact that there's a very small Western academic philosophical input into this area. So it's unlikely that Almeder's definition has been picked up by anyone else (also, it's such a straightforward definition most philosophers would just write their own -- the only reason I need to cite someone is that this is WP, so I have to cite someone who has offered a definition and discussed Stevenson, and that is Almeder).

The situation is that Almeder wrote two books about the general topic and Stevenson's work (1987 and 1992), then Edwards in his book (1996) criticized Stevenson and responded to some of Almeder's points, and then Almeder (1997) offered a rejoinder in the disputed article. So what you are saying is I can use the first two-thirds of the discussion, but not the final rejoinder, no matter how pertinent it is, no matter how important for NPOV, no matter that it would clarify things (e.g. the definition) for the reader. That makes no sense to me. Almeder is not just some nut writing on a website. See some of his work on JSTOR. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:33, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm not actually saying you can use the first two-thirds. That's not something I have considered. And I'm not suggesting Almeder is a nut. What I am suggesting it that the fact that an article was written in Journal of Scientific Exploration citing Stevenson appears irrelevant to Stevenson's biography. The fact that there is a small Western academic input into the relevant area is not a problem for WP. We have a solution - there should be a small amount of content citing Western academic sources on the topic in the encyclopaedia. What you say about NPOV and clarification doesn't seem relevant here. It seems like just a gratuitous mention of an article in a fringe publication. We can simply perform a paragraphectomy on the article without making anything less clear or creating any NPOV issues, surely? Formerip (talk) 01:09, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

The Edwards/Almeder discussion is a discussion between philosophers, and the problem we have on WP is that we have very few people with a background in philosophy. Most philosophers would not (I believe) care that Almeder had chosen to publish his rejoinder on this minority issue in a minority publication. Almeder may have placed it in that journal because Stevenson had published in it (including autobiographical material that we use as a source in the article), and was one of its founders, so it was a natural place for Almeder's essay.

Yes, I could remove that paragraph, and lose the only definition of reincarnation that it's in the article. Under WP's rules I can't simply add another one that I think might apply to Stevenson. Also, I will not be able to add the first two-thirds of the Almeder/Edwards discussion of Stevenson if the last third is declared off-limits (that is, I won't add Edwards's criticism of Almeder if I'm not allowed to add Almeder's response), so article expansion is somewhat stymied, which will please Dominus, but it ought not to please Wikipedia.

There is nothing in our content policies that allows this to happen, and this board is meant to be patrolled by people who explain the content policies, not who try to rewrite them. If you disagree, please point to which part of which policy would allow Almeder's essay to be excluded. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:54, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

It's not to be seen as a source that just happens not to be peer-reviewed. JSE is a pseudo-journal. Nothing in it is reliable for factual claims in the natural sciences, social sciences, philosophy or humanities. However, it may be reliable as a primary source for what proponents of fringe theories assert. Even then, mainstream analysis of the fringe theories, e.g. by a sociologist of science, a media analyst, even a respected commentator in the mainstream press would be preferable. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:50, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

This is not a request to have this journal declared a reliable source. It is a much narrower request to have this article declared to be an RS for Ian Stevenson. The article is written by a mainstream academic philosopher, and academic philosophers are of course reliable for the claims of academic philosophers. My argument is that, because he's an academic who has written about this elsewhere, it doesn't matter that he published his rejoinder in this journal. If he had published it on his blog we could still use it (under SPS). So that's the only question that matters here -- does reliability in this case reside in the author or the place of publication?

As for the primary/secondary distinction, Almeder is a secondary source for Stevenson and a primary source for his own views, but I'm not sure that makes a difference here. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:57, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Question: I am not sure if this applies to this specific article or not, but could the problem here be one of Due Weight rather than Reliability? Would the problem be resolved if the article did a better job of summarizing what various sources say... stating viewpoints more concisely (ie would it help if the article spent less article space outlining the various views)? Rather than the outright removal of entire paragraphs (and thus entire viewpoints)... could the paragraphs be reworded and combined to make everything more concise? Blueboar (talk) 18:56, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and that will happen. I am hoping (or I was hoping; this discussion has been rather off-putting) to rewrite the article with a couple of case studies from Stevenson, then criticism of them, and criticism of the criticism, insofar as it exists. And during that process everything will become more succinct. The disputed article from Almeder is part of the discussion, and I don't want to write the article with one hand tied behind my back. It's the nature of the beast that some of this material has appeared in fringe publications. But the authors themselves are mainstream academics, which in my view is what matters. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:04, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Essence of the argument

What some editors are arguing here is that if Robert Almeder, an academic who has been published independently in this field before, had written the same essay in a journal they approved of, it would be an RS. If he had published exactly the same words on his blog, it would be an RS (per WP:SELFPUB, which is policy). But the same words from the same academic are not an RS if published in the Scientific Journal of Exploration. That seems irrational. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:34, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Professor Jane Bloggs is Chair of Widget Studies at the University of Southern California. Let us consider her following publications: "Findings of some recent major Widget research studies" in International Journal of Advanced Widget Theory; "A radically new approach to the widget", letter to the editor of The Smalltown Review of Local Widget Research; "Fun Tricks with widgets in the home", in Very Easy Engineering for Everyone; and "Widgets will end the energy crisis", in Journal of Perpetual Motion. 1 is your standard RS. 2 might be OK as a scholar's non peer reviewed output. 3 is very weak when there is academic literature on the topic. 4 is no good. The existence of 4 puts a question mark over her other work that would otherwise appear highly reliable. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:34, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but it's a little more complicated than that. The situation is

(1) Professor Jane Bloggs, "Findings of some recent major Widget research studies" in International Journal of Advanced Widget Theory;

(2) Criticism of Jane Bloggs by Professor John Doe in "A critique of Bloggs' widget hypothesis," in American Journal of Widgets, and

(3) Professor Jane Bloggs, "Reply to John Doe," in Very Silly Journal that No one Likes.

In wanting to cover the Bloggs/Doe debate -- which is directly relevant to the article I'm working on -- I am only allowed to mention the first two parts of it, but not the third. But had Bloggs published the third part on her blog, SPS would have allowed it. That's what I'm arguing is irrational. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:17, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

"Liking" has nothing to do with this. It's "Journal that no one has never cited in reliable independent sources". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dominus Vobisdu (talk • contribs)

I haven't seen any editor present that position except you, SV. As indicated by a number of editors above, this is mainly about UNDUE rather that RS (although it is also true that JSE is not considered RS per WP:PARITY).

For any biographical article, there is a limit to what information should be considered encyclopaedic. If you want to cover someone's influence in an article then that's fine, so long you restrict yourself to their influence on things that can be demonstrated to matter, even if only in a small way. This ideally means fidning them discussed in third-party reliable sources. Once you're scraping around in fringe journals (or, for than matter, on blogs) then you're just too close to the bottom of the barrel.

In other words, you're not demonstrating that anyone in the world should care about Stevenson's influence on what Almeder wrote in an obscure fringe journal. Formerip (talk) 20:31, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, this has nothing to do with UNDUE, no one is scraping around anything, and I don't understand your final sentence. These are the two academic philosophers that discussed Stevenson. The view of these philosophers is directly relevant because they specialize in philosophy of mind and philosophy of science, and wrote about reincarnation. Most of their writing about Stevenson is published in three of their books by independent publishers. A final rejoinder was published in the disputed journal. It is this final rejoinder that we're discussing. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:24, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I think Slim may have a point here... I see this as being similar to the "expert exemption" clause of SPS (where we allow a self-published source if the author has previously published on the same topic in a more reliable forum). Suppose the exact same rejoinder had been published on Almeder's personal webpage, instead of in the iffy journal. Would we allow it? I think so. And in which case, disallowing it because it was (instead) published in an iffy journal really strikes me as being a wikilawyerish technicality. In this case, the reliability of the author outweighs the unreliability of the venue. That said... because the author did publish it in an unreliable venue, we do need to down play it somewhat. It definitely should not be an equal third in terms of weight (note: I would say the same if it had been presented on his personal website). Blueboar (talk) 21:57, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

It bothers me that some peer-reviewed journals are dismissed out of hand and not allowed on WP, simply because of the topics they cover. Of course, HOW and WHERE they're used is key. I feel that in this instance the use is appropriate, per SV and Blueboar. I agree that there doesn't seem to be a policy that would disallow this source in this particular instance. TimidGuy (talk) 22:05, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

(to Blueboar) As things stand, Almeder could simply create a free blog and post those same words on it, and then we could use it. Yes, I agree about the two-thirds. It won't be. Most of the material I want to use will be from Almeder's and Edwards's books. The one thing I do want to retain from Almeder's essay is the "minimalist" reincarnation definition (see above), which describes Stevenson's position, and any pertinent rejoinder to Edwards. But it won't be anywhere close to two-thirds. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:10, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

@Blueboar: Why, exactly, should they be assigned any weight at all? If Almader himself did not consider them important enough to publish in a real academic outlet so that it could be read by the academic community, how is this any different that him crying to his mother? Almader is just licking his wounds in his own corner of the ring and preaching to the choir. We have no credible eveidence that the other party to the debate has even seen this "response". There is no evidence that the journal is even read by serious independent academics in the field.

Second of all, Almader has no demonstrated expertise in the topic of this article. All of his work on this topic has been published in non-academic sources, and this is a scholarly topic. Nor is he an independent source on Stevenson, as Stevenson was the founder and editor of the "journal" in question, and Stevenson had written the preface to one of Almader's books. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 22:23, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

@TimidGuy: Reliable sources are not an option here, as per the very first sentence of WP:V. You can't do anything on WP without reliable sources, no matter HOW or WHERE you do it. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 22:23, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: Forget about the blog argument. It would disqualify the source as unduly self-serving. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 22:27, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Almeder's books were published by reputable publishers; our sources don't have to be published by university publishing houses. His books on this topic are Death and Personal Survival (Rowman & Littlefield, 1992) and Beyond Death (Charles C Thomas, 1987), and numerous other books and papers on philosophy of mind and philosophy of science, all of which are directly relevant to whether he has demonstrated expertise in this topic.

He also doesn't have to be independent of Stevenson. It's common for academics to write prefaces to each other's books. But even if he were very closely connected to Stevenson (which he wasn't so far as I know), his being a primary source would not change whether we could use him. As for "unduly self-serving," his defence of Stevenson wasn't in his own interests in the sense intended by the policy. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:40, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Not, in his own interests, but in the interests of his publisher, who was Stevenson, effectively. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dominus Vobisdu (talk • contribs)

Stevenson was not in any sense Almeder's publisher. But even if he had been, that would not affect whether the essay is an RS, because subjects and those connected with them are allowed as primary sources. Also, please sign your posts. SlimVirgin^(talk) 02:16, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

He was on the editorial board of the magazine. [16] Formerip (talk) 02:32, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

What difference does that make? The worst it can do is make Almeder a primary source, which is fine. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:42, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Maybe it would prevent things going round in further circles to point out that the text inserted into the article doesn't seem to be a correct representation of the source in any case.

Extended content

Stevenson's research is associated with what Robert Almeder, professor emeritus of philosophy at Georgia State University, calls the minimalist reincarnation hypothesis. Almeder describes this as the view that: "There is something essential to some human personalities ... which we cannot plausibly construe solely in terms of either brain states, or properties of brain states ... and, further, after biological death this non-reducible essential trait sometimes persists for some time, in some way, in some place, and for some reason or other, existing independently of the person's former brain and body. Moreover, after some time, some of these irreducible essential traits of human personality, for some reason or other, and by some mechanism or other, come to reside in other human bodies either some time during the gestation period, at birth, or shortly after birth."

The problem being that Almeder gives that definition on page 502 of the source, but he doesn't say anything that implies it is associated with Stevenson. It is just Almeder's own defintion. In fact, it seems somewhat at odds with Stevenson's view of reincarnation. Almeder's minimal version talks about "irreducible traits of human personality" being passed from person to person - i.e. something purely psychological. But, as can be seen from the WP article, one of Stevenson's main claims is that people get birthmarks where their past selves had scars - i.e. something bodily. Formerip (talk) 01:50, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

All this will be explained in the article if I'm able to continue working on it. Someone arguing that consciousness does not equal brain states does not mean they are arguing that brain (and other physical) states are not involved, or that consciousness can't affect a body, when clearly it can and does. So I don't know what "purely psychological" would mean here. And I want to use the essay as part of the Edwards/Almeder discussion about Stevenson, not only for the definition of the minimalist position, so I need a decision about that essay as an RS in that article. If we get that decision, we can discuss further on the talk page how it should be used. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:12, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

But, for now, we can remove the content as unsupported, yes? Formerip (talk) 02:16, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I had to stop writing the article because of this. If I can start to write it again knowing that this source won't be removed (i.e. that I won't be wasting my time), I'll be able to make clearer how it is supported. But I'm not willing to discuss the article here. I'm here only for a decision about that source. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:23, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Example of the kind of thing the source is needed for

Here is one example. Edwards highlights a Stevenson case study that he regards as very weak, and presents it as a reason not to trust Stevenson's methods. I have added that case to the article here. In his essay, Almeder argues that Edwards has misrepresented Stevenson, that it is not a typical case, and that he took the description from the wrong book, not the original one where the case was written up properly. Now, even though I could see that myself from Stevenson's work, I can't write that opinion without it being OR. But if I'm also not allowed to source the material to an academic making the same point, it leaves the article POV and misleading.

So if Almeder is not allowed, that example from Edwards should be removed. But if I try to remove it, I'll be reverted, because it makes Stevenson look bad, and so the editors who don't like him will want to keep it. This is what I mean by being asked to edit with one arm tied behind my back. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:54, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Wherever did you get the idea that anyone involved to date would oppose your removal of the Edwards article? It's from the same fringe journal. If it weren't beddy-bye time, I'd remove it myself, and all the other fringe-sourced material. Do you seriously think that serious scholarly discussion among serious scholarly experts takes place in outlets like JSE, where no other serious scholars would even bother wasting their valuable time looking for them? You just walked in on an academic circle-jerk, and thought it was a full-fledged orgy. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 04:21, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

The Edwards material comes from his book, Reincarnation: A Critical Examination. Prometheus Books, 1996. The material he was responding to comes from Almeder in Skeptical Inquirer (vol 12, Spring 1988) and Death and Personal Survival (Rowman & Littlefield, 1992). The third part of the conversation is in the essay by Almeder that is the subject of this discussion.

I came here for input about policy from disinterested people who had not already commented on the talk page. You and I have already discussed it there at length, so repeating the exchange here is unlikely to be fruitful. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:07, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Oops. I mispoke about Edward's. That book was not published by JSE, but by Prometheus Books, which is a reliable non-academic press with editorial oversight and a good reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. It can be used to present the mainstream view on Stevenson's work per WP:PARITY. Almeder can't be used to criticize Edward's though, because it's an inferior fringe source published in a sham journal. Even if he were to publish it on his own blog, it couldn't be used because a self-published fringe source cannot be used to criticize a reliably published mainstream source, per WP:NPOV. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 19:30, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, your interpretation of policy is just mistaken. Please allow uninvolved editors to weigh in. The more the conversation seems to be between you and me, the less likely others are to respond.

Regarding whether anyone other than Edwards has responded to Almeder's views on reincarnation, there is another exchange: Almeder responding to Steven D. Hales, a philosopher at Bloomsburg University, [17] in Philosophia with "On reincarnation: A reply to Hales" (2001), and Hales responding to Almeder with "Reincarnation redux" (2001). SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:59, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

DV has policy exactly right. WP:PARITY couldn't be much clearer: peudo-journals "should generally be considered unreliable". The case also seems almost indistinguishable from one that was thoroughly gone over in relation to the Astrology article not long ago. Information was included in the article about a study in a reputable source (Nature) which tested various astrological hypotheses and came up null. An editor wanted to add further material from a psuedo-journal (also JSE on that occasion, I think) purporting to show how the Nature study was methodologically flawed. After protracted hoo-ha, the interpretation of policy clearly made was that this material could not be included. Arguments about the credentials of the author were neither here nor there. The bottom line was that we simply couldn't rely on the basic integrity of material criticising the work of a mainstream academic if the material came from a pseudo-journal.

Philosophia is not a pseudo-journal, so articles by the same author published there would be a different matter, obviously. Formerip (talk) 12:03, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

WP:PARITY does not say that. These responses miss two points that I keep trying to highlight, because they are crucial, and I'd appreciate it if you could address them.

1. I am not asking that the journal be regarded as an RS. I am asking that this 1997 essay by Almeder be regarded as an RS for this particular issue, regardless of where it was published. I am arguing that the expert exemption applies, as if the essay were an SPS (which is policy), and that reliability can reside with the author, not the journal, per WP:SOURCES (which is policy).

2. The reason I am asking to apply that exemption is that the essay was part of an extended conversation between two mainstream academic philosophers, both respected:

(a) Almeder discussed Stevenson in Skeptical Inquirer in 1988 and in Almeder's book in 1992;

(b) Edwards responded to Almeder's points in his 1996 book;

(c) Almeder responded to Edwards' points in his 1997 essay.

To cover this academic debate, I need to use all three sources. I do not want to have to pretend that (c) does not exist. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:06, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

What you are doing is giving the publication in a fringe source the last word. You stop covering a discussion when the reliable sources dry up. IRWolfie- (talk) 17:51, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Publication sequence

A REQUEST: to help those of us who know the policy, but who are not really familiar with this specific topic, could someone outline how much WEIGHT should or should not be given to Almeder's initial discussion of Stevenson.

I think that may be the key to this dispute... If Almeder's initial discussion of Stevenson is significant, then I think Slim Virgin is correct. The article should present the entire academic debate; the expert exemption would apply; and we would base reliability on the author and not the venue of publication.

If, on the other hand, Almeder's initial discussion of Stevenson is not actually all that significant, then I would suggest omitting it completely (and if we don't mention Almeder's initial discussion, then there is no need to bring up the Edwards response to it or Almeder's reply to that response.) In other words... I think the key to this tempest in a tea pot is determining how much Weight to give Almeder's initial discussion of Stevenson. All else flows from there.

Note... I am not asking whether Almeder's initial discussion is reliable ... I am trying to get a handle on how significant it is to understanding the article topic. Blueboar (talk) 17:54, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

• Here is a summary of the Almeder-Edwards debate about Stevenson. It is from Christopher Bache, professor of religious studies, in his Dark Night, Early Dawn: Steps to a Deep Ecology of Mind, SUNY Press, 2000, pp. 37–40. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:16, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

• Review here of Almeder's 1992 book, saying it is "one of the best books of this type". Another here, by the same reviewer, of Edwards 1996 book. I believe both reviews mention Stevenson, Almeder and Edwards. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:34, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

• Another philosopher, Mark Woodhouse [18] (specializes in personal identity, among other things), refers to the Almeder-Edwards debate about Stevenson in his Paradigm Wars (p. 144ff). He writes that the paradigm war over reincarnation "has pitted Robert Almeder, a nationally distinguished philosopher of science, against Paul Edwards, general editor of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Almeder's recent book, Death and Personal Survival: The Evidence for Life After Death, contains perhaps the most formidable point-for-point defense of reincarnation against a wide range of criticism."

• Steven Hales, professor of philosophy at Bloomsburg University, cites Almeder's 1997 essay in his "Evidence and the afterlife", Philosophia, 28(1–4), pp. 335–346, and writes: "the best set of arguments for the thesis that some people survive their deaths has been given by Robert Almeder in his recent book Death and Personal Survival." SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:15, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Reply to Blueboar – I think I have the Edwards-Almeder publishing sequence about reincarnation in order now. Edwards and Almeder discussed Stevenson in the following, and in several discussed each other, or their disagreement about Stevenson was discussed by a third (academic) party.

1. Paul Edwards (1986). "The Case Against Reincarnation: Part 1," Free Inquiry, 6, Fall, pp. 24–34.
2. Paul Edwards (1986/7). "The Case Against Reincarnation: Part 2," Free Inquiry, 7, Winter, pp. 38–43.
3. Paul Edwards (1987a). "The Case Against Reincarnation: Part 3," Free Inquiry, 7, Spring, pp. 38–49.
4. Robert Almeder (May 1987). Beyond Death: The Evidence for Life After Death. Charles C Thomas
5. Paul Edwards (1987b). "The Case Against Reincarnation: Part 4," Free Inquiry, 7, Summer, pp. 46–53.
6. Robert Almeder (1988). "Response to 'Past Tongues Remembered'," Skeptical Inquirer, 12, Spring.
7. Robert Almeder (1992). Death and Personal Survival: The Evidence for Life After Death. Rowman and Littlefield (mentions Edwards on pp. 33–36, 40, 91, and Stevenson on pp. vi, vii, 2, 4–5, 15–17, 23–25, 27, 31, 33, 35–39, 40, 55, 58–59, 90–94, 160–161, 273–274, and numerous others).
8. Paul Edwards (1996). Reincarnation: A Critical Examination. Prometheus Books (mentions Almeder on pp. 8, 20–21, 136–137, 254–255, 266, and Stevenson on 8–9, 24–25, 52, 56–58, 78, 84, 87, 102–103, 103–105, 135–140, and numerous others).
9. Edwards, Paul (1997). "Introduction" and "The Dependence of Consciousness on the Brain," in Edwards, Paul (ed.). Immortality. Prometheus Books (discusses Stevenson in numerous places, and mentions Almeder's 1987 book and defence of Stevenson on p. 317).
10. Robert Almeder (1997). "A Critique of Arguments Offered Against Reincarnation", Journal of Scientific Exploration, 11(4), pp. 499–526 (a review of Edwards's 1996 book, particularly his criticism of Stevenson; cited by Hales 2001a below).
11. Mark Woodhouse (philosopher) (1996). Paradigm Wars. Frog Books, p. 144ff: "[The paradigm war over reincarnation] has pitted Robert Almeder, a nationally distinguished philosopher of science, against Paul Edwards, general editor of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Almeder's recent book, Death and Personal Survival: The Evidence for Life After Death, contains perhaps the most formidable point-for-point defense of reincarnation against a wide range of criticism."
12. Robert Almeder (1998). Harmless naturalism: The limits of science and the nature of philosophy. Open Court Publishers (argues that reincarnation is unique as a form of mind-body dualism because testable).
13. Christopher Bache (2000). Dark Night, Early Dawn: Steps to a Deep Ecology of Mind, SUNY Press, pp. 37–40 (summarizes the Almeder-Edwards debate about Stevenson).
14. Steven Hales (2001a). "Evidence and the afterlife", Philosophia, 28(1–4), pp. 335–346 (Hales cites Almeder's 1997 essay, and writes: "the best set of arguments for the thesis that some people survive their deaths has been given by Robert Almeder in his recent book Death and Personal Survival."
15. Robert Almeder (2001). "On reincarnation: A reply to Hales", Philosophia.
16. Steven Hales (2001b). "Reincarnation redux," Philosophia, 28(1–4), pp. 359–367.

It is number 10 that we're discussing here. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:29, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

@Blueboar: In the article in question, Edwards book is used to criticize Stevensons work. In that book, Edwards also notes that Almeder has (somewhat) defended Stevenson's work, but the tit-for-tat between them is peripheral to this article.

How much weight should we assign to Almeder's response? None. Almeder hismelf did not think it important enough to publish in a real academic outlet. As a heavyweight academic and the editor of several heavyweight journals himself, he could have easily published his response in a real academic source so that other academics could read and cite it. Instead, he published it in what he well knew was a sham "journal" that no one in the academic world would bother to read (practically no one cites the journal in serious academic sources). Furthermore, this appears to be the case, as no one in the academic community has so much as commented on Almeder's response in real academic sources, even Edwards himself.

As weight is assinged on the basis of how the viewpoint's prelevance in reliable sources, it can't be said that Almader's views expressed in this response are shared by anyone at all except Almader and Stevenson, and thus can be characterized as "held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority". Such views do "not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article". Mentioning them in the article on Stevenson would be using the article on Stevenson as a coatrack to present Almader's extreme minority viewpoint.

Furthermore, the sham "journal" that Almader published this response in was Stevenson's own "journal", so far from a disinterested outlet. All the more so because Almader owed Stevenson a favor, because Stevenson had written the preface to one of Almader's non-peer-reviewed books. It's hard to argue that Almader does not have a conflict of interest here. His response in the sham "journal" is basically Almader licking his wounds in his own team's locker room after the beating Edward's gave him out on the field, which is of little significance to the topic of this article or to our readership in general. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 22:22, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

You're acknowledging that Almeder is a heavyweight, and that he could have published his paper anywhere. That's precisely why the expert exemption applies in this case -- in addition to the fact that the Almeder-Edwards debate is discussed by other academics, so it would be odd to pretend that part of it doesn't exist. (And Edwards does more than say Almeder somewhat defends Stevenson. He writes that Almeder strongly defends Stevenson and attacks him for it.) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:36, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Dominus, could I ask you not to change your posts substantively after I've replied to them? Otherwise, I'm replying to something that you appear not to have said, or I'm failing to reply to something that you did say. Here is the version of your post that I replied to.

Your argument about using Stevenson as a coatrack for Almeder is not one I follow. The fact is that the Almeder-Edwards debate about Stevenson has been discussed by academics. There are a number of papers and books on both sides that are part of it, some of them not even mentioned here. I would like to have the intellectual freedom to refer to any of them in my editing of Ian Stevenson without worrying about whether the place of publication has an entry in the Book of Light. I would like to focus on the arguments, the reputation of the philosophers, and the extent to which their arguments are relevant to Stevenson. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:14, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

You forgot again about SPS, which rules out sources that are unduly self-serving. Almeder's response is a self-defense, and all self-defenses are by definition unduly self-serving. That's why they are only allowed if published in non-self-published form. This part of the Almeder-Edward's debate can be ignored pecisely because no one describing the debate has commented substantially on THIS source specifically in the real academic literature. In fact, as far as we know, nobody has every read it or even knows that it exists. Even if it were mentioned off-hand, it wouldn't matter very much unless the discussion about it was substantial enough to show that the views espressed in it had prevalence in the reliable literature. As far as we can tell, Almeder's views on reincarnation are shared only by an extreme minority of his peers.

As for the coatrack argument, this article is about Stevenson, and material about Edwards response to Stevenson is on topic. Responses by anybody to anybody else, including Edwards response to Almader and the debate that insues, are peripheral to the topic of the article. As for your "intellectual freedom" plea, that is ridiculous, even more ridiculous than an appeal to common sense. The place of publication matters very much as far as our policies are concerned, especially for self-serving self-defenses that make WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 23:39, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

The "self-serving" provision of SPS is intended for people saying things about themselves that are unlikely to be true or realistic, not for this kind of situation. Almeder's response was defending Stevenson. You seem to be going from policy to policy desperately looking for reasons to keep this out because you don't like it. But we're here as educators. Two relatively heavyweight academic philosophers have gone head-to-head over Stevenson, and one of them specializes in precisely this field (truth, skepticism, philosophy of science). Philosophers are interested in this because of an interest in consciousness, and a separate interest in knowledge and how it's formed (epistemology). Both have written books about reincarnation in which Stevenson figured heavily. Other academics have commented on their input. Our instinct as Wikipedians should be tell our readers what those people said, not to look for excuses to leave out one part of it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:50, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

No, we are not here as "educators." Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:02, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Thought experiment for Dominus

Dominus, you say on your user page that you have a background in microbiology. So imagine this scenario:

1. Professor of Microbiology John Smith. "A new idea in microbiology," in Very Important Peer-reviewed Journal, 2008.

2. Professor of Microbiology Susan Jones. "Response to Smith's new idea in microbiology," in Very Important Peer-reviewed Journal, 2009.

3. John Smith. My New Idea. Oxford University Press, 2010.

4. Susan Jones. Smith's New Idea: A Critique. Cambridge University Press, 2011.

5. John Smith. "Rejoinder to Jones" in Really Weird Little Magazine that Quite a Few People Don't Trust, 2012.

Suppose you were writing a Wikipedia article on Smith's new idea, and you wrote to him and said: "For heaven's sake, please tell me why you published that last paper in Really Weird Little Magazine?" And he replied that he could have published it anywhere, but he likes Really Weird Little Magazine and he thinks there are sometimes good things in it. And he doesn't care what other people think about the place of publication, because he has reached a point in his career where he doesn't have to care about things like that. Add that Jones has died to rule out any BLP complications. Would you seriously use only 1–4 as sources, but not 5, no matter what 5 said? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:14, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

If I may reply, JSE is not really equivalent to a really weird magazine that quite a few people don't trust. It purports to be an academic journal but isn't. This is like following a country road that gets narrower and narrower until it ends up in a farmyard. So we can't always follow all the twists and turns of an academic argument. Something similar has cropped up in relation to cold fusion, where the vast majority of academics don't want to engage with the CF enthusiasts at all, then one publishes a critique, then the CF crowd reply, then the critical scientist responds, then the CF crowd are back in again. By this point the critical scientist feels he has nothing more to add. Does that mean the CF-ers have to have the last word? And now I am done with this thread. Not reliable for commentary on academic work. Itsmejudith (talk) 00:38, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't follow the farmyard analogy, and you didn't address the crucial point. If two academics have been discussing an issue for years, would you really only use 1–4 as sources for Wikipedia, and never mention 5, no matter what it said?

We have to follow policy. Otherwise the editors who like and don't like particular publications will go back and forth forever. This has long been a problem, and it's the reason RSN was started, to keep things focused on policy, but away from the policy talk pages.

The policy (V) does allow an expert exemption in SPS for a self-published source, and SOURCES (also part of V) allows reliability to reside in the author, not in the publication. The Almeder-Edwards debate about Stevenson is not an unknown one. Here again is a summary of it from Christopher Bache, professor of religious studies, in his Dark Night, Early Dawn, SUNY Press, 2000; and here from a philosopher, Mark Woodhouse, in his Paradigm Wars. In light of that confirmation of this very specific expertise, there really is nothing in policy that I'm aware of that would disallow that essay as a source. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:54, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

You bet your bottom dollar that I would not cite the fifth source here on WP, even if the ideas in it were consistent with the mainstream view. And alive or dead, there is nothing that Smith could say to convince me otherwise. You forget that for a scholar, the most important thing is not how much they publish, but how many times other scholars cite their work in the real scholarly literature, and that's not going to happen if the work is published in some silly "journal" that no one in their right mind even knows about, never mind would read, and definitely not cite in their own scholarly work. The fact that Smith published it without the benefit of peer review is proof enough for me that he himself was convinced that whatever he wrote was not all that important.

Neither would I cite it in my own professional work, and I can't imagine that any microbiologist would. Or any scientist in any field. I'd have a whole bit of explaining to do to the editor and the peer-reviewers of my article if I tried to pull such a stupid stunt.

I probably wouldn't even use the second or third sources here on WP for a science related topic (including fringe or pseudo-science) if they were not peer-reviewed or had not otherwise undergone some form of credible scholarly review (not everything by OUP and CUL is necessarily peer-reviewed). Otherwise, I might read them, and consider what's in them seriously, but I wouldn't cite them, except perhaps with extreme caution, meaning that I would have to be MIGHTY convinced that they had the consensus of the scientific community behind them.

As for self-published sources, I would never cite them at all for a scientific topic unless the material I were citing was also specifically mentioned in high-quality sources and thus clearly relected the consensus view (which is not the case for Almeder). Even then, I would only use them to support or illustrate what those more reliable sources say. About the only exception that I might consider using them for is to provide a CLEARLY consensus view on a fringe topic per WP:PARITY, like with the Edwards book in this article.

As for reputation, that counts for exactly jack shit as far as the merits of a scientist's ideas go in the scientfic community. When a paper is submitted for publication, only the merits of the paper itself count. The reputation of the author is immaterial. One doesn't even have to be a scientist to publish in the peer-reviewed literature, and even the best scientists get their papers rejected if they don't pass peer-review.

You seem to forget that even Noble Prize winners are perfectly capable of spinning complete and utter nonsense when off the clock, that is, when they are not subject to peer-review. Most especially when they talk to the popular press. Look at Linus Pauling and William Shockley for two good examples of Noble prize winners who did so.

As far as the exception to WP:SPS is concerned, you should read WP:IDHT. I've told you several times that SPSs cannot be used when they involve WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims, no matter who writes them. Multiple high-quality sources are required, and for a scholarly topic, those would have to comply with WP:SCHOLARSHIP. So no, there is no policy based reason to use Almeders source here. And your wasting your time and mine insisting that there is. Now read WP:DEADHORSE. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 02:08, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

There are no exceptional claims in the article. It's a straightforward critique of Edwards' arguments, including those about Stevenson. So the SPS expert exemption can apply. And, speaking of IDHT, I keep pointing out that SOURCES, part of the V policy, says that reliability can lie with the author. Take those two together -- SOURCES and the expert exemption in SPS -- and there is no reason in policy to exclude the source. All the rest that you are pointing to are guidelines, and even they would support it if you read them carefully.

I'm saddened that you would include 1–4, but not 5. Perhaps that's one difference between science and the humanities, and certainly philosophy. A philosopher would want to know what everyone qualified had argued. I think Wikipedia's readers want the same. I can't imagine any reader saying, "please, whatever do you do, don't tell us what Almeder said in response." SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:24, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Have you even read the article? It's nothing except exceptional claims, even from a philosophical standpoint, unless you define philosophy as "any old sort of bullshit". If our readers want to read any old sort of bullshit, they could go to Conservapedia or Creationwiki or Astrowiki or whateverwiki. We're only obigated to give the the best possible information from the best sources we can, and any old sort of bullshit from JSE doesn't qualify by a wide mile, regardless who wrote it.

FWIW, Itsmejudith is a humanist, and I have two humanist degrees myself, from a Jesuit university, no less, so I have a darn good idea of how academic philosophy works, and it certainly ain't the free-for-all that you think it is. Lax, yes. Lax to the point of publishing one's work in JSE and thinking that someone will take it seriously, hell no. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 03:12, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Re: exceptional claims. SV, take one step back from the picture. Edwards is a philosopher of considerable standing and the thesis of his book is basically "there is no convincing evidence of reincarnation". Surely, any serious attempt to attack that position held by that author has something of the exceptional about it.

Almeder's paper is JSE, when read, only confirms the suspicion that any sensible person approaching the question would take in advance. JSE is a publication which, frankly, exists in order to support intellectually dishonest writings about the paranormal. We cannot in good conscience take it seriously in reporting a supposed academic debate (there actually is no debate here - Edwards gave his dismissal of Stevenson in one go and, rightly, did not afford the respect of an ongoing exchange of views).

It's perfectly acceptable to explain Stevenson's views in the article and to outline what others have said about them, positive and less so. But I think it would demean WP somewhat to offer the distortion that there is a serious academic debate somewhere involved in all this. Formerip (talk) 00:58, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I wonder whether this discussion is caused by a misunderstanding of philosophy. Philosophers examine arguments, and Almeder is pointing out weaknesses in Edwards's arguments. And Edwards didn't, as you say, dismiss Stevenson's work in one go; see the publishing sequence above. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:39, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Do you have academic training in philosophy? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:54, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Response from the author

I made Professor Almeder aware of this discussion a few days ago, and we've exchanged a few emails about it. He has given me permission to summarize and quote from the correspondence. Regarding the journal, he wrote:

I was happy to publish my review of Edwards book in that journal (1997). That journal has a large readership outside philosophy and it is now edited by a well-regarded philosopher (Stephen Braude) who knows his philosophy of science. If there is a question of the reliability of what is expressed in the essay on the position and arguments Edwards advanced, it would be very easy to read the essay and check the references against the actual words Edwards uttered in his book. The Journal for Scientific Exploration was established as an antidote to the work on the Journal for Psychical Research which had become more like cheerleading activity for the paranormal rather than live up to its mission of providing a vehicle for serious research and probing discussion on the logic and science of the paranormal. Stevenson's work was often reviewed and discussed in that journal by thoroughly serious and competent scholars. And sometimes I wrote about Stevenson's work and defended the minimalist conception of reincarnation in equally solid but less specialized professional journals for philosophers only (such as my exchange with Steven Hales in Philosophia ( dec. 2000 ) volume 28.....that's the Israeli Journal of Philosophy). That was an interesting exchange initiated by Steve Hales' Essay on reincarnation. The editor asked me if i would reply to him, and i did. In that exchange I also advanced minimalist conception of reincarnation and again attributed it to Stevenson and argued for its merits as a solid empirical thesis.

More importantly, judging the quality ( reliability) of peer-reviewed journals in a particular area can be tricky business. My experience as an editor for six years of a premier philosophy journal (the American Philosophical Quarterly) led me to believe that when departments want to hire or promote philosophers it is good to remember that good philosophers sometimes publish not so good papers in very good journals. But, in any case, the judgement of quality and importance should be made not on the usual quality of items in that journal but on the content of that essay ( or review) in particular.

Note that I haven't seen Almeder's exchange with Steven Hales in Philosophia, but if Hales addressed the 1997 essay in his paper(s), that deals with the objection that there was no academic response to it. Almeder went on to say that he wanted in the 1997 essay to clarify the minimalist conception of reincarnation because Edwards seemed to conflate all reincarnationist views with religious belief and superstition. He also wrote:

What seems particularly important to note, as you do, is that for Stevenson, the best available empirical explanation for the facts in the stronger cases is reincarnation (of the minimalist sort), and I believe (as I argued in my book) that it is unreasonable to reject that view as empirically the best currently available explanation of the best cases. But it makes no difference whether we believe it or not. The question is rather about what we should believe.

He added that the editor who is opposing his work (I assume he meant Dominus, but this could apply to anyone) should feel free to contact him directly with his reasons. If anyone wants to do that, please email me and I'll pass on the details. He also pointed out that he has written a chapter, "The Major Objections from Reductive Materialism Against Belief in the Existence of Cartesian Mind-Body Dualism", in Alexander Moreira-Almeida and Franklin Santana Santos, Exploring Frontiers of the Mind-Brain Relationship, Springer 2011, pp. 16–33 (reincarnation discussed on pp. 21–22, 24, 32). I hope this further addresses the issue of whether he has expertise in this area. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:46, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Summary

This has become so long that uninvolved editors may be reluctant to comment, so this is a summary. The policy question is whether reliability invariably rests with the publication, or whether it can also rest with the author. Sorry for banging on about it, but we sometimes need to cite experts who published in odd places (or self-published) in the interests of NPOV.

I would like to use this essay by Robert Almeder, professor emeritus of philosophy, as a source for our biography of Ian Stevenson (not a BLP). Stevenson was a psychiatrist who interviewed children who claimed to have lived before. Almeder's essay is a response to another philosopher, Paul Edwards, who devoted a chapter of a book to criticism of Stevenson. I would like to include the criticism and the response. Both philosophers had published several times before about Ian Stevenson and each other. See the publishing sequence above.

The argument against using the essay is that Almeder published it in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, which deals with parapsychology and similar issues. The argument for is that WP:V says reliability can rest with the author:

1. WP:SOURCES: "The word 'source' in Wikipedia has three meanings: the work itself (a document, article, paper, or book), the creator of the work (for example, the writer), and the publisher of the work (for example, Oxford University Press). All three can affect reliability."
2. WP:SPS: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable 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."

If we can use self-published sources when the author is an expert, we should be able to apply the same expert exemption to an essay published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration. See the author's statement about this in the section above. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:02, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

I think it allowable to use Almeder in the context that SV is describing. However, I note that (apparently) there are others who have commented upon the debate between Almeder and Edwards... they would be even better sources (as this would avoid having to use both Edwards and Almeder in a WP:PRIMARY context.) Blueboar (talk) 19:45, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Using Edwards-Almeder directly is unavoidable if Edwards's critique of Stevenson is to be added, because both the criticism and the response are detailed (more detailed than currently in the article). But I'll use the independent sources too to show that the debate was noted by others. Many thanks again. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:51, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

You were given a number of independent responses, you just seem to have chosen to ignore them and keep arguing until one editor gave you a response you like. Your basic argument is to give weight to a dubious source to counter other sources, IRWolfie- (talk) 17:57, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

"Darío Fernández-Morera: "The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise" The Intercollegiate Review

• "Darío Fernández-Morera: "The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise", The Intercollegiate Review, Fall 2006, pp. 23–31 (30)

Roscelese talk delets

Her Spanish colleague Darío Fernández-Morera takes the opposite view, arguing that "Islamic Spain was not a model of multicultural harmony. Andalusia was beset by religious, political, and racial conflicts controlled in the best of times only by the application of tyrannical force (by its rulers)

‎saying; (a source from an agenda-based organization does not refute real sources) [19] I checked the source and found it to be OK at worst so I restored [20] again deleted as an unreliable source (rmv poor source; neutral point of view is not about "balance" at the expense of WP:RS) [21] The claim is contrary to the poets claim just above but the article is referenced and I will leave it to user Roscelese and others to make a case J8079s (talk) 23:46, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

The Intercollegiate Review, contrary to its academic-sounding name, is a publication from an, ahem, "pro-Christian" and "pro-European" think tank, not a scholarly institution. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:44, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's putting it lightly. It's religious/political propaganda thinly disguised as a scholarly journal. Not reliable for anything on WP. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 04:57, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

It's all about context. The bar is set very low when it comes to who holds an opinion.[22] Regardless of the direction of the "bais" they are still Reliable for the claim that the author of the article holds the views expressed. The edit summaries and talk here leads me to believe this is a content dispute.J8079s (talk) 22:34, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Nope. It's not an "opinion". It's a statement about a scholarly topic. Sorry, even for scholarly opinions, your going to need a genuine scholarly source, and this is most certainly not one. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 23:00, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry that I might have given you the wrong impression this is not a scholarly debate it is a debate among scholars. The Ornament of the World is also editorial opinion by María Rosa Menoca (a love song to the poets) she does not cite any sources and makes no attempt at balance, closer to historic fiction than a reliable source. Reducing 800 years of history to he said/she said is not how we build an encyclopedia. J8079s (talk) 04:39, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Exactly so! In order to avoid "he said"-"she said", we admit only reliable sources, rather than including inferior sources as "balance" to better sources. That's what I've been explaining to you the whole time. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:07, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Regardless of any perceived bias by the Intercollegiate Review's parent organization, the author's bio suggests a serious and perfectly authoritative scholar at a major university that's certainly not known as a religious-extremist institution: "Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese and of Comparative Literature at Northwestern University. He is also a member of the National Council on the Humanities. His most recent book is Cervantes in the English-Speaking World (2006), co-edited with Michael Hanke." I can't conceive of any neutral, non-political reason why his scholarly paper is any less acceptable than one of any comparable professor / editor / NCH member. His view can always be balanced by an opposing view. --Tenebrae (talk) 21:34, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Because it's not a scholarly paper. You're begging the question here and it undermines your entire comment. If his argument is sound from a scholarly perspective, why has he been unable to get it published by a source that meets the standards of WP:RS? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:07, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

I may be misreading, but I'm afraid It sounds as if you're accusing the author of illegitimate thought because his politics don't align with yours. You may not agree with him, but to denigrate a professor at Northwestern University and say his thoughts on a subject matter in which he's well-versed are invalid I find remarkable. Perhaps it's how you're expressing yourself, but it sounds as if you're pursuing a political agenda and squelching a view in opposition to yours. Where is it said that the publication does not meet WP:RS? I couldn't find that in the Noticeboard archives. --Tenebrae (talk) 02:00, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, since you ask about past occasions where it's been brought up at RSN, I'll point you to the only other occasion, where it was soundly rejected as a reliable source. However, if it hadn't been - that's why we're discussing it here, to determine whether or not it's reliable. As for the other point of your comment, that he is a professor so it doesn't matter in what venue he expresses his opinions - WP:V and WP:SCHOLARSHIP disagree with you, stating that the reputation of the publisher for fact-checking and quality is the important consideration. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:35, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate you pointing me in the right direction; that was considerate, and I thank you. I don't actually read that it was "soundly rejected": I see one editor saying, "Intercollegiate Review does not qualify as a peer-reviewed journal. Therefore, it appears clear the the source is not a Reliable Source in general, although it may be considered reliable as either the viewpoint of [an article's author] or of Intercollegiate Studies Institute," while another editor says, "Meh. Peer-reviewed helps, but isn't required." No other editors commented after this, so it reads as if there was a stalemate and no consensus to reject it.

I do see at WP:SCHOLARSHIP that, "Journals that are not peer reviewed by the wider academic community should not be considered reliable, except to show the views of the groups represented by those journals." Do we know for sure it's not peer-reviewed? I'm not sure where the reputation of the publisher as having poor fact-checking and quality is coming from. I can see there's disagreement with its political stance — and I'm no conservative, so I understand and I know it's a principled disagreement. Still, it sounds as if one wants to reject this article because of the publication's politics. What do other editors think? --Tenebrae (talk) 03:49, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

I see Taemyr rejecting it as a "very biased source" (that, if used at all, would need to be explained as such), Paul B rejecting it, LK rejecting it, and Squidfryerchef saying it's not terrible but that the material should be able to be found in other sources. (Which seems like something we could do here, too - if a scholar has published a similar opinion in a reliable source, fair game.) It looks fairly conclusive to me, but that doesn't mean there aren't other solutions.

I don't see that it even claims to be peer-reviewed, and if it did, such a claim would be highly suspect because it is not published by an academic institution. That's the problem with it - not its bias per se, but the fact that it comes from a source where bias is the point. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:01, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

I did see the back-and-forth, but it didn't seem definitive. Far more convincing is your point that it's not published by an academic institution, which does open up reasonable charges of bias. On the other hand, the author isn't an employee of the institute but a presumably independent scholar at a respected university.

I've looked around and I'm finding it's hard to say definitively whether or not it's peer-reviewed. The library software company ExLibris [23] lists it as peer-reviewed here, here and elsewhere, though it does say that the Intercollegiate Review supplement Academic Review is, indeed, not peer-reviewed, here.

It's a tough call, and I completely see your point and the need for caution. Obviously, we don't want to disseminate deliberately biased, unscientific material. On the other hand, finding and keeping jobs in academia is so much tougher these days, and the imperative to publish stronger than ever, so I can understand how a neutral scholar may not get his article into his first choice of journals and have to settle. I probably don't have much else to contribute to this discussion, but I thought I should add these considerations to the mix. With regards, --Tenebrae (talk) 04:13, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

It's exactly this "settling" for an inferior outlet that is the big red flag here. As you rightly point out, getting one's work publish in prestigious journals is a matter of academic bread and butter. Getting the paper published by the Intercollegiate review did little to further the career of the author. The fact that the author had to "settle" is a good sign that their work was of insufficient merit to publish elsewhere, and probably had been rejected by peer-reviewed journals. Or that the author realized that the work was of insuficient merit and didn't even bother to submit it to peer-reviewed journal. Away from the prying eye of peer-review, the author is free to spin just about any nonsense they please, and no one spins nonsense better than an academic who is "off the clock", so to speak. That the journal has a strong ideological mission to promote "the core ideas behind the free market, the American Founding, and Western civilization that are rarely taught in the classroom" brings into question their motives for publishing this paper, and it is much more reasonable to presume that they published it because it advanced their own ideology rather than because it had any real scholarly merit. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 06:39, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Not really related to this particular instance, but to the vagaries of publishing in general, I think it's important to throw out any automatic assumption that he only published it in this journal since the paper was crap and no "real" publication would run it. The point I was making is that competition is so much fiercer now that even great papers can't easily get published. I and many of my peers who work for major newspapers can still find ourselves publishing material on websites rather than real magazines though our material is as good as anything we normally write. I'm talking about film critics and writers whose names you'd recognize. It has nothing to do with the quality of the work. Try publishing a children's book or a cookbook, for example, through a legacy publishing house if you're not a celebrity — the nurturing midlist is virtually gone, and publishers only want what they think will be home runs and not solid singles or doubles. (How'd that work out, New York Yankees / A-Rod?) Whatever the merits or not of the Intercollegiate Review, please don't make assumptions castigating the author.

Unless you write for a living, you have no idea how harsh it is. I've written hardcover books, including one on a weighty topic of national concern, as well as substantive trade paperbacks on entertainment topics.Yet my very-well-paying bread-and-butter is writing about celebrity crap. I still write comics and still write substantive magazine pieces on non-entertainment topics, but they don't pay like the celebrity crap for which I'm way overqualified. Get yourself a mortgage and kids in college, and you'd do the same. So unless you know this academic personally, don't make assumptions on why he chose that venue in which to seek publication. If the cases of good, name writers whom I know are any indication, choices are limited if you're not already a celebrity or a brand name in your field. --Tenebrae (talk) 21:00, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but that's all just special pleading. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 09:04, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

I wish people would read more carefully before speaking. As I said at the very beginning, my post was "Not really related to this particular instance." I was not speaking about the Intercollegiate Review, but cautioning that people should not make ignorant comments about publishing if they have no idea how it works. I really don't care about the Intercollegiate Review. But you took a cheap shot at a professor and made POV assumptions. That is what I was commenting on. Not the Intercollegiate Review, but your snide and ignorant comments about publishing. --Tenebrae (talk) 04:09, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

The "journal" is not a reliable source. Fernández-Morera may be a serious scholar, but he is a professor of literature, not a historian. Not a reliable source for any statement of fact, and I see not reason why this would be a notable and weighty opinion that should be included. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:23, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

The source is WP:reliable, the scholar holds a post at Harvard university (see Darío Fernández-Morera). The opposition to it seems to be driven mainly from ideological reasons (allegedly "pro-Christian" and "pro-European" for some taste as if this were a valid reason for exclusion even if true). His critical stance on the "tolerance" of Al-Andalus is anyway echoed by several colleagues, so this discussion is pretty moot: there are other scholarly sources in Spanish which share his view and which can be quoted in support. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 02:53, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

The Intercollegiate Review is peer-reviewed according to the database of the Colorado State University Libraries which is also used by a number of other scholarly institutions. Since WP:SOURCES stipulates that "where available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources, such as in history, medicine, and science", we can close this discussion with good faith: being published by a Harvard academic in a peer-reviewed journal, "The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise" is nothing but WP:reliable. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 03:06, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Not quite, even if it is peer reviewed and may considered as formally reliable it still a long shot away from a reputable history journal. The latter should be used for sourcing disputed historical claims. It is true that Fernández-Morera seems to be a reputable scholar, however he is a professor for comparative literature and not for history/archeology/islamic studies. So polemically speaking we have an academic publishing on a subject outside his core expertise in a second rate christian oriented journal. That is anything but an optimal source and needs to be treated with caution. Personally I find the title and subject already dubious. Maybe his so called "myth" does indeed get propagated by some circles, but the notion that any serious historian would claim that the period of Islamic Spain (even at its peak) would have been a "paradise" of a society without violence or religious conflict is rather absurd for the reason alone that a such a thing hardly exists in history at all and certainly does not match what we know about this period. In other words the "myth" that Fernández-Morera claims to destruct seems to be a strawman to begin with.--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:21, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

The scholar in question is a reputable scholar. For a source to be considered reliable, that is sufficient for inclusion, even if the journal is not quite peer-reviewed. In such an instance, the opinion should be attributed ("According to..."), but there is no reason the material should be excluded. Athenean (talk) 13:45, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

No, not necessarily. The domain of the scholar and the journal matters and its reputation in the domain to which the subject of the WP article belongs. To give an extreme example we usually do not include (dubious) math claims made by English professor in literary magazine into the according math article, no matter whether that literary magazine is peer reviewed or not. Now in the case at hand it is less extreme/obvious and hence a bit of grey area, that article could be included, but there may also grounds to exclude it or rather to drop it for better sources (an article in a peer reviewed history journal by some reputable historian for instance). The same thing however does not only apply to Fernández-Morera but also to the source for the opposing view (another professor for literature). It would be better for the WP article to drop such "second rate" partially agenda driven sources and cite some proper historian instead. In the end this comes to editorial discretion for the editor involved with the article. In that their consideration they should use the result of the notice board, that is that we have a reputable scholar publishing in a peer reviewed journal, but neither the scholar nor journal seem to have a particular reputation in the domain required for the article.--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:34, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you: Less controversial sources should be found if available. And to state something else becoming increasingly obvious by the way new objections keep being raised ("It's not peer-reviewed." "Yes, it is." "Well, that's still not good enough.") ("The scholar's a hack." "No, he's a reputable Harvard scholar." "Well, that's still not good enough.") leads to a distinct appearance that the real objections to him are ideological: Some editors don't agree with what he wrote, and are looking for reasons to exclude him. I'm not saying that's the definite reason, but that's unquestionably the appearance. --Tenebrae (talk) 18:53, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

This is probably part of the problem. But the fact remains that the Intercollegiate Review is not a reliable source in general - it's not better than e.g. the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons or Chaos, Solitons & Fractals or the Australasian Journal of Bone & Joint Medicine. It has the outward trappings of an academic journal, but does not follow normal protocols and, to but it politely, publishes things that suit the agenda of the publisher without serious consideration of the scholarly merit. And no, being "a serious scholar" is not enough to be taken seriously in a field outside ones specialty. It's a bit like me publishing on problems with the fossil record in Creation Research Society Quarterly. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:11, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Kmhkmh, your personal view of a "formally" reliable source has, I am afraid, no basis whatsoever in the WP guidelines - unless you can cite them to support your interpretation. Likewise Stephan theorizing along the lines of "not a reliable source in general". Since WP:SOURCES holds that academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources and since it has been now established that The Intercollegiate Review is peer-reviewed, it is a reliable source, and among the most reliable sources at that. This is nothing which can be negotiated against the guidelines.

As for Fernández-Morera's scholarly background as a literary professor, you make it sound a bit as if he were daring to talk about topics as remote as the pleistocene or Japanese history. As it is, his core research interest is the Spanish Golden Age and relations to Islam. If WP were to follow your formal criteria of inclusion, it would have to remove the most notable Western scholar on Chinese technology Joseph Needham, to give but one example, as he was actually a biochemist by profession, and never received any academic training in history or sinology. Despite this, he is widely cited and rightly so.

Tenebrae has rightly pointed out how the constant changing of goalposts evident in the discussion rather points to an underlying WP:IDONTLIKEIT problem. Look, it is not like Fernández-Morera is alone in his criticism of the retroconcept of convivencia. Far from it, although he is quite outspoken, he is only one of many scholars sharing such a view. David Nirenberg, Richard A. Fletcher and Bat Ye'or (The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam) all have attacked the idea of a "tolerant" Andalusian society on varying grounds. Islam never knew nor wanted tolerance in the modern sense but organized its societies and non-Muslim subjects on the basis of the dhimmi hierarchy which is nothing but a two-class system. Fernández-Morera says only as much.

So, instead of losing ourselves in a proxy debate about the alleged lack of reliability, I volunteer to gather more scholarly, reliable literature in the vein of Fernández-Morera. By doing this we show that he is not an eccentric loner as some editors (like to) portray him, but actually representative of a school of thought critical of what one can call the tolerance myth; we do this of course on the basis of WP:WEIGHT which requires us that "all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources" should be proportionately included in the article. Since his article is somewhat polemic as he seemed to feel the need to address particularly the laymen, I readily agree to put him at the more radical end of criticism in an attempt to move on. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:46, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

You seem to overlook the word "usually" in your quote of WP:SOURCES. The Intercollegiate Review is not a "usual" scholarly journal. It's published by a political organisation with a very determined outlook, and publishes papers supporting that outlook. You are welcome to try to find better sources, but what you describe is a classical fishing expedition feeding into confirmation bias. Given the amount of scholarly publishing, you will find some support for every preconceived notion. This might work on Wikipedia, since WP:V is all we have, and WP:RANDY roams freely, but it is not an approach likely to give you a reasonable overview of the state of the field. The predominant scholarly view is for more nuanced than the straw man "Andalusian Paradise", and also much more nuanced than your "nothing but a two-class system". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:10, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

It is true that personally "don't like" the source since it's content & structure seems somewhat questionable to me as a outlined above. That is a reason why personally would stay away from such a source. However in addition to my personal suspicion, which is not really relevant for the policy but just some context information, I've given policy based reason and is that the domain and reputation matter, which you neglected above and which is essentially the same as Stephan's argument. Fernández-Morera is primarily a reputable scholar for literature not (medieval Spanish) history, you may however argue that there is a certain overlap, that's why I called it a grey area above. If his article had been published in a reputable history journal then there wouldn't be any grey area, but he hasn't. The journal he published is not a reputable academic journal, but a think tank publication, that might apply some sort of peer review. Clearly there are much better academic sources for that period of Spanish history and those should be used in the article. If you think Fernández-Morera's opinion is widely shared but academic historians, just cite such a historian.--Kmhkmh (talk) 23:10, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Help with defining "multiple sources"

I'm currently participating in an AfD discussion for a theater (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/12 Peers Theater (2nd nomination)). My issue is this: I interpret "multiple sources" to mean that the sources must be from different avenues and that multiple reports from one source (magazine/paper type) do not show a depth of coverage. I am aware that very rarely you will have a situation where one source can show notability, such as someone doing something overwhelmingly notable that would keep an article in and of itself, but typically that source is not a magazine posting multiple theater reviews. The other editor believes that multiple reviews from one source (Pittsburgh Magazine, in this instance) establishes notability for the subject. I would really appreciate some input on this and if I'm correct, for someone to please confirm this in the AfD. I simply do not think that one magazine is enough for notability, no matter how many times they report on something. I'm also curious as to whether or not theater reviews are enough to establish notability for a theater. The theater is mentioned as the place the performances are taking place, but there are no sources that actually cover the theater itself or its launching, which is troubling. Any assistance on this would be helpful.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 05:46, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

A "minor source" which repeatedly refers to something is not as good as a major source doing so ... The "Podunk News" articles on George Gnarph being the leading golf player in that town are not going to impress many here, while the New York Times having a number of articles on a chef in New York City is likely to meet the Wikipedia notability standards. Is the line fuzzy? At times, yes. For regional theaters, it is best to have a review from outside the town rather than only local reviews. Query: Has the Pittsburgh paper run articles on the theater as an entity other than mentions en passant in reviews? Collect (talk) 23:09, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

• No, not that I've been able to find. There have been reviews by Pittsburgh Magazine, but other than that the theater has only received trivial coverage by way of being mentioned in relation to other events such as local festivals or notifications of upcoming events/performances.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 09:32, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Pittsburgh Magazine, as a specialty journal about a particular city, would be a reliable source about activities that happen in that city, or even other cities, provided there was no link between the topic of the article and the magazine, like an advertising payoff or something. From your description , it seems this mag has never written about the theater troupe, but only about the plays it has put on. That's another subject: Surely if this theater is Notable, somebody would have called it Notable, in print or in pixel. GeorgeLouis (talk) 10:17, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

• That's pretty much my biggest beef with the usage of the reviews as sources to show notability. The theater itself hasn't been covered outside of the performances and I'm not sure that reviews alone would cut it. The shows don't seem to have been overwhelmingly notable and it's semi-routine for a theater's performances to get some sort of review every once in a while. My local theaters have gotten the offhand review here and there, but many of those theaters aren't considered to be notable.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 21:19, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree. It would be surprising if none of their plays were reviewed, but these reviews are pretty routine and don't establish notability. Even if they praised the troupe, it's just one local journal and isn't what I think we are looking for. Dougweller (talk) 11:35, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Palestinian incitement's Jerusalem Post sources

In the deletion discussion over the Palestinian incitement page, I pointed out that articles by the Jerusalem Post and the Israeli government were not likely to provide objective information about the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Plot Spoiler objected, and suggested I bring up the problem here.

The Post articles in question may be viewed here, here, here, and here; at least the ones that were on the Internet. As for these three sources (oddly, the third one doesn't seem to come up all the time).

As examples of how these quotes are used, I quote the article:

According to the Israeli government, "There is a direct connection between anti-Israeli or antisemitic incitement and terrorism. The extreme anti-Israeli indoctrination that is so pervasive in Palestinian society nurtures a culture of hatred that, in turn, leads to terrorism. The Palestinian education system, media, literature, songs, theater and cinema have been mobilized for extreme anti-Israeli indoctrination, which at times degenerates into blatant antisemitism. This incitement to hatred and violence is pervasive in Palestinian society, particularly in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip."

That is from the opening paragraphs of the opening paragraphs of the article, and cites the Israeli government website. While the sentence is fact -- the government absolutely did say that -- it is the nail in the coffin of the first three paragraphs as pro-Israeli.

According to the document, incitement against Israel is "an integral part of the fabric of life inside the PA. Anti-Israel and anti-Semitic messages are heard regularly in the government and private media and in the mosques and are taught in schools books."

More quoting the government, this time through the Jerusalem Post. I notice they aren't quoting the PLO or Hamas.

In response to a PA television broadcast glorifying the murderers of the Fogel family in the Itamar massacre

I won't say I know much about the Itamar massacre, but the Post article it cites is clearly not unbiased.

CarniCat (meow) 18:20, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

• I think that the issue in this case is not necessarily the sources per se but how they are being used to assemble the article. WP:SYNTH and WP:COATRACK both explain the problem well. --Jayron32 02:06, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

• We're supposed to consider the JPost reliable, but its news sections are looking more and more like opinion pages. A good way to go might be to say that they can be cited for things that are uncontroversial/uncontested, but if a user questions the use of a JPost source to support something, another source should be found. The "incitement" article is likely to be deleted anyway, but it also demonstrates the problem with relying so hard on a single source, especially a clearly biased one: it might as well be called The Jerusalem Post's coverage of Palestinian "incitement". –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:53, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

• Jerusalem Post is and is not a source that is acceptable for this topic. It depends what it is used for. 1. To report recent official statements made the Israeli government or Ministers or even some analysts or sociologists : it is reliable ; 2. For a global analysis of the issue it is not at all and even the mind of the journalist is nor reliable or worth mentionning in an encyclopaedia ; 3. To justify the existence of the article, the minimum is a academic work or a paper of high standard and credits published on the topic ; 4. Note that if we talk about official statement older than more than =let's say- 15 years, JP is not a reliable source any more and only secondary source who checked JP and other papers are worth considering. Pluto2012 (talk) 07:01, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

• The Jerusalem post answer every creterion of WP:RS, its well established news organisation that have editorial board.But if want to exlude lets also exlude Al-Jazeera and all other Arab stations and don't forget Guardian and Independent as their bias is quite blatant regarding Israel.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 11:29, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

• Agree with Jayron32 , what he says above. imo an article about , say, 'israeli arrogance' , would be equally unsatisfactory. RS sources could be found that speak of 'Israeli arrogance' but that does not mean there should be an article, focusing exclusively on that , taken out of all context, - like 'palestinian incitement' it would be an attack page, an excuse for an article. it's 'criterion' isnt it Sayerslle (talk) 16:55, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Pro-Israel and Pro-Hamas sources in Operation Pillar of Defense

This is similar to the concerns expressed for the Palestinian incitement article in the section above. While we know that things like JPost, Ynetnews, Times of Israel, ect are reliable sources, I feel that for all reliable sources, there are going to be topics that are difficult for them to cover neutrally. This is because the newspapers themselves are too close to the subject. In regards to the current situation in Israel/Gaza, I have argued a couple of times on Talk:Operation Pillar of Defense that we should minimize the use of Pro-Israel or Pro-Hamas sources, such as those listed above, unless they are being used to discuss their own region. We should not use them to discuss the other region, instead relying on truly secondary, outside source coverage.

Really, as a whole, I feel that we should be minimizing the use of any news sources in Gaza or Israel for these topics as much as possible. That would give us the greatest possibility of using and presenting neutral sources. I've had some agreement on the talk page and some disagreement, with those disagreeing saying that reliable sources are always reliable and that I should come here if i'm going to argue otherwise. Silverseren^C 22:06, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Can you be specific about which statements and which sources you find troubling? (It's a big current-event article so the talk page is hard to wade through.)

I'm disinclined to reject any Israeli or Palestinian source solely on that basis. Being Israeli or Palestinian doesn't prevent a source from being neutral, even if close to the subject. It is if a source actually demonstrates neutrality issues that it should be questioned (like the cakes thing, which somehow! is only showing up in anti-Palestinian sources). That said, this recent conflict has been covered exhaustively in international news, so it should be easy to find non-I/P sources that support all or most of the content. If there is material that users wish to include that can't be supported by external sources, we should examine its relevance to the article and the possibility of bias/fabrication/exaggeration in the source. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:19, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

That's one of the main points. If we're able to replace or add on outside sources about all the events in the article, then that would at least prove their veracity. Otherwise, you have to question whether it's only these sources that are covering this specific information and why it is that only these inside sources are doing it. Silverseren^C 22:30, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

It is a little bit dangerous to generalize about a controversial subject like this. Of course we want to aim at neutrality. But for some types of text, being neutral will probably require citing notable parochial opinions in a balanced way? (Indeed, perhaps in this case we are able to cite good international press reviews that compare the parochial presses, but in many subjects we do not have that luxury.) So while the general sentiment sounds ok, I do think it is better to discuss real examples.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:56, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Frank Dux's side of the stories.

Someone recently added this reference to the second paragraph of the "Martial arts career" section of Frank Dux, presumably to back up the "disputed by Dux" part. Someone else removed it, saying the source is dubious. I've checked the talk page and can't see why he thinks this (I may have missed it). I believe it's only fair, per WP:DUE and WP:BALANCE, to include both sides of Dux's story, not just the side calling bullshit on him. But, if this is an unreliable source, it obviously can't be used. Thoughts? InedibleHulk (talk) 01:03, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

• One of the discussions was here [24]. Unfortunately the admin involved in that is on a wikibreak. A user using a series of blocked accounts kept trying to force that piece into the article. More than one experienced editor removed that source over the course of the past couple of years. Chasingthefrog has been used a few times on Wikipedia, but I can't see anything that leads me to believe it is reliable either. This is an article, written on a website with no mention of who wrote it. Is there editorial oversight? Who knows, but I'm not too confident that there is. Dux may not like the fact that most reputable media outlets won't simply parrot his claims. The other issue here is that the article is (allegedly) Dux making the claims again. These claims were put forth in his book 'The Secret Man', the one that the publisher backed away from and refused to print a second run of because the claims were...not to credible. Niteshift36 (talk) 03:40, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Anybody else want to weigh in? InedibleHulk (talk) 07:54, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

UK Independence Party

Is Introducing Social Policy by Pearson Education suitable for this edit[25] Darkness Shines (talk) 06:17, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Given the vague and contradictory meanings attached to the term 'libertarianism', I can't see the point of the edit in the first place. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:25, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Is the source OK to describe UKIP as libertarian? Darkness Shines (talk) 06:37, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

It's not a perfect source (we tend to discount undergraduate textbooks, if that's what it is) but a possible one: the authors are OK I think. The answer to your question depends on what, precisely, it says. Is it giving the authors' view, quoting UKIP's self-description, or what? Andrew Dalby 10:08, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

It quotes the party's own description of itself. As has been said, it's not a political science book, and plenty of more reliable sources give a different description of the party. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:27, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Self descriptions are often ok, but not if self-promoting.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:50, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

May I repeat what I wrote on the article's talk page:

As for the cited source, this is what it says: "United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP): A libertarian political party, founded in 1993, whose main goal is the UK's withdrawal from the EU, on the basis that the latter has destroyed the country's political sovereignty." That's it in total. In the Glossary on p 541. It is the only mention of UKIP in the whole book - the index to this 576 page work does not list UKIP at all. The book is for trainee social workers and the like, not political scientists. Emeraude (talk) 18:30, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

• So is it a reliable source or not? How about Electoral Systems and Voting in United Kingdom Edinburgh University Press which says UKIP promotes conservative & libertarian policies? Or the Guardian[26] "They are all committed to a self-styled "libertarian, non-racist party seeking Britain's withdrawal from the EU"" Or the LA Times[27] "UKIP has begun preaching a libertarian message of self-help and small government" Darkness Shines (talk) 21:27, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

According to some sources in Libertarianism in the United Kingdom, the UKIP's libertarianism is disputed by some. How widespread this dispute is isn't quite clear from that article. Guardian may be referring to this by describing them as "self-styled" libertarians. Whatever is decided about libertarianism, the article should prominently present the anti-europe views, since non-UK media describe the party variously as indépendantiste, europhobe, anti-Europe and "EU-fientliga" which seems to translate to "EU-hostile". As is usual in case of disputes, both sides should be represented with prominence to each side given roughly according to prevalence in sources. Maybe it's OK to have libertarianism in the infobox and an explanation of the dispute in the text. Or, libertarianism in the infobox with an asterisk or other symbol linking to a short description of how it's disputed. The Edinburgh University Press sounds reliable for the use described, however I haven't seen the source. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 21:45, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Is TripAdvisor really a reliable source for Georgian alphabet

Of course not, nor is the GeorgiaTraveller website. But a new(?) editor insists he can use them, see [28] and remove reliable sources that disagree. I've tried to discuss this on the talk page but have gotten nowhere. I'm struggling with this editor who is adding badly worded and usually unsourced edits to various articles, eg [29] and various other edits. Dougweller (talk) 14:56, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

For other editors, see Talk:Georgian_alphabet#Edit_by_ChelseaFCG. GeorgeLouis (talk) 15:11, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, I've put it on my watchlist. --Cyclopia^talk 15:22, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Its clearly not there are plenty of scientific literature on this matter.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 16:29, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

I have deleted unreliable sources Dougweller. Kartvelian history is my Profession and i am really insulted that you showed me as unserious perso.n I made 7 reliable sources one of them was copy of discovered scripts, in Nekresi. Really, i have read many disinformation and propaganda in wikipedia and when i corrected something, about what i know everything and from the sphere of my Profession, you called me unreliable. I must remember you that Wikipedia is encyclopedia not the note book of peoples view. I am ready to discuss anything from Kartvelian history with anyone on this planet. I spent 6 years of my life in studying Kartvelian history and i think i deserve to be a little bit praised in this sphere.--ChelseaFCG (talk) 16:37, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

"Kartvelian history is my Profession" We don't care about your CV. We care about edits being backed up by reliable sources and we care also about avoiding to give fringe viewpoints more weight than they deserve, because we are committed to be neutral. Hope this helps. --Cyclopia^talk 16:42, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Chelsea it sounds like you must have read other sources? Maybe it helps to know that you can cite non-English sources?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:07, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia has inconsistent sourcing policies

Hello Wikipedia Reliable Sources Noticeboard:

This is reporter/publisher Jack ODwyer who is questioning the sourcing policies of WP in connection with a 3,300-word entry on Public Relations Society of America that was posted in late October by Corporate Minion.

[I am leaving out apostrophes and quote marks because the away-from-home e-mail program I am using turns apostrophes into question marks] I consider the entry highly biased against me and the Odwyer Co. from the start as evidenced by a cartoon that ran for the first two weeks of the entry that pictured me as a male witch burning PRSA at the stake.

The source for that cartoon was the website of Derek DeVries, an elected delegate of PRSA and hardly a neutral source. Corporate Minion took it down following my complaint. Corporate Minion also corrected many other mistakes including saying there were 19 sections of PRSA when there are only 14. References to PRSA having the most influential awards program (Silver Anvil) were also taken down.

When I challenged a number of the sources for the article (the number got as high as 82 and it is now 65) a number of references to sources and topics were removed. The original word count was cut from 4,697 to the current 3,240. WP has staged a vast retreat on this topic.

A fundamental mistake WP is making, and which plays right into what PRSA tries to say, is that there is some kind of personal feud between the Society and me. For instance, WP says that in 1994 ODwyer had a copyright dispute with PRSA regarding the Societys information package. The PRSA copying practices date back to 1976 according to PRSA itself.

That is misleading and wrong because 12 authors who were illegally copied complained to PRSA which refused to give them a penny or even talk to them. It was not some personal dispute of mine. There is plenty of documentation of this quest of the authors. The Society claimed it was a library and was only charging a loan fee ($18 for members and $55 for non-members). But libraries can only send out single copies of something under strict rules. Only one copy must be in circulation. There must be no commercial advantage either direct or indirect. The notice of copyright must be on every copy sent out. PRSA, distributing about 3,800 packets a year, had multiple copies in circulation at once because it promised 24-hour delivery but let users keep the packets (60-120 pages of materials) for up to three weeks. PRSA was netting about $60,000 a year from this practice according to its own records. What library charges $55 to borrow an article? None of the articles had copyright notices on them. I have a boxful of copied articles from 12 packets that were purchased if only someone from WP would come to our offices.

ODwyer Competitors are Deemed Reliable

My beef with WP about sourcing is that WP regards as neutral and reliable all of our competitors including PR Week U.S. and U.K.; PR Newser website; Bulldog Reporter website; PR News Online website, and Advertising Age.

There are links to articles in all those media criticizing the ODwyer Co. for one thing or another but no links at all to ODwyer articles although we have been covering PRSA and PR subjects since 1968. Only one of the WP links is favorable to the ODwyer Co. The WP policy on sourcing is inconsistent. It quotes the New York Times nine times but only supplies links to five of the articles. A highly favorable mention by the NYT of the ODwyer Co. in which it called the ODwyer Newsletter the bible of PR, was removed after two weeks. I cannot get an explanation for that. I could give you the link to the NYT story but it might get this commentary blocked. I am not putting any links in this piece.

Only the ODwyer Co. has covered 40 PRSA Assemblies in a row until 2011 when not only our reporters, but all reporters were barred from that governing body. PRSA has thus failed to live up to the Public in its name since reporters are part of the public and PRSA had allowed reporters into the Assembly for 40 years.

Only the ODwyer Co. reports the annual and quarterly finances of the Society, something that can be easily sourced. A search of the 12 years of ODwyer archives will reveal more than 4,000 stories and editorials about PRSA. It has never been able to refute any of our coverage although it has tried to block it for many years.

Because of our detailed coverage of PRSA, including failed efforts since 1999 to let any member run for national office rather than just the 18% who are Accredited, the Society has for many years refused to deal with us. The board voted its first boycott in 1999 but rescinded it the next year after member complaints. But the boycott was re-instituted around 2005 and continues even though the National Press Club and others have urged PRSA not to do this.

So the ODwyer Co. is being punished for doing just what journalists are supposed to do, provide close coverage of any subject. The other PR trades are deemed neutral and reliable when their coverage of the Society has been sparse.

The ODwyer Co. is not getting fair treatment from WP.

I attended at the beginning of 2011 an anniversary celebration of WP at New York University. I stayed for about two hours and met many Wikipedians including administrator David Goodman. I have invited him to come to our offices and see some of the documentation that we have.

WP says it does not carry documents but one of the links in the PRSA article is to the bylaws of the Society. That is an example of inconsistency and I could cite many more. For instance, it has removed a link to a legal opinion in which I was praised for reporting what Dean Rotbart had told the 1993 annual conference of PRSA. The link was number 57 and was to Current Legal Issues in Publishing. In the article, Jane Kirtley of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press praised the ODwyer Co. and me for establishing that reporters have the right to cover each other and anything that is given in a public place.

WP has removed two links favorable to me and the sources now add up to eight that are negative to me including seven that are linked and one positive one to me that is linked. I am losing 8-1.

I am hoping for fairness and justice from WP.

Cordially, Opjack271 (talk) 18:15, 26 November 2012 (UTC)Jack ODwyer

I have not read your entire "wall of text" and so am not commenting on the underlying complaint... but I got as far as: "But libraries can only send out single copies of something under strict rules. Only one copy must be in circulation." and had to comment. I am not sure where you get the idea that a library can only have one copy of a book in circulation, but it is not accurate. Just saying. Blueboar (talk) 18:27, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Jack, I'd like to point to our rules on editing with a conflict of interest, as well as our rules against using Wikipedia for promotion. Private office documents are not usable, because the need to be available to a majority of editors, and need to not lead to original research. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:33, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

In addition, I'd have to say it's hard to believe someone calling himself a reporter — a professional writer — cobbled together this rambling, disjointed, highly emotional rant. From what I can gather from this wall of text, he's most upset because the Wikipedia article doesn't praise him.

This person would be better off writing something clearer and more direct with specific, succinctly mentioned examples of things with which he has issue. And he should do it on the article's own talk page. --Tenebrae (talk) 18:35, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

That said... Jack, have you read our WP:BLP (Biographies of living people) and WP:NPOV (neutral point of view) policies... both (together) will help you to better understand what can and can not be said about you in an article. Blueboar (talk) 18:59, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Lets try again

Although I am the primary author of the PRSA article that O'Dwyer finds deplorable, I had offered to assist him in making a cogent and concise argument for his position.

His main premise is that the current section about his dispute with the PRSA portrays it as a "dispute" rather than a "journalist covering the news." The "dispute" portrayal is reflective of what is available in secondary sources, but he contests that those sources are O'Dwyer competitors. Additionally, many of the PR mags cited are "PR booster" publications with sympathetic viewpoints towards organizations like PRSA, especially since a large portion of their advertising revenues likely come from PRSA members.

I do not necessarily support this view, but I am making an effort to better articulate his viewpoint, so he can get a more meaningful response from other editors. Per WP:COI he has not been making any direct edits to the article and his identity is disclosed. Corporate 19:45, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi CM, that section does seem tricky just in terms of length (UNDUE), and I would say the photo caption is a BLP violation. Also, the section starts discussing O'Dwyer without explaining who he is or why he's being mentioned, except for the sentence in the lead, "The society has had a contentious relationship with journalist Jack O'Dwyer since the 1970s," which seems a little cryptic. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:53, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Revised based on Slim's feedback. Slim also said he'll take another look and see if he has more feedback based on the new version. Corporate 06:03, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Death of Savita Halappanavar and MEDRS

Can a doctor who is basing their opinion on newspaper reports, quoted in a newspaper, be cited as a reliable source for making a claim about whether or not a particular treatment would have resulted in a successful outcome? as this content used in this article Death of Savita Halappanavar -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:13, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

1. I don't think WP:MEDRS applies here, since the quote is not used to support objective health information, but it is only reported as a quote of a doctor, per se.
2. The edit seems to indicate clearly that the doctor bases his diagnosis on media reports only, so it's not misleading
3. Hindu.com seems quite a good RS for such a quote.
4. The question may be if the quote is effectively relevant to the article or not. But it is reasonably sourced, for sure. --Cyclopia^talk 19:17, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

WP:MEDRS says "Therefore, it is vital that the biomedical information in articles be based on reliable, third-party, published sources and accurately reflect current medical knowledge." claims that a particular treatment would or would not have had a particular effect seems to be clearly a biomedical claim. even if properly framed (and yes there is no real question about whether TOI is accurately quoting her opinion) as an opinion of someone who does not have actual information, that would also clearly seem to be a reliability issue. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:49, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

But it's not presented as accurate biomedical information, nor it is used to support some article claim. It's a quote. As a quote, it is reliably sourced. That is: if you want to say: "A newspaper reported that Doctor Quack said 'Goldfish cures diabetes'", it's perfectly fine. If you want to say "Goldfish cures diabetes (ref:Doctor Quack quote)" then it's not fine anymore. --Cyclopia^talk 22:09, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

User: TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom neglected to say that we are discussing this issue in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar#Medical_sources_required_for_medical_claims or to notify me and the other involved editors that he is bringing this to the RS Noticeboard.

Had he done so, you would have seen my argument on Talk, which I repeat:

I believe that this article contains viewpoints (opinions) from multiple WP:RS about whether the lack of abortion caused the death. Viewpoints don't have to be correct or medically accurate. Some of them will be wrong. Under WP:NPOV they merely must be supported by multiple WP:RS. That's the applicable guideline.

I would also point out that I have complained about TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom's edit warring at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:TheRedPenOfDoom_reported_by_User:Nbauman_.28Result:_.2 TheRedPenOfDoom seems to be forum-shopping. --Nbauman (talk) 21:31, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Film reviews at The 40 Year Old Virgin

Hi. Are either of the following sources reliable for the following contested statements at The 40-Year-Old Virgin. "The film was criticized by Harry Forbes of Catholic News Service for promoting "the false premise that there's something intrinsically wrong with an unmarried man being sexually inexperienced",[30] and by conservative columnist Cal Thomas for not being a "tribute to self-control or purity.[31]

Another editor has removed the entire paragraph with the following edit summary: "Removed irrelevant minority opinion on mainstream movie. This reference provides a skewed and partisan reflection on the film's reception." I can certainly understand the editors point, I'm just not sure what wiki policy says on including criticism from sources such as these. Freikorp (talk) 21:55, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

I think your question is misplaced here at the reliable sources noticeboard. The sources cited are indeed reliable sources for the individual opinions of Harry Forbes and Cal Thomas, but that's not the question you're asking. You're really asking about WP:UNDUE, which is part of Wikipedia's WP:NPOV policy. There is a separate neutral point of view noticeboard where a question like this would be best handled, but while we're here I'll give you my opinion for the same price: Removing the paragraph was a good edit and I support removing it. Here's why:

The Wikipedia WP:RULES call for reliable secondary sourcing. Secondary sourcing is important because we are supposed to leave the determination of what is or is not notable enough to comment on up to others, experts in their fields. The columns of individual commentators are primary sources for the opinions of those individuals. Ideally there should be some other independent reliable source that makes mention of Forbes and Thomas to show that their opinions hold weight and are noteworthy enough to include. The commentators that are in the article--Ebert & Roeper, Entertainment Weekly (Gleiberman) and Dargis (NY Times)--are nationally recognized and widely cited. You can prove this to yourself by, for example, searching Google News for and you get dozens (Gleiberman) to over 100 (Ebert, Dargis) results. If you do the same test with Cal Thomas you get zero results. Thomas isn't even in the business of reviewing movies, so it's hard to see how his opinion would be notable enough to include. On the other hand, Harry Forbes is a professional movie reviewer with mainstream news credentials. However, the same Google test shows no results either--I was actually surprised to find that. Without support in reliable sources to show the notability of the opinions of those individual commentators, I can't see a good argument for keeping them in the article.

Think of it this way: if a non-notable (according to generally-accepted reliable sources) Catholic commentator's opinion were allowed to stay, then why not the opinions of specialist Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist and Mormon commentators too, plus the opinions published by columnists hosted on the websites of Cat Fanciers, Bronies, the Flat Earth society, the Steamfitter's Union, etc.? We need to look to reliable secondary sources to determine whose opinions are notable. Hope this is helpful... Zad68 03:22, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

If an editor is challenging the significance of a review then its significance needs to be established. Do either Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic count it in their survey of reviews? You should probably raise the issue at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film, since this seems to be more a significance than a reliability issue. Betty Logan (talk) 03:32, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your help and advice. In the future I'll take issues like this to the places you two have suggested. Freikorp (talk) 04:13, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Good Morning America

Is Good Morning America a reliable source? I'm sure it must depend...but my memory from having seen GMA in the states is that it's not a serous news show--more of a series of human interest stories prone to editorializing and dramatizing. The specific article in question is [32], being used to verify the statement,

has been described as "the largest bat rescue center on the planet".

on Bat World Sanctuary. A COI editor has pointed out that this is very unlikely to be true, given the relatively small size of this location and a site that she claims is listed in Guineess as having 10,000 times more bats. Qwyrxian (talk) 22:27, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Your characterization of Good Morning America is accurate. However, GMA can be used to support that Bat World "has been described as" this or that, because "has been described as" is a very low bar--it means somebody said something once, whether or not it is true. Whether that is notable enough to include in an encyclopedia article is another question, to me it sounds like ad copy. Zad68 00:21, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

It does not sound like the sourcing is bad enough to justify deleting the material. There are many cases where a better source would be preferable.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:11, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

True...this seems to be more a matter of WP:WEIGHT than sourcing, since it is written essentially as a sourced opinion. The article's currently at AfD, so I'll wait and see what happens there and then bring up the matter if it survives. Qwyrxian (talk) 14:56, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

This is not from Good Morning America, which is an ABC show. This is from the CBS equivalent, The Early Show. All of the comments applied to GMA apply equally to TES, but I want to make sure that the actual source is discussed, not something similar from another network.

As for what's in the source, a read of the article seems to say that Bat World is different from others not because of the number of bats it houses, but because the bats are unable to feed themselves--they lack the ability to hunt insects like bats in the wild or are unable to fly. That is unusual, and having 120 bats who need to be hand-fed every day is not the same thing as the 300,000 bats who live on the University of Florida campus (http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/bats/facts.htm), who feed themselves every night, or of other sanctuaries where they house bats who are self-sufficient. Horologium (talk) 13:53, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

http://beforeitsnews.com/

http://beforeitsnews.com/about/ states:

Before It's News® is a community of individuals who report on what's going on around them, from all around the world.

Anyone can join.

Anyone can contribute.

Seems to be more an open wiki than anything else. The main plus is that they have an editorial policy http://beforeitsnews.com/editorial/ . I didn't see anything about the site in the archives. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:51, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Normally, a section on this noticeboard should state the article, proposed content and source so that the source can be evaluated in context, but this one is too obvious--it's WP:USERGENERATED and the content of any of its 'news' stories can't possibly be counted on as reliable sourcing to support any claimed statement of fact. Their "editorial policy" appears to be that other anonymous users vote up or down on stories. There is no 'reputation for fact-checking' here, and that is what Wikipedia requires. Zad68 03:34, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Sherry Chayat & The Shimano Archive

A dispute is going on at Talk:Sherry Chayat whether or not The Shimano Archive can be used as a reliable source.

1. Source: "An email exchange between Sherry Chayat and Jeff Shore". The Eido Roku, The Shimano Archives. Retrieved 2012-10-21.

2. Aricle: Sherry Chayat - see also Talk:Sherry Chayat

3. Content:

On August 20th, 2012, Sherry Chayat wrote to Jeff Shore, a Professor at Hanazono University, the Rinzai Zen university associated with the Rinzai head temple, Myoshin-ji, asking him to find out whether the rumors that her teacher, Eido Shimano, was not listed as a successor to Soen Nakagawa Roshi, were true. Professor Shore researched her question, and wrote to Ms. Chayat on October 6th, 2012, saying, "I have checked into it here in Japan. Eido Shimano is indeed not listed as a successor to Soen Nakagawa. I trust this answers your question." Professor Shore added, in response to another email from Ms. Chayat on October 7th, 2012, that, "If so, then you realize that there are no legitimate "successors" to Eido, and that their role as teachers of Rinzai Zen is null and void."

4. Additional info:

• The Shimano Archive started as the online publication of the Robert Aitken archive. Additional info has added by Kobutsu Malone:

  The first group of documents in the Eido Roku™ files became available on August 21, 2008 and they were distributed to a number of scholars, investigators, Zen clerics and students worldwide. These documents were a part of the Aitken Archives in the University of Hawai'i and have been authenticated by University archivist Lynn Ann Davis. With the permission of Aitken Rōdaishi, Kobutsu Malone published these Aiken-Shimano archives on the Internet in March 2010. Subsequently, many more documents have been added to the collection.(source: The Shimano Archive

• Kobutsu Malone has explained his reasons for publishing this archive:

SZ: Yeah, what has been your, let’s call it ethical approach, towards maintaining the Shimano archives? Do you strive for a level of neutrality in your work?
KM: I can tell you one thing, I have struggled mightily not to editorialize in the Archives. But it’s a failing in some respects, because, I mean I do choose what goes up there and what doesn’t, and you know, when you look at it, you know, there’s some snide comments here and there, and there are some unflattering photographs, and so on, and so forth. Yes…
But I try to minimize that, and, yet again, I also need to be able to speak somewhat freely; but I’ve tried to keep myself out of it. It’s a difficult balancing act because I’m so, so incredibly personally involved, and I, you know, I’ve been hurt through the damage that has been done to my family members, to myself, to my friends, to other students, and to people that I’ve witnessed over many, many years of damage that resulted from ‘Shimano-ism’ – the personality culture that he, uh, perpetuated. And I see it as incredibly damaging, and I think it’s done far more damage than it has good. I can unreservedly state: that I think Shimano has damaged far more people than he has, uh, assisted. Yes…
SZ: What’s your main concern in all this? Do you worry that he will reassert himself as a teacher somehow again, or be reinstalled again at Zen Studies Society ?
KM: I see that as a concrete possibility, yes.
SZ: What do you think the reaction would be to that?
KM: Well, given the reaction of the Buddhist community, I mean, everybody wants to be so, quote, “Buddhist,” unquote, that nobody’s going to stand up and say, “Hey, what the fuck is going on here?” I mean, the initial offering on the Shimano Archive was distributed to all three of the Buddhist glossies. I think it was distributed twice to individual magazines. And there was a deafening silence. No response. No one did anything. No one followed up on it. They ignored it.
SZ: So you feel they didn’t want to touch it?
KM: They didn’t want to touch it. It was handed, I handed it to the New York Times, and not just myself, but in the past others approached various publications and tried to expose the situation. One in particular was Robin Westen …
SZ: In the “Village Voice”, is that right?
KM: Well, I think there was another… I think ‘The New Yorker’ was approached, and I think, finally, it was the ‘Village Voice,’ and they were afraid of a lawsuit. And that was understandable, because basically, she was coming in with a very specific set of allegations; and the thing with specific allegations is that you can always deny them.
SZ: Sure. Especially if it happened years ago, you know?
KM: Yeah: “These are just allegations, these people are crazy, this is revenge, this is whatever, blah, blah, blah…” That can go on; but the one thing that I have managed to do with the Archive, and it wasn’t just Robert Aitken, his material was really the seed that started of the Archive; … on his suggestion that I go totally public with it, initially I had reservations, and people said “ Oh, you’re gonna get sued!”
And, you know, I pointed out ”Well, be that as it may, I have no assets.” You know, given my health situation, I live off a Social Security Disability check, and I have no savings, zero, nothing. I’ve got a few books and some tools, and my dog Harley and a fourteen-year-old car. What are you gonna do, take that away from me?
Um, actually, you can. But there are certain things you can sue people for…to file a lawsuit against somebody it’s got to be worth your while…
SZ: Sure. You have to have some validity to your case; otherwise, you might just end up paying the person you tried to sue.
KM: The thing is with Shimano and with the Zen Studies Society, given the amount of information that I had, and the fact that I made it public immediately pretty much, it was no longer just a set of allegations: it was a mountain of allegations. And, you know, allegation after allegation after allegation; and pretty soon, when you read it all, and you begin to get the picture and it comes through loud and clear. And that’s what’s happened with it; people have recognized the volume is just enormous! (source: Kobutsu Malone interview at SweepingZen)

• The Shimano Archive has been accepted and used as a source by Vladimir K., publisher of thezensite and Stuart Lachs, a well-known author on Zen, in an article on The Aitken-Shimano Letters.
• An extensive thread on this topic started at Zen Forum International started on 23 november 2012.
• 28 november 2010 Kobutsu Malone send a letter to Eizan Goto, abbot of Ryutaku-ji, to find answers to these same questions. Attached to the letter are Japanese lineage-charts.

Friendly regards, Joshua Jonathan (talk) 08:22, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to Joshua for opening a request here. I'm the admin who fully protected Sherry Chayat as the result of a complaint at WP:AN3, until such time as this matter can be resolved. The literal wording of WP:BLP seems to prevent us from taking information about Chayat or about Eido Shimano from a website that does not have a reliable publication process nor a reputation for fact checking and accuracy. The documents which are said to be emails would, if legitimate, show that Shimano was not properly designated in his Buddhist lineage by his own teacher. Shimano was a major figure in American Buddhism for some time, but was forced to resign from his post, as you can see from his article. One assumes that shimanoarchive.com is part of a desire to tell the tale about Shimano, but it has no named author or publisher and the ownership of the domain is hidden. Since the emails tell such a neat story and are obviously retyped in a nice format, I am concerned they may not be legitimate or may have been altered from their originals. I am setting aside the question of whether primary sources such as emails ought to be used per WP:PSTS, whether the site has copyright permission for the emails, and whether the emails were leaked inappropriately. If Shimano does in fact have a defective lineage, and if this is important, this fact ought to be available from a WP:Reliable source. EdJohnston (talk) 14:16, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree that the website is anonymous; it is maintained by Kobutsu Malone, as is stated at the website, and as he has stated himself in the interview published at sweepingZen. But I see the point of possible alterations (though personally I doubt that, but that's not relevant). Nevertheless, it is also clear that the concerns about Shimano's lineage have been raised before, and are a matter of concern to other dharma heirs of him, and a lot of Zen-practitioners, as well. I understand the Wikipedia-policies at this point, but I do find it unsatisfying that those policies may be interpreted in such a way that information which is widely available, and highly relevant, is prevented from being included at a Wikipedia-article. I'm not convinced yet it should be excluded - but I'm also not convinced that it should be included. So, I'm looking forward to other opinions. And I'm curious what more is goiing to happen with this information: is it just going to be confined to internet, or will it also be picked up by "real" publications? Best regards, Joshua Jonathan (talk) 14:51, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I think Ed is right. The site contains primary sources whose authenticity we can't always be sure of. The fact that these articles are BLP makes using the material even less of a good idea; a copyright issue may also arise. We would need to get the information from a reliably published secondary source. Andrew Dalby 14:58, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

WP:ABOUTSELF may apply here:

Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the self-published source requirement that they be published experts in the field, so long as:

1. the material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim;
2. it does not involve claims about third parties;
3. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source;
4. there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity;
5. the article is not based primarily on such sources.

Ad1: The question about Shimano's lineage is not exceptional; it has been raise before, and here-after.

Ad2: This is a complicated one: is it about Shimano in the first place, or about the consequences?

Ad3: No problem here.

Ad4: This is also complicated: what is reasonable? Considereing the email-exchange to be fake is not reasonable; asking if it is entirely unredacted is reasonable. So far, the Shimano-archives seem to be accepted by many people involved in American zen-Buddhism, including dharma-heirs of Shimano.

Ad5: The source is being used for one section, not the whole article.

Joshua Jonathan (talk) 15:08, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi, my two cents. As Kobutsu Malone says above, The New York Times reports this incident. It is surely a reliable source. -SusanLesch (talk) 15:54, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Regarding WP:ABOUTSELF. This does not apply, because this is not a website owned by Shimano, purporting to be his work, making claims about Shimano. This is somebody else making negative statements about Shimano. EdJohnston (talk) 15:57, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I was asked to weigh in, as a previous editor on the Shimano article I suppose. While I fought tooth and nail to simply have info from the New York Times on Shimano's misdeeds included, I would never have argued that the Shimano Archive is a valid source here - at least not primary. I think an argument could be made to include it in support of more valid sources. But that site was created for one reason only, by a highly disgruntled former student: nail Eido Shimano to the wall, shame him, get him fired, and leave him in disgrace. I happen to be generally sympathetic to those aims, but I would never consider that site to be a valid source here. Especially not some emails posted there. Furthermore, I would not consider Sweeping Zen reliable for news or verification, much less so Zen Forum Int'l. The former is a highly biased and unreliable site run by one not-very-knowledgable guy, the other is a chat room. Stuart Lachs at Zen Site is likewise sort of a crank.Tao2911 (talk) 16:49, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Shimano Archive is a reliable secondary source containing primary sources. Nothing impermissible about that - that is the very definition of a reliable source. Further, Malone is an established public figure in the Zen world. A website maintained by him is certainly a legitimate source of information. As far as him being disgruntled goes, nowhere does wikipedia require reliable sources to be unbiased or without any agenda. The argument against its inclusion--aside from the points that have already been shown to be untrue--seems to be based on the possibility that a reputable secondary source would fabricate primary sources, possibly criminally--and that is too far-fetched to prevail.Sylvain1972 (talk) 21:30, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Sylvain, where's the evidence that Shimano Archive is a "reliable secondary source"?

The evidence is that it is the publication of a respected and well-known public figure with stature in the Zen world.Sylvain1972 (talk) 17:40, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Shimanoarchive.com is simply a clearing house of random information devoid of any organization or sense compiled by Malone, who is not "highly respected" at all. In fact, he's something of the crazy uncle of the Zen world who people sort of tolerate at the holidays, but steer clear the rest of the time. Just look at it! Emails, chat forum posts, comments copied from article chat threads on other people's blogs... Used as a Wikipedia source? You've got to be kidding me.Tao2911 (talk) 22:02, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

It's good that the New York Times reports the events: that is a reliable secondary source. There may be an argument for listing Shimano Archive under external links. Doing so might raise BLP issues, but not reliable sources issues. Andrew Dalby 09:58, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

As it is now, I think there is no concensus on using the Shimano Archive, so I think it might be better not to use it as a source - though I find this unsatisfactory. Listing the Shimano Archive under "external links" might be an option, but then it should be clear why. It might be better to mention in the article that concerns are being raised about the "legitimacy" of Shimano's lineage. Since this is an issue at the moment, it will pop-up again anyway, so maybe we better wait until that moment, hoping there's a better source available by then. Joshua Jonathan (talk) 11:49, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

PS: thanks to everyone for responding! Joshua Jonathan (talk) 12:57, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

American Pie (song)

Hello all, my post is here regarding some of the links highlighted in the External links section of the above article here. I have added them here one by one.

• Adams, Cecil (May 15, 1993). "What is Don McLean's song "American Pie" all about?". The Straight Dope. Chicago Reader, Inc. Retrieved June 8, 2009.
• Roteman, Jeff (August 10, 2002). "Bob Dearborn's Original Analysis of Don McLean's 1971 Classic "American Pie"".
• Bob Dearborn's American Pie Analysis original broadcast February 28, 1972
• Fann, Jim. "Understanding American Pie".
• Full "See the USA in Your Chevrolet" lyrics for Dinah Shore on the "The Dinah Shore Chevy Show" (1956–1961).
• Kulawiec, Rich (August 26, 2001). "FAQ: The Annotated "American Pie"". Retrieved September 19, 2007. FAQ maintained by Rich Kulawiec, started in 1992 and essentially completed in 1997.
• "American Pie—A Rock Epic" A multi-media presentation of Rich Kulawiec's The Annotated "American Pie".
• Levitt, Saul. "The Ultimate American Pie Website".
• Levitt, Saul (May 26, 1971). "Interpretation of American Pie – analysis, news, Don McLean, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Rock & Roll". Missamericanpie.co.uk. Retrieved May 20, 2010.
• O'Brien, P. (March 3, 1999). "Understanding the lyrics of American Pie". The Octopus's Garden. Archived from the original on October 12, 2002. Retrieved September 19, 2007.

My question is that how reliable are these so called websites? They look like fan-sites with their varied interpretations of the song, so just asking my fellow editors to guide me in their reliability. Thanks —Indian:BIO · ^{[ ChitChat ]} 10:50, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

The Straight Dope would probably be OK, Cecil Adams is a regularly and widely published columnist answering people's odd questions - it would probably be better to incorporate into the article as a regular reference, though. the others as you suggest appear to be inappropriate fansites. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:00, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

• Since these are used as external links and not sources for writing the article, a slightly different set of criteria apply: WP:EXT. --Odie5533 (talk) 08:24, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your inputs TPoD and Odie5533. To the later user, I was wondering whether any of those sources in the EL could be incorporated in the article hence I had asked the question, not that whether they are valid ELS. :) —Indian:BIO · ^{[ ChitChat ]} 10:28, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia

Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia was a regional offshoot of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. The latter might be a decent source on non-political subjects, but in general it was a Soviet propaganda source. I would like to ask whether the sources like Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia or Azerbaijani Soviet Encyclopedia could be considered reliable in history related articles. ASE was used in many articles in en:wiki: [33] I feel that the use of this source in controversial articles about the history is not justified, and more recent and neutral propaganda free sources are preferable. I would appreciate opinions about this source. Grandmaster 20:53, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Just because a text has been used in an article does not mean that text has been used as a source. However—generalist encyclopaedia should not be used as sources in history articles as they fail to represent the account of history constructed by appropriate experts. Generalist encyclopaedia have a purpose other than the best representation possible of the current scholarly account, and do not employ as a matter of course persons who can appropriately represent the current scholarly account. See WP:HISTRS for the kinds of sources you should be using in history articles. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:14, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I would just like to mention that the editors of the Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia placed their primary emphasis on articles on Armenia and the Armenians. Most of the contributors in the field were prominent and internationally recognized scholars and thus the authoritative figures on topics relating to Armenia's history and culture. I wouldn't use the encyclopedia's article on the United States as a source on its counterpart on Wikipedia, but these guys were the head honchos of the topics they studied. A number of scholars outside Armenia have consulted and cited the encyclopedia as a reliable source numerous times in their studies.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 23:12, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

The example I typically give there is Kropotkin's article on Anarchism for EB. I would suggest going through an SPS evaluation (in your head, or on the Talk: page of the article) of expertise in relation to such articles by such persons. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:15, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Just wanted to add few things. Viktor Hambardzumyan, an internationally recognized scientist so is considered on the founders of the Astrophysics, was the Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia's head editor. Most of the historical articles were written, obviously, from the Armenian point of view and the modern history, especially the era concerning the First Republic of Armenia was mostly from the communist standpoint and was anti-Dashnak, but its reliability cannot be argued, in my opinion. --Երևանցի _{ասելիք կա՞} 01:47, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I think there's a contradiction in what you say, because you admit that the ASE's historical articles were written from the communist standpoint, but then you say that its reliability cannot be argued. Grandmaster 06:37, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia should be avoided only in cases when it criticized people and events that were considered anti-Soviet in action or spirit. It is, however, a top source for research on non-modern historical topics. It has been widely quoted internationally and edited by the top internationally-recognized scholars of the time. User Grandmaster who posted this dubious request has been trying to cast doubt and discredit good sources in order to open way to push Azerbaijani nationalist propaganda. His actions should be curbed as he is acting in bad faith. As for the Azerbaijani Soviet Encyclopedia, it should be avoided both as a source for modern and ancent historical information since it was edited and managed by the Soviet era's most infamous plagiarists and revisionists such as Ziya_Bunyadov#Critics, who were widely criticized in the West for egregious violations of academic ethics and racist attacks . Sprutt (talk) 02:05, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

ASE cannot be considered reliable for a number of reasons. First, it is tainted by Soviet propaganda. Second, it is quite outdated. There are dated sources that have not lost their value to this day, for example Vladimir Minorsky who is widely referred to in the international scholarly community, but ASE is not a source of similar international acclaim. Third, ASE authors like Bagrat Ulubabyan are criticized for promoting nationalist agenda by experts on nationalism such as Victor Schnirelmann. And it is very difficult for people outside of Armenia to verify what ASE actually says, since as far as I know it is available only in Armenian. Also, I find the personal attacks and bad faith assumptions by Sprutt to be in violation of a number of wiki rules. Please comment on content, not the contributor. Grandmaster 06:33, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

One more reason why Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia can't be used as reliable source: Anti-turkism was one of the directions of USSR propaganda and it is one of the directions of Armenian propaganda as well, therefore USSR supported all efforts of Armenians on this issue. Best, Konullu (talk) 07:48, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

The influence of Soviet propaganda is only seen in an article relating to the modern period (topics on the economy, the Cold War, the advent of Bolshevism in the Caucasus, etc.). What propaganda value can be attributed to a district belonging to a kingdom established two thousand years before the USSR was created? (Am I'm not talking here about Marxist interpretations of history and society). The ASE is found to be used in dozens of Western sources, as a Google search yields hundreds of results either as Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia or Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia. Third, the fact that some mild criticism at Ulubabyan does not condemn the rest of the contributors of the encyclopedia, many of whose works have been published in peer-reviewed journals. These include Aram Ter-Ghevondyan, Hrach Bartikyan, Karen Yuzbashyan, Suren Yeremyan, etc., with none of the opprobrium that has accompanied scholars from Azerbaijan.

So what is all this hoopla about if not simple disgruntlement that the history the world accepts as part of Armenia's history does not quite fit with narrative of lies and falsifications fabricated in Azerbaijan? And Konullu's comment deserves a huge "LOL".--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 17:30, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Shnirelman is quite critical of Yeremian's articles in ASE. He critically mentions at least 2 of Yeremian's articles in ASE, "Armenians" and "Greater Armenia". According to Schnirelman, Soviet propaganda forced all the ethnicities declare themselves to be autochthons in the areas they inhabited, and Armenian Soviet scholars were actively involved in this process as well. And that includes ancient history. Grandmaster 18:49, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

As demonstrated by Arsen Melik-Shahnazarov in his book, Schnirelman, who directed his criticism mainly against Azerbaijani pseudo-scientists, reluctantly extended his criticism to some Armenian scholars as well in order to fight accusations of one-sided analysis. As mentioned before, you can therefore safely discount Schnirelman's discussion of Armenian scholars as an awkward attempt at false balance. All this ASE thing is just one big bad faith hoopla. Sprutt (talk) 18:58, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

The opinion of an Armenian politolgist Arsen Melik-Shahnazarov is not sufficient to discount criticism of Schnirelman, who dedicated large chapters in his book to the criticism of the Armenian historical revisionism, substantial part of which related to Soviet times. Plus, Schnirelman is not alone. You can read about Armenian nationalist scholarship in the book by professor Philip Kohl, for instance: [34] Grandmaster 19:28, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

This is from an article by Ronald Suny, an ethnic Armenian US historian. He cannot be accused of anti-Armenian bias:

While from one angle historical writing in Soviet Armenia can be seen as part of a general marxisant narrative of progress upward from class and imperial oppression to socialist liberation, in the post‐Stalin years scholars promoted insistently national themes. Occasionally the regime would discipline the bolder voices, but Soviet Armenian historians waged an effective guerrilla war against denationalization of their history. The story of the republic of Armenia was told as a story of ethnic Armenians, with the Azerbaijanis and Kurds largely left out, just as the histories of neighboring republics were reproduced as narratives of the titular nationalities. Because the first “civilization” within the territory of the Soviet Union was considered to have been the Urartian, located in historic Armenia, the ancient roots of Armenian history were planted in the first millennium b.c. Urartian sites and objects of material culture were featured prominently in museums, and late in the Soviet period Erevantsis celebrated the 2700th anniversary of the founding of their city (originally the Urartian Erebuni or Arin Berd). Although the link between Urartu and Armenians took hold in the popular mind, most scholars believe Urartu to have been a distinct pre‐Armenian culture and language and, following Herodotus, argue that the original proto‐Armenians were probably a Thraco‐Phryian branch of the Indo‐European‐speaking tribes. Nevertheless, a revisionist school of historians in the 1980s proposed that, rather than being migrants into the region, Armenians were the aboriginal inhabitants, identified with the region Hayasa in northern Armenia. For them Armenians have lived continuously on the Armenian plateau since the fourth millennium b.c., and Urartu was an Armenian state. A rather esoteric controversy over ethnogenesis soon became a weapon in the cultural wars with Azerbaijan, as Azerbaijani scholars tried to establish a pre‐Turkic (earlier than the eleventh century) origin for their nation.

Ronald Grigor Suny. Constructing Primordialism: Old Histories for New Nations. The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 73, No. 4 (December 2001), pp. 862-896

Grandmaster 19:35, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Soviet Armenian scholars, Yeremyan especially, never claimed that Armenians were autochthons. Up until the late 1980s, they still adhered to the belief that Armenians had migrated to the Armenian Highlands during the second millennium B.C. (see vol. 1 of the History of the Armenian People series). It was only with the publication of Ivanov's and Gamkrelidze's book that there was a noticeable shift in thinking among the academic community, and this in the twilight years of the Soviet Union. Sprutt makes a good point in remarking that Schnirelman's "criticism" comes off as an attempt at false balance than any real, substantive condemnation of Armenian scholars, who having countless Armenian and non-Armenian primary sources on the Armenians during the ancient and medieval periods, never had any reason to exaggerate or distort history (barring one or two exceptions).

Suny was, by the way, trained as a scholar of the Soviet Union, not of Armenian history and culture. His works are not above reproach and have been criticized by more than a few scholars.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 19:42, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

And Yeremian wrote such works as "Проблема этногенеза армян в свете учения И.В. Сталина о языке // Изв. АН АрмССР. Сер. обществ, наук. 1951. N 6.". Translates as "Problem of ethnogenesis of Armenians in the light of the teaching of I.V.Stalin about the language". And you say that this author was free from communist influence while he tried to introduce it into ancient history? You might know that the communist ideology treated history as that of the class struggle. As for Suny, as a scholar of the Soviet Union he is well aware of what was going on in the historical science of the USSR. Again, Suny is not an ideal author either, but at least he is capable of impartial assessment of certain periods of Armenian history. Grandmaster 20:02, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Our discussion of course is after the Soviet state stopped micromanaging so heavily the interpretation of history, i.e., following Stalin's death. I don't have to mention the Japhetic theory, do I?

Again, this conversation is largely derivative. It spawned from the recent edits done on the Goghtn article, for which I have yet to see any significant objections to in the the sources consulted and cited.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 20:10, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Yeremian did claim that Armenians were autochthons. According to Schnirelman:

В своем подходе к этногенезу армянского народа Еремян исходил из автохтонистской концепции, начинал историю армян с Хайасы и доказывал, что их предки не имели никакого отношения к Фригии. С этой точки зрения, мушки не представляли для него никакой ценности, и он щедро отдавал их грузинам.

...

Иными словами, по концепции Еремяна, армяне являлись безусловными автохтонами на Армянском нагорье; они были носителями государственного начала с рубежа VII-VI вв. до н.э. и являлись как бы прямыми преемниками Урарту; к этому времени они ассимилировали все остальное население бывшего Урарту, которое перешло на армянский язык. Тем самым, формирование армянского народа и возникновение армянской государственности резко отодвигалось в глубь веков и предшествовало возникновению Персидской державы. С этой точки зрения, персы оказывались захватчиками, нарушившими естественный ход этнополитической истории армян. Положение улучшилось лишь во II в. до н.э., когда арменизация продолжилась, охватив Араратскую долину и более северные территории. Еремян настаивал на том, что к II - I вв. до н.э. процесс этногенеза завершился и сложилась Великая Армения с одним народом и одним языком (Еремян, 1951. С. 49-50).

Note that Yeremian made those claims before 1980s. Grandmaster 20:11, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I would have made this request regardless of Goghtn. We discussed ASE a lot at various articles, and never reached any consensus. This is why I want the community to express their opinion about this source. Grandmaster 20:15, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

What I see is that Grandmaster is reluctant to follow wiki rules and reach a consensus in Goghtn, and instead has decided to discredit an entire range of valuable sources in this post through demagoguery and needless hoopla. Sprutt (talk) 22:11, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Please mind WP:AGF and WP:NPA. This is a board for discussion of reliability of the sources. I have every right to ask the community opinion about questionable sources. Please comment on the subject, not the contributor. Grandmaster 07:14, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Use of Census-Designated Places as geographical authorities

Once again I've come up against the use of a CDP map as an authority for saying that some location is within a certain town. In this case, the claim is that the Howard County Public School System is located in Columbia, Maryland (see this edit for an example). The truth is that the board of education buildings sit on a state road just outside Columbia and are not part of the "new town" land (i.e., they aren't taken from land that the Rouse Company owned and applied it CA covenants to). The post office gives the offices an Ellicott City, Maryland zip code, which is equally misleading.

Howard County, Maryland has no incorporated areas, so truly definitive boundaries for any community are impossible—except in the case of Columbia, because its boundaries are generally bounded by what land the Columbia Association controls through covenants. The Columbia CDP is much larger than that area, and incorporates large areas which anyone who actually lives there never considered part of Columbia (e.g. they simply ignore the town of Clarksville, Maryland and assign all of that area to Columbia). This has led to a lot of implication, particularly in the article on the town itself, that various things are in the town of Columbia proper when they actually are not. All of the former Simpsonville, Maryland surroundings were given Columbia zip codes, but that area lies outside of and preexisted the new town. Clarksville is a somewhat distinct place with its own zip code.

CDPs are lines drawn for statistical collection convenience, because the census has to say that everyone is somewhere. They shouldn't be treated as if they were municipal boundaries. My parents' house appears, from the CDP maps, to lie in Scaggsville, Maryland, but that is incorrect; in fact as far back as I can recall there's never even been a post office for the town. The post office calls the area Laurel, Maryland although it lies outside that city's incorporated limits. I would like to see this use of the CDP maps deprecated. Mangoe (talk) 13:16, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

School of Advanced Military Studies use of PhD dissertation

In a recent A-Clase review, the article School of Advanced Military Studies was denied an A rating because of use of a PhD dissertation. The final comments in the discussion, which can found here, were:

I understand the concern about the citations from the 25-year history of the school. If those passages were replaced with similar (but probably not exactly the same) passages sourced from Kevin Benson's dissertation (the same author, but oversight by a dissertation committee from the University of Kansas), would that be acceptable as a source? --Airborne84 (talk) 07:11, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

No, as there's no getting around the problems with the former director of this institution writing a history of it (I'm surprised that the University of Kansas permitted him to write a PhD thesis on this topic). Nick-D (talk) 08:11, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

To me, that logic would seem to run against WP:SCHOLARSHIP which states "Completed dissertations or theses written as part of the requirements for a PhD, and which are publicly available, are considered publications by scholars and are routinely cited in footnotes. They have been vetted by the scholarly community", and "Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable."

I am trying to get a non-copyrighted version of the dissertation and upload it to wikisource so that the community can better judge the work. However, I wanted to start a discussion concerning the use of the dissertation in the article. I asked for a WP:GA review, so I am hoping to come to a consensus on the use of the dissertation and how that should effect the articles quality rating. Thanks. Casprings (talk) 21:20, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

As I understand that the issue is not that the source is not scholarly enough, but that is may have a conflict of interest regarding the subject. Whether such an conflict of interest matters depends on the particular context. As general rule of thumb: The more controversial or disputed a topic/piece of content is, the more important it becomes, that sources are from a reliable/reputable 3rd parties without a conflict of interest.

Another thing to consider, is that various reviews & rating processes might apply a higher set of standards than the one we ideally expect from normal articles and codify the our policies, which are the ideal minimal standards an article should adhere to.--Kmhkmh (talk) 21:37, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Rather that one of my comments being posted slightly out of context (I think), I'd suggest that other people read my full review and the comments left by other editors. My overall concern was that the article was highly sympathetic to this institution, and was largely referenced to works which were either published by the institution or written by people closely associated with it. Given that the source in question here was a history of the institution written by its former director, my concern was that it contained a significant conflict of interest which had probably contributed to the tone of the article (which other editors raised concerns about). As I noted in the above quote, I'm amazed that the university allowed the former head of the institution to submit a history of it as a PhD dissertation (particularly as the University of Kansas is a well regarded university). Nick-D (talk) 22:12, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I would agree with your overall concern, at least concerning the text of the article. I think a recent copy edit has reduced that a great deal. On the topic of the PhD dissertation, I am not surprised that the university of Kansas allowed that. Most committees judge the work, not ones connection or lack of connection to the subject of the work. Casprings (talk)

The general topic isn't that controversial. SOme aspects, war planning for the Iraqi war for example, might be controversial. Casprings (talk) 22:42, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn

Good day, I hope this is the right place to ask, but I would like to verify whether YouTube videos of this old TV show (posted by apparently anonymous individuals and not an official broadcaster's account) can be: 1) citations for a table of episode casting and 2) listed as a channel listing in the External Links section? Most of these videos are of entire episodes of the show. I was of the opinion that such is a copyright violation (regardless of the fact that the copyright owner has clearly not taken efforts to enforce their copyright)? I'm sorry if this has been asked/resolved before; I was unable to find any policy that directly speaks to this. DP76764 (Talk) 21:33, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

You're right: these are copyright violations (almost certainly) and for that and other reasons we should not cite copies of TV shows found on YouTube. I am sure this has been discussed before. I haven't looked back, but I don't believe there was any serious opposition to this conclusion. Andrew Dalby 14:30, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Are Frontpage Magazine and Steven Plaut reliable sources on Bolshevik

On the article Bolshevik, two editors (one subsequently blocked as a sock of the persistent Runtshit vandal) have repeatedly to the lead added a questionable assertion, sourced to an article by Steven Plaut in Frontpage Magazine. The assertion is "Some authors have claimed that Bolshevism was actually a theology", subsequently amended to "Some authors have claimed that Bolshevism had strong features of theology"; the source cited states "Bolshevik thinking in the early days carried strong features of theology" There are several problems with this. In the first place, the source does not actually described Bolshevism as "an ideology"; rather that, in the early days, it "carried strong features of theology". Second, this is not "some authors", but one highly conservative and notoriously POV polemicist (Steven Plaut). Frontpage Magazine has been discussed several times on this board, and the consensus has been that it is not reliable, and certainly not withpout attribution. Eg: "On the simplest possible grounds FrontPageMag.com fails the WP:RS test. It's self-published & it's making an exceptional claim while being an "extremist" source (extremist in WP:RS's terms)"; "FrontPage magazine is essentially one big editorial that pushes a conservative political agenda"; "FrontPage is never reliable for news purposes. Some of its columnists may, if they are established experts in a given field, be useful for analysis or commentary. As a whole, FrontPage may be useful sometimes for criticisms or commentary, but given its highly dubious reputation I would recommend a "ten-foot pole" rule, ie, don't report lurid details or uncorroborated allegations, and certainly not about living people.". To my considerable surprise, Plaut himself has never been discussed here, though there have been several discussions about use of his opinions at WP:BLPN, where the consensus appears to be not to use him: "Plaut appears to have a reputation as an extremist and a defamer."; "Judging by the articles by Steven Plaut turned up by a Google search, it's hard to believe that any publication with aspirations to be a mainstream reliable source would, approvingly, publish any of his politically-oriented work. It's very difficult to see any reason why his opinions on anything apart from himself should be quoted in Wikipedia.".

My question is, should we allow the inclusion in this article of such an extraordinary claim, linked to a highly unreliable source which does not even support the claim? RolandR (talk) 12:13, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

RolandR, "Some authors have claimed that Bolshevism was actually a theology" is an extraordinary claim for you personally since you are a self-declared Marxist. As an article by me and Steven Plaut was published on the FrontPage Magazine, I cannot impartially argue about its reliability. As for keeping the claim in the article, more sources can be found to support the claim. Anna Geifman, a leading Historian of Russia, has a whole chapter in her book Death Orders: The Vanguard of Modern Terrorism in Revolutionary Russia about how Marxism is actually a pagan theology. I will cite the book after I find it in my university's library. Nataev (talk) 17:39, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't know what the hell you're talking about, except that your first sentence is an inappropriate ad-hominem characterization that should be struck-out or removed. 24.177.121.29 (talk) 17:46, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I didn't understand you: if consensus appeared not to use this source, what is the reason to return to this issue again? Just delete this source, and if someone will try to re-insert it, go to AN/I.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:55, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

ISM and Palestinian News Agency as source on Israeli settler violence

Is it not blatantly obvious that the International Solidarity Movement and the Palestinian News Agency aren't reliable for claims of fact regarding occurrences of vandalism in the West Bank? See, for example, this press release, which is currently citation #48 in said article.

24.177.121.29 (talk) 17:42, 1 December 2012 (UTC)