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Kabali (film) and List of highest-grossing Indian films

Hey all, I'm having some ongoing problems at both Kabali (film) and List of highest-grossing Indian films. Breifly, Indian films are very popular in India, but they're also very prone to promoters bloating box office financials, and Wikipedia often gets caught in the middle of these promotional campaigns. List of highest-grossing Indian films was fully protected because a bunch of editors, including auto-confirmed ones who had suddenly come out of retirement, kept changing the box office values to reflect the box office figures a producer, (a primary source) was reporting a few days after the Tamil-language film Kabali was released. The producer claimed the film had grossed 3.2 billion (320 "crore") rupees. No amount of discussion on the talk page was making a difference. Same at Kabali (film), although to a lesser degree.

With that wave of disruption mostly over, a new disruption arose after Financial Express, which is generally considered a reliable source, made claims that the film has grossed 650 crore and higher. However International Business Times, which is also generally considered reliable, has outright called these high estimates "fake", noting that they include income unrelated to the film's box office take. IBT places the more reasonable estimates at 309-350 crore (3.09-3.5 billion rupees) as has First Post, which has said, "More conservative estimates put Kabali’s collections at around Rs 300 crores from worldwide ticket sales." This is obviously less than the 320 crore that the producer was reporting a few days into the film's run.

This talk page comment of mine is a bit of an obnoxious read in response to an IP user's demand for a detailed explanation, but I think it clearly explains the various issues. If anyone is willing to comment at either that discussion, or at Talk:Kabali (film), or at both, that would be appreciated. Or just to add these pages to their watchlists to help address some of the questions would be helpful too. Thanks! Cyphoidbomb (talk) 02:42, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi, the 309-350 crore figure is currently outdated and we now have multiple sources pointing the Domestic collection as "Rs 211 Crore" and International Collection at "Rs 259 Crore", which brings the world wide theater collections at atleast 470 Crores. . Yes, Tamil Nadu government has a cap on ticket sales at Rs 120 per ticket hence the domestic is lesser than the international. Indiatimes, The Financial Express, BoxOfficeCollection-India, Galaxy Reporter and Bollywood Box Office Collection. So i think we can move on from Rs 350 Crore to Rs 470 Crore until a more updated figure is available. Thanks. --Pearll's Sun^TALK 03:45, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

pearll's sun - And I don't think we can, since the values that were put out by Financial Express drew skepticism by Firstpost and IBT. They didn't just question the values, they criticized the lack of research behind the values. If other members of the media are criticizing a publication for not doing research, why would you assume that the rest of their report would be factual? When you can find values from established reliable sources that do not originate from Financial Express, then perhaps we can move ahead. But for days now you've been citing the same problematic references, or (as above) citing publications that are referring to these problematic references. As for your inclusion of galaxyreporter and boxofficecollection.in, no dice on those as far as sourcing goes. I'm not even going to look at them. I know from past experiences that these are faceless blogs, which fails WP:UGC. You seem to be a real hurry to update the box office data using the most questionable sources out there, and that is problematic. I've explained several times at Talk:List of highest-grossing Indian films that we have no deadline, but you seem to keep conveniently ignoring it. You also seem to have ignored my points that Indian cinema articles are prone to corrupt inflations. If you were interested in academic integrity, now would be the time to demonstrate that, rather than deciding of your own accord that now's the time to fluff up the disputed box office values. I'm perfectly fine with the compromise of removing the box office data for Kabali entirely from that article and from Kabali (film) until multiple sources report independently of Financial Express what the gross values are, but somehow I strongly doubt you're interested in a compromise. As noted, the only thing we know for sure is that the film has crossed 350 crore. We do not know for sure if the 470 crore estimates are close to what the rest of the film analysts think. I'm proposing caution and circumspection with time determining what value should be used, you're proposing we rush to publish what one periodical thinks, apparently with no regard for whether or not we'd be republishing bullshit marketing hype. Yours is not the sound position. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 04:28, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Cyphoidbomb. Perfect, Why publish a wrong figure or publish a disputed/inflated one? Removing the box office data entirely from the article claiming it to be "disputed" sounds like the best way to keep off false figures from the article. Also when we check google, it seems to reflect wiki and shows a wrong value. But on the "Highest Grossing Indian Films", can we say its around 350 - 470 Crore or 350 - 650 Crore and call it disputed?. Let's not fix a value by ourselves. Thanks. --Pearll's Sun^TALK 04:37, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

I would remove the gross from List of highest-grossing Indian films and from the Infobox at Kabali, with the latter maybe pointing to a relevant section in the article that discusses the disparity, maybe with "Disputed, see Box office". An option for the former article might be to present the gross in the form of a range as I previously did, and as you suggested above, but to flag it as disputed with {{disputed inline}}, linking to a relevant discussion on the talk page (see template instructions). I don't have time to do this now, so if you want to handle both, I'll trust your judgement. Whatever you do, you might want to link to this discussion in your edit summary. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 06:01, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

• I'm a bit biased but when real reliable sources say that the 600 and above range is complete rubbish and anonymous blogs are cited as the exact kind of thing that the reliable sources consider quoting the rubbish, using the anonymous blogs as evidence for a mid-level claim. I'd rather keep a week-old citation and then we can figure out whether or not than a poorly sourced recent one. As noted, our policy is that badly sourced information is worse than no information at all and being conservative is better than claiming things like "this moves from the 14th highest Indian film gross of all time to 6th" and possibly retracting that entire claim. This is no small claim. Just to make sure it's clear, a number that is literally tens of millions of dollars more as we are moving from 350 crore (about $52.6 million) to 470 crore ($70.6 million). A difference of 120 crore which is equivalent to $18 million or basically what the third US box office results were in their entirety this weekend. I know one huge problem is that the Indian film task force has not really analyzed these websites (in part because a new one seems to pop up every few months) and we tend to take the "accept it unless evidence is to the contrary" approach instead of WP:BURDEN the reverse. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:05, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Ricky81682, thanks for your comments. IBT's latest from 9 August 2016 is casting some shade on some of the broken record claims. They also wrote: ""Kabali" has collected more than Rs. 300 crore at the global box office in 17 days and its current pace shows it will not be able to surpass the Rs. 500 crore mark in its life time." It's somewhat noteworthy that the milestone they mention is 300 crore, not 400 crore. Though I have no evidence to support it, the Financial Express pieces read more like press releases than articles. Knowing that the Kabali producer was claiming 320 crore gross a few days into release, which was not supported by independent sources, it would not surprise me if his people had flooded Financial Express with a puff piece and they reprinted it without fact-checking, which is kinda what IBT suggested when they mocked the unnamed publication for printing claims of up to 675 crore. Needless to say, other sources hungrily reprinted the nonsensical claims without any effort of fact-checking, because hey, it brings in clicks. In the discussion above with pearll's sun I recommended presenting the data in the form of a range. It's one way to go and I would typically endorse that for minor disputes, but I really don't know how much Financial Express can be trusted on this. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 19:28, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Cyphoidbomb Yes, IBT says it has collected over 200 Crores in India. But again we need to see which are the most trustable sources. For me all the popular Indian news media are a trustable source and IBT is new one as only post Kabali reports i learned about this news agency.

1: India Times - 1 week back - 211 Cr Domestic + 259 Cr Overseas = 470-500 Cr Overall. 2: FilmiBeat - 2 dys back - 211 Cr Domestic + 259 Cr Overseas = 470-500 Cr Overall. 3: India Today - Film producer claims film earned 320 Cr in 6 dys in Tamilnadu there is a Cap on ticket sales at Rs 120 whereas [1] and theaters sold the tickets at 10 times the price which does not happen otherwise in TN which is illegal, now the question is if the quoted price from IBT could be at Rs 120 per ticket and Producers claim could be the other one. 4: Financial Times - 1 week back - 211 Cr Domestic + 259 Cr Overseas = 470-500 Cr Overall 5: Domestic collection at over 200 Crore - BoxOfficeCollection-India And we have 6: IBT that keeps publishing same collection report for past 1 week.

Now which one to choose? I too second in Ricky81682 comment that "badly sourced information is worse than no information at all". Do we have any option (an e.g. from any article) to place a value such as "350 Cr to 700 Cr" with a tag "Disputed"? or simply remove the value and place "Disputed - See Box Office report within article"? --Pearll's Sun^TALK 14:15, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

IBT is not a "new" source. It's been around for years and is widely considered reliable by the Indian cinema task force at Wikipedia. Per your points:

1. The India Times reference you keep bringing up cites Financial Times as the source of the info. That's not an independent confirmation, so it doesn't count as an additional source. It is not constructive to keep bringing it up as though it were a unique source reporting its unique findings.
2. There's also no indication that Filmibeat is considered a reliable source by the WP:ICTF. On the contrary, the community appears to dislike Filmibeat/Oneindia as a reference.
3. The Indiatoday source you bring up cites the producer as the source of the financials. We don't use primary sources for controversial data. Obviously the producer has a financial interest in inflating the box office claims. I don't know exactly what point you're trying to make about the ticket scalping, but why would it matter if we're going to discount what the producer claims anyway?
4. Yes, we are aware of the Financial Express claim.
5. There's no indication that Boxofficecollection.in is anything more than a blog, or that it is in any way considered a reliable source by WP:ICTF. Useless for our purposes.
6. Yes, we are aware of IBT's adherence to a value <400 crore. Does it occur to you that this is because IBT doesn't believe the film crossed 400 crore? Like here where they mention crossing 300 crore, but not 400 crore?

Your suggestion that we list the top-end estimate at 700 crore is ludicrous. You couldn't possibly believe that 700 crore is a reasonable top end, since not even the poorest of the sources you've provided has claimed that Kabali grossed 700 crore at the box office. I genuinely don't understand your reluctance to wait a couple of weeks until the chaos subsides. It is not inaccurate to say definitively that the film crossed 350 crore. What is inaccurate is to say definitively that the film crossed 400 and 500 crore. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:56, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

700 Crore is just a figure and can mean anything the sources claim it to be. So instead of focusing on the "700" i think we should see if we can either place two figures and call them disputed or remove the outdated 350 Crore claim by IBT (unless wiki clearly specifies IBT to be only reliable source).

1. If IBT is widely considered reliable, does all other popular news including "Financial Times" and "India Times" considered un-reliable?
2. Is IBT the only reliable resource of wiki?
3. For me IBT and other sources such as "Financial Times", "NDTV", "India Times" and other popular press media seems same unless wiki specifies a list of most reliable sources.
4. I'm now so glad that google has finally removed the 350 Crore figure from its search sourced from wiki and placed "5.7 billion INR (570 Crores... no idea if this is right or wrong yet they seem to have an updated figure)". Hope wiki too finds an acceptable solution for such issues.

Thanks. --Pearll's Sun^TALK 14:24, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Cyphoidbomb Also i want to know why we have to keep waiting (its also a waste of time which drains valuable efforts which can beneficial to other wiki articles) for some estimate to surface when we have an option to either place two figures and call them disputed or remove the entire figure from the box office zone and point to "Box office" section within the article. Even if we never have a sharp value even after two weeks or two months, this arrangement should suffice as calling the box office collection "Disputed" forever can work as we at wiki aren't in the job of placing our own assessments (if done can easily go one sided) when such a huge difference is being projected.

Also i wish to reiterate Ricky81682 lines here "Our policy is that badly sourced information is worse than no information at all" and i thing we are exactly doing what we dont want to "publish a badly sourced and outdated info". Thanks. --Pearll's Sun^TALK 01:13, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

1. Please stop asking me about India Times, it's getting irritating. I explained it very clearly the last time, and I've probably explained this to you three times already in various ways at different discussions: If a site simply reprints what another site says, that's not an independent verification. That's just a reprint. If fifty reliable newspapers reprint a producer's quote that the film made ₹NNN crore, does the fifty reprints mean that we have fifty unique sources that endorse the information? No, it means we have one source that made a claim, the producer, and fifty sources that blindly reprinted the claim. Please meditate on this response, because it'll be the last time I give it.
2. No.
3. Okay, and?
4. Okay, and? Google's business is Google's business.
5. The articles have remained relatively stable for the last week or so, so I'm not sure what grand waste of time you're complaining about, especially when I'm the one who has invested the most time dealing with the fallout. If the disruptions continue in the next few days, that would be a very odd coincidence. If we remove all mention of Kabali's gross from either the List of highest-grossing Indian films or Kabali (film), I think there will be a greater disruption than there has been already. So if you're concerned about wasting editors' time, it seems that maintaining the status quo has been the best approach. Adding the range in this case seems like it would just serve to promote the film. As I have previously said, we know that the film made ₹350 crore. It is not inaccurate to say that it has grossed that much. When reliable sources decide to sack up and start publishing their own analyses of the gross, then we can increase the figure. And since I wind up saying the same over and over to you anyway, I'll say it again: we know that the film made ₹350 crore. It is not inaccurate to say that it has grossed that much. When reliable sources decide to sack up and start publishing their own analyses of the gross, then we can increase the figure. Not sure why that's a sticking point for you. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 07:49, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

• I still say go with the reliable source. The two sources that actually acknowledges the complete BS being posted and giving a mid-range number I'll trust 100X over someone just parroting the big giant number that hasn't been repeated. We've been at this for over a week and other than a scattershot of anonymous blogs or sources citing nothing or perhaps citing those blogs, we have a stable number that says this is the 12th highest grossing Indian film ever as opposed to sources that would put this in the top 5 or even 2nd highest film ever which would have a hell of a lot more press if people believed that. I'm more curious why we cite BoxOfficeIndia so much when Kabali isn't listed (or it may just be Hindi-related). I'd rather wait until the year end and see what the actual end results are than care about weekly box office guesses. -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ricky81682 (talk • contribs) 08:27, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Ricky81682, thanks for clarifying your position. BOI isn't always a great choice because in my experience it seems they lose interest in tracking box office figures sometimes. Occasionally their values will go static while other sources' figures are unfolding. I don't know, maybe they're actually good and they know when the income starts to dry up, so they stop updating the gross because it's not worth the effort. Whereas the other sources are just repeating what the producers are saying. Who knows. But there are other issues to, like that their URLs sometimes become dead links over time, which requires us to dig up archives. Also, they don't publish dates in their box office breakdowns, so you never know exactly when that figure was relevant. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 07:55, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Cyphoidbomb Ignoring the BOI issue, the problem here is that the entire encyclopedia is supposed to have a single consistent WP:NPOV. For us to report a 700 crore box office result puts Kabali at literally the second highest grossing Indian film of all time and thus we should adjust the wording at Baahubali: The Beginning as no longer second and Sultan and Dhoom 3 and on and on based on what I assume are going to be actually consistent statements that match these rankings. Otherwise, to put it in US-Canadian non-inflation film rankings, it would be like arguing about whether we should rank Shrek 2 above Avatar when sources explicitly state that the producers of Shrek 2 are giving out completely nonsensical figures rather than wait more than a week to get consistently stable figures. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:34, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Ricky81682 I found this DNA article from 27 July 2016 it predates the other sources, I think, but it speaks very loudly to the questions that have been raised, and while they're talking specifically about box office inflations made early on, it indicates very clearly that there was an active campaign to inflate figures to lure people to see what they consider to be a sub-standard film.

Rajinikanth’s Kabali reportedly collected a record Rs 250 crore on its first day. An industry source says these figures are grossly inflated ... But everyone seems to have bought the lies. Often, the producers send out inflated figures and the media carries it without checking the facts ... One doesn’t know where these inflated figures of Rs 250 crore have come from. Who’s going to check the box-office figures in India? That is why producers give out such inflated numbers. The film has no chance of sustaining as it’s a very bad, amateurishly-made film

— DNA

Given that these opinions come from a few different analysts, they comprise more voices articulating that the bloated figures shouldn't be blindly swallowed. If the campaigners are desperate at the start of a marketing blitz, they're surely desperate at the end of their marketing blitz. This is allegedly the second highest-grossing Indian film of all time, but none of the major news sources have said anything of substance about this film in the last two weeks. That's also telling. It's the biggest movie that the media forgot. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 07:59, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Is TalkOrigins a reliable source for science topic?

There is an ongoing discussion on Macroevolution page whether TalkOrigins can be used as a reliable source for a scientific article. (It is cited in multiple locations in the article.)

To recap, even TalkOrigins themselves admit to the lack of scientific reliability:

• http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/welcome.html

"How do I know the contents of this archive are reliable?"

Visitors to the archive should be aware that essays and FAQs appearing in the archive have generally not undergone a rigorous peer review procedure by scientific experts. Rather, they have been commented on and critiqued by the readership of the talk.origins newsgroup. While many of the participants in talk.origins are well regarded scientists, this informal procedure is not as demanding as the process a scientist goes through to publish a paper in a scientific journal. It is important to keep this fact in mind when reading the contents of this archive. Because most of the essays have not undergone rigorous peer review, some of them may contain errors or misstatements of fact.

• http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html

Isn't the Talk.Origins Archive just some website that has no particular credibility? Those FAQs and essays aren't peer-reviewed, and many are written by interested laymen rather than specialists, so they can be ignored, right?

We encourage readers not to take our word on the issues, but rather to look at the primary literature and evaluate the evidence. While materials on the Archive have not necessarily been subjected to formal peer-review, many have been subjected to several cycles of commentary in the newsgroup prior to being added to the Archive.

Even they acknowledge that their contents may contain errors or misstatements of fact because they had not undergone a rigorous peer review procedure by scientific experts. Furthermore, they themselves encourage readers not to take our word on the issues, but rather to look at the primary literature.

I propose that TalkOrigins lacks scientific reliability and neutrality to be used as a reliable source. Could you advise please?

69.75.54.130 (talk) 20:17, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

http://www.talkorigins.org/ is a curated repository of essays and papers on the topic of evolution or the evolution/creation debate, written by biologists and scientists, for the public. It seems that the site is cited four times at our page for Macroevolution:

• First, to document that evolution is ongoing and speciation has been witnessed by scientists today. This essay is a peer-reviewed article from The American Naturalist also held at talkorigins.

• Second and third, to note that evolution is both a theory and fact.

• Fourth, to note that scientist define macroevolution as "any change at the species level or above."

talkorigins is neither an ideal (e.g. textbook) nor a wholly uncredible source. Because it is being used to source uncontested statements of fact I would recommend the citations not be removed, but instead replaced with better sources. I would invite the IP to engage in this work for their own sake and ours if they want to improve Macroevolution. -Darouet (talk) 20:47, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Darouet, your argument that "evolution is both a theory and fact" is an uncontested statement of fact, is inaccurate. There are many scientists who contest against regarding evolution as both a theory and fact.

http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/ResBot/EvSy/PDF/Fitzhugh%202007%20-%20Zoologica%20Scripta.pdf

‘Evolution’ cannot be both a theory and a fact. Theories are concepts stating cause–effect relations. Regardless of one’s certainty as to the utility of a theory to provide understanding, it would be epistemically incorrect to assert any theory as also being a fact. ... An emphasis on associating ‘evolution’ with ‘fact’ presents the misguided connotation that science seeks certainty. Acknowledging that the statement, ‘evolution is a fact’, is an incorrect assertion has the benefit of focusing our attention back on the goal of science

I do agree with you that the references to TalkOrigins should be replaced with the better sources.

69.75.54.130 (talk) 21:24, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

(an aside) "Evolution" has several distinct meanings and connotations. That species adapt genetically over time is not mere theory - it is observable fact, evidenced by mapping of genomes. That entirely different groups of animals have a specific single common ancestor is still "theory" as unless or until a specific reasonable lineage is shown, it is speculation, and there may be several distinctly different ancestors for different species, or even several different lineages for what is now a single species. As we do not have proof of any positions, there are a bunch of differing "theories of evolution" in that sense. The DNA evidence that many humans have significant Neanderthal DNA is one of the more recent surprises in that area. Collect (talk) 13:47, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not the place to conduct a battle over evolution. -Darouet (talk) 21:37, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• Short answer: Yes. Talkorigins is, generally speaking a good enough source, though if a better source exists for a claim, use that.

Long answer: First, talkorigins is not the source of most claims cited to it. Rather, some paper which caught the attention of the users of talkorigin and managed to impress the credentialed users and staff sufficienty is generally the source. In that case, we can link to the talkorigins copy, but we cite the original publication. Additionally, if you think there are problems with the theory of evolution, such as your insistence that it cannot be both a theory and a fact, you have absolutely no business editing any articles on evolution. This is not only common sense (you don't see the majority of liberal editors editing Donald Trump), but a matter of wikipedia policy. Pushing an anti-evolutionary agenda here is a sure-fire way to wind up topic banned or indef blocked. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:52, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Darouet, That is why TalkOrigins should be removed. According to them, the main purpose of TalkOrigins is to address creationism/evolution controversy. Let's not bring the controversy to Wikipedia.

 

MjolnirPants, You should follow the PDF link to find out whom I have quoted saying, "‘Evolution’ cannot be both a theory and a fact."

You just accused Kirk J. Fitzhugh of "pushing an anti-evolutionary agenda" just because he explained how a scientific theory can never become a fact.

Here is [another] from National Science Teachers Association:

I have heard too many scientists claim that evolution is a fact, often in retort to the claim that it is just a theory. Evolution isn’t a fact.

And that is one of reasons why TalkOrigins should not be used as a reliable source. It causes Wikipedia to lose neutrality, and makes people like yourself to think even legitimate scientists are anti-evolutionary simply because they spoke science.

69.75.54.130 (talk) 22:32, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Off topic

Here are the US National Academies speaking upon "theory or fact". Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:38, 11 August 2016 (UTC) And Here is National Center for Science Education refuting such misconception. Misconception 2 "Theories become facts when they are well supported and/or proven." The second statement implies that theories become facts, in some sort of linear progression. In science, theories never become facts. (Please read the aforementioned Dr. Fitzhugh's article who explains it more clearly.) The fact of the matter is that the original argument made by Darouet that "evolution is both a theory and fact" is an uncontested statement of fact, is inaccurate because clearly, there are many scientists who contest it. There are plenty of legitimate scientists who find the such argument false, not because of some religious reason, but because the such argument goes against the philosophy of science itself. 69.75.54.130 (talk) 00:18, 12 August 2016 (UTC) That's already made clear at Evolution as fact and theory#Evolution as theory and fact in the literature. No need to repeat the same stuff all over the place. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:09, 12 August 2016 (UTC) Thank you for providing the link to the article discussing evolution and its relationship to theory and fact. Now, please ask yourself - if someone asserts that "evolution is both a theory and fact" is uncontested, without mentioning other disagreeing viewpoints, is that person being neutral? Furthermore, the disagreeing viewpoint gets automatically labeled as "anti-evolutionary agenda." Is that a neutral position? Is Wikipedia neutral? 69.75.54.130 (talk) 01:19, 12 August 2016 (UTC) There is an article about difference between evolution as fact and evolution as theory at [2]. Its gist is in this Dobzhansky quote: "Let me try to make crystal clear what is established beyond reasonable doubt, and what needs further study, about evolution. Evolution as a process that has always gone on in the history of the earth can be doubted only by those who are ignorant of the evidence or are resistant to evidence, owing to emotional blocks or to plain bigotry. By contrast, the mechanisms that bring evolution about certainly need study and clarification. There are no alternatives to evolution as history that can withstand critical examination. Yet we are constantly learning new and important facts about evolutionary mechanisms." So, most reliable sources seem to consider evolution either fact, or theory, or fact and theory. The germane neutrality requirement is WP:UNDUE, which recommends using sources proportionally to their adherence (majority view/minority view). Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:51, 12 August 2016 (UTC) Neutrality in this case rests with scientific consensus. It is our job to build an encyclopedia of human knowledge, not teach basic biology to every creationist who decides they want to edit. -Darouet (talk) 02:51, 12 August 2016 (UTC) @69.75.54.130: You have completely misrepresented what I said. Let me try to spell it out: If you (the IP editor who made a good enough argument once to change my mind about something else) push an anti-evolutionary agenda here on WP, you will almost certainly end up on the receiving end of a topic ban or an indefinite block. I have not accused anyone of pushing that agenda, I have instead, warned you (not the author of the paper) not to. If you never intended to, then that's just awesome. I'm happy to hear it, but I'm completely flabbergasted by your arguments here. As far as the paper, yes I read it. Do you know what it is? It's a jumbled mess of conflated jargon and semantics. It's pure pedantry. It's using precise language and arguments to debate the accuracy of vague terms and simple logic. It is a near-total misunderstanding of the differences in language between scientists and lay people. It's the scientist equivalent of a literary critic interpreting the phrase "He had a black heart." as a Freudian slip exposing an author's subconscious racism against people of African ancestry. It argues against the accuracy of a common idiom based on the presuppositions that 'evolution' is meaningless except as the definite article denoting a specific scientific theory, cannot be used in any tense except as a definite article, that the word 'fact' has only one meaning, a very specific one that just happens to be the meaning it has in the author's professional jargon, that (for some unfathomably ridiculous reason) everyone who's ever heard this idiom will not only be aware of the single specific meaning he permits each key word to hold in his musings, but will agree that those are the only possible meanings as well. In short, it's nothing more than a brilliant answer to the question "Why do some people think science is extremely boring?" For all that he makes a good argument in the specific context his letter (not peer-reviewed paper, mind, but a letter to the editor), it is one that does not account for the double entente inherent in the phrase, and thus the actual meaning of it. For all intents and purposes, the phrase means "The massive preponderance of evidence points to the theory of evolution, notwithstanding our admittedly limited understanding of it, as the most accurate explanation for the current diversity of life on earth." or possibly "Evolution actually happened." if one can wrap one's head around using 'evolution' to refer to the sequence of events predicted by the theory of evolution. You might notice "Evolution is both a fact and theory." to be catchier and easier to remember. tl;dr: While you are technically correct, "Wikipedia is written in plain terms and concepts that can be understood by any literate reader of Wikipedia without any knowledge in the given field..." and thus this jargon-fueled argument fails to find traction here, except as it has been documented to have been made by notable persons. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 03:24, 12 August 2016 (UTC) @Darouet, Please provide your source that says that there exists a scientific consensus to regard evolution as both a theory and fact. And no, Dr Fitzhugh is not a creationist. He is the curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, who has published numerous biology papers. As so, it is not necessary for you to teach him basic biology; since you're a student, you should learn from him instead. Also, National Center for Science Education is not a creationist organization either. Neither is National Science Teachers Association. @MjolnirPants, Here is what you wrote in your warning: "if you think there are problems with the theory of evolution, such as your insistence that it cannot be both a theory and a fact, ... Pushing an anti-evolutionary agenda here is ..." For you, "insistence that it cannot be both a theory and a fact" somehow equated to having "problems with the theory of evolution" and you would take it as "pushing an anti-evolutionary agenda". Thus, the warning wasn't just addressed to me; it was addressed to anyone who would insist that it cannot be both a theory and a fact. That is why I've shown you how there exist many legitimate evolutionary scientists who do insist so, also. Well, from the fact that you now backpedal, it looks like you've realized your mistake; so, I am going to let it go, although a simple mea culpa would have won you more respect. It is unfortunate to hear you disparaging Dr Fitzhugh's writing by putting it down as being "a jumbled mess of conflated jargon and semantics" and "pure pedantry." Dr Fitzhugh is a prominent scientist who specializes on the philosophical foundations of evolutionary theory. I am curious, and I apologize for being blunt, but what is your credential to criticize the expert in evolutionary theory? Thank you for acknowledging that I am technically correct. It is my hope that we all strive to make Wikipedia a scientifically reliable and neutral source of information. 69.75.54.130 (talk) 16:50, 12 August 2016 (UTC) This is no longer a discussion about the reliability of talkorigins: we should move further discussion about facts and theories to Talk:Macroevolution. -Darouet (talk) 17:03, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

I am sorry, but I would like to hear from a couple of more neutral people regarding the reliability of TalkOrigins.

Again, even TalkOrigins acknowledge that their contents may contain errors or misstatements of fact because they had not undergone a rigorous peer review procedure by scientific experts. Furthermore, they themselves encourage readers not to take our word on the issues, but rather to look at the primary literature.

For example, here is one of their erroneous articles written by a scientist and cites many primary literature, but it wouldn't pass a peer review, although it would fool the general public. The article claims that there were 1,000 times more ocean water back on the early Earth, and then uses this absurd figure in his calculation to support his claim. Also, the article grossly misstates the primary literature by claiming "a staggering 2.5 x 10^112 sequences are efficent ligases" and uses this erroneous figure in his calculation to support his claim (the actual value in the cited source is 2.5 x 10^12.) The article has more errors, but these are just a couple that I still remember on top of my head.

These are type of incorrect calculations that even scientists would not easily recognize. No wonder TalkOrigins puts up a disclaimer to warn the readers not to take their word on the issues, but rather to look at the primary literature. I understand that they have good articles, too. But, the bad articles are also written by scientists and cite primary literature. How are the general public supposed to tell them apart? I have no problem Wikipedia citing the primary literature used by TalkOrigins, but TalkOrigins themselves should not be considered a reliable source.

69.75.54.130 (talk) 20:01, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

The example you post looks like a simple typo, and given the responses so far, it's unlikely that there'll be a blanket proscription against talkorigins. People here like to know specific contexts, which are often relevant to reliability. If your specific content concern is about Evolution as fact and theory, we have a whole article about that topic. -Darouet (talk) 20:10, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

If those figures were not used in his calculations, then you can claim it to be a simple typo. It is not a simple typo when the author uses the erroneous figures in calculations, then uses the erroneous outcomes to back up his claim. Furthermore, I am not even going to get into other errors (not typo) in his article. I had challenged the author long ago, but he has never responded. I think it's because there are many other people who found many other errors in his article, too. The article is unreliable, period. And TalkOrigins posting such unreliable articles should not be considered a reliable source either; simply putting up a disclaimer that we as the readers should check the primary literature does not exonerate their sloppy publishing practice. I don't worry about checking primary literature when I read an article in normal science journals. But, with TalkOrigins, I don't take them at face value. Is this how low Wikipedia wishes to lower the standards of reliable source?

69.75.54.130 (talk) 20:46, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

@69.75.54.130:Thus, the warning wasn't just addressed to me; I just erased the sarcastic response I typed up first because this thread is getting sidetracked. Suffice it to say, telling another editor what they really meant is never a very polite or particularly intelligent thing to do. I know you're an intelligent person, so please try to stick to intelligent commentary.

Also, let me offer you some advice: Just let this thread sit. People will continue to read it, and if they feel the need to add to it, they will. But the longer it gets, the less likely new people are to join it. I've hatted the off topic discussion, which should help shorten the thread up quite a bit. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:57, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

@MjolnirPants, Thank you for steering the thread back to the original topic and hiding the off topic discussion. And I'm sorry for the whole warning business; let's start over. I'll listen to your advice and wait for others to chime in. Have a great weekend!

69.75.54.130 (talk) 22:35, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

As far as I can see, all the cites to TalkOrigins are to essays by established experts on biology and evolution; therefore, even if we consider TalkOrigins a personal website (which I'm not sure is correct), they still fall under the exception in WP:SPS for work "produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." In fact, it seems like almost a textbook case of that clause, and I would not be at all surprised if it was one of the specific examples people had in mind when that clause was written. --Aquillion (talk) 02:28, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

@Aquillion,

Open Journal of Geology is a peer-reviewed scientific journal and it is reputably ISI-indexed. Yet, it cannot be cited by Wikipedia simply because its parent publishing company (which owns 250 different journals) happens to be deemed predatory. There is not a single shred of evidence that Open Journal of Geology had ever published a scientifically inaccurate article. But, because of its mere association with the parent publisher, it is deemed unreliable by Wikipedia.

On the other hand, TalkOrigins is neither peer-reviewed nor a scientific journal, which even they admit. I even pointed out an error-riddled article that they had published. Yet, TalkOrigins is reliable, while Open Journal of Geology is not???

69.75.54.130 (talk) 20:16, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

@69.75.54.130: We've gone around on this before; Journals from predatory publishers are considered highly suspect, but papers published within them are to be judged on their own merits. If there's enough evidence that the paper is a reliable source we can use it. If there's no evidence of reliability, then the only thing we know is that this paper was published by a company that isn't rigorous enough to trust. This was the linchpin of our argument on the James Ossuary: Until you made the case to me, and showed me how the paper you cited had been presented to a wider audience of experts without any backlash, and that it was written by respected experts in the field, the only information I had to go on was the publisher, who is highly suspect.

Also, you seem to be hung up on sources, but while we often make generalizations about sources, sources aren't the focus in these discussions. Claims are. If the source is reliable for the particular claim it is used to support, then we can use it. So if we needed a citation on the sentence "the sky is blue," I could go to any tin-foil-hatted, lizard-people-run-the-government, Bob-Barker-controls-my-brain-with-television-signals conspiracy theory website that happens to mention the sky is blue and cite that. It'd be fine. So we can't use a physicist's peer-reviewed, widely cited paper on some minutiae of PET scans to support a claim that PET scans are medically useful. However, we can use some doctor's off-the-cuff comment on his or her personal blog somewhere for it. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:38, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

If what you've said is true about "papers published within them are to be judged on their own merits", then how come the editor removed the journal reference from James Ossuary and labeled it as "unusable as a source"? Perhaps, it is true to you, but certainly not true to other editors of Wikipedia; also, you'd be fine with citing an unreliable source based on a claim, but not to other editors of Wikipedia.

69.75.54.130 (talk) 23:16, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, that editor was me, and I just (explicitly) answered your question in the comment you asked that question in response to. See This was the linchpin of our argument on the James Ossuary: Until you made the case to me, and showed me how the paper you cited had been presented to a wider audience of experts without any backlash, and that it was written by respected experts in the field, the only information I had to go on was the publisher, who is highly suspect. I strongly suggest you read a comment in it's entirety before you respond in the future (even if it's a bit long-winded, as mine tend to be). If there's a way to sum it up in one or two sentences, I'll add a tl;dr note at the top or bottom. Otherwise, you kinda have to read the whole thing to know what I'm saying. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 02:10, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

That editor is not you. I have written twice that my comment was about "other editors".

Look at the history page of James Ossuary and you will see that an editor named David Eppstein was the one who had removed the reference to Open Journal of Geology.

69.75.54.130 (talk) 17:54, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

I must have missed that. Still. The addition was done with consensus, so go revert him and direct him to the talk page in the edit summary. It's more productive than complaining about it here, and asking me to explain why he did it. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:02, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

You're missing the point. The point is that there are always other editors (most of them actually) who disagree with your interpretation. They would automatically reject Open Journal of Geology (peer-reviewed; science journal; no erroneous article found), yet they would automatically accept TalkOrigins (not peer-reviewed; not science journal; erroneous article found).

And you bring up a good point -- you've said that you would accept a citation from even an unreliable source based on a well-established Claims, e.g. "the sky is blue." Think about that for a minute: if the claim is indeed well-established, then certainly there are many truly reliable sources other than TalkOrigins that can be cited. But, if the claim cannot be found in other reliable sources, but is found only on TalkOrigins, then from deduction, the claim is not well-established, but the claim is unique only to TalkOrigins. Thus, Wikipedia should cite other truly reliable sources instead of TalkOrigins for a well-established claim.

69.75.54.130 (talk) 18:05, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

The point is that there are always other editors (most of them actually) who disagree with your interpretation. You asked me to explain why the other editor did that, if I was correct. I can't explain why he did that. You should ask him. But as to why me might have done that? Maybe he didn't read the talk page. Maybe if you point him to the talk page, he'll change his mind. You won't know until you find out. So maybe try finding out instead of trumpeting this as proving me wrong somehow. Even if he doesn't change his mind, the fact that he disagrees with me doesn't make me wrong. I've got another editor right now going around saying I 'forbade' him from arguing with me in a comment in which I said I'd "...be happy to continue arguing with [him]". I've seen editors say that it's not against policy to cite a conspiracy theory blog to claim the government is mind controlling people with television signals. I've seen editors argue that the bible is a reliable source for historical claims. None of those editors were even slightly right. It could be that this guy is just plain wrong. Or, as I already mentioned, maybe all he knows about that source is that it's published by a predatory journal. Or possibly me and he simply assign different weights to the evidence. Your evidence was enough to convince me. Maybe it's just not enough for him. There's certainly no policy that says we must remove any source published by a predatory journal.

if the claim is indeed well-established, then certainly there are many truly reliable sources other than TalkOrigins that can be cited. While that's a good heuristic that should be used frequently here, it's also a well known logical fallacy that doesn't work for dismissing any use of a given source. Frankly, if a source is 'good enough', then, while we can use it, we hopefully do so only temporarily, until someone finds a better source. But we can still use it. As I've pointed out once before: the reliability of a source depends on the claim. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:45, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

@MjolnirPants,

I am okay with your approach to cite whichever source as long as it is done with neutrality. However, realistically, the other editors won't follow your practice. So, let's hear from other editors here: do you agree with MjolnirPants that any source can be cited, e.g. creationist website, pro-life website, etc.?

69.75.54.130 (talk) 19:45, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Do not put words in my mouth. I never said "any source can be cited, e.g. creationist website, pro-life website, etc." full stop. I put an extremely important qualifier there and you leaving it out is highly misleading. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:01, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

• Comment: There is too much noise in the above discussion and I didn't wade through it all. TalkOrigins is not taking responsibility for the accuracy of the articles. So the articles have the status of WP:SPS. However, WP:SPS tells you: Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. So, if it is an article by a reliable scholar, treat it as reliable (but with caution). Otherwise, don't. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:08, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

@MjolnirPants,

I apologize if you thought that I was putting words in your mouth; I was simply being succinct. Anyone can read your qualifier on the previous comments and would have known what I've meant.

@Kautilya3,

Thank you for your input. WP:SPS description sounds reasonable. However, there are two wordings that would still create disagreements, and I would appreciate if you could clarify those wordings: "by an established expert on the subject matter" and "relevant field".

• Who qualifies as "an established expert on the subject matter"?
  • I have a science degree; I publish paper on a reliable science journal. Nevertheless I wouldn't consider myself to be an established expert on the subject matter, although I possess deeper scientific understanding than non-scientists. Is there a list of criteria that Wikipedia would consider someone to be an established expert on the subject matter?

• Please confirm that applying this requirement on Macroevolution would render this and this citations unreliable because we cannot even determine the authors' credentials -- there is too little information about John Wilkins and Joseph Boxhorn on the cited sources to track them down on the internet.

 

• Who determines what "relevant field" is?
  • For example, on this thread, I've presented Kirk J. Fitzhugh as an established expert on the subject matter who had stated that "‘Evolution’ cannot be both a theory and a fact."

(I have also provided additional supporting citations by National Science Teachers Association and National Center for Science Education to back up Dr Fitzhugh's writing.)

But, a certain editor (who does not hold the science degree as far as I know -- please correct this if inaccurate) quickly disregarded Dr Fitzhugh by saying that his writing was "a jumbled mess of conflated jargon and semantics. It's pure pedantry." Furthermore, he said, "The author's credentials as a scientist do not make him an authority on logic and rhetoric. I am every bit as qualified as (in not slightly more qualified than) he is to speak on the subject as he."

Thus, apparently according to that editor, even an established biologist who specializes in the philosophical foundations of evolutionary theory is not qualified to give his professional statement that "‘Evolution’ cannot be both a theory and a fact" because Dr Fitzhugh's evolutionary biology background is not relevant field.

So, who gets to decide what "relevant field" is?

• Using that editor's logic, one might say that this citation is unreliable because the author, Laurence Moran, is a biologist, and thus not an expert in the relevant field.

P.S.

WP:SPS also states: "Questionable sources are those that have a poor reputation for checking the facts, lack meaningful editorial oversight, or have an apparent conflict of interest".

TalkOrigins, by their own account, does not check facts and lack meaningful peer review; moreover, the website is mostly dedicated to the evolution/creation controversy from a mainstream scientific (evolutionist) perspective -- which introduces a conflict of interest on an evolution/creation topic.

69.75.54.130 (talk) 18:20, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

IP, Fitzhugh was writing about semantics, not about evolution. He's not an established expert on semantics. I've already explained to you what issue your sources take with the phrase "evolution is a theory and a fact", how they are correct in their analysis, and how they still fail to get the point of the phrase. I've even explained why. You keep presenting these links as if they argue against the assertion that evolution almost certainly happened, but none of them actually do that. They take issue with the semantics of the term because, in the jargon they speak, the term isn't accurate. Furthermore, It's a well-known (but poorly defined) norm here not to cite any expert on views that diverge from the established consensus. So we don't cite Lee Smolin for how gravity works, even though he's a well respected, established physicist. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:34, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

@MjolnirPants,

I would like to stay focused on the topic instead of chasing after your straw man, but nevertheless, I am curious -- so, please allow me to ask you for the same evidence that I had asked another editor: please cite a reputable source that states that there exists a consensus that evolution is a fact.

I can cite you a reputable source that clearly states that there exists a consensus on climate change, but I have never seen a consensus on evolution being a fact -- though I see many scientists supporting evolution as being a theory, and disagreeing on it being a fact.

69.75.54.130 (talk) 20:20, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, first off: You're apparently a creationist. So don't expect me to entertain your pedantry any longer. I have no patience for debating such an incredibly obvious fact with someone who will take the word of a bronze-age priest over that of all of modern science and never entertain the notion that maybe that bronze-age priest was writing metaphorically. But, in the interest of integrity, here's a few that I dug up in about ten seconds of googling:

• The National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine,
• the National Center for Science Education,
• Just about every other scientific body who's ever dealt with the issue
• And a metric crap-ton of scientists named Steve.

So basically, take your creationist crap elsewhere: It's not wanted here. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:51, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

@MjolnirPants,

• As expected, you cannot cite a single source to back up your false claim. I have looked at all your cited sources and none of them claims that there existing a consensus on evolution being a fact. What you fail to understand is that scientists agreeing on the theory of evolution (= consensus) does not equate to the same scientists agreeing to a theory being treated as a fact (= not consensus).

This is not a matter of evolution vs creationism; this is a matter of the philosophical foundation of science. That is why even Dr Fitzhugh (who opposes creationism) rejects the theory of evolution being treated as a fact.

• It's ironic that one of your cited source is National Center for Science Education. That is the very source that I have cited and it states:

Misconception 2 "Theories become facts when they are well supported and/or proven."

The second statement implies that theories become facts, in some sort of linear progression. In science, theories never become facts.

It is very unfortunate that you cannot take a neutral position. You think I am a madman because you're content looking at shadows on the cave wall.

69.75.54.130 (talk) 21:26, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

IP, you've never given any indication you're truly interested in the semantic issue of "fact" vs "theory:" to do that you would need to make it obvious you don't doubt the reality of evolution (of which "Macroevolution" is a part) in nature. As I wrote a long time ago, Wikipedia is not the place to waste people's time arguing about evolution, and this "fact/theory" discussion looks like a WP:TROJAN Horse. -Darouet (talk) 05:13, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

• Unreliable - an article appearing there does not mean that it is coming from any credentialed, reliable source, and some of the material on the site is erroneous due to a lack of carefully reading the reliable sources that it does cite. Claims cited from Talk.Origins would need verification elsewhere. PraiseTheShroom (talk) 17:18, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Reliability of psychohistorians

How mainstream is the theories of Psychohistory? How reliable are writings of psychohistorians on the matters of history? Эйхер (talk) 12:25, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

After a few minutes on Google I don't see any sign of anything that I'd regard as academically rigorous. Richard Keatinge (talk) 18:33, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Do such claims, in turn, represent mainstream perception of Psychohistory? Эйхер (talk) 15:03, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

It seems oversimplified and concentrates on the more amusingly batty ideas, but I'd guess that it does indeed represent mainstream perception of Psychohistory. In short, I'd regard psychohistorians are reliable on their own ideas but not on external reality. Richard Keatinge (talk) 18:33, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I. e. it's WP:FRINGE, isn't it? Эйхер (talk) 19:42, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Lifton and Gay are certainly respectable; this isn't a fringe disciple so much as one with broad, ill-defined overlap with fringe ideas. Anmccaff (talk) 20:04, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I'd also add that the wiki articles seem centered on Lloyd de Mause, and de Mause is, IMO, quite fringy. Anmccaff (talk) 07:14, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

But why then a special report, prepared by a governmental scientific body ostensibly for the purposes of developing governmental policies, cite de Mause as an authority on a children-related history topic? The report is used here. Эйхер (talk) 11:12, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Here is one more seemingly serious work citing de Mause in the very beginning. Эйхер (talk) 13:46, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

• Psychohistory and DeMause are decidedly fringe, both in history, anthropology and psychology. Given that he believes that child abuse is the most important factor in human development and history - he may have some clout specifically in the field of child abuse studies - I would not recommend citing him outside of that specific context. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:41, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

And inside that Specific context? Эйхер (talk) 15:33, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

More specifically, are those parts of this report that cite de Mause for the reference (and, in my opinion, distort even his questionable view) are a reliable source for the statements in the end of this paragraph, given the context, in which these statements are put? Эйхер (talk) 15:49, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

I think the report is a sufficiently reliable source for those specific statements, which do not strike me as particularly controversial. Since those are more about generl cultural history and not dependent on deMause's specific views I think they are ok.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:29, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Individual statements, perhaps, are not particularly controversial. But I suspect, that they are misleading in relation to the context. Эйхер (talk) 18:38, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

But then it is not really about reliability (of the report, or of deMause) but about its usefulness in the specific context. To me this sounds like something that is better solved through discussoin at the talkpage, I dont think the sentences can be rejected on grounds of demause's (un)reliability - since it is not citing deMause but the report, and since it is not sounidng the more problematic aspects of demause's work.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 19:41, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

It is about reliability of the report. In the report these statements are used in the same (or at least similar) context as in the article. The problem is that it appears to me that the authors of the report tend to construe these facts along the lines of de Mause's "childhood-hystory-is-a-nightmare" concept but in a more awkward way. Эйхер (talk) 18:11, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

• Just a note: Governments have passed legislation and taken action on the advice of phrenologists, eugenicists, anti-vaxxers, creationists, conspiracy theorists and flat-earthers. A government body taking something seriously, whether that government be of a superpower, a developed nation or a third-world nation, does not, in any way lend credence to it. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:27, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Can you give an example of a recent nation-wide legislation made on advice of, say, creationists? Эйхер (talk) 17:03, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

The Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act, passed by the Louisiana legislature in the early 1980's. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:21, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

This is not nation-wide, and, given the title, is more likely to be made rather in consideration of rights of than on advice. But it's, of course, off topic. I understand Your point. But the questioned report is made not only for governmental purpose but by a government-funded scientific body. I believe, even the said state of Louisiana does not support a creationist institution with taxpayer's money. That somewhat perplexes me. Эйхер (talk) 17:36, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

tl;dr: This particular argument of yours is extremely flawed, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're wrong, just that you may want to pursue a different tact.

Long version: You offered up the report as evidence of the veracity of this subject, reasoning that if a government funded scientific body took it serious, that lends credence. The example I provided illustrated my counter argument (that your argument was, essentially a No true Scotsman fallacy). I understand that it didn't meet the specific criteria you asked for, but it didn't need to in order to illustrate my point. I'm not opining on whether this is a valid theory or not, I'm just pointing out that your position is not well-served by that particular line of reasoning, as it's likely to be quickly refuted by others.

And yes, there are pseudoscientific organizations who are primarily funded by the government. The Discovery institute (a creationist think tank) has a number of local government contracts to analyze traffic patterns and act as an intermediary between municipalities in streamlining the transportation infrastructure. Does that have anything to do with creationism? Not on the surface, though their position on intelligent design is one that relies heavily on the study and analysis of systems, which is extremely closely related in scope (systems sciences) to their traffic work. It's worth noting that their study of systems science is necessarily flawed in order to support their views on intelligent design, and those flaws would almost certainly influence their traffic work unless the two divisions are kept strictly apart. In truth, there are several different ways you could use your argument, and I could respond to each of them with an example of pseudoscience being used in a role similar enough to refute the argument. It's not anything wrong with you or even your overall position, just flaws in that particular argument.

In all honestly, I'm not trying to argue with you so much as I am trying to 'referee' this discussion. (I'm not an admin, just a disinterested third party.) In short, my arguing against you thus far is more a form of "that's not gonna work, I'd suggest you try a different tact," advice than a ideological opposition to your position. Indeed, I can see a lot of utility to a psychologically-based study of history (and I appreciate the Asimov connection, though I'm aware it's really not the same thing). Whether this field is pseudoscientific or not really depends on the approach practitioners have taken, and I know little or nothing about that approach. Therefore, I have no dog in this fight.

Sorry for the long post. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 01:59, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

The bottom line is that the governmental support does not signify scientific reliability. Эйхер (talk) 18:11, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Exactly. It's better to establish reliability by pointing to its use by independent scholars. For example, if you can find some reputable historians who cite psychohistory papers, that would be a better line of debate. If you find enough, then by definition (as far as Wikipedia is concerned), your job is done. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:17, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

I rather suspect unreliability. Эйхер (talk) 19:02, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

• Anyone other than Hari Seldon, I'm not buying it. Guy (Help!) 22:06, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Joking aside, a look at Identity's architect : a biography of Erik H. Erikson would give a useful picture of the issues, and the split btween more doctrinaire (which, in this case, IMO, is often a code word for "loopy") ideas and the GUPH. Anmccaff (talk) 03:27, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

In short, I would like to know your opinion on whether the "Childhood-was-a-sheer-nightmare-before-XIX-century" viewpoint is mainstream. And more specifically, whether it is a mainstream scientific viewpoint that "bloody christian never do bother about children's well-being because their bloody religion hates children in general" Эйхер (talk) 07:26, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Non-peer-reviewed academic papers

Is an academic dissertation (published independently, not in a peer-reviewed journal or anything) considered a reliable source? The source that provoked this question is this “dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy” from the University of Helsinki. It wasn’t self-published, but to me it feels a step removed from using some student’s test answers as a source for the tested subject. Or is that just me? Could just be me. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 02:36, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

What proposition is it cited for? An institutionally-published Ph.D thesis can probably be cited for some things but not for others. Neutrality^talk 02:39, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

It’s actually published by a law firm (Published by Turre Publishing, a division of Turre Legal Ltd.), not the university. But it was printed in the university, if that matters. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 02:50, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

This is tenable only if the dissertation has been sufficiently cited by other academics in the field as having an impact, much as we evaluate journal papers by their citations and impact. Also it doesn't really matter who ran the printing press; rather that the dissertation (presumably) was vetted through the university's academic regulations. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:12, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

@Shock Brigade Harvester Boris: Thanks! How would one go about checking whether it’s been sufficiently cited? —67.14.236.50 (talk) 03:38, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Google Scholar does an OK-ish job with things like this. See here. GS says 72 cites, which even given the limitations of GS implies that it's made a reasonable though not groundbreaking impact. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:56, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

The relevant guideline is WP:SCHOLARSHIP. PhD theses are generally regarded as reliable sources. StAnselm (talk) 03:24, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I missed that section! —67.14.236.50 (talk) 03:38, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

You probably missed it because it doesn't exactly say what StAnselm claimed. WP:SCHOLARSHIP makes clear that Ph.D. theses are dubious sources—not "generally reliable" ones—and warns that "care should be exercised" in their use. Boris is entirely correct: the guideline emphasizes that if we cite theses, we should favor theses that "have been cited in the literature; supervised by recognized specialists in the field; or reviewed by third parties". Do any of these apply to the thesis in question? MastCell ^Talk 03:52, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

As shock said, it has 72 cites in Google scholar. I would accept it as a reliable source but like all reliable sources that depends on what it is used for. TFD (talk) 07:55, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Doctoral theses which have been accepted by a known institution have been "vetted" by "third parties." If they are cited by others, that makes them usable on Wikipedia, as it is easier to get an "article" cited by many others than to have a thesis cited by many others. At the 72 cite level, the thesis appears to be "noted". Cavils here appear ill-placed. Collect (talk) 12:57, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Collect is correct. A Doctoral thesis generally has to be defended against criticism by a panel of experts. This is why they're useful to us. The reason we are cautious about using them is that they are generally required to be novel and to make a contribution to the field; two things that mean the contents, by definition, do not represent scholarly consensus. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:37, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

In such a case, the source is at least as trustworthy as a source vetted by a journalistic editor. Peer review is a higher standard of sourcing that is available in academic contexts, but that doesn't mean academic sources are only acceptable if peer-reviewed. We can certainly still use academic sources that are only as verifiable as a typical news article or general press non-fiction. Coursework at a lower level than a final dissertation is not sufficiently vetted. Rhoark (talk) 15:01, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

I'd have agreed, but then Judith Wilyman was awarded a PhD for a fantastical rant about the global conspiracy to push vaccines because Big Pharma wake up sheeple. Guy (Help!) 22:05, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

@JzG: This begs further research. Let me just—oh, that was quick. Hm. Yeah, I think we need higher standards than “accepted by a university.” —67.14.236.50 (talk) 22:47, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Most journal articles present novel arguments and are intended to make a novel contribution. That is why they are written and published. But that does not diminish their reliability. Good articles accurately present all the relevant facts and fairly describe the scholarly consensus that they might argue against. TFD (talk) 19:36, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Anyway, as far as this initial question goes, the University of Helsinki certainly qualifies as a "known institution". StAnselm (talk) 04:18, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

WP:SCHOLARSHIP is pretty clear that dissertations generally aren't reliable. We might give slightly more credence to a PHD dissertation over a Master's thesis, but in both cases, they do not undergo true peer-review. Both are usually reviewed by a student's committee, but in many cases the advisor has the final say. Even with the committee, there can be a vested interest to get the student out with their degree as long as the work is good enough. It's actually a relatively common occurrence to have dissertation chapters submitted to journals rejected due to quality issues (had a few of these review requests cross my desk in the last months). This is all why we generally consider peer-review at a journal the minimum standard in cases like this. If a dissertation's work has not been published in a journal yet, that's a red flag. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:36, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Is it, in many disciplines (e.g. History and Law) it is not common to publish chapters of Theses in journals. In many countries that do not follow the anglo-saxon publish or perish culture, publishing anything from a thesis is often uncommon.

Yes, I prefer peer-reviewed sources over PhD theses; and as an academic reliable source I would frown upon a PhD thesis. On the other hand, as argued above, we do accept newspaper reports as reliable, and those are also not subjected to independent peer review. So in that light I do not think we should write off PhD theses altogether. Arnoutf (talk) 17:29, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

The reliability of a Ph.D. thesis also possibly depends on the country of origin. Here in the UK (and Australia) the thesis will have been examined by the advisor, and usually an external advisor (several in France), who will be experts in their field. It is, in effect, peer reviewed. I believe that in some Scandanavian countries a Ph.D. can be obtained by collecting together a series of research publications in which the candidate has worked, but I am not sure about any peer review process of the thesis itself. DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:03, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Sources and reliability?

I need some help with some sources at an AfD, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MacGyver the Lizard. I'm not asking for anyone to vote - that's not why I'm posting here. What I'm concerned about is that the sourcing is ultimately too weak to establish notability for this animal on social media. The non-primary sources in the article are either from a very narrow window of time (a 2-3 month period) or they're in places that are kind of dubious as far as Wikipedia is concerned. For example, the article relies on coverage from the Daily Mail and Vice to give notability, two sources that are shaky at best on Wikipedia. I know that I don't use them, as they've been known to make mistakes with articles, as their goal is more sensationalism and clicks than reporting the news. (Doesn't mean that I don't read both of them, but they're not really the best reliable sources.

Here's a rundown of the sourcing in the article at present, which I'm clipping from the AfD. On the AfD there's an argument that the sourcing should be enough and that one of the sources, Petcha, should be seen as reliable since an e-mail resulted in the person being told that they have an editorial staff - despite there being no mention of this on the website and the site apparently accepting user content.

Sourcing

Petcha.com. Per the website's about page, it looks like this is a site where just about anyone can create content. There's nothing on the author's page or on the website as a whole to show that there's any sort of editorial oversight. In other words, this looks to be a self-published source and cannot be used to show notability. Whether or not it should even be used as a source is debatable, as Wikipedia is fairly strict about being able to verify sourcing. Like many of the other sources, this was published in April 2016. TheDodo.com. This one is written by a staff member and has an editorial staff, however it was also published in April 2016, during the same point in time as much of the other coverage. The staff oversight does make this more likely that this will be considered a RS, however depth of coverage still needs to be proven and there still needs to be evidence to show that the site is considered a RS per Wikipedia's guidelines - which are almost insanely strict. Vice. Vice is kind of questionable as a source. I've seen more than a few people say that it's not usable, with only a relative few saying that it can be used on pop culture material. It was brought up at RS/N at one point where someone pointed out that the site has gotten facts and material wrong, which shows that they don't appear to do a lot of fact checking on a regular basis. This is why a large portion of editors tend to not use it as a source, since it's so easily questioned. This was published around the same time as the other sources, albeit a few months later in June 2016. Even if we count it as a RS - and Vice would make for a fairly weak source in my opinion - this still doesn't show a depth of coverage. Daily Mail. The DM is a tabloid and despite it still being technically usable on Wikipedia, it's not considered to be the strongest or best place to use as a source, as this paper doesn't really do a whole lot of verification - this is because they predominantly look to sensationalize material. They might not be looking to sensationalize a lizard, however their behavior with other topics makes this a less than ideal source to use at all. Like many of the other sources, this was released in April 2016. Daily Telegraph. This is far better and the DT is considered a RS, however the problem with this source is that it was released in June 2016, around the same time as the other sourcing. Another problem would be that the article is almost entirely images and the article itself is only a few lines long - making this potentially a WP:TRIVIAL source more than anything else. Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed is another one that could be usable, however again, this was written around the same point in time, in June 2016. There's also a predominant focus on images rather than article content, although it's longer than the DT article. Rare. This is better, but like the others this was released around the same time as the other news articles, in June 2016. FuzzFix. At best this is questionable as a source. Not much information is given about the site's editorial oversight. It also doesn't really help that the company that owns the site gives off impressions that they focus on marketing and internet optimization. This is honestly pretty questionable as far as its usability goes and even if we ignore that, the article is still written in June 2016, so still written around the same time period. Official website. This is the OW, so it's primary. YouTube. Official YT channel, primary. China Times. The CT can be usable, however even without translation the article is shown to be relatively brief. It's also published in April 2016, so again the issue of recentism is brought up. Okezone. The Indonesia Wikipedia page for this site is fairly extensive - however that doesn't mean that it would be reliable per Wikipedia's guidelines. The link comes up as dead for me, so I can't really investigate who wrote this (staff or site member) or if it received any editing. However I do note per the citation on the Wikipedia article that this was published in June 2016.

I just want to know some feedback on this - I know that this isn't a place for notability, but I do have to question whether or not this is ultimately enough and whether or not some of the sources are in-depth enough to be considered a non-trivial source. I also have some questions about FuzzFix, as the site doesn't have a lot about their editorial process and their company's about page (30M) seems to focus a lot on internet optimization. I get some pretty strong marketing vibes from them overall.

So what's your guy's take on some of the sources? Some of them are fine and reasonably in-depth, while others are pretty brief and others are kind of questionable as a source as a whole. The notability here is borderline, as the biggest argument against is that the coverage is WP:RECENTISM, but I don't know that all of the sourcing here is strong enough. There's an argument to be made that there needs to be a standard for social media personalities separate from ENTERTAINER or NWEB, but I don't know that these are enough to set precedent for a lower threshhold. Again, I know that this is not a place to argue notability, just trying to show where my mindset is coming from with this and I'd like some sort of opinion on the sourcing and whether or not some of them are long enough or some reliable enough to be used. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 03:43, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Review of William Benemann, Men in Eden: William Drummond Stewart and Same-Sex Desire in the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade.

Is being presented as a reliable source that historical figures were overtly homosexual.

An interesting life, yes; and colorful; but worthy of a 300-page biography, so admirably and painstakingly researched in all its available details, given that Stewart was historically only a minor figure and his few efforts as a “spectacularly ungifted” (36) author of (semi-autobiographical) fiction are risible in terms of their literary value? Not really: the reader soon realizes that the true value of Stewart, beyond an example of historical queerness rescued from the misrepresentations of earlier prudish biographers and a thematic impetus for many of Alfred Jacob Miller’s paintings, is serving as a thematic kingpin for Benemann’s lush, vivid overture of that part of 19th-century America that was still deliciously free and wild—and gay. Following the line of inquiry set in his award-winning 2006 book, Male-Male Intimacy in Early America: Beyond Romantic Friendships, the author-researcher provides a fascinating and detailed set of vistas where homosexual desire was enabled, from New York’s Battery Park (where young Stewart’s boat first landed) to the influx of eager young “counter-jumpers” and such dandies manning the urban commercial boom of America’s East Coast, to the gender-bender performativity necessitated by the male-only trapper camp life, including the role of Native American gender models like the berdashes that introduced to whites the idea of a socially-acceptable queerness. Readers, therefore, should not go into this book expecting a “straight” biography, lest they become frustrated by Benemann’s Melvillean lengthy detours into other lifestyles, historical vistas, or lives of other gay couples in America; as the author himself concludes, the center of the story is not Stewart, but the Rockies: “Stewart’s role in the story of the Rocky Mountains in the early nineteenth century is insignificant when compared to that of William Ashley, William Sublette, Jim Bridger, or Jedediah Smith [celebrities peppering the narrative along with Kit Carson and Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau], yet his story is important because so very little is known about what life was like in America for homosexuals during this period” (303-04).

Does not appear to me to be a reliable source for stating that any "minor figure" was such a notable homosexual.

[3] is an edit by the self-described writer of that book William_Benemann, using his own book as the source for the interesting material.

The query is whether the book by Mr. Benemann is a reliable source by Wikipedia standards? It was published by a university press, but I find no reviews in mainstream media (no mentions at all in NYT, for example) other than the one cited, which appears to be quite dubious of the details about people it states are "minor figures". I posit that a book review of a book is not a reliable source for any claims of fact in any article.

Benemann is a major source for William Drummond Stewart, and the same historian is used for William North for the claim: "The historian William Benemann believes that North was romantically involved with Steuben and another male companion, Captain Benjamin Walker.[1] However, based on the limited historical record, Benemann wrote that "it is impossible to prove the nature of the relationships."[2]", Benjamin Walker (New York) "Historian William Benemann wrote "Steuben was also attracted to his 'angel' Benjamin Walker, but while Walker held the Baron in high esteem, he does not appear to have been sexually interested." Benemann also wrote, "Walker had no scruples about exploiting the Baron's sexual interest although he had no intention of reciprocating."[2]", Alfred d'Orsay "William Benemann in his book "Men of Paradise" is of the conclusion that there is evidence of a sexual relation between Alfred and both The Earl and the Countess" , Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben "It is here he met his reputed future lover, Captain Benjamin Walker. Upon meeting Walker for the first time he exclaimed "If I had seen an angel from Heaven I should not have more rejoiced." Within weeks, Walker was Steuben's aide-de-camp.[14]", and so on. All uses are attributed to that single author, and all involved claims of homosexuality not found in any other sources.

The reviews all note Benemann's assertion of homosexuality for many figures for whom he is the only source of such a claim. Where such a source is not backed by any other sources, is reliance on this person of undue weight in so many biographies?

Mr. Benemann is listed as an "archivist" by profession, and I find no other academic credentials for that person. [4] "Law-library archivist by vocation, independent historical scholar by avocation."

I suggest that while Benemann's work has won a Stonewall Book Award nonfiction selection, that is insufficient under WP:RS to rely so extensively on a single author for claims of fact. What is needed is additional authors making independent claims, as otherwise this seems to give great weight to one author's surmise out of many hundreds of biographies not making such surmise. Collect (talk) 12:57, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Wow. Still relentlessly stalking my edits. Sad. Well, everyone needs a hobby, but this is looking like a vendetta.

"I find no reviews in mainstream media"

You're not very good at search are you. However, the ones in peer-reviewed academic journals, including I note - Journal of American History/Western Historical Quarterly/Journal of Scottish Historical Studies/Pacific Historical Review, etc are far more important. None of them appeared to have issue with the author's conclusions after his assessment of the evidence. Nor with his credentials. Engleham (talk) 19:20, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

I came here because an author cited his own work in an article. The author has no academic credentials, and his opinions are at odds with the majority of other biographers of the person. Collect (talk) 22:29, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, then you came to the wrong place. WP:COIN is elsewhere. Assuming that you are talking about User:William Benemann, he has not inserted the source in any article, he merely corrected statements already sourced to his book in one single article. In my opinion, it's very good if the foremost expert on that source fixes our usage of it, and we should thank him for it. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:34, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

(ec)You (Collect) are a bit unclear - is the review used as a source, or the reviewed book? Assuming the later: the University of Nebraska Press is a university press with a strong program in Western American history. The NYT rarely if ever reviews specialised academic texts - I'd be surprised if they ever reviewed the Handbook of Automated Reasoning, a cornerstone of my field. Such a requirement would invalidate most of what are usually considered our best sources. The reviews you link to are both positive. The books has, so far, two references in Google Scholar - the one I can see is an academic journal paper that treats it as factual. I see no particular reason not to accept the book. As for other biographies: Do you know of any that disagree with Benemann, or are they just silent on the topic? It's not really surprising that the question was not raised by many biographers until the very recent past - Don't ask, don't tell was instituted as a major step forward in 1994, and only repealed 6 years ago. And this paper seems to agree that Steward was homosexual, so at least that claim seems to have some support. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:40, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

The book was added as a source by the author of the book who has no academic credentials. His opinions do not correspond with the great majority of other biographers. The review states the author holds the opinions, but is not a source for the opinions otherwise. I suggest that a second independent source would be a wise idea here, as the single source by a person with no training in the field may be problematic. With regard to the terms used about Frederick the Great, for example, the author's opinions are at variance with many other authors. Collect (talk) 22:29, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

WP:COI is independent of WP:RS. And somehow "I cannot find academic credentials" seems to have morphed into "has no academic credentials". What qualification do you think an Archivist at a major law school needs? Moreover, the book is vetted by the publisher, especially in the case of a university press. I took a look at the book, and it does have an impressive collection of sources and footnotes - it looks impeccably researched. I have not read the full book, so I don't know what Benemann writes about Frederik the Great. However, that Frederik was predominantly gay is largely uncontroversial - de:Friedrich_II._(Preußen) has three sources, and Frederick_the_Great cites 5 (none of them Benemann). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:22, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

The law school states only that he is an "archivist", and assigns no degrees to him at all. To me, that suggests his work was done as a hbby and not as a professional endeavor as such. Collect (talk) 23:30, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Note that the paper cited above is based on Benemann. That's essentially a circular form of support. Anmccaff (talk) 22:41, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

It's not "based on Benemann", it cites Benemann and many others. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:22, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

No - it says essentially "this is what Benemann says" and makes clear that Benemann's style is

... given that Stewart was historically only a minor figure and his few efforts as a “spectacularly ungifted” (36) author of (semi-autobiographical) fiction are risible in terms of their literary value? Not really: the reader soon realizes that the true value of Stewart, beyond an example of historical queerness rescued from the misrepresentations of earlier prudish biographers and a thematic impetus for many of Alfred Jacob Miller’s paintings, is serving as a thematic kingpin for Benemann’s lush, vivid overture of that part of 19th-century America that was still deliciously free and wild—and gay.

Which suggests that the reviewer finds Benemann's style to be more aimed at the last part than the first. Collect (talk) 23:30, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't think we are talking about the same source at the moment. And I don't see how your personal speculation is relevant. Anyways, I've given my opinion. I've seen nothing so far that changes or even challenges it. It's a well-received book by an academic publisher. It is extensively and carefully footnoted, with a massive list of sources. As far as I have checked the book, it does not conflict with other well-received sources. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:11, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Collect appears to labour under the delusion there is a recognised formal process for qualification as an historian. There isn't. There's an informal process, whereby a person gains an academic grounding in research and methodologies. However, there are many acclaimed historians who lack any such academic qualifications. Work accepted and published by academic presses, which is peer-reviewed prior to publication, indicates the writer is recognised academically as an historian. While republished in a popular edition, Benemann's study was originally published by the University of Nebraska Press. So you may want to take up the issue with them. And your continuing objections to gay history with all the other academic presses as well! Lotsa luck. Engleham (talk) 00:02, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Delusion that a person who is an historian should actually have academic credentials in History? That a person who writes books on medicine should actually have had courses in medicine? Sorry - the issue is whether such a person should use his own book as a single source about anyone in a biography. Benemann is a "law school archivist". His book is usable for his opinions - but is insufficient to be a single source for claims not made by academic historians who at least have a B.A. Collect (talk) 13:37, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

The review of the book is a RS for the book. The book is a RS on the subject of the book. The book itself may (or may not) be notable, depending on the notice it has earned, and perhaps that is not much. The author of the book is completely ineligible to edit the Wiki article on the book or the subject, given that the article cites the book and may help to sell copies -- or discourage sales. Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 01:11, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree that its a bad idea for an author to edit an article on one of his own books. However, the author of an academic book is typically a highly qualified expert on the topic of that book, and he is very much invited to edit in his or her area of expertise. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:45, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I stand corrected. Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 01:58, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Scholar.google.com [5] shows almost no scholarly cites for Benemann's works. [6] is Benemann citing Benemann for his own opinions, it seems.

"When Richard Godbeer reads aloud the effusive love letters that men sent to other men in eighteenth-century America, his students wonder if the men were "queer." In this deeply researched and elegantly written book, Godbeer answers with an unemphatic No."

"Yet there is little documentation that unrelated men who felt no emotional intimacy ever shared beds on anything but a temporary basis, and most of what we know about the sleeping arrangements in American inns comes from the writings of European travelers who again and again expressed disgust and outrage at the very idea that they were expected to share a bed with a strange man."

Which show apparently a complete lack of familiarity of Henry Mayhew's works on life in Victorian London. (many references) inns having men, women and children sharing a single bed. In London. Which did not mean the men were gay. Collect (talk) 14:35, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Your OR straw man has more holes than than a Swiss cheese. First, 18th century is about a century from "Victorian London". Second, lower-class families sharing a private bed (which, by the way still happened a lot later than Victorian times in Europe, and certainly still does in poorer parts of the world today) is very different from upper class European travellers (and European travellers in America in the 18th century would be predominantly upper class) sharing beds with total strangers in public houses. If you want to set your own OR against a book published by a university press, I'd suggest you first get it published by a reliable publisher yourself. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:58, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Mayhew is not "original research" on my part. The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Social History makes the same point. [7] ditto. [8] Beds were a luxury on the American frontier. [9] Sharing beds became uncommon in the twentieth century. Routledge Travelers were accustomed to sharing beds. How many more do you need to accept that men sharing a bed while travelling was not associated with homosexuality? [10], on nd on and on. So much for any cavlier dismissal of Mayhew as being my "original research." Collect (talk) 21:06, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm not dismissing Mayhew, nor the claim that people shared beds, not the claim that people share beds without being sexually involved one way or the other. What I'm dismissing is your claim that all that somehow adds up to Benemann not being reliable, when none of that conflicts with his text, nor, to a large degree, is even relevant to this discussion. Have you even consciously read the quote you yourself picked from Benemann? Anyways, I think this has gone on far enough. I've made my point. If you think Benemann is wrong, write an academic paper and get it published. If you think he is unreliable, find someone reliable who says so - not someone who says things that in your personal original interpretation seem to you personally to conflict with Benemann. I think we all understand that you don't like the source, but that does not make it unreliable. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:43, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

It is not for me or you to "know" that Benemann is right or wrong. I suggest that he is, on his own, an insufficient source where he makes claims not made by others skilled in the field. I particularly note his emphasis on sharing beds to indicate that 40%+ of men on the frontier were homosexual (in fact, he appears to assign homosexuality to almost every male on the frontier, as well as to male American Indians in general), and that a Scot who had kilts (fancy dress) was homosexual may be quite overstating any reasonable positions as stated by most historians. I note that "sharing beds" was not considered evidence of homosexuality in that period, and that, as a result, we should ask for additional sources before giving such exposure on Wikipedia to a clearly minority view as though it were undisputed fact. [11] presents a figure of 40,000 known homosexuals in Paris in the 1780s - which would verge on 15% of all grown men there being known homosexuals (population of Paris then totally 600,000 to 650,000, or 325,000 total males of all ages, or 200,000 to 240,000 being over 16). Collect (talk) 10:12, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

• Here is my opinion - in short I agree with everybody. Collect, the book itself is an RS as we define it. Published academically etc etc. There is no reason to exclude the material sourced to the book on reliability grounds alone. On the other hand - this is clearly fringe/unverifiable theory that does not have any sort of wide academic consensus behind it. So it should be treated as such - directly attribute to Benemann and made clear there is not wide acceptance. If there is consensus to include it in the article, the lead is entirely inappropriate and it should be restricted to a brief summary in the prose. Thats 'if'. There is a good argument (which is consistant with how wikipedia deals with new stuff like this) that mentioning it at all absent at least some wider recognition (and thats recognition by peers, not book reviews) would be undue (there is also the problem that when include fringe stuff like this, you spend more time pointing out its not accepted than it deserves). While BLP doesnt apply (as the subject is very much dead) we dont give prominance in biographies at all to single-source claims on controversial material. Alive or dead. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:23, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Chet Murphy

According to the official USTA Colorado Facebook page, tennis player and coach Chet Murphy died a few months back at the age of 98. See: https://www.facebook.com/USTAColorado/photos/a.373100369408042.103755.165295046855243/1226993777352026/?type=3&theater Normally Facebook wouldn't be a reliable source, but given there are no other notices of his death on the web and the page is linked to the official organization, is there a consensus that we could have an exception in this case? Thanks --Jkaharper (talk) 14:40, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Generally for a facebook source you would need their verified personal page, rather than a third party. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:47, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I agree that would normally be the case. However, the same Facebook page is linked from the organization's website here: http://www.colorado.usta.com/cta/about_us/about_us_landing_page/?intloc=headernav Thoughts? --Jkaharper (talk) 15:26, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Just off the top of my head, I'd say that the official website linking to it as the apparently official Facebook page is enough. I'm not going to argue the case if anyone disagrees, but that seems pretty clear cut to me. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:44, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

I had a look at the Colorado page earlier and didnt spot that (I think I was bypassing the main page) so concur with Mjolnir - that works for me. It will probably also show up on the main colorado USTA news section soon enough anyway, which would be a better link to replace the facebook one with then. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:52, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Reliable for the time being. We can replace the Facebook reference once it is published in a RS. Meatsgains (talk) 01:42, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Cleanup help please

Special:Linksearch/*.beforeitsnews.com shows many articles using Before It's News as a source. Obviously this is an abject failure of WP:RS and it's not a surprise that some of the claims sourced there are paranoid conspiracist bullshit. Guy (Help!) 15:21, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Is there a way to show in live articles only? A lot of those links appear to be discussions, archives etc. Or is that part of the problem? Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:28, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Used to was, but they removed that. It would be good to get it back. Guy (Help!) 15:45, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

You can do a regular site search for "beforeitsnews.com". It's not likely to appear in article content except as a source. Rhoark (talk) 15:55, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

User MER-C recently pointed me to their nice external tool with additional features. This search is limited to mainspace and looks for both HTTP and HTTPS. GermanJoe (talk) 16:23, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Ha, its being used to source some info on the 9/11 conspiracy pages about David Icke touting his theories. Is a user-generated conspiracy site reliable for basic statements about someone who thinks the world is being run by Reptilians - on an article about conspiracy theories? Its unreliable, but is it reliably unreliable in this case? Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:39, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

The first use I found in an article is in Tim Clemente, where it claims The Guardian is their source, which in turn is sourced to a CNN transcript. So I think Only in death makes a good point here. But yeah, this looks like a job of work, and I agree it should be done. Any site claiming that we're in the early stages of a zombie apocalypse is pretty much unreliable by definition. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:58, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

I found it masquerding as NBC in a couple of places. Looks like deliberately obfuscation. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:59, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

I think it's safe to say the site is reliably unreliable. That being said, for certain claims, it's not necessarily reliably wrong. After all, conspiracy theories need to start with a nugget of truth, even if that truth is "Some wacko said something wacko." MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:06, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) P.S. Rhoark just posted a new section to the FTN, and guess what the first source in that article is... MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:08, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

See thats what I mean. Its being used in completely fringe loon stuff to report on what fringe loons are doing. Which is what I would expect that sort of website to cover... Like the way I expect the Daily Mail to cover what celebrities are wearing... Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:13, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

I found it following this thread. Rhoark (talk) 16:14, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Its also being used as a primary source on a few writer's BLPs who are affliated with the site. From what I can tell they are non-notable and should be AFD'd, if not done by when I have more time later I will get to it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:09, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

New blacklist functionality

In case you didn't know (which I didn't, even as a former blacklist regular), Mediawiki talk:Spam-blacklist now includes the ability to add sites to a reference revert list, so attempts to use a questionable source in a citation will be auto-reverted. Guy (Help!) 16:07, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

I think beforeitsnews.com should definitely be on that list. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:08, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Oh dear Christ this is a good thing! Cyphoidbomb (talk) 02:28, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

rateyourmusic.com

Is rateyourmusic.com a WP:RS? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:55, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

We would need to know the claim thr source is being used to support first since in several instence a source csn be reliable for one thing but not another.--67.68.161.51 (talk) 03:50, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

globalresearch.ca

• globalresearch.ca: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

This appears to be an activist website with a tendency to conspiracist ideation. It is used as a source in a large number of articles, including BLPs, with the cited sources often being polemical. I don't at first glance see any sign of proper editorial oversight or fact-checking. I suspect this is another "Before It;s News". What does t'committee think? Guy (Help!) 21:59, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

A Wikipedia RfA

Is an RfA page a reliable source to support the existence of an RfA?

Please comment at Talk:Justin Knapp#Still puzzled.

Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:46, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

I'd say WP:ABOUTSELF and WP:CIRCULAR both allow this usage. Rhoark (talk) 00:04, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Rhoark. I've cited those at the article talk. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:22, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

The Guardian, UK

Is The Guardian considered a reliable source? SW3 5DL (talk) 03:51, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Usually, yes. What's the context? Guy (Help!) 09:03, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Guy, I want to use it for a BLP and just wanted to make sure since BLP rules are more strict. SW3 5DL (talk) 17:06, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

It's a very high quality source, almost always reliable if you're talking about news accounts. Op-eds, editorials, etc. follow the ordinary rules for due-weight, etc. Neutrality^talk 02:55, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

#AskGaryVee

Hey, I was wondering if #AskGaryVee, the You Tube show by Gary Vaynerchuk is usable as a notability giving source. I'm evaluating the sources for Draft:Book in a Box and some of them are problematic because they're primary or sort of squidgy, since they're not really in-depth or in places that don't make for the strongest sourcing.

My inclination is that it's not usable, as a brief look at his article shows that some of his major coverage has been for his wine blogging - which this is decidedly not. A cursory look for coverage about the series doesn't bring up a huge amount either. What's your take? Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 08:12, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

• Also, does anyone know anything about The School of Greatness? That's another source used in the article and is a podcast. It seems popular, but that's about it - a lot of the sourcing is reliant upon the notability of the person creating it, but I know that notability doesn't make something automatically reliable. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 08:25, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

The Bookseller and Mixergy

I'd previously thought that The Bookseller would be usable, but this gives off the strong impression that their spotlights can include articles written about them. What's your take on this? It's a little coy on what it does or doesn't offer. I'd like to assume that this site is still usable, but the marketing package page really bothers me. I'll ping DGG on this since he's pretty savvy with book related sourcing and if the place is considered unusable, he'd know.

Then I have Mixergy. It's an interview with the site founder, which is a little better than a random person, but the site doesn't have a whole lot about the editorial process and I'm also aware that a lot of people see interviews as primary. I'm also aware that Max is kind of known for embellishing his stories, so I know that this could impact the reliability of his interviews as well. All of that aside, what's your take on Mixergy? My gut instinct is that it's not usable.

These are both related to Draft:Book in a Box. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 09:25, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Racism in South Korea and the use of webblogs and opinion pieces

Hello, I hope this is the right place to especially since it could also be placed at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard.

1. Sources:

• Lee, Tae-hoon (22 August 2014). "JR Pub says apology not enough over racist ban on 'Africans'". The Korea Observer. Retrieved 22 November 2014.
• Lee, Tae-hoon (18 November 2014). "American rejected for job in Korea because of being black". The Korea Observer. Retrieved 22 November 2014.
• Biracial Children Accepted, Shunned by Classmates. Asian Correspondent (2009-01-26). Retrieved on 2011-09-30.
• Moore, A. (8 January 2014). "8 of the Worst Countries For Black People to Travel". Atlanta Black Star. Retrieved 8 April 2016.

2. Article: Racism in South Korea

3. Content: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Racism_in_South_Korea&type=revision&diff=735208159&oldid=734967280

The issue is that article mostly lists single incidents that are not really notable to the topic since more general things should be stated.

There is a dispute about the use of webblogs and the notability of an event. More is stated on the Talk:Racism in South Korea#Reliability of Weblogs and you can see also some minor notes in the "history". It would be nice to get some more opinions since the article is mainly protected by one user. Maybe you can state your opinions on the use of webblogs like AsianCorrespondent and KoreaObserver on an article like this. Also, The article of the Atlanta Black Star is just an opinion piece by a "journalist" without any empirical method. Moreover, there is the issue that there was a bar owner in Seoul who set up a note at his bar that due to Ebola, he would not let in black people. He apologized four days later, said, it was due to his bad English skills and gave out some beer. I find this event highly insignificant for an article like this. It is as notable as a local murder. Maybe a bad comparison, but still, it should not be in this article.

Actually, I have more issues with the article which completely lacks any scientific approach. The article is basically build up on news reports. However, I think news reports are only legitimate for articles on current events, video games, films and persons. However, articles on racism and discrimination should follow sociological research. Moreover, in contrast to the United States, which has been a melting pot from the beginning, South Korea is a homogene state. So, research is apparently also just at a beginning stage, making knowledge based on news papers even more invalid, I think. Furthermore, I think when the article is named "racism in South Korea" it should follow the definition of Racism. Even, if an wikipedia author does evaluate events by herself/himself, it is original research. Nonetheless, the article also has a section Discrimination against North Korean defectors. In my opinion, racism and discrimination are not the same. Therefore, some could argue that this section does not belong in the article.

Conducting an article like "racism in South Korea" is much effort. Basically because it is not a textbook topic like let's say Product Innovation Charter, where you can find a basic theoretical introduction in books and get very specific literature from databases. So, my approach to start an article like this would be to search for international ranking/indexes that follow a scientific approach to get a country comparison. Than someone could look for literature reviews to get a hold of the state of art of and find some more articles on databases like Google Scholar or ScienceDirect. I cannot see how source articles can give any information on such a new, in regards of South Korea, and specific research field. --Christian140 (talk) 11:32, 21 August 2016 (UTC)