Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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Is Designers & Dragons a RS for: (a) games and game companies, (b) BLPs?

Recently the question arose as to whether or not Designers & Dragons [1], a book on fantasy role-play games, is a WP:RS for (a) games and game companies, (b) WP:BLPs.

• Publisher: The book's publisher is Evil Hat, a fantasy game and t-shirt company located somewhere in the United States (no physical address is given on its website and I was unable to locate it via a reverse EIN search either). [2]
• Author: The book's author is Shannon Applecline. A bio purporting to be that of Applecline is here: [3].
• Reception: The book has been cited in about two-dozen master's degree theses and undergraduate term papers. [4] A check of JSTOR and Google News finds no scholarly journals or mainstream media which have reviewed it. It is cited once each in Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons from Bloomsbury and Dragons in the Stacks: A Teen Librarian's GUide to Tabletop Role-Playing from ABC-CLIO.

Is this source RS for (a) games and game companies, (b) BLPs? Chetsford (talk) 01:03, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

---

• Undecided on "A", No on "B" - I'm undecided leaning towards "RS" for games and game companies. However, I don't believe this could surmount the high threshold required to source a BLP. Neither the publisher nor author have any non-fiction credits other than this book and the author has no known educational credentials, or wider journalistic / academic reputation, that would qualify him to conduct original historical or biographical research. I have been unable to find any physical presence for the publisher by which it could be held legally responsible for what it publishes, as it appears not to disclose its physical address and even a reverse EIN search turns up blank. With the exception of undergraduate papers and master theses (which are not, themselves, RS) instances of the book being cited by reliable sources are light and there's no examples of it being used to cite a biographical statement in a RS (only product descriptions). Chetsford (talk) 01:03, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Given the lack of information on the publisher, and low profile of the author, I would say the book is not a reliable source, period. - Donald Albury 02:25, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
    • I agree with Donald Albury, for the reasons stated. Not reliable. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:54, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
      • Being published by a game company I would suspect it fails the editorial control/reputation for fact checking and accuracy criteria. On the other hand several volumes have been published so that is enough to establish a reputation. On yet another hand, I see no evidence of other reliable sources making use of it, which is really the only proxy we have for its reputation and acceptance. Based on that I do not think it could be considered a reliable source for anything until we can get a better handle on its editorial control and fact checking. Jbh ^Talk 05:44, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
        • Designers & Dragons is cited by many/all of the authoritative scholarly sources in the field (as WP:SECONDARY reminds us to check whether "the source has entered mainstream academic discourse"). Most recently, Designers & Dragons is cited extensively and with evident approbation in Role-Playing Game Studies: Transmedia Foundations, the new academic text, published by Routledge, which for now is the leading text in the field. I can produce earlier citations of Designers & Dragons, but SCHOLARSHIP seems to be easily met by its role in unquestionably reliable sources, and SCHOKARSHIP is, as I understand it, the "gold standard for both BIO and CORP sources. Newimpartial (talk) 11:16, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
          • What you say appears to be incorrect. It is listed in several chapter's bibliographies and as 'Further reading' but I see nothing directly cited to the work. Without that it is impossible to know what it was used for. So, yes, it was consulted but I see no indication in that work that it was used for historical information about gaming companies which is the matter at hand here.
            This paper used it for some historical information on D&D, TSR. Jbh ^Talk 12:52, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
            • The above statement appears to be misleading. The Routledge text employs chapter bibliographies rather than individual citations, based on its intended use in universities. Most of the chapter references are either primary sources or academic/theoretical sources. The repeated references to Designers & Dragons in the bibliographies give it pride of place as a secondary source in the field, as having "entered mainstream scholarly discourse". Newimpartial (talk) 13:15, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
              • That is an … erm … interesting … source analysis. I will however disagree. We can not infer anything other than several authors looked at the work. In particular there is no indication that the work was used for the history of game companies, which is what we are examining it for here, or is any way considered generally authoritative purpose by the academic community.
                My concern is that the publisher has no history of academic, or even non-fiction, publishing. Therefore I do not accept, without evidence, that the editorial standards they have for publishing games are adequate, particularly in terms of fact checking and accuracy, for an authoritative "academic" work.
                I just looked at the Amazon free sample of the work and it is no more than a narrative history. I see no citations for facts nor any indications that it is reliable beyond a single person's observations and musings. It is effectively an oral history – a good work but essentially a primary source. Jbh ^Talk 17:34, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
• Yes it is for A and B - and a note that the user who opposed has been trying to argue for mass deletion of pages that rely on it as a reliable source. Simonm223 (talk) 11:28, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Given it is published by a games company, I would say no. There are issues if primary source and even SPS here. OK maybe they might be OK for historical information, about people or products that have no connection to the company. But outside that I would say they are not interdependent enough to be an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 11:37, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Agreed that each edition of Designers & Dragons is not RS for the publisher at the time, which is the one issue of independence. Also agreed that its relevance is for historical/factual information, not really for analysis.Newimpartial (talk) 11:49, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

• I believe it meets all three criteria. To clarify on the part of the publisher, there have been two editions of the book, published by two separate game publishers who I believe are fully independent from each other and are headquartered in different countries. The first edition of the book was published as a single volume in 2011 by British game company Mongoose Publishing. The second edition was greatly expanded and published in 2014 in four volumes by US game company Evil Hat Productions. The first edition consists of roughly 50-60 chapters, with each chapter consisting of a history of one game company that was known for producing role-playing games, including discussing the people who have been a part of that company, and games that the company is known for. The text is written as partial oral history and partial commentary on decisions made by the companies. The second edition expands on the information in the first edition by adding more than 20 additional chapters on other companies, and expanding on the information featured in most of the chapters from the first edition; most of the text is reproduced identically from the first edition. Shannon Appelcline himself has been a game designer/writer, and he currently runs RPGnet and publishes articles there - most of the information from the first edition of Designers & Dragons was and still is on RPGnet, written for fans of the website before Mongoose agreed to publish it as a book. I would say his design experience and research qualifies him as an expert in the field. The credits of the book list a few dozen industry professionals that he consulted for information to write the book with. Important individuals in the field are discussed in detail in the book, including in some cases talking somewhat about their earlier lives and schooling, personal lives, and careers before and after getting into the gaming field. BOZ (talk) 13:23, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Appelcline does not cite his sources inline in the text, but at the end of the Mongoose edition, he provides a bibliography of sources "built from thousands of primary sources including interviews, design notes, reviews, news articles, press releases, catalogues, forum postings and other non-fiction articles. It was also built with the assistance of hundreds of readers, fact-checkers and scanners." He lists over 30 magazines and similar publications ("a solid collection of RPG magazines dating back through the ‘80s and ’90, before the age of the internet made it easy for publishers to get information out to fans"), more than a dozen non-fiction books about the industry ("Any number of RPG books was consulted, primarily for insight into that game or its publisher. The following non-fiction sources were also used. Secondary sources like the Role-Playing Bibles tended to be used for date confirmation and references to primary sources, not for analysis.") several web resources ("The web proved an invaluable resource, particularly for companies in existence from the late ‘90s onward [and] a few of the web sites that I visited multiple times over the course of the project") and he lists several dozen fact checkers, most of whom worked for one or more of the companies he wrote about ("Whenever I finished an article, I tried to get one or more people associated with the company in question to comment on it. In one or two cases where I did not have sufficient company feedback, I got some help from fans as well. These people helped to make this book considerably more accurate and informative thanks to both corrections and insight generously given. Some were kind enough to comment on multiple editions of these articles over the years."). BOZ (talk) 18:35, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Which means his assertions are untraceable and uncheckable. The reliability of the source then comes down to, in my opinion, the reputation of the publisher, which for reasons I have previously mentioned, is inadequate. The deficiencies of documentation and publisher could be offset if the author had a reputation for, or training in historiography. He does not.

There is no doubt the author put great time and effort into his work but, for the reasons I have stated, I do not believe it meets the Wikipedia's standards to be considered a reliable source for company histories or BLP. Jbh ^Talk 19:03, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

• Please see instructions at the top. What article and what material is this being used to reference? Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:35, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi Only in death does duty end, sorry. It's used quite extensively in BLPs so I can't provide an exhaustive list, however, here are a few examples:

• M. Alexander Jurkat - used to cite entire article including professional licenses (attorney), bankruptcy, inspirations / favorite things, and employment history [5]
• John Harshman - used to cite educational credentials and place of residence [6]
• Fred Hicks - used to cite the entire article, including the BLP's employment history, employment status, favorite things, friendships, and inspirations. [7]
• Andria Hayday - used to cite date the BLP's employer terminated them [8]
• Jack Herman - used to cite most of article, including the BLP's legal disputes and details of his business contracts with other people [9]
• Shane Lacy Hensley - used to cite most of article, including place of birth, childhood hobbies, and detailed employment history
• Dale Henson - used to cite entire article [10]

Chetsford (talk) 16:36, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

• Not reliable for company histories nor for BLP per my arguments above. The publisher is not an established publisher of non-fiction works and therefore can not be assumed to have adequate editorial controls for fact checking and accuracy. What I have seen of the work (Amazon sample) it is written as an oral history and provides no backstop for facts presented beyond the assertion of its author. Jbh ^Talk 17:45, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
• Reliable for both Each of the four volumes provides a Bibliography citing the sources used. Many of the sources are, in turn, other publications such as magazines. There is also a fifth volume entitled "Designers & Dragons The Platinum Appendix" that also lists all the references used. For me, the books meet the criteria of a reliable source. The books have been published and are available to purchase in hard copy form, and they're available and stocked in book stores. In addition, the author is identified and the publisher identified. The books have been cited in academic sources and has been acknowledged in lots of other sources as a comprehensive history. For example, The Oxonian Review which has an editorial board.— Preceding unsigned comment added by HighKing (talk • contribs) 20:42, 19 August 2018 (UTC (UTC)
• Reliable for Games/Companies, unsure for BLP Designers and Dragons is extremely heavily used and referenced inside the RPG industry and generally hailed as the pre-eminent source for RPG histories. Shannon Appelcline is regarded as the premier historian of RPGs. The first edition was published by Mongoose Publishing and the second edition multi volume set was published by Evil Hat. Note that the author does not work for either of those companies, it was just the means of publishing. The work is generally referenced (not as specifically and heavily as Wikipedia but all sources are listed), but as for many communities the outside oversight is minor as it is for every smaller subject area. Most company information is heavily cross referenced to people who worked for those companies and additional third party sources about the companies. As for BLP I'd be a little more unsure but considering the number of people interviewed for the work and since Shannon used most major players in the industry, I'd say it's as reliable a source for BLPs of the prominent people in the RPG industry as any, but I'm open to an argument against it. Canterbury Tail talk 21:28, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Addition I would also like to add that since it covers all aspects of the tabletop RPG industry, it should NOT be used for notability determination, just fact checking and claim supports like any other text on an industry. The fact that a game is included in it doesn't make that game/company notable as it goes into details on a lot of obscure RPGs. Canterbury Tail talk 15:17, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
• Borderline, reliable for non-extraordinary claims about game companies but not for BLPs. Per WP:SCHOLARSHIP, the guideline governing the type of source it purports to be, since the publisher is not academic we ascertain reliability by citation patterns. As discussed above, it is cited only in sources that are themselves marginal—theses and tiny start-up journals—with the exception of the Routledge collection, which is edited by an associate professor and a PhD in Media Studies. In this, it's cited only a half-dozen times, albeit usually for substantial points of fact, and chapter 4, Tabletop Role-Playing Games, names it as one of two sources on which "the historical arc traced here draws in large measure upon". Balancing the fact that this is only one publication (and mostly one chapter) with the fact that precious little has been published in this field, I would cautiously say that this source seems reliable for unsurprising claims about its field, but that it hasn't been vetted widely or frequently enough to rely on it for BLP information. FourViolas (talk) 23:44, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
• Based on the description from HighKing, I'd have to say it counts as a RS for all purposes. That said, if there is an extraordinary claim I'd want a second independent source (though I feel that way about nearly all sources, some things like Nature or the WSJ I'd accept as a single source for all but the most outrageous of claims). Hobit (talk) 02:28, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
• Marginal at best, not suitable for BLPs or for establishing notability. The first edition was published by a game company, the second via Kickstarter. This appears to be an "in-universe", hobbyist work -- slightly better than self-published. Okay to use for non-controversial details once notability of the subjects is established via other means, but I don't see evidence of fact-checking or accuracy. --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:34, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
• Reliable for both I'm not seeing any evidence that the source is erroneous. We have numerous BLPs for people like footballers and pornstars which are supported by weak sources and, in general, we commonly use books and newspapers as sources even though these often contain errors and bias. All I'm seeing here is a case of prejudice against the field. Andrew D. (talk) 07:18, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
• Comment it should be noted that the primary Wikiproject for RPGs, Wikiproject Dungeons & Dragons, has determined it to be a reliable secondary source for their purposes. Not sure what that says. Canterbury Tail talk 11:31, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it was added to the Resources list by User:JEB215 in 2015. The page was built by User:Drilnoth in 2008 using available sources at that time; Designers & Dragons and several other books were not written yet and so were added later. BOZ (talk) 11:52, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• Comment on Notability A couple of editors have commented that Designers & Dragons may be an independent, reliable source for article content but not for WP:N. I believe this line of thinking reflects a misunderstanding about what WP Notability is: per policy, it is not supposed to be a measure of the importance of a topic, or of its encyclopaedicity (which is covered by WP:NOT), but simply a question of whether there are adequate sources to treat a topic; if there are not enough sources, it is not notable, but if there are enough sources, it is. (There may be some deletionists who disagree with this criterion, but the policy and guidelines are actually pretty clear). Of course, not all sources topics require their own articles, and some are best dealt with in sections of longer articles, but these are questions of encyclopaedicity rather than Notability.

So if Designers & Dragons is a reliable, independent source - which is certainly how the SCHOLARSHIP in the field treats it - then it is evidence of Notability based on the significance of the mention, same as any other RS. I do of course agree that no extraordinary claims should be based on the text in question, nor do I trust it's theoretical or analytical judgements very far, but it's factual accuracy is excellent. And the argument that boils down to "it covers so many games that none of them can be very important" simply runs contrary to what WP:N actually means; for example, the listing of very, very diagnoses in the DSM doesn't make any of them less Notable for WP. Newimpartial (talk) 15:45, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

which is certainly how the SCHOLARSHIP in the field treats it While I certainly understand the spirit of your perspective, I would dispute that there can be scholarship in a field that is not a scholarly field. This is not a comment on the value or import of role-playing games, however, I don't believe their design or manufacture is a scholarly field. Scholarship "within the field" might be a reasonable touchpoint for the academic disciplines, however, I don't see evidence that role-playing games is an academic discipline. This is not to say that any entertainment topic is un-scholarly. Film, for instance, is both a topic of entertainment and a topic of scholarship (the latter evidenced through the presence of indexed journals about film, a large number of university professorships studying film, and a general recognition of the viability of the field of film studies). However, I appreciate we may have to agree to disagree. Chetsford (talk) 15:59, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Is that why you didn't include the new Routledge text in your "reception" section of the RSN notice: because of your OR decision that it was not in a scholarly field? You should inform Routledge, then, and you might want to tell the publishers of the game studies journals, as well. Newimpartial (talk)

the publishers of the game studies journals I'm not familiar with any scholarly journals about RPGs. This may be a personal failure on my part; could you cite some so I could better acquaint myself and consider modifying my !vote appropriately? Chetsford (talk) 16:40, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

I am not aware of any journals that are confined to RPGs, but the RPG form is certainly discussed within the burgeoning scholarship on game studies (or Ludology) in general. Newimpartial (talk) 16:58, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Maybe you could share some of those journals then? Chetsford (talk) 17:10, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

The obvious specialty journal for you to start with would be http://analoggamestudies.org . Newimpartial (talk) 17:23, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

I've checked SCOPUS and EBSCO and it doesn't appear to be indexed. Chetsford (talk) 17:29, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

That would explain why it didn't show up in the Google Scholar results. :) Newimpartial (talk) 18:01, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

So this is not an indexed journal? To my original query of the latter evidenced through the presence of indexed journals did you have any examples of indexed journals? The question as to whether roleplaying games is an academic field comes down to several factors listed above, including are there scholarly journals? If there are, I'm hoping you can help us identify them. Keeping in mind that simply starting a website and calling it "journal" does not make it a scholarly journal in the spirit of WP:NJOURNAL. Chetsford (talk) 19:17, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Please don't move goalposts. I was answering your direct question, "I'm not familiar with any scholarly journals about RPGs. This may be a personal failure on my part; could you cite some...?" I was not answering your oblique reference to indexed film journals, nor was I offering an opinion on the specifics of any journal's editorial process. (I trust that WP editors can read websites and make their own decisions about editorial oversight.) RPGs are included in the overall field or ludology, specifically in the less lucrative part of that field dealing with "analog games". I have no interest in proceeding any further down this rabbit hole, none of which explains your non-inclusion of the Routledge text in your filing here at RSN. Newimpartial (talk) 19:33, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• Is roleplay gaming an academic discipline? Sorry, I assumed when I said "scholarly journals" it was evident, vis a vis my previous comment the latter evidenced through the presence of indexed journals, what it was I was looking for (i.e. not just any publication or website including the word "journal" in their name but scholarly journals). If I expressed myself imperfectly, I apologize. In any case, Analog Game Studies would objectively not meet our WP:NJOURNAL criteria since we have set-forth that "the only reasonably accurate way of finding citations to journals are via bibliographic databases and citation indices". Therefore, IMO, on the basis of there being no scholarly journals on role-playing games, no or very few academics at accredited universities researching roleplaying games, no learned society dedicated to the topic of roleplaying games, and roleplaying games are not listed in the Classification of Instructional Programs [11] or the Joint Academic Coding System [12] I would maintain the position that roleplaying games are not an academic discipline. I appreciate we may have to agree to disagree. Chetsford (talk) 19:57, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• Regarding BLP sourcing: I should have made it clearer above, but when Appelcline lists his "fact-checkers", these were not just random people who happened to work at the company. Many of the people written about in the book – not anywhere near all, but many – were among the 120-or-so fact-checkers listed. My understanding of how the material for the book came to be is that Appelcline would write an article about one company and the games and people associated with it by reading interviews, news articles, non-fiction books about the industry, magazine articles, websites, etc, and compile the information together based on that, and send the article to one or more people who were significant to that company in some way for feedback and to act as a fact-checker. Let's say he were writing about "Happy Fun Time Games" which was started by John Smith; he would send the article to Smith and I imagine he might get a response something like: "I actually started HFTG in my basement in 1985 while I was at Blah University in Colorado with my friend Jim Johnson who was working as a lawyer in Tennessee at the time. He left the company in 1994 to go back to BlahBlah Law school, so I hired Robert Thompson to take his place after he was let go from Goofy Games, and he left in 2002 to go into photography in Georgia. Johnson sued us and won for licensing rights in 2003. I took time off from the company from 2004-2006 to play golf, and then I came back. Other than that, it looks like you got everything right, so great work!" He would then publish the article online, and after a while there were a few dozen such articles online, so Mongoose agreed to publish these articles as a book, and the editor in the credits is Charlotte Law, and that is how Designers & Dragons came to be. The question then is, since we have people approving of what was written about them and about people they know, does that make the source more or less reliable? I suppose some people will argue that no one knows you and your friends better than yourself, while other people will say that giving input that way just gives people the opportunity to lie about themselves and people they know, so me asking this may or may not put us closer to a consensus. BOZ (talk) 14:48, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

  This thread is likely to be closed in the near future, and it may be difficult to determine the consensus here as so many differing opinions have been offerred. Wikipedia policy is determined partly by consensus discussion of what should and should not happen, and partly by practice of what does happen. Chetsford has put a lot of effort into arguing that while Designers & Dragons could possibly be used as a reliable source under the right circumstances, that a subject's inclusion in this book should not be taken as an indicator of notability, and he even tried for some reason to have it documented as such and as one of the perennial source discussions despite this being the first and only discussion of the source on a noticeboard that I am aware of. So as far as documenting practice, this noticeboard discussion came out of Chetsford nominating almost 20 tabletop gaming-related (mostly RPG, but not all) articles for AFD. Of those, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fantasy Imperium, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zen and the Art of Mayhem, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Double Cross (role-playing game) have been closed as delete, and as a few similar articles are also likely to be – but please note that none of them were sourced to Designers & Dragons (or sourced at all, for that matter). Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Doctor Who Roleplaying Game and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Angus Abranson were both sourced to Designers & Dragons, and both were closed as Keep. Five more pending AFDs are also on articles sourced to Designers & Dragons, and from a look at each of them it seems likely to me at this point that they will all close as either Keep or Merge. Merge is not Delete, and does allow for some of the sourced content to be moved to another article. Since policy on Wikipedia reflects practice in part, I am urging whoever closes this discussion to not explicitly rule that Designers & Dragons does not contribute to notability. If you cannot find that it in fact does contribute to notability, then please leave it as an open question for now. BOZ (talk) 14:06, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree with the above that there is no consensus it is RS, nor is there a consensus it is not insofar as BLPs are concerned. I would say there is probably a consensus it is RS for non-biographical facts. Just in point of clarification of my nominations regarding RPGs, I've nominated 19, of which 4 have been deleted, 4 kept, 2 merged, and 9 are either open or have had to be relisted. I'm not sure which involved Designers & Dragons. Chetsford (talk) 02:22, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

I explained here already regarding which of your AFDs involved Designers & Dragons as a source, but if my explanation was not clear – three were closed as Keep, one as Merge, and three remain to be closed but are unlikely to be closed as delete unless there is a last-minute push in that direction. That is not enough evidence on its own to say that the book definitely does contribute to notability, but my point here is that it does show some practice-based evidence that it may contribute to notability, thus my request to the closer that the book should not be ruled as clearly a non-contributor to notability, and thus leaving that an open question at worst. The majority of your recent game-related AFDs do not involve this source, so I was not discussing them here, as this discussion is about just one source, and not about your success rate which you keep touting as some important metric. But since you brought it up, on your chart, lets just say that four of the seven "red" unsuccessful nomination results on the current version of the chart involved Designers & Dragons as a source, while none of the "green" successful nomination results involved said book as a source. So, let's just say that your success rate when it comes to articles sourced by this book is… underwhelming at best. BOZ (talk) 03:17, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it appears we agree that there is a consensus it's fine for articles about games and game companies and no consensus as to whether it is or is not RS for BLPs. Since the Keep/Delete decision in each AfD was not based solely on the status of Designers & Dragons but rather on an holistic evaluation of all the sources in the article, as well as arguments for the subject's inherent notability on the basis of various awards, this centralized discussion in which Designers & Dragons is the exclusive subject of analysis is probably a better judge of the community's opinion. In any case, I think discussions at RSN usually just fade away 9 times out of 10 rather than being formally closed. Best - Chetsford (talk) 03:34, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

• Just adding that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hillfolk was closed as Keep as well, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cthulhu Britannica as merge. The three remaining AFDs involving Designers & Dragons as a source have been relisted, and as noted above, at this time look more likely to be Keep or Merge rather than delete. BOZ (talk) 11:32, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

  Just adding for the record that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cubicle 7 was closed as No consensus (delete 3; keep 10). BOZ (talk) 11:41, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

  Likewise, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dominic McDowall-Thomas was closed as no consensus. The last AFD in question was relisted for a second time earlier this week, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/D6 Fantasy, with most respondents split between either Keep or Merge/redirect, and only the nominator and one other arguing to delete. So, to reiterate, with all the AFD results noted above going "merge" at worst, and most as keep or no consensus (aka, default keep), I will again dispute the notion that the community should consider Designers & Dragons to be not a RS or contribute to notability. It was not the only source in question on those articles, so it alone does not determine notability, but the failure to get a single delete result among the 7 articles that used this source tell me that the community does consider it enough of a RS that contributes to notability (along with other sources) that consensus could not be found to delete any of those 7 articles. BOZ (talk) 11:47, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/D6 Fantasy was finally closed today as Keep. BOZ (talk) 23:19, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

• Most certainly reliable. No idea why this is not considered a reliable source. It is every bit as reliable as any other source compiled by a specialist historian of a subject. The fact its publisher is a games company is neither here nor there. Inclusion in it does not make a game, product, company or individual inherently notable, of course, but as a source for facts on the tabletop RPG industry it is certainly a reliable source. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:18, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• Appears Reliable. I found this source popping up in some scholarly ghits and I've found no evidence of negative claims against it, so, at least for now, I have no reason to doubt its general reliability. Certainly it's an appropriate source for WP:GNG. Praemonitus (talk) 21:22, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
• Yes for A and B. First referring to Evil Hat as "T-shirt company" is akin to calling Microsoft a "company that sells mice and keyboards". It is an attempt to weaken the status of a publisher. No one that has any familiarity with Evil Hat would call them a T-Shirt company. They sell books and games and happen to have branded t-shirts. Secondly, the scholarship of these books (there are now five) rests in the hands of the author, Shannon Appelcline who is also the editor-in-chief of RPGnet and historian for DriveThruRPG/RPGNow. While he has no page himself he is mentioned in over 900 Wikipedia pages. Third. The book was originally published by Mongoose Publishing and is based on his articles at RPGNet. Web Warlock (talk) 15:11, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
• Yes for both, with the caveat that it's a book about the history of RPGs, not about people's biographies outside RPGs. It's a respected series in multiple volumes. It's a genre piece, but so is, say, a book on history of Physics. BOZ seems to know quite a bit about it. --GRuban (talk) 15:45, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
• Closure requested at WP:ANRFC. Cunard (talk) 05:03, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
• {{Do not archive until}} added. Please remove the {{Do not archive until}} tag after the discussion is closed. (I am adding this because discussions frequently have been archived prematurely without being resolved.)

  Cunard (talk) 05:03, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Prelim tally

Since the above discussion is becoming more detailed than anticipated, for ease of overview (but not to replace or substitute for the above discussion as per WP:NOTAVOTE), I have created the following summary table of the position of individual editors as a GF attempt to represent an interpretation of their opinions. Please feel free to edit or modify it directly if I have misrepresented you (edit - or remove yourself entirely if you do not want your opinion presented in summary format or to add yourself if you're not represented but contributed above). Chetsford (talk) 18:49, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Editor	Reliable for Games or Game Companies?	Reliable for BLPs?
Chetsford	Maybe	No
Jbhunley	No	No
Cullen328	No	No
Donald Albury	No	No
BOZ	Yes	Yes
Simonm223	Yes (non-extraordinary claims)	Yes
Newimpartial	Yes	Yes
HighKing	Yes	Yes
Slatersteven	No (except on rare occasions)	No (except on rare occasions)
Canterbury Tail	Yes (facts but not notability)	Maybe
FourViolas	Yes (non-extraordinary claims)	No
Hobit	Yes	Yes
K.e.coffman	Maybe (facts but not notability)	No
Andrew Davidson	Yes	Yes
Necrothesp	Yes	Yes
Reyk	Maybe (non-controversial facts, but not notability)	No
Praemonitus	Yes	Yes
Webwarlock	Yes	Yes
GRuban	Yes	Yes

Thanks - you might want to put a "ping" next to each of their names or something to give them a chance to make sure they agree with your interpretation. BOZ (talk) 18:54, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Excellent point - done. Chetsford (talk) 18:57, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

That's fine but I should note that I agree with FourViolas' qualification that it be used mostly for non-extraordinary claims. Simonm223 (talk) 12:01, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

I did in fact say no, I just accepted there might be rare occasions when it might have not been "not RS". But these do not outweigh my overall concerns about its neutrality and independence.Slatersteven (talk) 08:08, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Slatersteven - I apologize and have amended accordingly. If I've still got it wrong, please feel free to edit it as you see fit. Sorry again. Chetsford (talk) 14:24, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Continued !voting

• Krikey! Unreliable for anything, and hell no for BLPs. btw writing something about a company and sending it to a company founder, and taking his or her recollections as a "fact check" is about as amateur hour as it gets; doing that is called "PR' not "journalism" much less scholarly research. I imagine there will be decent scholarship done on this stuff one day. Jytdog (talk) 09:30, 4 September 2018 (UTC) (tweak formatting Jytdog (talk) 22:02, 23 September 2018 (UTC))

• I wrote a critical review of a portion of this work which may be found here http://boggswood.blogspot.com/2011/11/designers-and-dragons-only-4995.html In my opinion the work is not wholly reliable, though certain sections dealing with later game development may be. DHBoggs (talk) 14:36, 10 September 2018 (UTC) DHBoggs

• "...on the basis of there being no scholarly journals on role-playing games..." The content is there, of course, with Games and Culture and Simulation & Gaming both publishing decent amounts of info on RPG's—and if anyone's curious what a true academic publication about RPG's looks like—you can bypass Designers and Dragons and look straight to Dungeons, Dragons and Digital Denizens (doi:10.5040/9781628927900)  spintendo  16:57, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

• comment just a note that, in addition to contributing to the wrong section of the noticeboard, none of the last three comments actually contribute anything to the policy-based determination of whether Designers & Dragons is a RS, which is to be based on the editorial oversight of its various publications and not on whether its claims correspond to those documented elsewhere. WEIGHT should be given to its citation in the developing scholarly literature on RPGs, though it is not of course a scholarly work so [;[WP: SCHOLARSHIP]] does not apply.

Anyway, this whole thing should probably have been closed "no consensus" last week... Newimpartial (talk) 17:28, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

DHBoggs, it seems likely that you found your way to this RSN discussion after I started this other thread regarding your addition of blogs and forums posts as citations for an article. I see that you posted a review of the book on your blog; per your comments here and on your user page you have an interest in archaeology and anthropology, but can you state what qualifications you have as a book reviewer, by which you can assert that your WP:SPS review of a 7-page portion of the book has any real relevance here? I am concerned about your ability to judge what sources are and are not reliable. 73.168.15.161 (talk) 04:45, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

• There is no universal pronouncement to be made. You've got to take into account whether a claim is contentious, self-serving, an invasion of privacy, or "likely to be challenged". In any of those circumstances, I'd be wary of this source. If none of those conditions apply though, it's not necessary to be extremely picky about things like the author's educational background as long as you're satisfying WP:V - ie, a reader can track down the claim and see what they think about it for themselves. Rhoark (talk) 16:37, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
  • I think that statement sums up this discussion about as well as anything that could be said. I'm not sure why no one has closed this yet, considering anything meaningful that still needed to be said was done about a month ago. BOZ (talk) 22:40, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

• Generaly reliable This seems to be the type of source where great care has been taken to ensure accuracy, written by an expert in the field. The quantity of source material referenced would support further research should there be anything controversial, which has not AFAICS been suggested. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 12:49, 5 October 2018 (UTC).
  
• This is getting kind of stale Could an uninvolved admin please do an analysis of the !votes here and put this ancient thread to bed? Simonm223 (talk) 16:28, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

• Marginally Reliable Should not be cited in Wikipedia's voice about anything controversial, or in BLPs. LK (talk) 04:36, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

www.team.net

I've run into some pushback regarding using http://www.team.net/ as a source. To me, it is merely a personal web page that is put together by various individuals who crowdsource information from team.net's listserv, or what we call a WP:SPS. It is cited in a number of automotive related articles:

1. Jonathan Tennyson (car designer)
   • Negyesi, Paul. "Sunray Archived 2013-04-26 at the Wayback Machine." team.net Web. Mar 1995
   • Negyesi, Paul. "Geneva 1995 Archived 2012-10-25 at the Wayback Machine." team.net Web. Mar 1995
2. Automobilwerk Eisenach
   • (external link) History
3. Dacon
   • Negyesi, Pal. "Dacon". KTUD Automotive Web. Archived from the original on 2012-02-29. Retrieved 2012-10-10. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
   • Negyesi, Pal. "Dacon 828". KTUD Automotive Web. Archived from the original on 2013-05-12. Retrieved 2012-10-10. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
4. Carrozzeria Ghia
   • (external link) An enthusiast site on Ghia history
5. Kobalt (tools)
   • Blair, John T. (2003-02-10). "Who Makes What Tools". SOL's Morgan Web. Archived from the original on 2010-11-11. Retrieved 2010-04-06. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
6. Wartburg (marque)
   • (external link) History of Wartburg — long introduction
7. Mitsubishi HSR
   • Coverage of Mitsubishi exhibits at European Motor Shows, Team.net
8. Trabant
   • (external link) Technical details and pictures of the Trabant 601
9. DKW
   • Vogel, Jason; Gomes, Flavio. "DKWs in Brazil". KTUD Online Automotive Archive. Archived from the original on 2013-05-15. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
10. British Leyland
    • British Car Linage Archived 14 November 2003 at the Wayback Machine
11. Rootes Group
    • (external link) * A short history of the Rootes group
12. Alfa Romeo V6 engine
    • This had been cited as Williams, Dave (6 March 2003). "Engine Weight FYI". Retrieved 2007-12-20., but it was recently changed to Complete Handbook of Automotive Power Trains, Jan Norbye, 1981, which is the citation given by team.net author Dave Williams, on the assumption that if Dave writes a personal web page such as Engine Weight FYI, and Dave cites Norbye (1981), then we can take Dave's research AGF, and simply copy the data and citation here. To me it's a plain and simple case of a self-published source with this citation, and all of the above.

It makes sense for a Wikipedia editor to refer to a crowdsourced or listserv generate personal website like team.net and find facts and sources, but then the Wikipedia editor must verify those facts themselves, ie., read Norbye (1981) with their own eyes, and then cite it in a Wikipedia article. Unless Dave Williams is proven to be a subject expert and his writings on this site are reputably fact-checked, it does't meet the minimum requirements for RS, IMO. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 02:30, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

As a group blog, a self-published source, so it's unreliable. --Ronz (talk) 16:03, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Anyone else? This source is used on a dozen articles and I don't want to just remove it without a bit of consensus. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:26, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Truth in Advertising (organization)

I am involved in a debate about whether Truth in Advertising (TINA) articles are reliable sources. At issue is whether TINA is unreliable due to non-neutrality/bias, or as a primary source, or as a watchdog advocacy group running campaigns against advertisements, and whether there is information on their editorial control and fact-checking.

Truth in Advertising's website, which publishes their articles, is truthinadvertising.org. Their goal statement says in part that they are a "a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Madison, CT, whose mission is to be the go-to online resource dedicated to empowering consumers to protect themselves and one another against false advertising and deceptive marketing. We aim to achieve our mission through investigative journalism, education, advocacy, and the promotion of truth in advertising. We are independently funded and do not accept any advertising dollars to support our work." The US gov source says that such an organization files tax returns; I see no reason to doubt this.

Apart from publishing articles, TINA has been involved in bringing court cases, regulatory actions, FDA investigations, fines for false advertising, and so on. They have done this for 5+ years, which might bear on WP:SOURCE's "professional structure in place for checking or analyzing facts, legal issues, evidence, and arguments." They have an executive director, a legal director and a staff attorney, who also has a journalism MS; three lawyers on the staff. They also have two wtiters, a graphics designer, and a "Director of Marketing and Communications", for a total of seven staff listed. Staff members seem to specialize in sub-areas of TINA's field, and the organization seems to be recognized for its area of expertise by standard reliable news organizations (this list of news articles citing them includes the Washington Post, NYT, Wall Street Journal, Slate, CBC, CBS, Fox News, The Economist, Reuters, Al Jezeera, and a fair number more). They seem to have staff journalists and an editorial staff ("Before joining the editorial staff at TINA.org, Jason was an editor and reporter at Patch Media."). TINA do publish corrections, and their website says:

Corrections: TINA.org takes its responsibility to maintain the integrity and accuracy of the content of its website very seriously. If you think you’ve spotted an error, please use the form below and enter “Correction” in the subject line.

I could not find a COI declaration. I did not get a response to an e-mail asking for links to a COI disclosure and a formal editorial policy, not do they seem to publish much by way of financial details online; the public tax filing is not posted by them (if a professional journalist is reading this, please ask TINA about this next time you interview them). There is this policy in the FAQ:

Will TINA.org take down a post if the company gets rid of the deceptive advertising? No. As a general matter, TINA.org never takes down an article or post. But we will always consider updating an article to let consumers know what the company has done since the original post was published. So if you’ve got an update, please let us know.

TINA could be cited in Nicotine marketing and Marketing of electronic cigarettes. Several TINA articles were cited in this old version of the e-cigarettes article. Generalizing, they were investigative journalism articles on e-cigarette marketing practices, cited to support statements that these practices existed. I can give more details, but for brevity, here are the cited articles: [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]

Apologies for expanding and reposting this, but my original post two months ago drew only a question about editorial policy in response; I've provided a lot more info this time. HLHJ (talk) 03:10, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

​After reviewing TINA's website, it's clear that TINA should be considered a biased or opinionated source, and that any use of their content should be properly attributed. TINA can be compared to three advocacy organizations indexed in WP:RSP: the Southern Poverty Law Center (generally reliable), Hope not Hate (no consensus), and Occupy Democrats (generally unreliable). Since TINA publishes its staff list and issues error corrections (examples: [18] [19] [20]), I wouldn't consider the site "generally unreliable". However, since most of the articles linked from TINA's home page don't name their authors, I wouldn't consider the site "generally reliable", either.

For this particular case, none of the five linked TINA pages have named authors, and the version of the article you linked doesn't mention TINA at all in the article body. For example, the following sentence is an unsupported attribution:

It has been recommended that consumers research merchants, read all the terms and conditions, and use a pre-paid credit card to avoid repeated and unwanted charges.

References

While TINA might be an acceptable source when other sources are not available, more neutral sources should be preferred in almost all cases. If TINA is used, it's important to label their statements (especially their recommendations and opinions) to prevent the article from becoming an advocacy piece.

— Newslinger talk 06:31, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

It seems generally reliable, but please remember that it's best to use this noticeboard for questions on reliability of specific content.

It's use would probably need qualification, special attribution, or other POV solutions because of their biases, depending on what it was used for. --Ronz (talk) 16:11, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, Newslinger, Ronz. I should have attributed that statement on purchasing scams. On specific content, I'd like to use it for the existence of certain marketing practices. I had used it to support some statements where I really didn't need to use it, but I also used it to support the following:

• relative costs of products, claimed and actual (it varies, and I haven't found another source for this yet; could attribute)
• marketing claims made by sales reps in shops as well as online (lots of sources, including MEDRS, for the same claims being made online, but TINA sent a journalist around bricks-and-mortar shops and counted how often each claim was made in person; could attribute)
• a particular set of purchasing scams they investigated (there are obviously government regulatory-action sources on this, and I could try citing them, but they will be less descriptive; a major source for this was also a TINA FOI request, which perhaps I could also cite directly. The sourcing would, however, then be primary. Some vaping websites have also covered this, but they are generally unreliable sources. Could attribute)
• to describe the context surrounding FDA statements (one on GRAS, one on child poisoning risks) in a more digestible form (obviously one can cite the FDA as well; I cited them on poisoning and quoted them on GRAS, and could drop TINA here)

HLHJ (talk) 15:51, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Designating non-staff contributors and sponsored content as questionable in Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources

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

---

Yesterday, I added the following to the Questionable sources section of the Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources guideline:

Non-staff contributors

Website content authored by non-staff contributors is questionable, even if it is published in a source that is otherwise reliable. Compared to staff writers, contributors are subject to reduced editorial oversight and have a lesser reputation for fact-checking and error correction. Reliable publications distinguish articles written by staff writers from ones written by contributors by indicating the author's job title in the byline. Less reputable sources only display the author's job title on their profile page or the website's masthead.

Examples of sources that publish content from non-staff contributors include Forbes.com and HuffPost.

Opinion pieces in reliable sources have their own guideline, which applies in addition to this one.

Sponsored content

Sponsored content is generally unacceptable as a source, because it is paid for by advertisers and bypasses the publication's editorial process. Reliable publications clearly indicate sponsored articles in the byline or with a disclaimer at the top of the article. Sources that do not clearly distinguish staff-written articles from sponsored content are also questionable.

I added these sections after expanding the WP:RSP entries for Forbes.com contributors and HuffPost contributors, which reference 23 discussions over the past 10 years that show strong editor consensus for designating non-staff contributors as generally unreliable, and for treating their articles as opinion pieces or self-published sources.

If there are any issues with these additions, please feel free to discuss and improve them. — Newslinger talk 03:05, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

That sounds good, Newslinger. I have two concerns, neither of them a criticism. Firstly, a minor one; guest authors are sometimes recognized experts in a field. We might want to clarify this policy intersection.

Secondly and majorly, identifying sponsored content can be non-trivial. I'm willing to write an essay on this if none exists. I wrote some related material in response to ads disguised as academic papers, which were mistakenly cited as MEDRS in an article averaging 2800 hits a day. The scale of this problem is intimidating, and in this discussion I write about attempting to fix it, then giving up and incompetently looking for a semi-automated solution (I've since worked on metadata for identifying sources as sponsored, advice or help welcome here).

On the various guises worn by ads-pretending-to-be-content in popular media, I recommend this article written by an expert guest author on the site I am inquiring about above. Apologies for the irony overdose. HLHJ (talk) 04:44, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi HLHJ, I've added the WP:EXPERTSOURCE shortcut to the Exceptions subsection of WP:RS, and promoted the subsection to be directly under the Questionable and self-published sources section. I've also added the phrase "and content from non-staff contributors" to extend the exception to WP:CONTRIBUTOR.

The WP:SPONSORED section is a bit sparse, and a how-to guide offering additional guidance could be very useful. While Truth in Advertising's content should be used with discretion in an article, the organization's advice would fit perfectly in a how-to guide showing editors how to detect native advertising. — Newslinger talk 09:01, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

The wording in WP:CONTRIBUTOR has been revised per discussion at Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources#Designating non-staff contributors and sponsored content as questionable. — Newslinger talk 17:32, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. This discussion is now here. HLHJ (talk) 06:14, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

This request for comment has been withdrawn, and a revised follow-up RfC has been posted at Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources#RfC: Designating web content by non-staff contributors as questionable (revised). — Newslinger talk 08:25, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

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

Is the Character of Kingship a reliable source for Nepali Funerary practice?

Coming from this edit dispute Bahun a key source is this book [21] - while Bloomsbury files it as an Anthropological text, as best as I can find the author is an Irish journalist specializing in motor sports - as such, I have misgivings about its use as a reliable source for some rather extraordinary claims. Can anybody else weigh in here? Is this a different Declan Quigley? Simonm223 (talk) 15:36, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Addendum, in the same edit dispute this source was provided [22] - it's a PDF hosted on a blog so again I have questions regarding its reliability but would prefer to get feedback. Simonm223 (talk) 16:02, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Bumping to see if I can get some feedback on this source for ethnography or anthropology. There's a pretty heated content dispute that this is a component of so some assistance would be appreciated. Simonm223 (talk) 15:06, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Presumably "as best as I can find" means a search on Wikipedia! Putting the name into google gives me a prompt for "declan quigley anthropology" which gives this search [23]. Because of his legal case he has a remarkable amount of national media coverage. You ask "Is this a different Declan Quigley?" Answer: Yes of of course it is. Please don't waste people's time here. Johnbod (talk) 16:38, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Actually Google Books was the culprit. When you click the link from the excerpt that was being used in the associated content dispute it doesn't point to the anthropologist Declan Quigley. It points to the Irish car dude. So while the sass was unnecessary, I do appreciate the clarification. Also it turns out the whole content dispute was a good hand / bad hand sock puppetry thing and it sort of fizzled out when the sock farm got blocked so it's not entirely relevant anyway. But based on this info I'll not object if somebody else decides to use this source in the future. Simonm223 (talk) 16:54, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Request for comment on Wikipedia:Interviews

There is a request for comment on the Wikipedia:Interviews essay:

1. Should Wikipedia:Interviews be designated as an explanatory supplement?
2. Should Wikipedia:Interviews be linked from the verifiability policy?
3. Should Wikipedia:Interviews be linked from the no original research policy?
4. Should Wikipedia:Interviews be linked from the identifying reliable sources guideline?
5. Should Wikipedia:Interviews be linked from the notability guideline?

If you are interested, please participate at Wikipedia talk:Interviews#RfC: Explanatory supplement and links from policies and guidelines. Thanks. — Newslinger talk 18:49, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

This request for comment has been withdrawn. Thank you for your feedback. — Newslinger talk 07:28, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Request for comment on Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources

There is a request for comment on the Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources guideline:

Should the following section be included in Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources § Questionable sources?

Web content by non-staff contributors

On news websites, periodical websites (excluding academic journals), and blogs, web content authored by non-staff contributors is questionable, even if it is published in a source that is otherwise reliable. Compared to staff writers, contributors are subject to reduced editorial oversight and have a lesser reputation for fact-checking and error correction. Reliable publications distinguish articles written by staff writers from ones written by contributors by indicating the author's job title in the byline. Less reputable sources only display the author's job title on their profile page or the website's masthead.

Examples of sources that publish content from non-staff contributors include Forbes.com and HuffPost.

Opinion pieces in reliable sources have their own guideline, which applies in addition to this one.

If you are interested, please participate at Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources#RfC: Designating web content by non-staff contributors as questionable. Thanks. — Newslinger talk 18:54, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

This request for comment has been withdrawn, and a revised follow-up RfC has been posted (see below). Thank you for your feedback. — Newslinger talk 08:19, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Revised follow-up RfC

There is a request for comment on the Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources guideline:

Should the following section be included in Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources § Questionable sources?

Web content by non-staff contributors

On news websites, periodical websites (excluding academic journals), and blogs, web content authored by non-staff contributors is questionable if the contributors are subject to reduced editorial oversight, even if the web content is published in a source that is otherwise reliable. Compared to staff writers, contributors generally have a lesser reputation for fact-checking and error correction. Reliable publications distinguish articles written by staff writers from ones written by contributors by indicating the author's job title in the byline. Less reputable sources only display the author's job title on their profile page or the website's masthead.

Examples of sources that publish content from non-staff contributors include Forbes.com and HuffPost.

Opinion pieces in reliable sources have their own guideline, which applies instead of this one.

If you are interested, please participate at Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources#RfC: Designating web content by non-staff contributors as questionable (revised). Thanks. — Newslinger talk 08:19, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Karthik Srinivasan

He is a researcher of Indian music, and manages two websites (http://www.itwofs.com and http://www.milliblog.com). The former website (stylised as ITwoFS), which tracks plagiarism in Indian music, has received good coverage from third-party sources, such as The Hindu. Read about him here. Now Karthik even writes the weekly column "Carbon Copy" for Film Companion, which is an RS. Can he and his websites be deemed RS in this regard? I would like the perspectives of Indian editors as well. --Kailash29792 (talk) 04:57, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

RfC on use of CoinDesk

Background

• CoinDesk is a notable specialist news outlet focused entirely on cryptocurrency and blockchain. It maintains a Bitcoin Price Index data which is widely used by mainstream newspapers when reporting on Bitcoin price. Occasionally reports it publishes are quoted by mainstream reliable sources. It has an editorial policy, about page, and a conflict of interest with the companies listed here.
• The vast majority of crypto/blockchain related sources are unreliable and often highly promotional, with a great deal of paid content, undisclosed native advertising, and unlabeled press releases. Coindesk is generally considered more reputable than the average crypto/blockchain related publications.
• Coindesk is widely used as a source in articles related to blockchain and cryptocurrency, there is no consistent treatment of whether it is reliable or not. Some editors will remove it along with other spam sources, others hold it to be an exception to the rule and consider it at least partly reliable.
• This topic is under general sanctions, detailed at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

Previous discussions

• Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_190#CoinDesk
• Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_236#CoinDesk
• Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_212#CoinDesk_and_CoinTelegraph_on_the_article_Ethereum
• Talk:Ethereum/Archive_2#Coin_desk
• Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_52#Ethereum
• Talk:Bitcoin_Cash/Archive_3#RfC_to_tighten_sourcing_on_this_article

My question is simply what the consensus is on CoinDesk's reliability. Is it;

A. A questionable source to be discouraged, or not to be used at all.

B. A biased source which should not be used to support statements in Wikipedia's voice, but can be used if attributed.

C. A reliable specialist source.

Thanks. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 16:24, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Survey

• Reliable within the scope of cyrptocurrency/blockchain. They have an editorial staff and an editorial policy. They do issue corrections [24]. They were founded 5 years ago (which is small for most mainstream publications, but given the topic area isn't unusual). I'm not aware of any well known accusations of factual mistakes (especially uncorrected ones). To me, this all adds up as reliable (within its expertise area). -Obsidi (talk) 18:16, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
• Reliable for bitcoin/etc. Seems fully appropriate to use to help source out articles in that topic area. --Masem (t) 14:45, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
• Questionable I think it is a good source overall, but it is still questionable (pardon the contradiction please). Note some articles that have a big problem with promotional content can always do an RfC on that specific article to put tighter restrictions in place. In general, I find the WP:GS/Crypto#GS in place on the crypto articles to be working well and I would keep this coindesk as it is the best (and often only reliable source) out of an awful group of cryptorags that are rife with promotionalism. Comments @MER-C:, @Jytdog:, @Retimuko:? Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 17:43, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
• 'questionable many of the pieces in Coindesk buy full-on into whatever is being hyped this week. Some pieces have expert analysis (positive and negative) and are useful. So it can be considered, but should not be used freely. (I will add, use of Coindesk, like other trade rag blogs, as proof of notability in deletion discussions is questionable per WP:ORGIND). Jytdog (talk) 17:53, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
• questionable It does seem to be one of the best among other cryptocurrency news sites, but I would still suggest using it sparingly. Some articles look like advertising. Retimuko (talk) 18:32, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
• Sometimes usable for our purposes - be cautious - in my experience (wearing my Public Expert on Crypto hat), it's usually not factually wrong about present-day stated facts, and tries to get them right. It's useless for notability - they never saw a press release they didn't like, and no future event or hypothetical can be trusted - they run too many articles on things that don't exist and never end up happening. It's also useless for expert opinion for Wikipedia purposes, unless the expert is notable. If an article is cited to Coinbase, I'd trust it for past and present factual statements - they're fine with those - but it wouldn't IMO confer notability - David Gerard (talk) 23:33, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
• Worse than questionable - it is likely the best industry source for cryptocurrencies, but that makes it the best of a ton of garbage, you have to pick through it really carefully. They have an editorial policy that claims editorial independence but links to the owners investments [25]. There are over 100 crypto companies listed there including some of the bigger ones (e.g. the Kraken exchange). I don't doubt the journalists' good faith, but given such a setup the editors, if not the journalists, will know which side of the bread has butter on it.

There is a tiny exception I might use it for. Reliable sources such as the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, NY Times, WaPo quote bitcoin prices from such sources. If it's produced by Coindesk and quoted by a reliable source, I might use it in a long-term setting (not for news). In truth, there is no single bitcoin price at any time (the quotes you see from Google and Coindesk are about $40 apart now), so it's up to reliable sources to quote what they think is a reasonable estimate of general price levels. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:40, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

• Sometimes usable for our purposes - be cautious CoinDesk and any other cryptocurrency news site shouldn't be used to establish notability. Morgan Ginsberg (talk) 10:34, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

Glad to see sanctions are in place. It's been some time since I worked on related articles, but my impression at the time that there were such strong financial incentives to promote the products and technology that it was best to treat the majority of such sources as heavily biased, in-world, and financially conflicted.

In cases like this, I'd like to see how clearly reliable, independent sources treat and describe CoinDesk. --Ronz (talk) 15:15, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Although there is an article on Coindesk, there is no substantial coverage on Coindesk in reliable sources. It is often quoted for facts related mainly to the price of Bitcoin, they make statements like; [Bitcoin is worth X] according to industry site CoinDesk. [Ether was worth X] according to data from CoinDesk. [Bitcoin is up] according to data from CoinDesk. [Bitcoin has lower highs] Coin Desk reports. Often reliable sources will look at other sources as well to verify the data, they don't blindly rely on Coindesk even for price stats. I personally don't think we should either, if I was voting on my own RfC I would vote B, leaning towards A. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 16:49, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

• I posted links to this discussion on some related talk pages for interested people to be aware of it. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 14:13, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

• The way the process works is:
  1. Press release goes out
  2. Runs in crypto press
  3. Mainstream press sees crypto press coverage, assumes this is specialist technical press rather than a great big circle of press release reprints and altcoin pumping, reports it, changing all the "could" statements to "is" statements
  4. Et viola! more fodder to go "reliable? what on earth"

  - David Gerard (talk) 23:36, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree with David here. In the past we were really lacking RS for these articles, but today it seems that crypto coverage is widely mainstream, thus our need as editors to be covering the most recent press releases is less and less everyday (i too include coindesk in this press release category). I think in general we should be very careful, and NOT use these sites at all to determine article notability. If an article has 10 sources from cointelegraph, coindesk, and coinwhatever.com but none from mainstream, it is for sure also a candidate for AfD. Essentially coindesk should be treated as only a little more reliable than a primary source, but a likely good quality one primary source at that. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 04:40, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

• Question: Are there persistent content disputes because of its use that existing dispute resolution methods can't handle? (Examples please) I think we've witnessed an unwelcome trend of banning "bad" sources one-by-one via RfCs. Such a heavy tool should only be used when the actual use of a source is proven problematic (à la Daily Mail) and there is a need to point to a strong consensus. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 11:26, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

@Finnusertop: There is not an issue of content disputes here because anyone who gets involved in a dispute on the subject is normally topic banned under the sanctions on crypto and blockchain topics. Or just blocked as a spammer. This is to see if Coindesk can be used to improve some crypto articles or whether we should be getting rid of it with any other source with "coin", "crypto", "block", or "fintech" in the title. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 11:59, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure we need to ban Coindesk or the cryptocurrency press in general, admins using the discretionary sanctions can do that pretty well - hopefully giving one warning to editors who use these sources. But @Finnusertop:, you should understand the scope of the problem. There are advertisements for people to "monetize their cryptocurrency blogs" offering "the best rates" so there are essentially an unlimited number of very biased "trade publications" whose rehash of press releases, other cryptopress articles, and even spun rehashes of mainstream press just overwhelms coverage by the mainstream press. If you go to Google news and search for bitcoin, the first 50 results might only include 2 links to mainstream articles. If you go through and search for "bitcoin financial times" or "bitcoin bloomberg" there will still be a large amount from the crypto press. So newbys almost always include references to cryptopress. We should make clear here that

• when mainstream sources are available that the cryptopress should not be used
• when mainstream sources are not available, it's doubtful that any cryptopress should be used
• cryptopress should never be used to indicate notability.

Smallbones_(smalltalk)!

Then this RfC doesn't even try to address the problem. It tries to ban one source. It sounds like this is a "newbies" versus established editors issues. In other words, consensus already exists, but we've failed at communicating it. Perhaps someone should write an essay that would be a convenient point of reference. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:19, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

The Biggest Loser (U.S. TV series)

So I just had to remove two WP:DAILYMAIL sources from this article ([26] [27]). So it got me wondering if two other sources (The New York Post The Hollywood Reporter) which I added to the article awhile back, both which talk about the show being under fire. What's the general consensus regarding The New York Post and The Hollywood Reporter?—Mythdon (talk • contribs) 04:32, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

The article from The Hollywood Reporter is fine. This is a trade magazine, and it's quite reliable for entertainment news, reviews, and analysis, subject to the normal guidelines (WP:RSOPINION, WP:NEWSBLOG, WP:ROUTINE, etc, as applicable). The New York Post is a sensationalist tabloid. I usually replace citations to the New York Post with something I consider more reliable. In particular, I don't think it should be used in a biography of a living person, and I don't think it should be used to source scandals about living people. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 23:59, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Even with the slightly tabloid-ish nature of the NYPost, it is now part of the story (they ran the initial interviews that raised questions and as the Hollywood Reporter points out, they are seeking subpoenas to investigate further). So it's hard to separate it now, but better RSes should be used as much as possible to track how the story develops alongside the NYPost ones. --Masem (t) 14:43, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

About The Next Web

Is The Next Web a reliable source? I first started wondering if TNW is a reliable source or not when someone in this discussion listed TNW as an unreliable source, but i'm not sure if that's the case. 344917661X (talk) 20:10, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

• It is used about 1,500 times on Wikipedia, the only other time it was questioned on this noticeboard is here. The article on it is being deleted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thenextweb. They employ 70 staff, though the page listing them does describe the site as having previously been a blog and now being a media company. They do not brand themselves as news or as independent.

Looking more closely, they appear to have a lot of media partners and partnerships with technology firms. They boast about their advertising and branding ability as proven by their work with their existing partners.

My take is that it is a media company, the majority of their content is sponsored by their partners and thus not independent. What they publish is intended to be accurate and presented as interesting and informative to their readers, but it is information according to the company sponsoring it and not critical journalism. It is not intended to be, their position is clear on that.

As a primary source for product announcements and information on technology companies I would say it is reliable. It is not independent, and certainly would not count for notability due to WP:ORGIND. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 21:01, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

• I would generally not use a site that fails WP:GNG because that very lack of notability means the pressure to stay accurate is much less than with more widely-examined sites. If a site that has no significant, independent coverage gets something wrong, nobody cares. So unless such a site had some strong indicator of reliability (such as an errata page full of the the most nitpicky stuff, where the few actual corrections link to articles that make a big deal of noting the correction), I'd avoid using it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:06, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Academic Blog

Would this be considered a RS to help establish notability for Club Nokia? ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 21:25, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

• The author is notable due to passing NPROF as a full professor with a named chair, but Javier Gimeno is a redlink. As Javier appears to be an established expert it is a reliable source to be used with care per SPS but fine for an article on a product. For notability it is not so good, mainly due to failing WP:ORGDEPTH. Of course that's common enough with any source. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 21:50, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

"Global Genius Listing" - spam or a reliable source

MichaelMiletic (talk · contribs) is adding this[28] to multiple articles. I've found no evidence that this is a reliable source. Doug Weller talk 11:50, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Almost no information about them on their website - no names, no discussion of methodology for compiling the list, just 'e-mail us for more info'. No way to verify the information it's presenting. Smells like spam (yuk).GirthSummit _(blether) 12:02, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

It is a Wix.com hosted site, effectively a blog with an unknown author. Undoubtedly unreliable. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 12:06, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Global Genius Listing is a reliable source. It is run by two psychologists, one in the US, and one in Canada. I was a little skeptical myself, so I emailed them on their page. They have a very strict set of criteria for those wishing to be listed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by David Lewis 36 (talk • contribs) 15:31, 25 October 2018 (UTC) — David Lewis 36 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

• No reason to believe this is reliable. Also, a nutty idea. A list of all such people would include 9,000,000 names. So as you must apply, this is actually a list of people who want to be thought of as geniuses. O3000 (talk) 14:38, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I have emailed them and done my background research. Have also worked in the mental acuity space for 30+ years. Of course it isn't a list of all people, as tall people haven't taken a proper IQ test. It clearly seems to be an avenue in which those that have high enough scores can submit them. The tests are verified, and so on. It is a good site. IQ is a tricky topic. The site could provide a bit more background information.— Preceding unsigned comment added by MichaelMiletic (talk • contribs)

@MichaelMiletic: are you also the person above who says he emailed them? Please tell us what part of WP:VERIFY and WP:RS you are using to state reliability. Note that we generally expect reliable sources to be used by other reliable sources. The site itself is run anonymously, so I'm wondering how these two people were contacted. It does have their address, Market St. San Francisco, CA 94158 but that doesn't help. It seems worthless as a source. Doug Weller talk 15:42, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

• If you can show who writes the site, and they are recognised notable experts. Then it may be usable in some articles as an WP:SPS. But it still will not be suitable for BLP's. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 14:50, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I think that given the lack of any published methodology, or any contact details other than an email address, we probably cannot consider this to be a WP:RS at this time. I also note that the WHOIS record uses a domain privacy protection service. At the very least, I'd expect the identities of the people behind it, and their detailed editorial policy, to be verifiable and published on the site. It would also be useful to know if they charge for listings. Coverage by other WP:RS would also help. -- The Anome (talk) 14:54, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

From my correspondence with them, it appears reliable. But it wouldn’t hurt to reach out to them and ask about providing more details regarding their credentials and methodology.

@Doug Weller I have emailed them using the address listed, but no, that was not me who said it above. Although I can confirm I received a similar response. They are psychologists and board certified. Therefore I feel comfortable citing the website. I wouldn't use the site as a reference until that was confirmed.