Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources

What if a writer of a source comes out and says they aren’t defending a view

There are situations where I have seen writers in recent years that make articles that claim certain things. But when asked about it on social media the writer admits they aren’t defending a certain view. What do we do about this?CycoMa (talk) 03:12, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

• @CycoMa: - examples? Do we use this information on Wiki? starship.paint (exalt)

I can’t currently remember examples but I have seen writers of certain sources come out and say that people are misinterpreting what they were saying on the matter. Or what they were writing was merely a thought experiment.CycoMa (talk) 01:32, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

When sources (including any of the following: other parts of the same document, other closely related documents [e.g., the next article in a series], the author, and/or the publisher) says that they do not defend a view or that they did not mean what they wrote, then editors should normally not use that source for those claims. Apply the same pattern that editors use for Retractions in academic publishing or when a newspaper issues a correction. If you need to say something about it (e.g., all the times politicians said something controversial while the cameras were rolling, and then later claimed that they never said that), then you should be able to find a separate source that talks about the situation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:19, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

The other thing I'd add is: sometimes a source that makes claims but doesn't defend them is a great source. Think about the sources that describe other religions: "The _____ believe that when the universe was created..." or "The _____ believe that when faced with an unjust attack, it is better to..." WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:24, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Determining if a source is reliable or unreliable

I'm going to make a post without political opinions and commentary because apparently that is not allowed in this section of Wikipedia which I have been made aware of. Please do not close the discussion. I'm only asking questions here in good faith and trying to better understand how Wikipedia operates.

Two questions about reliable sources:

-What are the criteria used for determining if a news source is reliable for usage on Wikipedia?

-What are the credentials Wikipedia editors have that enables them to determine if a source is reliable and/or accurate?

K.Q.1997 (talk) 22:39, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Judging from Special:Contributions/K.Q.1997, I'd say you're quickly heading towards a WP:NOTHERE/WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT block... But on the off chance you're genuinely curious, see WP:CONSENSUS. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:23, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

• @K.Q.1997: (1) Wikipedia:Reliable sources have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy ... Signals that a news organization engages in fact-checking and has a reputation for accuracy are the publication of corrections and disclosures of conflicts of interest. (2) This is Wikipedia, so Wikipedia editors have the ability to decide is reliable and/or accurate for Wikipedia, per community-based processes involving multiple editors, usually at WP:RSN. Sounds like a similar question to: "What credentials do you have to live in a house you own?" (exalt) 02:22, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Message to other users posting here: please don't threaten me with a block for simply asking questions in the appropriate place regarding reliable sources. Looks like only one editor answered my questions since I first posted almost 2 weeks ago (not surprising that people here aren't helpful). To reply to the one person who did take the time to give an honest answer I will just say in response to starship.paint writing "Wikipedia editors have the ability to decide is reliable and/or accurate for Wikipedia, per community-based processes involving multiple editors", where does something like groupthink and political bias come into play when deciding if a source is reliable? I ask that question in good faith because to be honest when I read certain political articles on this site it seems much closer to being a propaganda outlet for certain political points of view instead of a neutral reliable encyclopedia, and I know many many people who feel the same way. K.Q.1997 (talk) 22:24, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

@K.Q.1997: - is groupthink possible? Yes. Is political bias possible? Also yes. Both of which is possible because simply, we are human. For some editors (not referring to anyone in particular), bias can be intentional, for other editors, bias can be unintentional. Does it mean that every single source's reliability has been determined by groupthink and/or political bias? Not necessarily. Now, on your point about certain political articles on this site it seems much closer to being a propaganda outlet for certain political points of view instead of a neutral reliable encyclopedia - there's different phenomenon at play here. First phenomenon - I would say more obscure articles tend to attract supporters of the subject, because this is a volunteer project, after all, and who would put in effort to maintain these articles than fans? Second phenomenon - bias in reliable sources. Obviously the approved U.S. news sources lean more left than right. As such, coverage of political issues at least, for the most popular articles, maybe they lean left. Unfortunately, many popular right-wing sources don't have a good record of reliability. We can't trust right-wing sources whose news articles are following Trump's wild claims, because of the tenuous relationship with the truth. How I wish there were more right-wing sources like the WSJ news section - you can read WP:RERIGHT on that. starship.paint (exalt) 02:18, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

This policy was the death knell of the Wikipedia project -- essentially handing it over to mainstream media and all the biases thereof. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.145.68.187 (talk) 11:02, June 2021 (UTC)

"Unfortunately, many popular right-wing sources don't have a good record of reliability" question for Starship.paint and any editors who have knowledge on this topic - why is that the case? Also Starship.paint said "We can't trust right-wing sources whose news articles are following Trump's wild claims" but the a**hole is out of office now for 6 months so does that mean that all of those outlets/papers (e.g. Fox News, NY Post, etc.) are unreliable forever? I still don't understand the difference in terms of reliability between WSJ, Fox News, WaPo, and NY Times. Obviously the latter two lean left and the former two lean right but Fox News is considered unreliable for politics. I realize Fox has a bias toward Trump but why does that wipe away everything else they do in terms of reporting. NYT and WaPo and CNN reported for two plus years on possible "collusion" between Trump and Russia which turned out to basically be a conspiracy theory. Why aren't those three organizations now discredited and labeled as partisan pro-Democrat outlets (which of course they are to any clear-thinking human) the way Fox News is a partisan pro-GOP outlet? The hypocrisy, arrogance, elitism, and double standard is what annoys a lot people. The good news for the elitists who edit Wikipedia and think these sources are somehow neutral unbiased news sources: almost 60% of likely U.S. likely voters think mainstream media is the enemy of the people.[1] And keep in mind that's only "likely voters", the real number is almost certainly higher. K.Q.1997 (talk) 22:50, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

@K.Q.1997: - even if Trump is out of office, false and misleading claims still exist. It's not really about bias, it's more about what is based on reality. We can have biased sources as long as these sources are reality-based. Pro-GOP, pro-Trump, pro-Democrat, pro-libertarianism, pro-whatever. I wouldn't agree that "collusion" is basically a conspiracy theory, based on the Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election#Findings on Paul Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik. Also, while there wasn't 'fire' in this case, the Trump Tower meeting did happen ('smoke'), and Trump and his son made misleading statements about it, certainly warranting a suspicion of collusion. Lastly, we don't care what U.S. likely voters think. starship.paint (exalt) 04:07, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia should care what U.S. citizens think because many people will (and do) view this "neutral encyclopedia" as a partisan liberal establishment propaganda outlet that pushes narratives over truth and reality. Even the co-founder of Wikipedia recently confirmed how biased and partisan Wikipedia has become--read this article[2].

56% of Americans said they agreed with the following statement: "Journalists and reporters are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations" and "59% said they agree with the statement most news organizations are more concerned with supporting an ideology or political position than with informing the public.” Also 61% of Americans think that “The media is not doing well at being objective and non-partisan.” according to this reliable article[3]. As fas as the "Trump colluded with Russia conspiracy theory" the Senate Intelligence Chair Marco Rubio (who yes is GOP but is no fan of Trump) said last year after a long exhaustive intelligence report was released on alleged collusion “We can say, without any hesitation, that the Committee found absolutely no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government to meddle in the 2016 election." And making "misleading statements" does not equal colluding with a foreign government to influence an election. The Manafort stuff you brought up is nothing since it's all redacted. Also the Washington Post (an elitist partisan propaganda news outlet just like NY Times) even says "Manafort's connection with the Russian hack and leak operation is largely unknown". K.Q.1997 (talk) 22:14, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

Proposed reword for WP:HEADLINE

WP:HEADLINE :

Current: News headlines—including subheadlines—are not a reliable source if the information in the headline is not explicitly supported in the body of the source. [...]

Propose: News headlines—including subheadlines—are not a reliable source. If the information is supported by the body of the source then cite it from the body. [...]

Reasons:

• It is shorter (yeay, chuckle), and I believe more clear.
• I believe it better reflects the RFC consensus. The bolded RFC closure[4] was: Wikipedia:Reliable sources § Reliability in specific contexts should include a new subsection to state that headlines are unreliable.
  I supported the RFC that created WP:HEADLINE. I reviewed the !votes in that RFC, and as an experienced closer myself it seems clear to me that consensus intended to prohibit citing a claim from a headline when the body cannot support that claim.
• And in particular, when I was on general RFC rounds as an uninvolved observer, I came across a relatively new account wikilaywering that the current text of WP:HEADLINE grants them an exemption to source "Nazi" or "neo-Nazi" from headlines, even though the words don't exist outside the headlines. They are disregarding the phrase "explicitly supported", they are disregarding Wikipedia's standard for a source "supporting" a claim, and they are arguing that - in their opinion - the bodies "support" the title under the most vague and nonspecific common usage of the word "support". They claim the current text grants an exception allowing that, and they implicitly accused another editor of bad faith for ignoring (their interpretation) of the current text.

The current text basically attempts to say that it is ok to source a claim from the headline only if you could also source that claim from the body. In principal that makes sense, but in practice that is useless and actively unhelpful. If you can source it from the body, then source it from the body. If you can't source it from the body then the headline is not sufficiently supported (under our meaning of "supported"), and we don't want motivated-argument trying to claim a free pass in between. Alsee (talk) 16:07, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Yeah I could get behind that. I think it is basically always better to source text from the body rather than the headline. So making that explicate rather than implicate is a good thing. PackMecEng (talk) 16:15, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

• Works for me, and more clearly reflects the RFC. Schazjmd (talk) 16:30, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
• I will provisionally make this change now. We have "unanimous" support of three, and the editor who had interpreted it differently has actively not-objected. They are aware of this proposal and they have commented perhaps it should be rewritten to reflect its actual meaning.^{(Diff available if needed.)} They are free to comment here, but it appears they did not wish to. Alsee (talk) 18:34, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
• Yea that seems fine. Even if the information is technically verifiable from both the headline and the body, the headline will almost always lack any sort of context. By the way, I was the one who added —including subheadlines— based on a short discussion. If someone thinks there's a better way to re-word it, then please suggest it. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 19:57, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I dissent. The reference to headlines deals with Yellow journalism and not with standard sources like NY Times, Washington POST, Wall Street Journal etc. The latter editors are very careful to succinctly report the main news in headlines. They rely on annual electronic subscriptions not on sales of individual copies. Rjensen (talk) 23:54, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Where in the RFC was it determined that the guidance against citing headlines was only for "yellow journalism"? I don't see it in the close or the discussion. (And what outlets that fall within "yellow journalism" would we even accept as a reliable source?) Schazjmd (talk) 00:00, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

That is kind of the issue with the vague wording Rjensen introduced here. It takes something easy to follow with clear and defined principles and makes it vague and gameable. With no added benefit that I can see. PackMecEng (talk) 00:04, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

The key assumption about attention grabbing headlines is false for prestige papers in 2021. They rely on annual electronic subscriptions and misleading headlines would hurt their competition for a national upscale market. There are indeed tabloids that still use sensationalism but in my experience they seldom used by Wikipedia editgors these days. Rjensen (talk) 00:11, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

That is contrary to the sources presented in that large RFC and the general consensus around the subject from it. PackMecEng (talk) 00:15, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Try reading "Distinguishing Scholarly from Non-Scholarly Periodicals: A Checklist of Criteria: Sensational" from Cornell Rjensen (talk) 00:17, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Sounds interesting, but that does not overrule consensus from a RFC with such participation. PackMecEng (talk) 00:21, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Rjensen the RFC consensus was not "unreliable sources have unreliable headlines", it was that news headlines in general are notably less reliable than the body. There can be issues with headlines for a number of reasons. Even if info in a headline is "correct", it may be lacking important context if it isn't directly covered in the body. Your concern would only relevant if the article body actually does fail to include key information from the headline - which should be rare for NY Times. If a NY Times headline isn't fully supported by the body, and you can't source that info elsewhere, that is sufficiently abnormal to be a red flag that we should wait until we find a source that does directly discuss that info. Alsee (talk) 07:58, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

• I support this change; it seems to be a more faithful reading of the RfC close and it's more clear. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 02:43, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support and relying on headlines is either laziness or editorial malpractice. And the RfC applies to all of the media. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:09, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

The problem comes up when we have the headline but not the full text of the article. in that case Current: News headlines—including subheadlines—are not a reliable source if the information in the headline is not explicitly supported in the body of the source. [...] allows us to use the headline while the proposed alternative does not ==Propose: News headlines—including subheadlines—are not a reliable source. If the information is supported by the body of the source then cite it from the body. The proposal replaces pretty-good information with ignorance. Rjensen (talk) 08:27, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

That doesn't make sense. If we have a headline but not the full text, we cannot verify that the headline is explicitly supported in the body, so the current wording still would not allow that. (And an editor basing content on a headline without being able to read the full text of the source is doing the project a disservice.) Schazjmd (talk) 14:24, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Rjensen please don't do that. Misleading refs create a far more difficult cleanup problem than no ref at all. It sometimes takes years before some editor digs in and figures out that apparently reffed claims fail WP:Verification. Alsee (talk) 00:06, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

• Support - the change more closely matches the RFC result. Levivich 23:03, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Supervisors of a dissertation who have had books published

In researching a song, I came across an unpublished PhD dissertation that included discussion that I thought would benefit the article for the song. I plan on working to get the article to FA status eventually and would like to get a sense as to whether or not quoting this dissertation is going to bog things down. In the Scholarship section of this page, the bullet on completed dissertations includes the sentence, "If possible, use theses that have been cited in the literature; supervised by recognized specialists in the field; or reviewed by independent parties." In this case, two of the four professors who approved the dissertation have Wikipedia biography pages that each list more than one book that's been published. Do their published works qualify them as recognized specialists? Danaphile (talk) 21:57, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, that is more than enough support. Rjensen (talk) 23:49, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

@Danaphile, if you found it on the web, it's not 'unpublished'. Unpublished = not available to the general public. (It might be self-published.)

This is one of those areas where editors disagree, so do your best, and ask for help if a dispute arises. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:28, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Self-published and independent sources

The guideline about WP:SELFSOURCE currently says:

These requirements also apply to pages from social networking websites such as Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. Use of self-sourced material should be de minimis; the great majority of any article must be drawn from independent sources.

I suspect that I agree with what's intended. However, it's odd that this is in the section about self-publishing, because the independence (are you paid to write something?) of a source is unrelated to the question of whether the source is self-published (is there an editor/publisher who can refuse to publish your article, or are you in charge of the whole process?). If you go out to eat at a restaurant and later tweet that it's your favorite restaurant, you're independent, but self-published.

IMO articles should primarily be WP:Based upon sources that are both independent (no COI, no money changing hands, etc.) of the subject and also non-self-published (not blog posts or tweets, even if those self-published sources were written by experts – those can be used, but only for a minority of content). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:13, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Independence of source is a factor that varies based on topic, just like primary/secondary distinction. The restaurant tweet, for example, would be independent of the restaurant but not independent for the person tweeting it. But even in such a case, and lets say that a famous food critic tweeted that about a notable restaurant, we'd not want to use that source, but would prefer that the critic had written it in her column that was published in a newspaper that had been reviewed by an editor. So I would agree that the idea is that we want to prefer the use of the "opposite" of what a self-published source, which I guess is "reviewed" ? "non-self-published"? I don't know if there's an easy term for that. --Masem (t) 23:19, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

The term of the art on wiki appears to be "non-self-published" or sometimes, more casually, we'll say "properly published".

One way to change this could be: "Use of self-sourcedpublished material should be de minimis; the great majority of any article must be drawn from independent sources that are not self-published."

Another way to change this could be to move (or copy) that sentence to another part of the guideline, and say "Use of self-sourced material sources that are affiliated with the subject should be de minimis; the great majority of any article must be drawn from independent sources." WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:12, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

• Just throwing this out there: if it were up to me, we'd blacklist Twitter (and other social media sites) entirely. I can't imagine a "source" more WP:UNDUE than a tweet that got no attention in secondary published sources. If a tweet is worth discussing on Wikipedia, it has secondary sources that people can use to get to it if they want. And I've seen tweets be cited without any secondary sources. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:43, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Research on this page

Hi, I just wanted to link to an article about this page called "Unreliable Guidelines". It critiques the guidelines for not citing sources themselves, among other things. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 20:10, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

thank you Rachel Helps (BYU) for posting this! Shameran81 (talk) 19:43, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Rachel Helps (BYU)! I've been reading this and it's really interesting. Could someone please advise what the best process would be for having a discussion about updating the RS guidance with a) citations and b) potentially more different sources? Zeromonk (talk) 14:31, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Hmmm I think the village pump on policy would be a good place to start. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 15:34, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

• I'm a little leery of requiring citations to our guidelines, but in the case of searching for trustworthy sources, there is a lot of good material out there (though how we'd determine if that material is reliable is somewhat of an exercise in circular logic), so this might be viable.

I'm all for adjusting our guidelines in a way that helps bring marginalized voices further into use, though (as an editor who works in the subjects of conspiracy theories and pseudoscience) I'm also concerned about the potential for abuse by proponents of falsehood who frequently like to portray themselves as a marginalized community. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:40, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

I would point out that WP:MEDRS is actually well sourced, given the rigors of that guideline (and I'm surprised that nor SCIRS are mentioned in this paper). --Masem (t) 15:59, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

One way to explore updating the RS guidelines would be to focus on a particular marginalized group where there is existing published literature on media literacy around that group. Such literature exists for Indigenous peoples of Canada and the U.S.[5] Also, while it is laudable to try to improve guidelines for many marginalized people at once, in a 2018 RfC there was strong opposition to the idea of having Wikipedians be put into a position of deciding who is marginalized and who is not. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:35, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Announcement: New report on Wikipedia's Reliable Source guidelines in English, French and Spanish

Hi Wikipedia editors & Talk page readers: I write to draw your attention to a new report by Art+Feminism on these guidelines, published in June 2021. The report uses an intersectional methodology to address to what extent are contributions from and content about marginalized communities affected by guidelines about reliability in three language versions of Wikipedia? Based on community conversations and interpretative analysis of the guidelines, the report describes the lack of rigor in the guidelines (citations are not required), the ways that the definition of consensus perpetuates exclusions and makes revisions difficult, and the role of Wikipedia trainers in scaffolding the experience of editing for newcomers. There are several recommendations in the report as well on how to tend to these findings and improve the way the guidelines are written and governed to be more inclusive. Spanish Wikipedias Unreliable Guidelines: Reliable Sources and Marginalized Communities in French, English and Spanish Wikipedias Shameran81 (talk) 18:30, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

• This is yet another critique of Wikipedia from the perspective of the "situated knowledge" theory, a movement that rejects the idea that objective knowledge or scientific truth can exist, and only values what people think is true, regardless of whether they are objectively or scientifically correct: subjectivity, itself, is truth and nothing else can attain the same level of truthfulness. See p. 11: We build on efforts in feminist technoscience to acknowledge that, epistemologically, knowledge is “situated” and knowers have a “partial perspective.” In other words, there is no such thing as purely “objective” knowledge because there are no pure, objective knowers. Rather, there are practices of knowing. We foreground asking “who is the knower and who is being known” in efforts to determine reliable sources. Understanding the circumstances and values through which legitimacy is conferred, and at what costs, is crucial to the effort to remediate asymmetrical structures of power. If that is your position, then an encyclopedia is by definition something you would not be interested in or would argue to be socially valuable. Situated knowledge theory is more compatible with an online forum than a project like Wikipedia. See also Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-06-27/Recent research. See also WP:NOTTRUTH.

We already have a policy that encourages users to speak up: WP:BOLD.

The critique The guidelines about reliable sources in English, French, and Spanish lack academic rigor, notably through the lack of citations to support the claims actually echoes a fascinating 2006 discussion I had the pleasure of discovering while looking for something else in the archives. Basically, the point is that a policy does not need sources, because a policy is based on a decision by the relevant community, and not an attempt at summarizing external sources. Laws do not have sources, because they are based on parliamentary votes. Similarly, Wikipedia policies do not have sources because they are based on community consensus.

As someone who was granted temporary NPP rights this week, I can attest that it's without a doubt the toughest job I have done on this project. NPPers have to make a high number of very complex and technical verifications in order to maintain standards, and I do not see how someone new to the project would be able to this job correctly. Let me just note, however, that since half of my family comes from a country that was subject to colonization, I take issue with the problematic assumption that I am somehow unable to carry out this task because I supposedly come from a "marginalized community" (p. 29). You can get NPP rights even if you are a minority, provided that you have demonstrated that you are a competent editor. There is no "job interview" prior to getting NPP rights, where an admin would get the chance of knowing which race you are or where you come from.

The report contains a large number of quotes and reported opinions, yet I see no indication that the sample used by the authors is representative of the Wikipedia community or of society as a whole. If I wanted to be a wise guy, I could ask "who is excluded from the methods and the samples used by the authors to reach their conclusions, including their Town Hall community conversations and close readings"?

All in all, there is nothing really new in this report: as always, situated knowledge theorist argue that we should lower standards and abolish WP:RS in order to foster inclusion, all based on the yet unproven assumption that the project's policies are somehow exclusionary. As I have argued somewhere else, the correct answer to the situated knowledge theory is not to abolish the standards that have made this project successful, but to encourage general societal progress, so that everyone—regardless or gender or race—can get an equal access to education and high-literacy, with the result that everyone could create reliable sources equally and could contribute to Wikipedia equally. JBchrch talk 18:12, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

• What I will acknowledge, however, is that Wikipedia is a very hostile environment for newcomers (despite WP:BITE) and that not enough is done to encourage newcomers to stay and learn. JBchrch talk 20:52, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

  I'm not sure that acknowledging that (some) knowledge is situated means that no objective knowledge can exist. If "Situated knowledge is knowledge specific to a particular situation" (to quote the linked article), then statements such as "2+2=4", or "human life requires oxygen" are not "particular" to any situation. Acknowledging that some things are situational and most perspectives are partial (especially on complex subjects) does not mean that we cannot hold some universal facts in common. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:56, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Bravo. This sums up my thoughts on these things better than my own attempts elsewhere. I'll add that this genre of paper reminds me of Maslow's hammer: when someone's sociopolitical philosophy and approach to social theory is singularly focused on diversity or changing societal power structures no matter what they are, then that viewpoint's answer to everything is doing anything, even radical changes, to try to achieve that. The fact is, though, that while diversity is good, to be frank, we should value more things than just diversity. In fact, dismantling RS changes what Wikipedia is into something else, so arguably we wouldn't even then meet the goal of diversity in Wikipedia. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:31, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

One of the first things that immediately struck me about the report was a a graph taken from [6] that according to the authors of the report "shows how a smaller number of editors were responsible for contributing the most, and most recent, editorial changes." It does no such thing. It shows, for each year, the size of the article and the number of (all, minor, by IP) edits. To draw that conclusion from that dataset is wrong. Vexations (talk) 15:54, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

We have a lot of big problems that need fixing that aren't getting fixed. Including that much of our "reliable" source stuff needs a nuking and reboot. And so good hard pokes are useful. But I think that the discussed premises of this particular poke are faulty. North8000 (talk) 21:11, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

I have continued to think about this report and to re-read some of its passages and felt the need to share just two additional thoughts. Sorry for the WP:BLUDGEON.

1. One of the main reason why guidelines are so strict is because Wikipedia has long history of being used to advocate for harmful causes, including nazism (see among many examples User:K.e.coffman § Problematic WWII content) and zoophilia (see among many examples Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Latitude0116/Archive).
2. I am extremely skeptical of p. 23. In my experience, many articles about artists are filled with outright promotional content. The sentence We are used to creating pages in the arts community indicates that this person does not understand the difference between promotional pages and encyclopedic content. Also, I would very much like to see the actual content that they attempted to add to the project, especially the content that was sourced to a catalogue. Because a classic example of content that I have encountered in this topic area is X Y is an internationally recognized artist whose works have been displayed at many prestigious exhibitions, sourced to a catalogue. Obviously, this cannot work. JBchrch talk 00:26, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

@JBchrch, I don't think our guidelines are so strict. Some of them are, and a few of those are even enforced more or less evenly. But most of the time, I think that the guidelines are loose (good luck finding any clear definition of what a reliable source actually is) or unevenly enforced (I could cite Twitter in a BLP and expect it to be left alone, but a newbie who made the same edit is very likely to be insta-reverted). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:45, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Some type of sources section needs to fix a potential loophole

The first paragraph of the "Some types of sources section" says that academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks as very reliable sources, and allows flexibility in its usage by this caveat:

However, some scholarly material may be outdated, in competition with alternative theories, or controversial within the relevant field

. In my opinion we can improve the wording on the caveat part of this section. There's a potential loophole in the current version, specifically when a review paper of low quality is presented. The low quality may happen because of it being published in a low-ranked journal, or by a non-expert, or by it being not entering the academic discourse (for example, when the review paper receives no citations despite having been published more than a year ago). In my opinion, we can stregthen the wording of the caveat part of this section by introducing some sort of failsafe text that prevents an editor to game the system, which can hypothetically happen when a low-quality review paper is diametrically opposed to most research in primary sources, and there are no other review papers to counter it. In this case, the editor may weaponize Wikipedia: Scholarship to hold the position in the review paper above the position of the better primary sources. Forich (talk) 22:12, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

When a Wikipedia editor decides that the lone review is wrong, then the policy's default is that the Wikipedia editor is wrong. At most, a Wikipedia editor's POV on the source could be used to exclude the source – not to write the opposite. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:59, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

The opinions of reliable authors

@Peter Gulutzan, even though this phrase has been in the guideline for a number of years, I don't think it's a good one. We have no definition of WP:Reliable authors. A source is considered reliable when editors accept it as evidence that a given claim has been previously published elsewhere, in a manner that would make us feel comfortable relying on it for content in a Wikipedia article. No equivalent process would be logical for declaring a human to be reliable.

Also, we don't technically "publish" any author's opinions (we "include" what the author has published elsewhere), and we include far more than what's strictly considered an Opinion. I therefore thing that the sentence should be changed to say that "the views only of reliable sources" rather than "the opinions only of reliable authors". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:13, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I agree with WhatamIdoing. An author is one aspect of a source in our normal reliability discussions. But can we also move the "only" before "the views" or "opinions"? The word order is a little grating.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:21, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Given the intent of that sentence - that we don't want interpretation and synthesis from WP editors, it feels that "opinions" or "views" should be augmented to be something like "analysis, views, and opinions...". Whether that is from a reliable author or a reliable source, that's a separate issue. --Masem (t) 20:25, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I also support "sources" instead of "authors". "Source/sources" is very widely used and understood on this site and is appropriately a more inclusive concept. DonFB (talk) 21:03, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

This is in reference to WhatamIdoing's revision today, which I reverted, noting that the current wording has existed since 22 May 2008. Suppose a source is a book -- I don't think that people generally say "this book has an opinion" or "this book has a view", they say "this book's author has an opinion", so the current wording makes more sense. Of course the source as a whole (publisher, editor, author, etc.) must be considered, but of course it is considered, the sentence containing "authors" is explaining that humans are part of the source deal. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 21:11, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, sources are reliable, not authors per se. If an author is published by RS and later self-publishes something, that does not have the same reliability. "Views" is also preferable to "opinions", to avoid confusion with opinion pieces, and because views encompasses statements of fact also. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:50, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Beall source

Dhaluza: the Jeffrey Beall source you now appear to be edit warring over [7], [8], or you are in violation of WP:BRD, is in no way barred by WP:SPS on this page. There is no "irony" about it. Please undo your out-of-process revert and incorrect application of SPS to change a longstanding part of the guideline. The Beall source is useful for identifying predatory journals, and it's removal can only support predatory journals. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:39, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

And I've restore the link. Dhaluza, stop removing it without consensus. Beall's criteria are useful and relevant. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:44, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

I was actually applying WP:BRB since your comment was ambiguous, so please don't accuse me of edit warring. The Beall source is SPS, and not essential since there are several other sources. Dhaluza (talk) 00:05, 19 August 2021 (UTC)