Wikipedia talk:Independent sources

Are interviews independent sources?

I always see this in biography AFDs, where someone comes up with a reference, WP:RS and all, but it's an interview of the subject. Then someone says, "that's a 'first-party source' and that won't cut it." Is it? Are all interviews not independent sources? Or say, just if the interviewer, or the publisher, is related to the person being interviewed?

It's not really apparent upon reading this, and I suggest something about this written here or elsewhere on interviews being reliable sources. Howard the Duck (talk) 19:00, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

There are two aspects to the definition of an "independent source".

• Independence of the author (or functional independence): the author must be unrelated to the topic. Related persons generally include with sponsors, customers, competitors, backers, suppliers, promotors, and other parties that have something, financially, reputationally, familially or otherwise, to gain or lose. And in the case of an organization, includes the organization's personnel, owners, investors, (sub)contractors, vendors, distributors, suppliers, other business partners and associates, customers, competitors, sponsors and sponsorees (including astroturfing), and other parties that have something, financially or otherwise, to gain or lose.
• Independence of the content (or intellectual independence): the content must not be produced by interested parties. Too often a related party produces a narrative that is then copied, regurgitated, and published in whole or in part by independent parties. Independent content, in order to count towards establishing notability, must include original and independent opinion, analysis, investigation, and fact checking that are clearly attributable to a source unaffiliated to the subject.

So to answer your question, if the only information/data in the reference is directly attributed to the information provided by the subject of an interview, it is not "independent". HighKing⁺⁺ 15:11, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Should circular reporting be formally established under a source-related guideline?

Hello everyone, One thing I've sometimes seen on Wikipedia and which illicitly gives the false perception that something is more widely covered that it actually is, is Circular reporting, which that page defines as: "Circular reporting, false confirmation, or citogenesis is a situation in source criticism where a piece of information appears to come from multiple independent sources, but in reality comes from only one source."

I know there is a very particular Wikipedia policy for sources citing Wikipedia (see WP:CIRCULAR) that warns against using Wikipedia articles as sources. What I would like to discuss is including the more general sense of circular reporting, as defined above. In the most extreme case, there can be a Wikipedia article with one source that claims something, and all other sources on the claim citing that one single original source and not providing any new information. However, it can give the false impression that all kinds of different sources are independent source covering (even if only by trivial mention) a claim or topic, and clearly the other sources are not independent of the sole original source. A Wikipedia article was recently deleted in part due to this issue. What do you think about this becoming part of a formal guideline? Saucysalsa30 (talk) 22:29, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

I think that's largely irrelevant. Compare these scenarios:

• Bob Business tells Big News that his company is going to build a new factory. Big News writes that the company is going to build a new factory. A Wikipedia editor sees this news article and expands the relevant Wikipedia article with this information.
• Bob Business tells Big News, Little News, and Medium News the same thing. All three of them write the same thing. A Wikipedia editor finds one or more of these sources and expands the relevant Wikipedia article with the same information.

Where's the actual problem? All three of those are independent sources; none of them get paid to promote Bob's business. It doesn't actually matter – for the determination of whether those are independent of Bob's business – how many businesses wanted to talk to Bob about his business. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:54, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Unless there is a prominently-displayed and frequently-discussed ruling to the contrary, editors are very likely to use "number of mentions" as one of their criteria for notability. That's where the actual problem is. TooManyFingers (talk) 07:58, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Relationship between this topic and ORGIND

WP:NCORP (specifically the WP:ORGIND section) defines "Independent" under two headings, the second being "Content Independence". I propose to add this definition to this article as its absence appears to be causing some confusion. HighKing⁺⁺ 12:18, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

I have some concerns about ORGIND's approach to "content independence", and I do not want to see it replicated.

The scenarios that it was meant to address are things like these:

• Bob Business sends a bunch of self-promotional material to the kind of source that will run anything, as long as acquiring the content doesn't cost them anything. Suddenly, there are a dozen "independent" content farms talking about Bob's business.
• A single news outlet that is arranged to look like it's multiple separate sources. Imagine that you research one story, but you efficiently turn that one story into one online newspaper-type story, one nearly identical television news story, one radio news story, plus one magazine article, all with a very little re-writing and re-recording. Alternatively, imagine that you create all of these and just license them. An article sent through print syndication could turn up in a hundred newspaper articles under several different headlines, but it's still just one news story. (This point is explicitly addressed in the GNG.)

How it's actually getting used by some editors, unfortunately, is to declare that many independent news stories about businesses are inadmissible. This seems to be on the grounds that an editor believes that there is no (legal) way to obtain the information in the article without asking the company, and once you ask the company what their sales figures are, then that's not "content independence". WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:06, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, in answer to that one specific complaint, if the article simply repeats the sales figures without providing any independent analysis/comment/opinion ... well yeah, that's not independent content then is it? HighKing⁺⁺ 15:15, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

In notability terms, even mindlessly repeating whatever your subject says still shows "attention from the world at large", which is one of the major goals behind the notability standard. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:19, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree with WhatamIdoing 100%. Quoting facts figures and statistics without any analysis are perfectly acceptable and inserting quotes and data without any interpretation is required according to policy as long as you have references. Also, process you are describing about one source disseminating a story through multiple outlets is a description of the perfectly normal usual processes of how information is disseminated. If a large media conglomerate is so lucky to have TV, radio, internet etc then of course they are going to put their story out across all of their media sources. Finding ways to fault sources just because you don't like the the way the normal dissemination of information works is a huge mistake and only serves the sole purpose of putting limitations on Wikipedians. Huggums537 (talk) 13:13, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Think about it this way; if we allow wikipedians, who are not even journalists, to insert quotations and statistics or other data from non-independent primary sources and require that it be done without any interpretation, then why would we not allow and expect the same from independent reliable third party sources? I think this is especially true since we have no business whatsoever trying to govern the editing policies of outside editorials anyway. I think too many wikipedians are too worried about things that are actually of too little concern to them. Huggums537 (talk) 14:32, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

I think the problem with this concept is that it leads to absurdity. Imagine that Paul Politician announces that he intends to seek the Demican nomination for US President. How would any person – anyone in the real world – find a truly, completely, independent source for Paul's personal decision, that doesn't trace back to what Paul told someone, short of attaching some kind of hypothetical mind-reading device to his brain?

Or imagine that an artist creates a work with an ambiguous meaning. Perhaps it's a novel whose ending could be interpreted more than one way. If the artist says later that the "real" ending was ____, there is no possibility of finding an "intellectually independent" source for what the artist says.

More commonly, we see this with content that matters even when it's not intellectually independent. Consider:

• Who won the big award last night? If the information doesn't ultimately trace back to the people giving the awards, then your source is "wrong", not "intellectually independent".
• How much money did Big Corp report in revenue last fiscal year? Don't rely on any source that didn't get the numbers from Big Corp itself
• Who won the big game last week? If the source ignores what the refs and scorekeepers said, then your source is writing fiction.
• What's going on at that massive building site next to the hospital, with the sign on it that says "New Cancer Treatment Center"? It'd make more sense to rely on what the hospital says they're doing than on "intellectually independent" claims to the contrary.

There are times when we need intellectual independence, but reporting simple facts, like how many restaurants are in this chain, or how many iPhones Apple sold last year don't require intellectual independence. Put another way, if common sense tells you that there is an authoritative source for a given claim, then don't let the lure of intellectual independence take you to a worse source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:05, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Well spoken. Finally starting to see some common sense prevail around here. I love to see people thinking for themselves, and breaking the tired worn patterns of the Wikipedified mentality. Huggums537 (talk) 02:48, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Does the type of content matter?

Consider any somewhat-well-known band. It's absolutely clear that their own estimate of their own notability is inherently flawed. But does this fact mean that I can't treat their own track lists or lyrics pages as reliable sources? My question boils down to this: People naturally have reasons to lie about certain things. (Mostly money and power.) Is it acceptable to trust first-party sources on those things for which they have no reason to lie? TooManyFingers (talk) 07:35, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

See WP:ABOUTSELF. Johnuniq (talk) 07:51, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Perfectly clear, thanks for the response. TooManyFingers (talk) 08:04, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Second party

If "second party" is to be thrown out, then "first party" ought to be thrown out too, since both of them are "made up" in this context and "third party" is the only one of the three that is a legitimate term. My logic was if we are using made-up terms anyway then we might as well complete the picture. The fact that "first party" has been used longer on Wikipedia isn't evidence of anything. TooManyFingers (talk) 17:41, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

We aren't using made-up terms. It's just not as logical as you were hoping. See second party, a disambiguation page that will lead you to the stub Party (law), which explains about the old-fashioned "party of the first part" and "party of the second part", whence these terms were derived. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:21, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Is it one source or two?

In the section https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Independent_sources#Relationship_to_notability, the article states, "The core policy Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not requires that it be possible to verify a subject with at least one independent source, or else the subject may not have a separate article in Wikipedia."

However, a later section in the article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Independent_sources#How_to_meet_the_requirement says, "Sources: At least two third-party sources should cover the subject, to avoid idiosyncratic articles based upon a single perspective."

So is it one source, or two? Also, I either read or closely skimmed all parts of the article referenced in the first quote, and could not find where it claims a requirement that "it be possible to verify a subject with at least one independent source, or else the subject may not have a separate article in Wikipedia."

Thanks for feedback Greg Dahlen (talk) 20:43, 2 September 2021 (UTC)