Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Welcome — ask about reliability of sources in context!

Before posting, check the archives and list of perennial sources for prior discussions. Context is important: supply the source, the article it is used in, and the claim it supports. Additional notes: RFCs for deprecation, blacklisting, or other classification should not be opened unless the source is widely used and has been repeatedly discussed. Consensus is assessed based on the weight of policy-based arguments. While the consensus of several editors can generally be relied upon, answers are not policy. This page is not a forum for general discussions unrelated to the reliability of sources. Start a new discussion

RFC (The Daily Dot)

What best describes The Daily Dot's reliability?

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated

X-Editor (talk) 00:05, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

• Sigh… none of the standard options fit… so I will say Option 5: Use with in-text attribution Blueboar (talk) 02:03, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I'm not sure this RfC is helpful. It looks like the discussion in the previous section was already reaching a consensus of something like 2 but the more difficult question is what additional considerations apply. Most people were arguing that it should be seen as a biased source and used with attribution where something is contentious. I think DFlhb's suggestion that we treat it similarly to the WP:DAILYBEAST is probably sensible. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:52, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• I just want to post here to point people to my analysis and conclusion in the section above (here). I think an "option 2 with required attribution" would be fitting, similar to User:Blueboar's option 5 idea above. It's quite unlikely that the Daily Dot would be the only source reporting on something, so other sources that don't require attribution should be preferred; and the Daily Dot shouldn't be used for notability evaluation since many editors have pointed out in the discussion above that the Dot frequently covers inconsequential topics or Daily-Mail-like gossip. DFlhb (talk) 14:08, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I agree with others that our typical options don't work well here. In fact I think this is a good example of why the typical options list and the color coding in general aren't very helpful. The current RSP listing says DD is reliable for internet trends. It doesn't say it's green for comments about people or politics etc. Of the options we have I would say #2 because that is where I think most sources like this should fit. Are they likely to tell an outright lie? No. Are they likely to skew what they report in a way that could lead to a false impression or that leaves out signiticant context? Yes. Are they likely to amplify a claim based on their own bias rather than based on a good analysis of the evidence? Yes. So all of these things point to a clear "use with care" type warning. However, the other issue is how much weight, if any, should be given to claims that we only find in DD? I would say just about none. I mean I'm fine with using them as a source for an otherwise mundane detail, "Ford released the new Palomino on March 5th". Should the source be used for a controversial claim ("Ford is hiding a safety defect in the Palomino"), heck no. Would I consider a claim made by another source more valid because DD echos it? No, they are trolling the web for clickable content. Thus my biggest concern is why would we give them any weight rather than are they messing up the actual facts. Springee (talk) 15:12, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 for politics. I think it makes sense to split this out by topic. The Daily Dot seems fine when they write about so-called internet culture, which seems to mostly consist of reporting on a viral TikTok video or the like, with a few paragraphs of analysis, which they do quite often, with a special focus on customers and employees at fast food restaurants and food delivery services, for some reason. (All of these examples are from the last four days!) It seems harmless enough. But when they cover politics, their status as a clickbait-y aggregator really becomes a problem: they still focus much of their reporting on Twitter randos and so on, with very little actual reporting, and in their analysis they seem much more interested in taking cheap shots at conservatives than at accurately capturing events. And, as User:DFlhb pointed out in the section above, even when they get things right, any non-obvious facts would be covered in other sources. So it seems useless to include them as a source for political topics. Korny O'Near (talk) 16:34, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 in general, biased and WP:RSOPINION for politics. I see no evidence above of serious failed fact checks or blatant propagandistic shenanigans like doctored images or mixing fringe POVs with factual reporting (please feel free to inform me if I missed something of this form), but it does appear to be biased and opinionated for politics, so it should have a disclaimer similar to Jacobin, Reason etc that it is an opinionated/biased sources and treated as such (attributed where usable when biased/opinion, not for weight). Andre🚐 19:48, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  Reason is a publication with years of history and plenty of good work to it's credit. This is none of that. It's mostly a farm for click bait stories. It's crazy that we would consider this crap source more reliable than Fox News (which isn't meant to be a compliment to Fox). Springee (talk) 20:30, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  I'm open to changing my view on it, but I haven't seen any evidence, unlike copious failed fact checks and misleading statements by Fox. Andre🚐 20:36, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

• Probably option 1.5/2? It seems like sometimes attribution is appropriate when there's an unclear separation of reporting/analysis and commentary, but I have not seen sufficient evidence that we should consider it unreliable. Presumably we're supposed to base this, at least in part, on the list of stories which exemplify DD as unreliable in the section above. But actually looking at them, it's less a list of problems and more a list of when the OP disagrees. That DD considers Joe Rogan's statement that healthy 21-year-olds who exercise regularly have no need for vaccination to be a "false claim about COVID" is not an example of this source being unreliable. As for the Vance quote about being a "nationalist who worries about America's low fertility", as the DD article says, that's typically a white nationalist perspective. Maybe he wants there to just be more Americans, and supports lowering barriers to immigration rather than wanting more of specific types of Americans, but we don't need to know his thoughts to say that the Daily Dot pointed out that it's typically a racist argument (or a dog whistle to those who support that racist argument, with the built-in deniability that dog whistles come with). OP seemed to simply miss the point of the Musk/hair/gender-affirming care story, but that's ultimately DD highlighting a perspective other people made rather than their own, anyway, and there's no "unreliability" in there. The evidence is simply unconvincing. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:56, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with this read Andre🚐 20:10, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

• Option 2: There is no question that its home page looks clickbaity, and my initial reaction was to dismiss the publication outright (though not for the reasons cited by the OP, as to which I agree with Rhododendrites). But it actually seems to be reasonably accurate in its substantive news, it has something of a reputation for breaking news, and it's used by others. So on further consideration, I think it can be used with attribution. Some examples of use by others:

• "The woman [who alleges she was drugged and raped by Cliff Maloney Jr.] came forward last year shortly after the Daily Dot published an article recounting accusations that Maloney sexually harassed women connected to Young Americans for Liberty, a conservative political organization." Atlanta Journal-Constitution (5/8/2022).
• "The caller also provided police with a username, which belonged to a website's administrator, which they claimed belonged to them, suggesting that the caller's alleged motives and identity may have been fabricated, according to the Daily Dot, which first obtained a copy of the police report [about a swatting incident involving Marjorie Taylor Greene]." Independent Online (U.K.) (8/25/2022).
• "[Rep. Barry] Loudermilk gave an interview to a local Georgia radio station on the day of the riot [i.e., Jan. 6, 2021]. The Georgia Republican was still in an undisclosed secure location as he spoke. His comments would not become widely known until The Daily Dot uncovered them months later." Business Insider (6/16/2022).
• "Unjected, a dating app and the "largest unvaccinated platform" online, apparently left its entire website's back end unsecured. Security researchers, working with Daily Dot reporters, reportedly accessed the site's administrator dashboard, which had been left entirely unsecured and in de-bug mode." National Law Review (8/4/2022) (also covered in other sources).
• "The Daily Dot recently discovered that one of the companies the state authorizes to provide campaigns and political action committees (PACs) with campaign finance software is owned by an open and avowed White supremacist who still praises the Confederacy." Florida Politics (9/16/2022).

These are just some recent examples from Westlaw. John M Baker (talk) 04:23, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1.5/2 per Rhododendrites, but weakly oppose Option 1 due to additional considerations below. The Daily Dot evidently appears to be clickbait, and most of its culture articles are superficial, reporting on popular social media videos with limited analysis. This, IMHO is echoed in its political coverage, which per the previous thread is somewhat exaggerated and leaves out context. However, I couldn't find specific examples in which The Daily Dot has written a piece that is blatantly misinformation or disinformation, but it is far from the quality of a newspaper of record or another site with high-quality editorial control. Numerous pieces previously provided are also marked as opinion pieces, which are irrelevant, such as 1 2. Also, while the label of the coronavirus piece could be slightly opinionated, IMO it is not misleading to the point of damaging reliability. Further, the previous articles definitely show that The Daily Dot is WP:BIASED, reflected by the current RSP entry Some editors have objected to its tone or consider it to be biased or opinionated. Consider whether content from this publication constitutes due weight before citing it in an article. Due to that The Daily Dot frequently covers controversial and possibly exaggerated content that possibly violates due weight, IMO attribution should be recommended, and better sources should be preferred when possible. VickKiang (talk) 01:47, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

  > reporting on popular social media videos with limited analysis

  Is a lack of analysis for that a problem, I wonder? Watching and documenting the Web is also necessarily their forte (it's some of ours too). It may seem irrelevant and silly to many, or even clickbait-y. But to give a contrasting example, I found the Daily Dot indispensable in helping to catalog the cultural evolution of Pepe the Frog. An Internet cultural history that nobody could argue didn't dip into some politics, by the way. Chillabit (talk) 19:59, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1. WP:RS is not based on whether editors personally disagree with a source's conclusions (which seems to be the only arguments made above), but on its reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; and nobody has presented any secondary sourcing calling the Daily Dot's reputation into question, just things they personally disagree with. We don't perform WP:OR here, we rely on what other sources say - you have to demonstrate its reputation, not just a laundry-list of articles you take issue with. And as far as its reputation goes, the source does have decent WP:USEBYOTHERS. See eg. [1][2][3]. The first two particularly stand out because the authors relied on the Daily Dot for part of their classification scheme, ie. its reputation for accuracy - when covering politics, note - was central to their research. [4] is similar, presenting an article and comparison from the Daily Dot to justify the basis of their research. That's (generally) the way we'd expect academic papers to treat a WP:RS. And coverage in other sources generally covers it the way we'd expect them to cover another RS, eg. [5][6] --Aquillion (talk) 02:36, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

  Quite a few of these are paywalled, but this one, which you describe as standing out, lists Media Bias/Fact Check the exact same way it lists Daily Dot. Yet, MBFC is not a reliable source on Wikipedia. I don't think a pile of links to largely paywalled sources that (at least some of the time) refer to them in a way they refer to unreliable sources really establishes their reliability.

  Also, the question of bias needing attribution for WP purposes is separate from the issue of factual accuracy; and the site's strong bias is quite obvious. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:27, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

  I think you need to read that source again. They aren't listing them, they're using lists from them (and three other places). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:32, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes. The point is that, in context, their conclusions depend on the accuracy of data that they got from the Daily Dot, which is the way I would expect an academic paper to use a WP:RS. This alone is not always enough because we have to consider what others say about them, but since it is otherwise generally structured like a reputable news source, and since the only objections anyone seems to be raising about the Daily Dot are that they personally disagree with its conclusions, it seems sufficient in this case. --Aquillion (talk) 19:40, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1. I just looked at TDD. A story about an incident at a Walmart ends with "The Daily Dot reached out to ...." Another about a TV weatherman using scenes of an animal caught in Hurricane Ian rising waters states "The Daily Dot reached out to WINK News...." There's one about a former employee exposing JCPenney's secret loss prevention surveillance, with "The Daily Dot reached out to Han via TikTok comment and JCPenney via email." TDD does what journalism is expected and supposed to do.
  As for opinions, and its coverage of politics and culture, WP:BIASED states: "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject... Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context." Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 03:09, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1, there has been no evidence presented that The Daily Dot engages in misinformation or that they have purveyed factually innacurate information and refused to correct it, all publications that report on politics are biased to some extent and the only way to avoid this would be to delete all Wikipedia articles on politics. Devonian Wombat (talk) 23:17, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2/Option 5 from User:Blueboar above. Per User:DFlhb's analysis in the section above The Daily Dot does not appear to draw a clear line between opinion pieces and factual reporting, so they need to be treated like a WP:RSOPINION source with in-text attribution. Their building articles around random social media posts (as shown by User:Korny O'Near's list of articles about fast food tiktok's in this section and the quoted tweets mentioned by User:DFlhb above) raises some pretty serious concerns both around WP:BLP and about its usability for establishing WP:NOTABILITY/WP:WEIGHT. As its editorial standards appear to have gone down somewhat recently, maybe it would be possible to establish a rough cut-off point, prior to which it could be used with less caveats. Siawase (talk) 08:27, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 highly biased on numerous fronts, not a source that should be generally used on Wikipedia. Bill Williams 18:15, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. I don't see any evidence that suggests TDD is anything but a generally reliable source. In fact, the examples of TDD following (what should be) accepted journalism practices has left me more confident of their reliability than I had been previously. Woodroar (talk) 19:49, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2/5 per Blueboar, Bobfrombrockley, and others above; mixes fact and opinion and hence the rules on opinion pieces apply. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:00, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
• Terrible RfC as per all the varying views offered above, which are valid answers to the question but not the options presented. The only one I would be wholeheartedly against is option 4. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:45, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
• Comment - this RfC is due in part to a (now-archived) list I created of what I saw as false or misleading wording in some Daily Dot articles; you can see the list, and some discussion about it, here. Korny O'Near (talk) 00:25, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2? It depends - this RFC for generic labelling doesn’t seem applicable, it would depend on the specific item in question. The DailyDot collection of pieces range in areas and sourcing and value - many are by staff writers with good rep and giving a factual reporting, many are more question pieces or about non-fact topics. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 15:06, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 per Aquillion: they don't seem to have any sort of history of inaccuracy and there's sufficient WP:USEBYOTHERS to make it hard to say they're not reliable. I could see noting them down as biased but TBH they're not any more biased than something like Vox, which is also green on RSP. Loki (talk) 17:32, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 for political content, Option 1 for general content per Andrevan and Rhododendrites. Contentious or questionable political views (whether explicit or implied) are not enough to write a source off as unreliable, but it does warrant additional considerations in a source's use and preference for better sources when possible. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 06:00, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
• My personal view is: if text can be sourced only to the Daily Dot, then we should not include it. If it's in a more reliable source but the Daily Dot provides additional colour then it might be acceptable as a supporting source with inline attribution, but even then I'd be skeptical. It's trashy and clickbaity. We should never drop sourcing standards to the point that we can include sensationalist content just because people like it, after all. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:13, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
• Seems like Option 5 is the best; it's an ok source, but we should find better, but it's better than nothing. Oaktree b (talk) 17:09, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Options 2 or 5. I concur with Oaktree; it's not the best source to use but it's better than Infowars. Ideally, I would elect to Decide on a case by case basis. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 21:51, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1 per Aquillion, particularly good on Internet Culture (even though I'd acknowledge there has been a noticeable trend towards clickbaity articles in recent years). (Disclosure: I have written for the Daily Dot.) --Andreas JN466 17:44, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 for politics as per Korny O'Near. - LilySophie (talk) 19:47, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Health Liberation Now! Relisted

Context: Original poorly formatted notification here. However, it contains how the authors and organization are covered in reliable sources. In addition, since the original listing, I created an article for Health Liberation Now!

Question: Can we use Health Liberation Now! as a source for factual information?

1) We can use it as a source without in-text attribution (X happened)

2) We can use it as a source with in-text attribution (Health Liberation Now stated X happened)

3) We can't use it as a source at all

TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 04:47, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• 1 though 2 is an acceptable compromise (as proposer): HLN's reporting is often used matter of factly in reliable sources. The authors are considered subject matter experts and we also have practically every mention in a reliable source, especially WP:SIRS, describing them as an organization known for reporting on political attacks on transgender healthcare. While they are an advocacy group, that doesn't mean they aren't neutral or uncitable, as we quote organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center in a similar manner. No reliable sources have raised doubts about the accuracy of their reports, and frankly they do good reporting on an under-reported issue. For those reasons, we should be able to include details from their reporting in articles, either as facts since they often publish easily verifiable statements, or attributed to keep in line with Wikipedia policies.

TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 04:55, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• Mu. The three options in the RfC represent a false choice, which is to say that the poorly constructed RFC ignores the potential that we should treat as self-published and apply additional considerations with respect to biographies of living persons. There is not all that much significant coverage of the website itself, though the best I can piece together is that this is a two-person job that appears to be a group blog. I don't see evidence of the sorts of things that we require of news organizations, such as strong editorial control and a reputation for fact-checking. I also don't think that this is anywhere near the level of WP:SCHOLARSHIP. As always, the guidance of WP:RSSELF that Anyone can create a personal web page or publish their own book and claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published sources are largely not acceptable is worth heeding here.
  There is a narrow exception for expert sources, which is reserved for people whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. Along those lines, @TheTranarchist: has the research of the two people who run this website previously been published by independent, reliable publications, such as academic or peer-reviewed journals? If so, would you be willing to provide links to some examples? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 16:24, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, I covered how they were considered experts extensively in the previous RFC but was chided for information overload.

  1) Leveille, Schevers, and Health Liberation Now are cited in this peer-reviewed article

  2) The independent calls Leveille a a trans researcher and health activist who has extensively documented the origins of what he calls TAnon

  3) Xtra Magazine describes Schevers as a researcher who researches TERFs because she used to be one. She’s written extensively about being sucked into a cult-like “detransition” movement which convinced young transmasculine people that their dysphoria was caused by misogyny and could only be cured by radical feminism.. They also state She has been my most patient guide through the world of organized transphobia, having previously spoken to me about the rise of anti-trans activism targeting doctors and gender clinics; every conversation is a whirlwind of names, dates, times and bizarre blog posts from TERF havens, illuminating the underbelly of an obsessive and increasingly dangerous movement.

  4) Ms. Magazine describes Schevers as a researcher who tracks anti-trans activity

  5) Salon describes Schevers as a trans journalist

  6) Vice despite being a passing mention does describe Schevers as a HLN researcher

  The Indepedendent and Xtra Magazine both discuss their research in depth and use them as reliable sources.

  In addition, Schever's past involvement with transphobic detransition communities is well documented in places such as Slate.

  While they are a WP:SPS, the policy states Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.

  The reason I initially listed this is because they have done in-depth reporting of modern anti-trans groups such as Genspect, and their reports are fact-based and link to evidence. Since we can't link to such evidence directly, such as when they provide receipts for Genspect partnering with anti-LGBT groups, they allow us to give a more in-depth article. An example of the kind of content they produce and how it fills in gaps in articles is also in the previous discussion. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 16:54, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  You are correct that Schever's work is mentioned in the journal article (along their blogspot post too). Reading the relevant portion of the article, which follows the sentence that mentions anecdotal accounts from detransitioners, Schever's work is used to represent an anecdotal account of a former detransitioner, which makes perfect sense for a journal article that wants to discuss narratives described by detransition advocates. And the remainder of the citations are used to describe Schever's sexual orientation/gender identity and personal regret with de-transitioning (i.e. the sort of stuff WP:ABOUTSELF is fine with) and their personal experience within the detrans community (again, see WP:ABOUTSELF).

  But none of this but lends credibility to Schever as being an SME broadly on the sorts of stuff that HLN covers, which per the website is the social and political forces acting in opposition to health liberation for transgender, detransitioned, retransitioned, and gender diverse people, as well as those questioning their gender. And, frankly, none of the other publications appear to provide evidence that either of the founders of the website have previously published their work in reliable, independent publications; merely being referred to as a researcher or a journalist by the popular press is not evidence that an individual is an SME in light of our guidelines on self-published sources. As such, this appears to be a non-SME SPS, though if you can provide evidence either founder has actually published their research in reputable, independent publications, I'd be happy to look it over. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:19, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  Does the Advocate count (Leveille wrote the article) or are you looking for scholarly sources specifically?

  In addition, considering the social and political forces acting in opposition to health liberation for transgender, detransitioned, retransitioned, and gender diverse people, as well as those questioning their gender, the fact that Schevers has verifiably been on both sides of the issue adds credence to her expertise. The Florence Ashley paper described her factually as heavily involved in detransitioner advocacy for 6 years. There's also the fun aspect that transgender people pay much closer attention to legislative attacks on our rights, since they affect us directly, than cis colleagues are likely to. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 17:34, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  A commentary/opinion piece in The Advocate (or news organizations, more generally) is not the sort of thing that makes one an SME, especially in light of our general guidance that op-eds and editorial pieces are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact. (I can't imagine that writing an op-ed or commentary piece in the WSJ or the The NY Times instantly qualified someone as a subject-matter expert when we don't typically consider their regular columnists to be reliable for statements of fact.) I think the guideline looks more for academic sources or something published by reputable think tanks like Brookings Institution or the like; we typically don't even consider independent journalists who formerly worked at a major newspapers to be SMEs.

  With respect to There's also the fun aspect that transgender people pay much closer attention to legislative attacks on our rights, since they affect us directly, than cis colleagues are likely to, I don't think that I've ever advocated for discounting trans people's writings or opinions on the basis of their gender identity. I also don't think that being trans makes one an SME on the social and political forces opposing trans people, much in the same way that being Muslim or being Jewish doesn't make one an SME on the various Islamophobic or antisemitic social and political forces that prowl about the world, respectively. Is one's baseline awareness higher? I imagine so, but that's not really relevant to source analysis here. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:48, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  I hadn't noticed that was an opinion piece, thanks for pointing that out! My comment wasn't implying you didn't, more so reflecting on the sad fact that two trans people who've had personal experience with the hijacking of the detransition community, have created well-formed factual reports and research tracking anti-trans attacks on our rights, which have been referenced in reliable sources, can't be used since they don't report through official institutionalized channels. The presence of an editorial board doesn't mean a source will report accurately or fairly any more than its absence means they won't. The quality of their reporting hasn't been brought up, and the fact we trust authority rather than veracity of reporting is saddening on many levels. Put simply, it's depressing they point out things that are happening that are completely verifiably true and we can't say they happened or even that HLN said they happened, even when it would greatly improve the quality of an article, not because they didn't actually happen but because of technicalities. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:25, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• None/3. I don't see why this page should be listed at RSP at all. My understanding is the RSP list is for frequently used sources. This source seems to be an obscure trans-rights group run by two people without an editorial policy. The WP article for the group is actually up for AfD. I just don't see how this rises to the level of being listed on RSP - there are thousands of websites that are used more frequently. --Kbabej (talk) 16:34, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
• As I noted when this question was first raised just a couple weeks ago, this is not a reliable source. It is self-published, and the co-founders are not recognized as subject matter experts. The only mentions of them or their website in independent sources are anecdotal and trivial. Neither has been published in a reliable independent source other than a single op-ed style article in The Advocate criticizing a 60 Minutes segment. The comparison to the SPLC is not apt. This is simply not a reliable source. Banks Irk (talk) 18:45, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
• 3 per what I said in the recent discussion on this, as well as Red-tailed hawk and Banks Irk above. It is a two-person activism blog with no editorial oversight whatsoever. We have actual RS on these matters we can use. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:02, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
• I prefer this format better than the one that commonly includes "deprecation". Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:54, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
• It's an obscure website that will most certainly be forgotten in ten years time and has only received sizable outside coverage in one LGBT magazine. There's no need for an RfC in the first place. X-Editor (talk) 20:47, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
• As above. We do not need an RfC to know whether to cite an activist website. The About page gives no indication of authority or editorial oversight, it's just two folks' website. We can quote it if it's cited in an independent RS, otherwise, not. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:07, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
• Not reliable. No reputation for fact checking or accuracy. No corrections policy that I could find. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:49, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
• Not reliable Per the above, its clearly an SPS, with no evidence these people are regarded as experts. Slatersteven (talk) 11:57, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
• Unreliable and treat as Self-published per Red-tailed hawk's excellent analysis. Essentially a two-person blog, has a mission page outlining its aim but has no editorial policies or corrections policies, nor are the authors subject-matter-experts. WP:USEBYOTHERS is also minimal, with the article on the blog being deleted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Health Liberation Now! with strong consensus, indeed, most of the RS cover the founder's experiences and then trivially mention the site. VickKiang (talk) 02:08, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Association of Religion Data Archives and World Religion Database

Æo has removed ARDA religious estimations from various wiki pages because he says it uses some World Religion Database data which he claims is affiliated to the World Christian Database which he claims is unreliable. First of all, ARDA is completely separate from both of them. Below is ARDAs impressive resume from their about page https://www.thearda.com/about/about-the-arda

Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) strives to democratize access to the best data on religion. Founded as the American Religion Data Archive in 1997 and going online in 1998, the initial archive was targeted at researchers interested in American religion. The targeted audience and the data collection have both greatly expanded since 1998, now including American and international collections submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. The ARDA is generously supported by the Lilly Endowment, the John Templeton Foundation, Chapman University, Pennsylvania State University and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

ARDA Advisory Board: Renata Curty (UC Santa Barbara), Joel Herndon (Duke University), Nathaniel Porter (Virginia Tech), Ruth Tillman (Pennsylvania State University), Andrew Tyner (Center for Open Science)

ARDA Affiliates: US Religion Census, Baylor Univeristy, World Religion Database at Boston University, which is part of Brill publishing: https://www.worldreligiondatabase.org/

Here is The Harvard Library calling World Religion Database "a good source of statistics" https://guides.library.harvard.edu/religion and here's The Stanford Library https://guides.library.stanford.edu/religion saying of Arda "Data included in the ARDA are submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. The ARDA allows you to interactively explore the highest quality data on American and international religion using online features for generating national profiles, GIS maps, church membership overviews, denominational heritage trees, tables, charts, and other reports." University of Oxford Library also recommends both of them https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/collections-and-resources/data/finding-data/themes/religion.

Below are multiple book sources that call ARDA and the World Religion Database "Reliable", including the Oxford handbook and Cambridge University: 12, 3, 4, 5 AEO does not have ANY reputable source that calls it unreliable it is completely his personal opinion from his own original research. He thinks he knows better than Harvard and Oxford. Foorgood (talk) 23:44, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

• Since 2022, ARDA has completely reviewed its datasets and has aligned them with those of the WRD/WCD. As I have thoroughly demonstrated here, the WRD and the WCD are the same, they are the continuation of the World Christian Encyclopedia, and are ultimately produced by the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. They are therefore biased and unreliable (WP:PARTISAN, WP:QUESTIONABLE, WP:SPONSORED). In any case, they should never replace data from national censuses and surveys conducted by statistical organisations. In the linked discussion, I cited extensive excerpts from WP:RS which have criticised the WRD/WCD. I have also thoroughly commented the links provided by Foorgood in support of his opinion and even provided an excerpt from one of them which demonstrates my view.
• Other users who have recently been involved in discussions about these topics can intervene: Erp, Nillurcheier, Lipwe.--Æo (talk) 23:55, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
  • The World Religion Database and World Christian Database are not officially affiliated but in any case both are considered Reliable by endless scholars including the 5 I included above such as Oxford and Cambridge.Foorgood (talk) 00:02, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
    • Foorgood, "endless scholars" isn't going to cut it, and "Oxford and Cambridge" aren't scholars. It's important to be precise here. One of the librarians listed on one of the pages you linked confirmed to me what academics already know: a note on a library guide on a university library's website should NOT be taken as any kind of official endorsement for the reliability of that database. Drmies (talk) 01:13, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

      I have 5 books from scholars in the original post and then I added some of the many institutional examples: Harvards Library calls it "a good source of statistics for religions" right here https://guides.library.harvard.edu/religion and Stanfords Library calls ARDA "Data included in the ARDA are submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. The ARDA allows you to interactively explore the highest quality data on American and international religion using online features for generating national profiles, GIS maps, church membership overviews, denominational heritage trees, tables, charts, and other reports" here https://guides.library.stanford.edu/religion but I'm done with this conversation. Have your way and make the source deprecated so that all the scholars and universities can continue to tell their students they shouldnt use Wikipedia. New editors here will now see that sources called good by Harvard are considered deprecated by Wiki. Foorgood (talk) 01:58, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

In one of the sources provided by Forgood (F. Lionel Young, III, World Christianity and the Unfinished Task: A Very Short Introduction, Wipf and Stock, 2020), which is itself a book dedicated to a particular Protestant missionary project and view, you can read the following lines: ...Barrett's research has continued under the auspices of an organization established in 2001 named the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, now situated on the campus of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. The center's co-director, Todd Johnson, began working with Barrett in 1989, and collaborates with his colleague on several projects, including the 2001 edition of the WEC. Building on Barrett's groundbreaking work, the center launched the World Christian Database and the World Religion Database....

As a general example and point of reference, compare ARDA projections about Australia to the Australian 2021 Census (ARDA overestimates Christianity by 14%); ARDA projections about Canada to the Canadian 2021 Census (ARDA overestimates Christianity by 10%). They are completely wrong, for every single country.

A further critical remark is that ARDA data are speculative projections, not actual surveys, and therefore violate WP:CRYSTAL. There have already been discussions about these matters in the past (e.g.), and some time ago Nillurcheier and I discussed about the possibility of making these sources WP:DEPRECATED (here).--Æo (talk) 00:15, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Authoritative critical assessments

Religion studies scholars & statisticians

For the sake of information completeness, I re-copy hereunder the excerpts I originally reported on my talk page in the discussion with Foorgood.

The following academic papers express criticism about the WRD/WCD, regarding their common origin in the WCE as a missionary tool, their systematic overestimate of Christianity while underestimating other forms of religion, and their favouring certain Christian denominations (Protestant ones) over others:

• Liedhegener A.; Odermatt A. (2013). "Religious Affiliation in Europe - an Empirical Approach. The "Swiss Metadatabase of Religious Affiliation in Europe (SMRE)". Zentrum für Religion, Wirtschaft und Politik (ZRWP), Universität Luzern. doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.33430.55364. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

• p. 9: "...the World Christian Database (WCD) or the World Religion Database (WRD) which is a direct offspring of the WCD. ... In itself the latter is not an unproblematic source, because its data, gathered originally from the World Christian Encyclopedia, result mostly from country reports prepared by American missionaries. Therefore, a systematic bias of its data in favor of Christianity is a major, although controversial point of criticism".

• Hsu, Becky; Reynolds, Amy; Hackett, Conrad; Gibbon, James (2008). "Estimating the Religious Composition of All Nations: An Empirical Assessment of the World Christian Database" (PDF). Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 47 (4): 691–692. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5906.2008.00435.x.

• p. 679: ... The main criticisms scholars have directed at the WCD concern the estimation and categorization of certain religious populations. There are questions about whether religious composition within countries is skewed by the overcounting of certain groups or variance in quality of information obtained on different religious groups. There is also concern about possible bias because the WCE was originally developed as a Christian missionary tool. Some of the country descriptions in the WCE have been characterized as having an anti-Catholic and pro-Protestant orientation (McClymond 2002:881), and Martin describes the WCE as a work "dedicated to the conversion of mankind" (1990:293). Criticisms have also been raised about projections for different religious groups and demographic trends, as the WCD provides empirical data for the population of religious groups well into the future. Doubts have been raised about the WCD's estimation and categorization of new religious groups. Steenbrink (1998) criticizes the 1982 WCE data for Indonesia, which suggest the population is only 43.2 percent Muslim and 36.4 percent "new religionist." Steenbrink maintains that those classified as "new religionists" should actually be classified as Muslim, even if stricter Islamic groups might disagree. Lewis (2004) observes that the Soka Gakkai, Rissho Kosei Kai, and Nichiren Shoshu in the Japanese Buddhist tradition are classified as new religions, whereas Pentecostals (a much more recent movement) are classified as Christian rather than a new religion. The size of Christian populations is also debated. Jenkins (2002) notes a large gap between the reported size of India's Christian population in the government census and in the WCE/WCD. While he admits that census figures omit many Scheduled Caste adherents who can lose government benefits by declaring Christian identity, he suspects the WCD overcounts Christians in India. The WCE has also been criticized for including "inadequate and confusing" categories of Christian religious groups, in particular, "Great Commission Christians," "Latent Christians," "Non-baptized believers in Christ," and "Crypto-Christians" (Anderson 2002:129). Some worry that it is difficult to distinguish Christians who keep their faith secret from Christians who practice an indigenized form of Christianity that incorporates elements of non-Christian religions. McClymond writes that estimates for the "non-baptized believers in Christ" or "non-Christian believers in Christ" in India who are Buddhist and Muslim "seem to be largely anecdotal" (2002:886). Estimates of adherents in the United States have also been challenged. Noll has questioned the designation and size of certain Christian categories, for which the WCD and WCE provide the most detail. Although he finds estimates for most Christian denominations agree with other sources, he notes that "Great Commission Christians"—a category used to describe those actively involved in Christian expansion—are estimated in the United States and Europe to be a much larger group than the number of Christians who weekly attend church (2002:451). Another cause for concern is the number of "independents," a muddled category including African-American, "community," and "Bible" churches. Changes in the data set also raise issues about categories: Anderson notes that groups previously labeled as Protestant in the first edition of the WCE in 1982 (Conservative Baptist Association of America, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and the Presbyterian Church in America) were relabeled Independent in the second edition published in 2001 (Anderson 2002). Some have argued that projections of religious composition for years such as 2025 and 2050 should not be included with the empirical data, as they are merely conjecture (McClymond 2002). Irvin (2005) argues against making predictions about the future of worldwide religion based on recent statistics because Christian growth in Asia and Africa will not necessarily continue along the trajectory it has in past decades. ....
• p. 680: ... To address the criticisms mentioned above, we compare the religious composition estimates in the WCD to four other cross-national data sets on religious composition (two survey-based data sets and two government-sponsored data sets): the World Values Survey (WVS), the Pew Global Attitudes Project (Pew), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the U.S. State Department (State Department). In our analysis, we find support for some of the criticisms made by reviewers ... the WCD does have higher estimates of percent Christian within countries. Another important difference between the WCD and other cross-national data sets is that the WCD includes data on 18 different religious groups for each country while other data sets only estimate the size of major religions. In evaluating some of the specific critiques discussed above, we find that WCD estimates of American Christian groups are generally higher than those based on surveys and denominational statistics. ... The majority of data came from fieldwork, unpublished reports, and private communications from contributors who are a mix of clergy, academics, and others; the Christian origins of the encyclopedia explain in part its detailed information on Christian groups. ....
• p. 684: ... Figure 1 shows that the WCD tends to overestimate percent Christian relative to the other data sets. Scatterplots show that the majority of the points lie above the y x line, indicating the WCD estimate for percent Christian within countries is generally higher than the other estimates. Although the bias is slight, it is consistent, and consequently, the WCD estimates a higher ratio of Christians in the world. This suggests that while the percentage Christian estimates are closely related among the data sets, the tendency is for them to be slightly higher in the WCD. ... On the other hand, the WCD likely underestimates percent Muslim in former Communist countries and countries with popular syncretistic and traditional religions..
• p. 692: ... We find some evidence for the three main criticisms directed at the WCD regarding estimation, ambiguous religious categories, and bias. The WCD consistently gives a higher estimate for percent Christian in comparison to other cross-national data sets. ... We also found evidence of overestimation when we compared WCD data on American denominational adherence to American survey data such as ARIS, due in part to inclusion of children, and perhaps also to uncritical acceptance of estimates from religious institutions. We agree with reviewers that some of the WCD's religious categories are impossible to measure accurately, such as "Great Commission Christians," "latent Christians," and "Crypto-Christians." ....

Missionologists

Added by Erp:

• Woodberry, Robert D. (2010). "World Religion Database: Impressive - but Improvable". International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 34 (1): 21–22. ISSN 0272-6122.
  • Quote: ... the editors seem to have constructed their estimates of religious distribution primarily from surveys of denominations and missionaries, not from censuses or representative surveys of individuals ....
• Marsh, Christopher; Zhong, Zhifeng (2010). "Chinese Views on Church and State". Journal of Church and State. 52 (1): 34–49. ISSN 0021-969X. JSTOR 23922246.
  • Quote: overestimate of Christianity in China, which adds a lot to the total number and percentage of world Christians: ... At the extreme high end, the World Religion Database puts the percentage of Christians in China at 7.76 percent, or a just above 100 million, but this number is most certainly an overestimation ....

Added by Æo:

Another edition of WRD/WCD data has been the Atlas of Global Christianity (produced by the same Gordon-Conwell team). I have found negative critical assessments even for this edition, this time coming from an "insider" (Christian missionary) source, even though through an academic publisher, written by Anne-Marie Kool of the Evangelical Theological Seminary of Osijek, Croatia:

• Kool, Anne-Marie (2016). "Revisiting Mission in, to and from Europe through Contemporary Image Formation" (PDF). In Charles E. Van Engen (ed.). The State of Missiology Today: Global Innovations in Christian Witness. Downers Grove: IVP Academic. pp. 231–49.
  • p. 1: ... [the resource] seeks to give “as nuanced a picture as possible” of the history of Christianity over the last 100 years showing an “unmistakable” general pattern, that Christianity experiences a “severe recession” on the European continent that once was its primary base, while it has undergone “unprecedented growth and expansion” in the other parts of the world. ....
  • p. 2: ... widespread caution is raised with regard to the accuracy of the figures and not to engage in statistical analysis with the data, “without robustness checking… they contain random error and probably some systematic error” ....
  • p. 9, containing a self-criticism from Kool for having herself made uncritical use of the data: ... The World Christian Database and the World Religion Database serve as sources for the data of the Atlas. With regard to the methodology used, Woodberry is right in emphasizing that “more transparency is needed”. It might well be that the great quantity of details easily silenced possible critical voices. It is peculiar that hardly any serious critical interaction and discussion of the underlying methodology of the Atlas has taken place, neither of its two data providing predecessors. The data are simply taken for granted, as I have taken them for as authoritative in my teaching and research during the last two decades. ....
  • p. 12, about systematic overestimation of Christianity in Europe, with allusions that there might be financial reason behind such overestimations: ... The statistical image of Europe that is now communicated only re-enforces the image of Europe as a Christian continent, by not giving insight in the internal diversification and erosion. So why is only this broad definition used? Is it for fear of losing power? Or for maintaining the image of the numerically strong “World C” that provides the human and financial resources to “finish the task”? Are matters of Christian finance playing a role? Out of a sense of empire building? Or of a sense of hidden resistance to accept that Europe also is now also a mission field? Is it out of fear of becoming a minority? Fear for ending up statistically weaker than the Muslims? Or an attempt to cling to the influence of the “Western” over the “non-Western” world, based on an image of Europe as still a massive Christian continent? ....
  • p. 13; it is a missionary tool designed for a specific strategy of aggression towards what in American missionary Christianity has been conceptualised as the "10/40 window": ... Eric Friede’s sharp analysis points us to the fact that the Atlas is ultimately written from the perspective of the so-called Great Commission Christians, Christians who engage in and support Christian missions, as many essays address the issue of “how to grow Christianity” in a particular region. The mission strategy invoked is then one of identifying within Global Christianity the resources needed for the task, the human resources, the GCC Christians, as well as the Christian finances that could make this enterprise work. An assessment of major tools needed for finishing this task is offered in subsequent sections, like Bible translation is followed by a section on Evangelization, with a division of the world in A, B and C, according to the level “being evangelized”. Statistics are used to motivate missionaries and national workers to mission action with Christian mission being reduced to a manageable enterprise with a dominant quantitative approach and a well-defined pragmatic orientation, “as a typical school of thought coming from modern United States”. .... Kool makes largely reference to: Eric Friede, "Book Review. Atlas of Global Christianity: 1910-2010, by Johnson, T.M. & Ross, K.R. (Eds.), 2010", Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, Theological Librarianship 3(1), 2010.

Among other sources, some of which we have already analysed, Kool makes reference to:

• Brierley, Peter. (2010). "World Religion Database: Detail Beyond Belief!". International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 34 (1): 18–20.
  • It is a critical assessment, once again coming from a missionary journal, that raises doubts as to the reliability of the WRD on the basis of the mismatch of the latter's data (purportedly based on censuses) with actual data from censuses, in particular those of the UK. Judd Birdsall and Lori Beaman, in Faith in Numbers: Can we Trust Quantitative Data on Religious Affiliation and Religious Freedom?, Transatlantic Policy Network on Religion & Diplomacy, 22 June 2020, at p. 3 say that the WRD, despite being widely cited and impressive, "comes with limitations. In his review of the Database, the statistician Peter Brierley pointed out that for the United Kingdom the Database used denominational reports, such as Church of England baptismal records, rather than the UK census figures to calculate affiliation. A tally of denominational reporting showed that 82% of Britons were Christian, whereas only 72% of them claimed to be Christian in the UK census". (n.b. Brierley makes reference to the UK 2001 census data, showing that already in 2001 the WRD overestimated Christianity in the UK by at least 10%).

Discussion (ARDA and WRD)

Part 1

The World Religion Database provides its estimates based on census and surveys: https://www.worldreligiondatabase.org/, just like Pew Research does. The sources I cited above from Oxford and Princeton call it very reliable and accurate even though it is not exact as Censuss but estimates like Pew are used all over Wikipedia.Foorgood (talk) 00:39, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

That being said, I want to confirm whether or not AEOs position is that ARDA/WRD estimates shouldn't override national censuss(which I agree with) meaning they could still be used for other estimates, OR if AEOs position is that ARDA/WRD should not be used at all(which is absurd given their reliable reputation with Oxford and Cambridge)?Foorgood (talk) 01:04, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

The WRD is not a census (survey of the entire population of a state by that state's statistical office), and, as demonstrated by Erp herebelow, their methods for collecting and elaborating data are unclear (and, n.b., circular! the WRD makes reference to Pew which in turn made reference to WRD!). With my comments, I have abundantly demonstrated the bias of the WRD and its sponsors. Please note that some of the sources you have cited are from the same sponsors of the ARDA (e.g. Pennsylvania University), others (the Oxford etc. books you claim recommend ARDA) are from years ago when the ARDA had not yet switched completely to WRD data (I myself consulted the ARDA site in 2020/2021 and their data were completely different, and more reasonable, than those from the WRD implemented after 2020/2021) and they merely list or cite ARDA as a source. That ARDA data should never replace data from national censuses is obvious. Moreover, they are WP:CRYSTAL projections. Therefore, I think that ARDA/Gordon-Conwell data, together with Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures (another dataset of projections based on Pew 2001-2010 surveys) should be WP:DEPRECATED. Æo (talk) 10:47, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Nope you cannot radically decide to block PEW and ARDA, both globally recognized as top reliable sources, from Wikipedia just because you now think you know better than them. But what we can do is give preeminence to Censuss while allowing estimates to be provided lower in the article with the disclaimer that they are not official surveys etc. Foorgood (talk) 14:03, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

"Both globally recognized as top reliable sources". Please note that such alleged "global recognition" is basically the result of their own campaigns of promotion, and support by their allied journalistic media. Take the F. Lionel Young source cited above: it indeed praises the WRD within a chapter dedicated to statistical sources which are part of a precise Protestant Christian missionary project. These are, very simply, unreliable biased sources. Obviously, I cannot classify them as deprecated myself; this would require community consensus. Let's see how the present discussion will develop before proceeding with further steps. Æo (talk) 14:45, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

You actually think that PEW or ARDA, globally recognized as reliable, would meet all the requirements listed here?!: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deprecated_sources.. Again are you so extreme in your stance that you can't come to a compromise like you've done already by simply having Censuss take top priority on nations religions pages? Foorgood (talk) 15:26, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Regarding census data I have not come to any compromise; census data are simply the best, most accurate available. And yes, I think ARDA/WRD/WCD (alias Gordon-Conwell) and Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures (projections based on outdated 2001-2010 surveys/collections of data) meet the requirement for deprecation. Note that deprecation does not mean banning a source (blacklisting), it's just a warning that will appear whenever contributors will insert links to such sources. Æo (talk) 17:10, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Ok so you are saying that you don't feel the PEW or ARDA data needs to banned entirely from articles, just given disclaimer that it's not an official survey like a census? Foorgood (talk) 17:34, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

ARDA itself is a database archive and states that when citing ARDA the original source must be included in the cite so the key question in most cases is the reliability of WRD. I have access to the World Religion Database so decided to check one recent cite in the Demographics of atheism article where the claim was "In 2020, the World Religion Database estimated that the countries with the highest percentage of atheists were North Korea and Sweden". First how on earth does anyone know what the percentage of the population are atheists in North Korea? Tunneling down through the WRD yielded the source for its info on religion in that country as "North Korea, Future of the Global Muslim Population (FGMP), 2020" and a note at the bottom of a fairly blank page was "Pew Forum Projection". Unfortunately the Pew FGMP (a) doesn't mention atheists and (b) cites the WRD as its source for the Muslim population of North Korea. I do note a WRD discussion of its methodology is at https://worldreligiondatabase.org/wrd/doc/WRD_Methodology.pdf including the paragraph:

"Religious demography must attempt to be comprehensive. In certain countries where no hard statistical data or reliable surveys are available, researchers have to rely on the informed estimates of experts in the area and subject. Researchers make no detailed attempt at a critique of each nation’s censuses and polls or each church’s statistical operations. After examining what is available, researchers then select the best data available until such time as better data come into existence. In addition, there are a number of areas of religious life where it is impossible to obtain accurate statistics, usually because of state opposition to particular tradition(s). Thus it will probably never be possible to get exact numbers of atheists in Indonesia or Baha’i in Iran. Where such information is necessary, reasonable and somewhat conservative estimates are made."

My suspicion is the estimate of the number of atheists in North Korea is a guess with very large error bars. The number of atheists in Sweden is likely to be more accurate though the latest survey they used is 2008. One should check what definition of atheist is being used by WRD. Erp (talk) 01:31, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Excuse me the 2017 Win/Gallup poll also has Sweden as the 2nd most atheist country and here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_North_Korea we can see 2 different estimates are used to give North Korea's high atheist percentage. Estimates have their own methodology and they are considered Reliable by Oxford and Cambridge so don't try to reinvent the wheel and say that we know better than these statisticians because if so you're going to have to remove every single estimate on Wikipedia for every topic- and there are thousands. Our job on Wikipedia is to include estimates that are reliable while obviously giving precedence to government surveys *When available*.Foorgood (talk) 01:52, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Actually the estimates for North Korea in the Religion in North Korea are for 'no religion' which is not the same as being atheistic. Also the 2017 Win/Gallop report (https://web.archive.org/web/20171114113506/http://www.wingia.com/web/files/news/370/file/370.pdf) has China as being the 'least religious', not atheistic, of the countries polled with Sweden second. However in the same report when it comes to percentage stating they are atheists Sweden drops below China, Hong Kong, Japan, Czech Republic, Slovenia, South Korea, France, and Belgium. North Korea for obvious reasons was not among the countries polled. This does not help in showing that WRD is a reliable source. Note that does not mean I agree with @Æo that censuses are the best sources; censuses can have biases or be incomplete and good surveys/polls can be just as reliable or better if not as precise. I would be happier with WRD if it were specific on how it got its figures for each country (among other things it would avoid articles citing X and then citing WRD which in turn was using X). Erp (talk) 17:38, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

If you click here https://www.thearda.com/world-religion/np-sort?var=ADH_704#S_1 and read the top it says "Variables: Total number of Atheists by country and percent of population that are Atheists: Persons who deny the existence of God, gods, or the supernatural. (World Religion Database, 2020) (Atheists)1" Again, you guys are acting like you know better than these world renowned sources. Foorgood (talk) 17:43, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Foorgood, I have thoroughly demonstrated that such "world renowned sources" are not produced by actual statisticians but by Protestant missionaries and Erp has demonstrated that their methods for collecting data are dubious. The line you have cited does not mean anything as to statistical survey methodology, it is just a conceptual category they have used to represent their data. Please read WP:NOTHERE. Æo (talk) 23:33, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

I suspect the precision of exactly 4,016,422 atheists in North Korea in 2020, too precise for what is suppose to be an estimate. Have the authors not heard of significant figures or more likely it is an issue with the database design not being able to round? Also the definition at the top of the ARDA WRD chart is not quite the same as the one in the World Religion Database (the numbers do match). The latter definition is "Number of Atheists in this country's population. Atheists are persons professing atheism, skepticism, impiety, disbelief or irreligion, or Marxist-Leninist Communism regarded as a political faith, or other quasi-religions, and who abstain from religious activities and have severed all religious affiliation; and others opposed, hostile or militantly opposed to all religion (anti-religious); dialectical materialists, militant non-believers, anti-religious humanists, skeptics." There is a separate category for agnostics.

As for world renowned? Something can be well known yet still not be deemed reliable. I did a search of the Wiley Online Library for "World Religion Database", 27 hits though 16 of them were to a single book by the people who created the database. Wiley also includes the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion which had two of the cites (one of which was a critique of the World Christian Database). One would think people contributing to a journal on the scientific study of religion might be using this database extensively? I also did a search on "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" in Wiley, that had 1,248 hits.

I will note that Brian Grim's background does include a PhD in sociology from Penn State which should ensure some statistical training. Erp (talk) 00:35, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Oxford and Cambridge and 3 other top publishers call them reliable 12, 3, 4, 5 Why? Because they are all statisticians from Universities around the country: ARDA Advisory Board: Renata Curty (UC Santa Barbara), Joel Herndon (Duke University), Nathaniel Porter (Virginia Tech), Ruth Tillman (Pennsylvania State University), Andrew Tyner (Center for Open Science)

ARDA Affiliates: US Religion Census, Baylor Univeristy, World Religion Database at Boston University, which is part of Brill publishing: https://www.worldreligiondatabase.org/

No, you do not know better than these experts. But AEO I'm asking you, your position is that ARDA not be banned from articles you just want it with the deprecated tag?Foorgood (talk) 01:16, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

And ERP you will have to show us a screenshot if you think we will simply take your word about what WRD classifies as atheism because there is so far absolutely 0 proof of what you just stated. Foorgood (talk) 01:44, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

@Foorgood I'm not sure I'm permitted to put a screen shot in this discussion (wikipedia images are suppose to be stuff we can use in articles) or even if it would be sufficient proof for you given you apparently have no access to the database and therefore don't know what it looks like (I could after all photoshop it). Would it be better to have a third party who has access to WRD to vouch for the accuracy? A party you choose. I'm not sure whether @NebY or @Æo have access. Erp (talk) 04:24, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Nope because as I wrote below: Here is The Harvard Library calling World Religion Database "a good source of statistics" https://guides.library.harvard.edu/religion and here's The Stanford Library https://guides.library.stanford.edu/religion saying of Arda "Data included in the ARDA are submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. The ARDA allows you to interactively explore the highest quality data on American and international religion using online features for generating national profiles, GIS maps, church membership overviews, denominational heritage trees, tables, charts, and other reports." University of Oxford Library also recommends both of them https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/collections-and-resources/data/finding-data/themes/religion. All the top Universities call it a reliable source period you do not have ANY reputable source that calls it unreliable it is completely your personal opinion from your own original research. Foorgood (talk) 14:03, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

@Erp: I don't have access to the database, but I personally trust your word. In any case, I think it would not be a problem if you uploaded a little screenshot of the section of the page which demonstrates unclear and circular reporting; I think it would not be a copyright violation. Regarding Foorgood, I think he is gaming the discussion system by bringing the interlocutor to exhaustion, ignoring the evidence we have put forward and stubbornly copy-pasting his links which do not demonstrate anything except that ARDA/WRD is listed among other sources on some university/library websites. Æo (talk) 17:05, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

I would also remind @Foorgood: of WP:AGF. We have no reason to suspect Erp of fabricating a quotation from WRD and I very much hope that FoorGood doesn't imagine that such suspicion would be justified by or would justify misleading statements by Foorgood themself. NebY (talk) 17:41, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Many thanks for pointing that out about Good Faith. I would like someone else to check given that I am using an older browser so perhaps some things are hidden from me such as lack of sources (not the definition of atheists, that is definitely there). Or I should check on a different computer. I note @Foorgood has been contacting various people and one of them might have access.

I'm actually not so sure it was circular reporting since it isn't clear whether the surveys listed by WRD were actually listed sources or listed links for related information. The idea behind the WRD makes a certain amount of sense; however, the methodology is lacking in a few ways. What are the sources for each country and a short description on how they are used, who is responsible for the calculations in each country (or are the listed editors, Todd M. Johnson, Brian J. Grim, Gina A. Zurlo, Peter Crossing, and David Hannan, responsible for all countries?), are there regular archives so a researcher using it doesn't find the data changing out from underneath them (these archives might exist); why aren't figures rounded to avoid giving a precision that is impossible for estimates? what are the error estimates?

By the way if WRD is well known (whether for good and/or for bad), it probably should have its own Wikipedia article. Erp (talk) 02:01, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Foorgood, your wrote "Oxford and Cambridge and 3 other top publishers call them reliable" and previously "they are considered Reliable by Oxford and Cambridge". Books publishesd by Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press don't represent the opinion or judgment of OUP or CUP (or of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge), and this is true of publishers generally; for example, a book published by Harper Collins does not represent the opinion of Rupert Murdoch. An advisory board of statisticians "from Universities around the country" isn't automatically of high quality (they might be the best in the US or they might be the only ones in the US who'll work with that organisation) and the extent to which advisory boards influence an organisation's work and output varies massively. NebY (talk) 14:13, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Here is even The Harvard Library calling World Religion Database "a good source of statistics" https://guides.library.harvard.edu/religion and here's The Stanford Library https://guides.library.stanford.edu/religion saying of Arda "Data included in the ARDA are submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. The ARDA allows you to interactively explore the highest quality data on American and international religion using online features for generating national profiles, GIS maps, church membership overviews, denominational heritage trees, tables, charts, and other reports." University of Oxford Library also recommends both of them https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/collections-and-resources/data/finding-data/themes/religion. All the top Universities call it a reliable source period you do not have ANY reputable source that calls it unreliable it is completely your personal opinion from your own original research. Foorgood (talk) 16:01, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Foorgood, note that the sites you have linked merely list ARDA among other sources, and the blurb is likely a self-presentation. They are not critical researches; critical assessments are those like the ones from which I have excerpted the quotes reported at the beginning of the discussion (Liedhegener et al. 2013, Hsu et al. 2008). Also please note, and I repeat this for the umpteenth time, that the ARDA acquired all its data from the WRD only by 2021/2022, and before then it hosted completely different data. As already expressed before, the first problem here is the WRD, and the ARDA is the secondary problem as it functions as the dissemination platform of WRD data. Æo (talk) 17:54, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

And as you saw Harvard calls World Religion Database a good source so do yourself a favor and stop humiliating yourself trying to make it seem deprecated and pretending you know better than Harvard Stanford and Oxford. Even the Yale and Princeton Library websites suggest World Religion Database. Foorgood (talk) 17:57, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

That's better, at least to start with; you clearly identify those mentions as being from university libraries. But then you veer into saying "all the top universities", as if the libraries are the universities, as if those samples do call it a reliable source, and as if your sample proves that all "top" universities or even their libraries call it a reliable source. And then you tell me that "you do not have ANY reputable source that calls it unreliable it is completely your personal opinion from your own original research". You do not know what my opinion is; my comment above on your statements was my first. NebY (talk) 17:57, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

That first sentence from Stanford Library, "Data included in the ARDA are submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world", is also in our article Association of Religion Data Archives and has been since its origination in 2006. The Stanford page appears to be comparatively recent - note that this Jan 2022 list of guides from the Wayback Machine doesn't mention a religion page. The Stanford statement might be copied from Wikipedia, which is not a WP:RS, or both might be taken from a self-description of ARDA, whose website currently has "now including American and international collections submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world."[7] (I notice that's not such a strong statement, not making a claim about all the data.) It does not appear to be Stanford Library's independent appraisal of ARDA. NebY (talk) 17:31, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Correct, as I wrote above the blurb is a self-presentation copied and pasted here and there, including on Wikipedia. Also note that the self-proclaimed "foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world" are fundamentally the same people of the WRD alias Gordon-Conwell and of the John Templeton Foundation (another organisation about which we could report plenty of criticism). Æo (talk) 17:38, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed that you'd found it on wikipedia too! NebY (talk) 17:46, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

(Personal attack removed) Foorgood (talk) 18:13, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

I think that much of the evidence presented so far by User:Foorgood indicates that ARDA is a reliable source. The set of references that were provided 12, 3, 4, 5 indicate that there is scholarly usage of such a database. Keep in mind that all major surveys have their limitations and none are really the final word - especially on atheism. Estimates of atheism are particularly problematic e.g. estimates from China differ between surveys (WIN-Gallup International vs Pew Research Center) and China and well... Asia alone shifts the global estimates of atheism considering that just China by itslef has the greatest number of atheists in the world. From wikipedia's stand point there is no issue using ARDA. It is not a depreciated source. It has limitations and problems like all other surveys. Attribution may solve the issues of putting any results from any particular survey in wikipedia's voice.

From the arguments presented against ARDA, none indicate that it is a depreciable source. ARDA has notable sociological researchers like Roger Finke in its board [8] and peer reviewed articles on it are also available [9]. Also, there are many hits from other scholarly sources on google scholar using the database too [10].Ramos1990 (talk) 00:11, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

In my view it is not ARDA that is in question but rather one of the databases it archives, World Religion Database. ARDA itself says that the source should be cited with ARDA just being the repository.

If I modify the google scholar search for just "World Religion Database" I get 559 results though some of them aren't exactly supportive. For instance

one article reviewing the database states

Second, the editors seem to have constructed their estimates of religious distribution primarily from surveys of denominations and missionaries, not from censuses or representative surveys of individuals

and

[things which] would radically improve the usefulness and face-validity of the data:

• Documenting how each estimate was calculated. A Webbased format is ideal for revealing this kind of information: most users would not be interested in the details, and costs to print such information would be exorbitant.
• Providing some measure of uncertainty with each estimate (e.g., standard errors or even a qualitative evaluation by the editors). Researchers could then integrate uncertainty into their statistical models or exclude cases with uncertain estimates. As it is, estimates for Afghanistan, Algeria, China, and North Korea appear as precise as estimates from Canada and Germany. (Woodberry, Robert D. (2010). "World Religion Database: Impressive - but Improvable". International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 34 (1): 21–22. ISSN 0272-6122. Retrieved 2022-11-02.)

I also noted that many of the other cites were in articles authored by the database creators.

I also did a search on jstor which tends to be a bit more selective than google scholar on what is scholarly though some recent stuff (3-5 years) may not yet be available on it. There were 31 results (with at least 3 of those by people directly involved in the database). One is by Hsu et al. 2008 mentioned above which is not favorable to the database. One article had the statement

"Relying on the 2010 estimates of the World Religion Database (WRD), this method is used in instances where no better data than the religious composition of the birth country were available" (Henning, Sabine; Hovy, Bela; Connor, Phillip; Tucker, Catherine; Grieco, Elizabeth M.; Rytina, Nancy F. (2011). "Demographic Data on International Migration Levels, Trends and Characteristics". International Migration Review. 45 (4): 979–1016. ISSN 0197-9183. JSTOR 41427975. Retrieved 2022-11-02.)

This seems to show a reluctance to use it if anything better was available. Also

"At the extreme high end, the World Religion Database puts the percentage of Christians in China at 7.76 percent, or a just above 100 million, but this number is most certainly an overestimation" (Marsh, Christopher; Zhong, Zhifeng (2010). "Chinese Views on Church and State". Journal of Church and State. 52 (1): 34–49. ISSN 0021-969X. JSTOR 23922246. Retrieved 2022-11-02.)

WRD seems to be on the edge of acceptability. At most it should only be used if no better source exists (I still can't imagine how they calculated the so very precise numbers for North Korea). Erp (talk) 02:48, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

WRD is not on the edge of acceptability. It is clearly used in the sources you cited above. Brill, which is an academic publisher, publishes the database [11] and it comes from Boston University by the way so it is RS by that measure alone. I see no reason to object to it from wikipedia's policy standpoint. The sources you brought do not show that it is a bad database, because clearly peer reviewed sources do use it. Google scholar also produces peer reviewed articles and books that use it too. I got more than 800 when looking at "world religion database (WRD)". How is this a problem for it? It is used quite a bit. Bad sources do not get used this often to build on research. So clearly it has value for academics.

Now, there are studies that do sloppy work on atheism such as WIN-Gallup which showed global atheism rising way too fast in 2012, and magically declining by half in the subsequent WIN-Gallup surveys within the same decade. This of course is preposterous - that atheists would double and then decline in 10 years. People, on a global scale, do not change radically one way and then change back in a decade. And some researchers have advised caution on WIN-Gallup's data set (e.g. Oxford Handbook of Atheism) since their numbers on atheism in China are way too large - compared to all data sets on religion and atheism available. But none of this makes WIN-Gallup an non usable or depreciated source on wikipedia.

That is because all studies have their weaknesses and they usually contradict each other in the literature (Pew vs WIN-Gallup vs WVS vs census data, etc). Wikipedia just presents what certain data sets have come up with. We as wikieditors do not psychologize or make assessments or judgments on how one database is good or bad methodologically. As long as WRD has an academic standing in some way in the literature, there is no real reason to discount it over any other. Attribution should take care of placing the weight on the database being cited for the numbers.Ramos1990 (talk) 06:10, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

As it has already been written and amply demonstrated, the ARDA is a repository of data which at some point between 2021 and 2022 changed all its datasets with those of the WRD/WCD alias Gordon-Conwell. It is the latter that is in question in this discussion, and judgment on the ARDA follows judgment on WRD/WCD. As it has been widely demonstrated, the WRD/WCD is a Protestant Christian encyclopedia, dataset and missionary tool. Its sources are Protestant Christian missionaries, for the most part, as stated in its own methodology paper (pp. 13-14: ... The WRD taps into knowledge from contacts in every country of the world who inform us on what is happening in non-traditional forms of Christianity, such as churches and insider movements ...; notice that some of these firsthand informers, "insiders", are sometimes completely out of reality: for instance, in 2013 some Protestant churches predicted that 10% of Mongolians would be Christians by 2020, yet between 2010 and 2020 (census data) Christians in the country have declined from 2.2% to 1.3%).

As for the sources you have listed (which are the same links provided by Foorgood), the respectability of the publisher or hosting site does not necessarily imply that the content is qualitative and reliable. Cf. WP:RS: WP:SCHOLARSHIP: "POV and peer review in journals": Care should be taken with journals that exist mainly to promote a particular point of view. A claim of peer review is not an indication that the journal is respected, or that any meaningful peer review occurs...; cf. Drmies above who has contacted one of the hosting websites: One of the librarians listed on one of the pages you linked confirmed to me what academics already know: a note on a library guide on a university library's website should NOT be taken as any kind of official endorsement for the reliability of that database.

Regarding more in detail the sources you (and Foorgood) have listed, I repeat once again: #1 is a book dedicated to a particular Protestant Christian view and project which is ultimately the same one of Gordon-Conwell; #2 is written by one of the compilers of the ARDA itself (Finke of Pennsylvania University); #3 simply lists and comments the ARDA among other resources, and, note it well, goes back to 2011 when ARDA had not yet switched to the WRD/WCD (it says that at that time its sources were mainly the World Value Survey and the International Social Survey Program); #4 is just the list of references used within the book; #5 is not a source of a good quality and in any case I don't find any reference to the ARDA. Æo (talk) 10:02, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

P.S. O.T. Regarding atheism/irreligion and WIN-Gallup, which are not into question in the present discussion, notice that the definition of "atheism" and "irreligion" can vary according to the context, and that these categories overlap and are not as well definible as belief in a specific Abrahamic religion. Also notice that "atheism" and "irreligion" can overlap with the categories of Eastern religions: Buddhists could be considered atheists, while the notion of "religion" in East Asia does not traditionally apply to non-Abrahamic religions (or to forms of East Asian religions which have adopted an organisational form similar to that of Abrahamic religions), especially to East Asian diffused traditions of worship of gods and ancestors, and the same could be said for certain non-Abrahamic religions and unorganised beliefs which are emerging in the Western world. Æo (talk) 11:25, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Part 2

Worth observing the Foorgood has repeatedly canvassed editors to this discussion; that's how Ramos1990 got here, for example. --66.44.22.126 (talk) 12:13, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Nowhere did he/her or anyone else reach out to me prior to me making a comment on this thread.

Back to the program, to the comments of AEO, I see that most of the discussion is not on whether it is academic (clearly it is - has peer review, Brill is an academic published with peer review, Boston University, notable academics head the project, many peer reviewed publications widely use it, etc). On this alone it is a RS per wikipedia. The stuff about WP:Scholarship applies to fringe publishers, but not Brill (which uses peer review).

Most of the issues that mentioned in this thread relate to methodology and the papers cited in the top of the thread (Liedhegener (2013) and Hsu (2008) both show generally positive views of WRD despite any shortcomings). This has nothing to do with the fact that it IS an academic source, is used by academics to advance research and that it used as a tool in academic research on religion worldwide. As far as I have seen, no major objections have been provided on this latter front. If bias or fault is perceived (this is not agreed upon and the uses of it in peer reviewed publications show its wide utility), this would not be a problem for wikipedia either because even WP:PARTISAN states that sources do not need to be neutral and that these sources may be better sources for numerous contexts and that attribution would be appropriate.

On top of that I see that researchers on Islam use it too The Oxford Handbook of Politics in Muslim Societies, and apparently Pew uses WRD data for some of its numbers in Africa for instance The Palgrave Handbook of Islam in Africa. (interestingly it mentions that census data have design problems as well so no dataset is without its problems - which is true since censuses have inconsistent terminology and metrics on religion and some censuses like the American one do not ask about religion). Also, the Liedhegener (2013) paper mentioned at the top of this thread says WCD was used for Encyclopedia Britannica numbers too. Here is another paper using WRD in combination with other sources to get a comprehensive demography [12]. Here is another on Islam in combination with other studies [13]. Also here is one that compares WRD numbers in New Zealand on the nonreligious along with other datasets and is comparable to Pew. Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion: Volume 7

The more I look into this the more I find that it is used quite a bit in the literature along with other datasets either As Is or in a supplementary fashion. I don't see it being used in a depreciative fashion. I see no issue with it being cited with attribution (most studies get attributed either way) and scholars generally do not have a problem with it either (which is why they use it in the first place including general positive comments on it from Liedhegener (2013) and Hsu (2008) which were cited at the top o the thread), and there certainly is no wikipedia policy basis against WRD.Ramos1990 (talk) 22:52, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

"...As far as I have seen, no major objections have been provided on this latter front". What needed to be said has been said, about the use of the source in certain books and about the publishers of either the source itself or books which have made use of it, and academic assessments regarding its non-neutrality and dubious methodology (with one such assessments even affirming that they "seem to have constructed their estimates... from surveys of denominations and missionaries") have been provided (please see WP:IDNHT).

Moving forward, please notice that there are various precedents of sources sponsored by or affiliated to religious organisations which have been deemed unreliable: Catholic Answers, Catholic News Agency, Church Militant, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, and, most significantly, the academic CESNUR and its journal Bitter Winter, which are listed among semi-deprecated sources for being "an apologia site for new religious movements, and thus is inherently unreliable in its core area due to conflicts of interest. There is also consensus that its content is unreliable on its own merits". Also the Annuario Pontificio of the Catholic Church is not used in Wikipedia for statistics about Catholics in every country of the world, so I don't see why Wikipedia should be filled with statistics produced by the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Æo (talk) 15:10, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I think we have brought up our points on the matter and when you look at the sources, they show more than what you constantly present in your quotes. The sources you presented here usually support WRD too. For instance, its own methodology paper you cited clearly shows that WRD's sources include Censuses, surveys and polls along with denominational data (see p. 4-5) methodology paper. So just isolating "from surveys of denominations and missionaries" is incorrect on methodological grounds and even this quote misrepresents the source you extracted this from (Woodberry, Robert D. (2010). "World Religion Database: Impressive - but Improvable") because after reading it, Woodberry is very positive to WRD overall and acknowledges its comparativeness with other datasets and even says "Still, despite my criticisms, I will eagerly use these data in my research. I do not know of any better data available on such a broad scale and am amazed at the editors’ ability to provide even tentative estimates of religious distribution by province and people group." Plus the fact that WRD is used by Islamic researchers, nonreligious researchers, Pew Research Center (actually integrates it as part of Pew's methodological design per Barton in Palgrave Handbook), CIA estimates (per Woodberry), and Encyclopedia Britannica (per Liedhegener) show that it much more reliable and trusted than you are willing to give credit. But since all datasets have their problems - including censuses, attribution would solve any issues. And its academic status with Brill [14] which is a peer reviewed publisher helps too.Ramos1990 (talk) 00:52, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Another edition of WRD/WCD data has been the Atlas of Global Christianity (produced by the same Gordon-Conwell team). I have found negative critical assessments even for this edition, this time coming from an "insider" (Christian missionary) source, even though through an academic publisher, written by Anne-Marie Kool of the Evangelical Theological Seminary of Osijek, Croatia:

• Kool, Anne-Marie (2016). "Revisiting Mission in, to and from Europe through Contemporary Image Formation" (PDF). In Charles E. Van Engen (ed.). The State of Missiology Today: Global Innovations in Christian Witness. Downers Grove: IVP Academic. pp. 231–49.
  • p. 1: 《... [the resource] seeks to give “as nuanced a picture as possible” of the history of Christianity over the last 100 years showing an “unmistakable” general pattern, that Christianity experiences a “severe recession” on the European continent that once was its primary base, while it has undergone “unprecedented growth and expansion” in the other parts of the world.》
  • p. 2: 《... widespread caution is raised with regard to the accuracy of the figures and not to engage in statistical analysis with the data, “without robustness checking… they contain random error and probably some systematic error” ...》
  • p. 9, containing a self-criticism from Kool for having herself made uncritical use of the data: 《The World Christian Database and the World Religion Database serve as sources for the data of the Atlas. With regard to the methodology used, Woodberry is right in emphasizing that “more transparency is needed”. It might well be that the great quantity of details easily silenced possible critical voices. It is peculiar that hardly any serious critical interaction and discussion of the underlying methodology of the Atlas has taken place, neither of its two data providing predecessors. The data are simply taken for granted, as I have taken them for as authoritative in my teaching and research during the last two decades.》
  • p. 12, about systematic overestimation of Christianity in Europe, with allusions that there might be financial reason behind such overestimations: 《The statistical image of Europe that is now communicated only re-enforces the image of Europe as a Christian continent, by not giving insight in the internal diversification and erosion. So why is only this broad definition used? Is it for fear of losing power? Or for maintaining the image of the numerically strong “World C” that provides the human and financial resources to “finish the task”? Are matters of Christian finance playing a role? Out of a sense of empire building? Or of a sense of hidden resistance to accept that Europe also is now also a mission field? Is it out of fear of becoming a minority? Fear for ending up statistically weaker than the Muslims? Or an attempt to cling to the influence of the “Western” over the “non-Western” world, based on an image of Europe as still a massive Christian continent?》
  • p. 13; it is a missionary tool designed for a specific strategy of aggression towards what in American missionary Christianity has been conceptualised as the "10/40 window": 《Eric Friede’s sharp analysis points us to the fact that the Atlas is ultimately written from the perspective of the so-called Great Commission Christians, Christians who engage in and support Christian missions, as many essays address the issue of “how to grow Christianity” in a particular region. The mission strategy invoked is then one of identifying within Global Christianity the resources needed for the task, the human resources, the GCC Christians, as well as the Christian finances that could make this enterprise work. An assessment of major tools needed for finishing this task is offered in subsequent sections, like Bible translation is followed by a section on Evangelization, with a division of the world in A, B and C, according to the level “being evangelized”. Statistics are used to motivate missionaries and national workers to mission action with Christian mission being reduced to a manageable enterprise with a dominant quantitative approach and a well-defined pragmatic orientation, “as a typical school of thought coming from modern United States”.》 Kool makes largely reference to: Eric Friede, "Book Review. Atlas of Global Christianity: 1910-2010, by Johnson, T.M. & Ross, K.R. (Eds.), 2010", Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, Theological Librarianship 3(1), 2010.

Among other sources, some of which we have already analysed, Kool makes reference to:

• Brierley, Peter. (2010). "World Religion Database: Detail Beyond Belief!". International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 34 (1): 18–20.
  • I can't access the paper at the moment. However, it is a critical assessment, once again coming from a missionary journal, that raises doubts as to the reliability of the WRD on the basis of the mismatch of the latter's data (purportedly based on censuses) with actual data from censuses, in particular those of the UK. Judd Birdsall and Lori Beaman, in Faith in Numbers: Can we Trust Quantitative Data on Religious Affiliation and Religious Freedom?, Transatlantic Policy Network on Religion & Diplomacy, 22 June 2020, at p. 3 say that the WRD, despite being widely cited and impressive, "comes with limitations. In his review of the Database, the statistician Peter Brierley pointed out that for the United Kingdom the Database used denominational reports, such as Church of England baptismal records, rather than the UK census figures to calculate affiliation. A tally of denominational reporting showed that 82% of Britons were Christian, whereas only 72% of them claimed to be Christian in the UK census". (n.b. Brierley makes reference to the UK 2001 census data, showing that already in 2001 the WRD overestimated Christianity in the UK by at least 10%).

Æo (talk) 22:13, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Appreciate the references. However, again these do not impact WRD much at all. The Kool source on the Atlas mentions that WRD data is used by the Atlas, not that WRD is the Atlas or that the goal of the Atlas was the same as WRD. Just like Pew uses WRD, it makes no sense to associate Pew's agendas with WRD's database just because one uses the other. The Atlas' goal and interpretations numerical data is different than WRD and Kool rightly focuses on the contents of the Atlas, instead of WRD (WRD is not mentioned much throughout the paper). WRD is one data set and is not the only one and attribution solves any issues here on wikipedia. You keep on thinking that these papers are calling for the removal of WRD when they are actually trying to improve it and they continuously praise it overall. They all agree that it is very valuable and merely say that there are limitations to it - just as the same applies to Pew, Gallup, and censuses all around the world. This is nothing new in this and if you ever look at the numbers of nonreligion, for example; from Pew, Gallup, and Cenuses, there are significant discrepancies to be found there between these datasets (easy examples include China, Japan, and numerous countries in Europe like Netherlands and Sweden). They are all flawed and limited. None stands as the authority. Stuff like "spiritual but not religious" messes up the numbers because religion is not perceived in Western sense in most of the world.

If we want to criticize census data, there are papers showing the limitations and issues with that too [15]. Censuses get quantity - but they do not guarantee quality of course. In fact Pew's methodology mentions the limitations of surveys and census too (America has not asked on religion for 70 years, for example). Pew clearly states that "Censuses and nationally representative surveys can provide valid and reliable measures of religious landscapes when they are conducted following the best practices of social science research. Valid measurement in censuses and surveys also requires that respondents are free to provide information without fear of negative governmental or social consequences. However, variation in methods among censuses and surveys (including sampling, question wording, response categories and period of data collection) can lead to variation in results. Social, cultural or political factors also may affect how answers to census and survey questions are provided and recorded." Its pretty obvious that big variations exist between just these datasets alone. Anyways, Pew also mention that they used WRD data for 57 countries as a supplement in their methodology in that same section. Furthermore, Pew acknowledges that statistical reports from religious groups are also valid measures. "In cases where censuses and surveys lacked sufficient detail on minority groups, the estimates also drew on estimates provided by the World Religion Database, which takes into account other sources of information on religious affiliation, including statistical reports from religious groups themselves."

So I don't see much of an issue in light of this. So all of this thread on equating a critique of a dataset = bad dataset is preposterous when you see that all datasets have problems and issues. In fact, there is research indicating that "religion" is invented in surveys and polls (if you are interested see Wuthnow, Robert (2015). Inventing American Religion : Polls, Surveys, and the Tenuous Quest for a Nation's Faith. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190258900.) We know that WRD is used by Pew, CIA, Encyclopedia Britannica, Islamic researchers, and nonreligious researchers among many others. But most importantly it satisfies wikipedia's RS criteria since it has peer review, and is from Brill, an academic publisher.

You cited Brierley, Peter. (2010). "World Religion Database: Detail Beyond Belief!". International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 34 (1): 18–20.. Cool. It says the same thing - that there are limitations. But keep in mind what he also clearly states "It is always easy to criticize any grand compilation of statistical material by looking at the detail in one particular corner and declaring, "That number doesn't seem right." The sheer scope of this database, however, is incredible, and the fact that it exists and can be extended even further and updated as time goes forward in the framework of a respected university deserves huge applause for those responsible for it. Praise where praise is due, even if I am about to critique it." And after reading it, the overall view is positive to WRD, not negative on WRD.Ramos1990 (talk) 02:21, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

WP:IDNHT:

• You write: "...these do not impact WRD much at all". This is your opinion, not that of Kool, and not my opinion or that of other editors for whom the WRD's reliability is questionable.
• "The Kool source on the Atlas mentions that WRD data is used by the Atlas, not that WRD is the Atlas or that the goal of the Atlas was the same as WRD". Kool is clear: "The World Christian Database and the World Religion Database serve as sources for the data of the Atlas", and the Atlas is produced by the very same Gordon-Conwell team.
• As for the rest of your message, it is completely off-topic and diverts from the main theme. Censuses, Pew, CIA, Britannica (of which the latter two are not statistical organisations and only cite figures taken from other sources) are not what is being discussed here. Indeed, Pew-Templeton's Global Religious Futures is affected by the present discussion since it, just like ARDA/WCD/WRD, is a violation of WP:CRYSTAL (pseudodata projections based on Pew's 2001-2010 cycles of surveys, which are being presented throughout Wikipedia as hard data for 2020, 2030, 2040, 2050). The fact that Pew used the WRD for some of its data only detracts from Pew's own quality.

Æo (talk) 14:24, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

The Atlas uses WRD as a source for its data, like you mentioned. So does Pew, Muslim researchers, nonreligion researchers, etc. None of this means that WRD is equivalent to the interpretations, contents, views or arguments presented in the Atlas, Pew, Muslim, nonreligion sources. It is just a dataset. In terms of projections, I am sure you already know that ALL projections are wrong. In the last quarter century it was projected by numerous sources and studies that significant parts of the world would not be religious, due to secularization. But this never happened. Projections are usually wrong. But that is a different discussion.Ramos1990 (talk) 16:57, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Not being sure, whether it is the right place, I am repeating my comment regaridng sources for membership data in religious bodies. They should be used according this priority ranking: 1. Data of the religious body itself if officially counted like in Austria and Germany 2. Census data like in India, Indonesia and many other contries 3. Data from high quality independent surveys like in Spain or US 4. CIA data may fill the remainig gaps 5. Data from missionary sources should be avoided! Nillurcheier (talk) 10:55, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Newsmax interviewee's opinions

I added some content presenting the opinion of Rabbi Yaakov Menken, who is the Managing Director at Coalition for Jewish Values. He made that opinion during a Newsmax interview. But User:Rauisuchian removed my addition with the reason "WP:NEWSMAX is a deprecated source".

I personally do not agree with deprecating Newsmax entirely, but I'm not going to discuss that at here. For now, I would like to propose a change which allows the opinions of such interviewees to be added in articles, based on the WP:RSP's saying "Fox News talk shows, including …, should not be used for statements of fact but can sometimes be used for attributed opinions." In other words, I propose that rule be applied to Newsmax interviews as well. Matt Smith (talk) 11:17, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

No, it's fine as is - David Gerard (talk) 12:16, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

I think it's not fine because it prevents such interviewees' opinions from being heard and therefore is unfair. Please specify your reason. Matt Smith (talk) 12:40, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Given the reasons Newsmax is deprecated, if they are the only outlet reporting someone's views that is a strong indication that those views should be left out of Wikipedia. MrOllie (talk) 12:50, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

It's not a report; it's an interview. Matt Smith (talk) 14:21, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

A distinction without a difference. MrOllie (talk) 14:22, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm very much with Blueboar, below. In theory, despite deprecation, we could use a Newsmax interview for the opinion of the interviewee, but we would need some reason to show that such an opinion was WP:DUE for inclusion--usually by showing that it was noted in reliable sources. Short of that, I don't think inclusion is appropriate, but reasonable minds may certainly differ on the subject. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:24, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. My addition is to balance the opposite opinion. There is currently no overwhelming consensus on the topic (whether Trump's comment is antisemitic or not), so my understanding is that there is no issue of WP:DUE. Matt Smith (talk) 14:29, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

When I mention WP:DUE, what I mean is representing all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Newsmax has been judged not a reliable source, so the fact that the opinion appeared there doesn't really fulfill the need for published, reliable sources. If, say, a whole bunch of newspapers printed articles to the effect of "hey, look what this person said in a Newsmax interview," it would certainly be due for inclusion to me. But I am not seeing anything along those lines here. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:33, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

The talk shows of Fox News is currently considered unreliable (by participants of the discussion at that time) as well, but they still can sometimes be used for attributed opinions. So my understanding is that whether Newsmax is considered reliable should not prevent its interviewees' opinions from being used for attributed opinions. Matt Smith (talk) 14:44, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Yup! I agree entirely. This is what I am saying: Newsmax' status does not involve a categorical prohibition on attributed opinion found there. What you have not demonstrated (at least to me) was that any reliable sources took note of this particular opinion. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:48, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Since the WP:RSP does not require any reliable sources to take note of an opinion presented in Fox News talk shows, I suggest that we don't ask Newsmax interviews for such a requirement as well. Matt Smith (talk) 14:58, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Fox News opinions are still very much subject to an analysis of whether they are WP:DUE, as are all Wikipedia contributions. Reliability is one inquiry, but this is another. WP:RSP only addresses the former--as a determination of whether something is due for inclusion is not going to be source-wide, but heavily dependent on context. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 15:03, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Sorry for not being able to follow well, but would you mind shedding some lights on whether the specific Newsmax interviewee's opinion (Rabbi Yaakov Menken) has any serious issue of WP:DUE? --Matt Smith (talk) 15:10, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

It is not WP:DUE. It has only been shared in one unreliable source. MrOllie (talk) 15:14, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

• Interviews are tricky… first we have to examine the reliability of the outlet: does it have a reputation for accurately representing the views of the interviewee, or does it have a reputation for presenting what the interviewee said in ways that skew their views.

Then we have to examine the reliability of the interviewee. Are they an expert on the topic they are being interviewed about? For example… a politician would likely not be an expert on the science of climate change, but could be considered an expert on the politics of climate change (such as the flaws in a specific bit of climate change legislation).

And, of course, we have to consider DUE WEIGHT… are the views of the interviewee appropriate to mention in a specific article. Are they fringe or are they more mainstream?

In short, CONTEXT is important. The same interview might be appropriate and reliable in one article, and completely inappropriate and unreliable in another. Blueboar (talk) 13:10, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I have watched the interview, and I would say the interview does not have those issues. --Matt Smith (talk) 14:24, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

RSOPINION allows for using individual statements to be used with attribution from non RS sources. What then must occur is to whether the individual or their opinion is DUE for the content (eg the essence of Blueboar's statement above) (This assumes that we don't have a Daily Mail situation where people's words have been known to be altered and thus we can't even trust the source a accurate). Masem (t) 14:54, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. Could you please elaborate on "DUE for the content"? Matt Smith (talk) 15:12, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Apologies for jumping down here, but the conversational threads are converging and it seems efficient. You can think of WP:DUE as asking whether the information at issue has "mindshare" in the reliable sources. If it is in every major newspaper and the scholarly literature, etc., it is clearly due. If it is in no reliable sources, it is clearly undue. If it is in, say, one major newspaper, then you have a situation where it might be argued either way. I can see no reliable sources mentioning this interview or the opinions expressed therein. If not for this policy, every statement of opinion would be fair game for inclusion, which would obviously become quickly untenable. I have not seen any discussion of this opinion in reliable sources, so for the moment, I would argue that it is not due for inclusion. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 15:17, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

What is and is not DUE also depends on which specific WP article we are working on… to give an example: the fringe views of an author who has written books about how the Apollo 11 moon landing was faked might be DUE to mention in a bio article about that author (per WP:ABOUTSELF)… but completely UNDUE to mention in our articles on the Apollo 11 mission.

To relate this all to the NewsMax interview of Rabbi Menken… what specific WP article are we talking about? The article on Menken himself, or on some other topic? Blueboar (talk) 16:47, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

It's Truth Social, and the added words came after "Multiple organizations criticized Trump's comment as condescending and as repeating a "dual loyalty" antisemitic trope.[157][158]" I assume that nobody means it's due to mention the criticism of Mr Trump, but not due to mention the defence. But the "deprecated source" objection was poor. If the objection had about WP:UNDUE (which is part of WP:NPOV not WP:RS) there might have been less kerfuffle. Peter Gulutzan (talk)

Ah… a situation where I would deem both the “accusation” and the “defense” UNDUE (ie none of it should be mentioned - thus resolving the POV conflict entirely). But, yeah, that is more a NPOV question and not really a reliability issue. Blueboar (talk) 18:06, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Please let me know if I'm misunderstanding something, but are you suggesting that it's not ideal to include both the “accusation” and the “defense” in the specific section of the article? Matt Smith (talk) 01:40, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I’m saying that the entire section is somewhat UNDUE and should be seriously reworked or cut. Blueboar (talk) 11:33, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I see and agree with a rework. Some contents do not even belong to that section, such as the "licensing agreement with TMTG requiring him [...]" and "Truth Social experienced a significant uptick in downloads following the [...]" --Matt Smith (talk) 15:00, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

See WP:RECENTISM. Just because there's a burst of coverage about something that causes outrage doesn't mean it has legs to actually be of encyclopedic value. We need a LOT more editors to recognize this stance to cut down endless debates about sources, DUE and so on. Masem (t) 02:02, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the link of WP:RECENTISM. From my understanding (based on the explanatory essay), the said “accusation” and the “defense” are just recent events which are of transient merits. That is, both of them might not be worthwhile for including. Is that correct? Matt Smith (talk) 02:18, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Exactly. There may be longer-term implications, but we cannot crystal-ball that, so as it seems to be a typical "person make statement that creates outraged reaction, then blows over", it really is beyond appropriate to include anything surrounding it until it had critical impacts (such as a lawsuit on the matter) Masem (t) 12:24, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

That makes sense to me. Thanks for the confirmation. --Matt Smith (talk) 14:58, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Looking at the article, that whole section should be heavily trimmed. Scholarly research on the information networks and clustering of Truth Social users, or the spread of information/disinformation would be due. Random Trump tweets (or "truths" as they're now called) just don't belong there. Side note, I second your reasoning higher up above on using interviews as sources. DFlhb (talk) 03:23, 3 November 2022 (UTC) edit: when I say "your reasoning", I'm referring to Blueboar. Seems I made a mistake in the indentation. DFlhb (talk) 18:28, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm fine with trimming the whole section. Since some editors have pointed out that the argument on antisemitism is more related to NPOV and RECENTISM, I'm planning to start with removing the paragraph of the transient argument if there is no editors suggesting other solutions. Matt Smith (talk) 05:21, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

RSOPINION allows for using individual statements to be used with attribution from non RS sources. I know we've had this conversation before, but that's not really what WP:RSOPINION says. It sets up a secondary tier of WP:RS - some sources may be considered reliable for statements as to their author's opinion, but not for statements asserted as fact . But that is still a subset of RS and is still ultimately subject to the broad WP:RS requirements that it be from a source with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, just with somewhat different standards. We cannot cite random YouTube channels, Reddit posts, or Twitter posts via RSOPINION, for instance (although there are a few other policies that can let us cite them in certain ways, like WP:ABOUTSELF, and some individual YouTube channels can be reliable.) Some people act as thought RSOPINION frees sources completely from the requirements of WP:RS as long as it's presented as an opinion and in-text attribution is added, and that's absolutely not the case. Opinions that express WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims in particular or which are themselves exceptional still require high-quality WP:RS sourcing. --Aquillion (talk) 17:59, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

• This is more a question for the NPOV noticeboard. Newsmax did not misquote Menken, but then it's not the problem.

The section is pretty bad and needs a rewrite. But if you ask me if this works, well, it appears that CJV is a fairly non-mainstream American Orthodox Jewish group that the right-wing media ecosystem seems to adore. IDK about the specific preferences of each rabbi but they seem to be defending normally indefensible positions/statements so long as the political allegiance of whoever said iis Republican.

In my view, their mentioning is not DUE - hell, they don't even have a WP article of their own yet, even though it exists for 5 years. Only if you frame it as an "ultra-Orthodox pro-Trump group of American rabbis", then maybe, but then again a group that is pro-Trump will defend Trump whenever he is under fire, that sort of goes without saying, and we should avoid too much focus on recent events. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 13:45, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm not surprised that left-leaning media like The Forward and Haaretz would criticize CJV. But why is it indefensible to defend people who quoted Hitler purely for the purpose of illustrating the danger of having someone instill bad values in children? When one wants to let the public know that it is dangerous to our society if someone can brainwash our next generation, I think it's fine for him/her to sarcastically quote Hitler and say "Hitler was right on one thing: He said, whoever has the youth has the future." So I'm not seeing the problem in that part. Matt Smith (talk) 03:54, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

• I don't see a problem with either Haaretz or the Forward - the issue is trusting their reporting, not the bias of the opinion section. WSJ's journalism is hardly conservative, but the opinion section sure is. So, I believe these sources give an impression of what this organization is.

  Also, in FORUM territory, in public, it's better just to drop the reference to Hitler, particularly if he is not being quoted sarcastically. Approvingly reciting a passage from Mein Kampf is normally going to insult Jews for obvious reasons, even if that is one thing and even if she didn't actually mean to insult anyone. But that's OT, my assessment that mentioning their position is UNDUE still stands. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 07:04, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

  I personally tend to take what left-wing outlets say about conservatives with a pinch of salt. But that's me.

  As for the congresswoman's quote, I'm not a native English speaker after all and it looks like my use of the word "sarcastically" was inaccurate. My apology for that. What I was trying to convey is that she quoted Hitler warningly to illustrate the danger of youth brainwashing. The context of her quote is: "You know, if we win a few elections, we’re still going to be losing, unless we win the hearts and minds of our children. This is the battle. Hitler was right on one thing: He said, ‘Whoever has the youth, has the future.’ Our children are being propagandized." And she later also said "I sincerely apologize for any harm my words caused and regret using a reference to one of the most evil dictators in history to illustrate the dangers that outside influences can have on our youth" So the purpose of her quote was very clear that it was to illustrate the danger of youth brainwashing and was in no way endorsing Hitler. Matt Smith (talk) 09:02, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

• Matt Smith, replying to, and (in the main) challenging, every opposing post is a bad thing, known as bludgeoning the discussion. By my count, you have made 16 comments here (as well as many more little tweak edits, likely to edit conflict others, as you did me just now). Please think about it, read WP:BLUDGEON, and leave more space and oxygen for other people. It's not the number of comments that establishes a consensus. Bishonen | tålk 09:51, 5 November 2022 (UTC).

  To respect your feeling about my comments, I will only address the "likely to edit conflict others, as you did me just now". I never do that kind of irrational/disruptive thing to others editors. Those little tweak edits are either grammar corrections or rephrasings. Kindly assume good faith. Not sure whether "as you did me just now" means I overwrote your comment because I can't recall that happened, but I'm sorry if I accidentally did that. Matt Smith (talk) 11:03, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

• The problem, as it has been across a number of deprecated sources, is that there has never been an agreement on what it means to be deprecated. And users have enforced maximalist understandings of that through reverts across the entire encyclopedia. If one is unwilling to continue edit-warring with them, their position that deprecated means entirely verboten wins out. Something should be done about that, but the last time it came up it just, as it always does, died an uneventful death, and the users who enforce their maximalist view continue to prevail by sheer force of will. nableezy - 10:11, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
• Not usable unless independent reliable sources positively cite a particular piece of its reporting/commentary (a la National Enquirer and the John Edwards extramarital affair, although in such cases too it is better to cite the more trustworthy secondary sources while crediting the original reporting) because one concern with such POV deprecated sources is that they spread misinformation by providing a platform for unreliable/non-noteworthy voices to be aired (cf the Dominion and Smartmatic lawsuits) and another is that the segments may be edited to present a partial/distorted view of what the inteviewee actually said (cf, Tucker Carlson's recent Kanye West interview). For these reasons we need to rely on a secondary reliable source to kick-the-wheels and not cite the primary interview itself. Abecedare (talk) 19:30, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
• Not usable per Abecedare. Andre🚐 21:42, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
• Not usable - Old cartoon of advertisers reading the reviews of a new Broadway play that went something like: “Wonderful example of bad directing”, “Amazing this ever opened”, “Don’t watch this play”. So they put together the poster attributing each review: “Wonderful”, “Amazing”, “Watch this play”. Deprecated means unusable as a source because the source cannot be trusted. O3000, Ret. (talk) 21:55, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Is Steam a reliable source for basic facts on a title?

Can we use Steam as a reliable third-party source specifically for a game's release date, publisher and/or developer? For example, see the fact box for Stardew Valley. ERegion (talk) 15:05, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

The contents of Steam pages are made by the developer or publisher so it should be recognized as primary and dependent; only the release date if In the past could be taken as safe data. Masem (t) 15:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

That makes sense to me. In an article about a game, would it acceptable to use the game's Steam page as a reliable source for the game's developer or publisher even assuming this is a primary source? Are we required to seek out a third-party source to determine who is the developer or publisher of a game? ERegion (talk) 15:20, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

If the only source you can find for the developer or publisher of a game is the game's Steam page, the game is unlikely to pass Wikipedia notability requirements, e.g. "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". I can't see how anything could give a game 'significant coverage' without saying where it was from. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:47, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

There are times where a third party article doesn't explicitly use the words "publisher" or "developer" but instead will say "made by" or "is sold by" or when an older game franchise is acquired by a new publisher like in the case of Homeworld or Fallout and the current publisher isn't the same publisher as when the game was originally released. ERegion (talk) 16:10, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Pretty sure this is about Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Star_Control. Also pretty sure that parties are not supposed to be WP:FORUMSHOPing the dispute to other noticeboards while DRN is in progress. MrOllie (talk) 16:14, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

If that's the case then the appropriate answer to the question is that no source is 'always reliable' in the abstract, and that where there are serious questions regarding whether a specific source is reliable for a specific statement in a specific article, this needs to be considered on its own merits. And if this is being discussed at DRN, it doesn't need to be discussed here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:23, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

My question does not concern a specific instance but rather the general question on whether Steam facts on release dates, developer, publisher are considered reliable or not. If this is not the place to ask a general question as to whether the product box on Steam can be used as a source then I apologize. If the answer is "it depends on the specific situation" then that is a sufficient answer. ERegion (talk) 16:39, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

• Not reliable The release date on Steam is purely the date it was released on Steam. That makes zero claim about the date it was released in general, as not everything is released on Steam first or even on the release day. If something is taken down and put back up again, the release date will change. It's only reliable as a last release date on Steam and nothing else. And, as mentioned, the publisher and developer are who currently owns the rights, not who initially published/developed it. In many cases it's the same, but it's not a given and as a result can't be taken as reliable for the original publisher and developer. Canterbury Tail talk 16:27, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
• Not reliable Steam isn't a source, it contains user-submitted material and content. Andre🚐 21:44, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

LBC News

The British radio station LBC News publishes online news articles at https://lbc.co.uk/news . It was previously discussed at RSN here. Is this article a reliable source?

• Davidson, Gina (17 June 2022). "NHS apologises for claiming eunuch is a gender identity". LBC. Retrieved 3 November 2022.

There is a related RfC at Talk:Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People#RfC: Eunuchs. Cheers, gnu57 13:38, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

• I don't think reliability is the concern here. Nobody is claiming the article is factually incorrect (though it may have issues). Several editors are trying to insert a "controversy" into an article that is only mentioned by press with an openly trans hostile editorial stance, or in the case of the LBC piece above, a journalist with a trans hostile agenda. The context for the LBC piece is the Gender Recognition Act changes in Scotland (which the journalist opposes) and can be viewed from that point of view as randomly digging up dirt. Most sources have ignored this story. WP:PROPORTION is what matters here, and the "body of reliable sources" includes those who choose to regard this "controversy" as a nothingburger. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Bias in sources advises us "This does not mean any biased source must be used; it may well serve an article better to exclude the material altogether." So we need to be concsious of both bias and reliability in our sources when working out whether to include something. -- Colin°^Talk 16:33, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

  I brought LBC to RSN because Newimpartial said Since when would LBC be considered a "reliable source"? and No, LBC isn't "a mainstream news organisation". I have no interest in relitigating the rest of the WPATH RfC here. gnu57 13:06, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, it's a WP:NEWSORG and I see no reason to consider it unreliable. I invite anyone to read the article. How on earth is this being tarred as a "trans hostile agenda"? Like, just read it! The stuff about outlets having a "openly trans hostile editorial staff" is completely unsupported. This seems to be the fallacy of taking the most radical activists on a subject and assuming they and they alone represent the legitimate viewpoint on a matter. Imagine if people started saying anything less than abolishing police or instituting communism was anti-black or anti-labor. Then, that preconceived political viewpoint is used as a yardstick to reject any sources deemed insufficiently deferential to the activists' demands as too biased to be reliable and summarily UNDUE. That's where we're at with some of the rhetoric on trans issues. In reality, lots of trans people are not too keen to have their situations conflated with stuff like becoming a eunuch for whatever reason. Crossroads ^-talk- 17:11, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
• Yes. This noticeboard is about the reliability of sources. No reason has been given for judging that LBC is unreliable. Colin’s argument about whether inclusion is proportionate belongs on the article Talk page, not here, but I think it is worth saying here that referring to a publication as having an openly trans hostile editorial stance sounds like WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT. PinkNews is grossly biased, yet it is accepted as a reliable source. Sweet6970 (talk) 17:43, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

  See False equivalence. Just because two things are in opposition, doesn't mean they have equal value. WP:HID and all that. If we claimed that a source was "Openly hostile against black people" and your response was to cite a source that says "Maybe black people should be treated with due decency and respect and should be afforded the same human rights as others" as "grossly biased", you're both right and wrong. I want my sources grossly biased in favor of decency and basic human rights. You're supposed to want that kind of editorial stance. Sure, "supports bigotry" and "opposes bigotry" are opposing viewpoints, but I wouldn't be fighting hard against sources that are grossly biased against bigots. It's not a good look. --Jayron32 19:37, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

  I can’t work out what you’re talking about, since your post does not seem to have any logical connection with my post. And if your intent is to accuse me of being a racist, please post this on my Talk page – where it will be duly ignored. Sweet6970 (talk) 19:53, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

  Jayron is making a parallel between sources that are openly hostile against trans people (like the Telegraph), against those that were historically openly hostile against black people. In both cases, the sources that are hostile against a minority are those biased against "decency and basic human rights", and that as an editorial stance we should favour sources that are biased towards "decency and basic human rights". Another equally relevant comparison would be comparing the UK media's current anti-trans stance, versus the UK media's anti-homosexual stance in the 1970s-1990s. According to Julia Serano, trans people are at least the fourth minority group targeted for bathroom panics. Past targets included Jews during the Blood libel panics of the 12th, 13th, 15th, 17th, 19th, and 20th centuries, black people during the US Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s-60s, and homosexuals during the 1970s-1990s. With both the anti-black and anti-gay panics in particular, many of the headlines like "X is coming for your children in public bathrooms" are directly interchangeable across all three eras.

  The logical connection is that sources, and by extension editors who defend those sources, are on the wrong side of history, and that it is "not a good look" to oppose a minority. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:38, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

  If Jayron wants to explain what they meant, and how this relates to my comment, they could do this themselves. There is no point in engaging on this page in any discussion which includes reference to editors being ‘on the wrong side of history’, since this is meaningless. Sweet6970 (talk) 21:09, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

  It's really very simple. If one source takes a stance that bigotry against trans people is a good thing, and a different source takes a stance that bigotry against trans people is a bad thing, while it is true that they have opposite biases, that doesn't mean we give equal weight merely because they hold opposing positions. The position that is opposed to bigotry, or in your words, "grossly biased" against bigotry, is the one we're supposed to favor. The neutral position is not "pro-bigotry" and "anti-bigotry" are equivalent, so we give them equal weight. The neutral position is bigotry is bad, and we don't pretend that pro-bigotry perspectives are worth giving weight to. Also, I haven't said one word about you or what you believe or are. I've only ever mentioned the sources. You believe what you want to believe, I don't give a shit about you. --Jayron32 11:15, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

The point that is important is that this noticeboard won't settle your question for inclusion. WP:VNOT. -- Colin°^Talk 19:58, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Umm… I can’t get that point from Jayron’s comment. Sweet6970 (talk) 20:03, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I'll make it simpler. You are wrong. And persisting to argue here about whether LBC is a reliable source is wasting everyone's time, because it doesn't help your case. And selecting hateful sources and demanding Wikipedia repeats their hate, is not earning you any brownie points. -- Colin°^Talk 21:50, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Colin, this is supposed to be a discussion about whether LBC is a reliable source. It seems that you disagree with me about that. But I don’t know whether that is what you mean when you say that I am wrong. Nor do I know what you mean when you say selecting hateful sources and demanding Wikipedia repeats their hate; this does not relate to anything I have said here. Please stick to the point on this page.

If you want to engage in personal insults, then the appropriate place to do so is on my Talk page: but I’m not much interested in being insulted. Sweet6970 (talk) 22:11, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

• No - the LBC site is an adjunct of a right-wing talk radio establishment; I don't believe that its blogroll has a reputation for editorial oversight or fact-checking. Newimpartial (talk) 23:45, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

To describe "LBC" as "right-wing talk radio" is absolutely detached from reality. It certainly has some right-wing presenters, but it also has leftist Lewis Goodall, and prominent centrists like James O'Brien and Andrew Marr. It's a bit right-wing for my taste, but it is well to the left of the Telegraph or the Washington Post. In any case, political positions do not determine reliability. Boynamedsue (talk) 03:36, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

I think it would be fairer to say LBC has a history of hiring contributors with strong views who are not afraid to share them, vs somewhere like the BBC which is much stricter (if imperfect) at aiming for impartiality. I don't know whether it has a track record on trans issues, but the particular journalist (who is a new hire on Scottish politics) does, and presumably LBC likes the fact that they say controversial / populist things. While I think papers like the Telegraph are so extremely anti-trans that it is clear some of their stories are just plain made up and misrepresent the facts, the main problem with such sources is that selecting them selects for bias. It is tricky, when more neutral sources write nothing. Wikipedia has always had a problem in this area. WP:PROPORTION says "For example, a description of isolated events, quotes, criticisms, or news reports related to one subject may be verifiable and impartial, but still disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic. This is a concern especially for recent events that may be in the news." Which is exactly what that Scottish debacle was: unimportant to the article topic. Most of those newspapers were dealing with the self ID debate in Scotland and the Scottish National Gender Identity Clinical Network (which doesn't even have an article). So it is arguable those sources were not writing about the article topic, but about another topic and happened to bring in this side issue because it helped their case.

So I do think it is important for both sides to abandon trying to win some vote over whether LBC is generally reliable. If they dropped the journalist who wrote the above article, and hired Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir Jónsdóttir, a trans journalist, from the Metro tabloid then maybe your view of LBC as a source would change. LBC would need to be Daily Mail level unreliable for you to get a no response. What you have in the above debate is not editors examining the literature on WPATH guidelines and writing a balanced article, but editors doing a google search and finding random stuff on the internet. The debate is not WP:V but about neutrality and weight. -- Colin°^Talk 08:36, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Is it possible that you have confused LBC with GB News? gnu57 13:06, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

There was a period where Nigel Farage had a talk show on the station, which led to a feeling it was going down the right-wing shock jock route. But he's was sacked in 2020 for comparing Black Lives Matter to the Taliban. Rise of the British shock jock gives a good analysis and points towards Talkradio being the new shock jock home. -- Colin°^Talk 13:26, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

It should also be noted that LBC is primarily a talk radio station, which has recently become national and was previously London only. As a news website it is a minnow with a miniscule readership compared to BBC or Guardian. So the fact this story was found there reflects Google's ability to find keywords buried deep inside a story about something else on a minor news site. -- Colin°^Talk 13:35, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Since you say it is a minor news site and was offering a platform to ideologues as recently as 2020, it sound that it is not generally reliable, unless there is evidence that it is. Andre🚐 09:52, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

I doubt there's a rule that says that news sites can't offer a platform to ideologues in editorial sections without being considered unreliable. We may imagine that there's some correlation there, but it seems to me that it would be wrong to label the non-editorial section of a news site unreliable because of things found on the editorial section. Benevolent Prawn (talk) 23:20, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

• Yes. I don't see any evidence presented for its unreliability, and it is a prominent broadcaster. News articles like the one above should be fine to use.Boynamedsue (talk) 03:23, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
• Colin makes the salient point here; reliability of the source is not at hand. The relevant position is WP:DUE; not every single thing written in every single reliable source needs to be included in a Wikipedia article, While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. In particular, if a story appears only in a single, or a very small number of sources, it may not be a story that is relevant or important to the subject. The reliability of a source doesn't come into it here; of course if the source isn't reliable, then we shouldn't pay any attention to it at all, but even if we concede that the source is, there still needs to be consensus that the story is relevant, in the sense that it's worth documenting. Deciding which things are, and are not, worth documenting often comes down to seeing how widespread the coverage of the subject is, what kinds of sources cover it, etc. etc. That requires analysis and discussion, and isn't something we can just say "It's reliably sourced, so it must be included". Reliable sourcing is required, but is not sufficient, when deciding to include something. If there is a good faith dispute over the relevance, or wording, or phrasing, or how much of the article space to dedicate to it (if any), all of that really just depends on consensus building. There is no magic pill that means that either side in such a dispute "wins". There is only discussion and consensus. --Jayron32 11:50, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

• Could I move that this be speedily closed? No real arguments against reliability have been presented, and I think most contributors agree that the actual question is whether the claims in the source merit inclusion in a particular article according to WP:DUE? Boynamedsue (talk) 14:23, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
• Yes Mainstream standard news organisation, passes WP:NEWSORG.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 18:59, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

  Has anyone provided any evidence that LBC is either "mainstream" or "standard"? Perhaps I missed it. this was literally the first secondary source I found, and it doesn't support reliability. Newimpartial (talk) 19:07, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

  I thought we didn't treat MBFC as reliable for analysing RSs. Anyway, the only failed fact checks that article seems to discuss when is when their opinion commentators on-radio said something factually inaccurate. The same way we do not treat opinion pieces as reliable other than for the opinion itself the same would apply here.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 19:15, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

  I agree MBFC doesn't work, and isn't reliable, but everything I'm reading says that LBC is a right-wing opinionated talk radio outlet seen as an alternative, more politically incorrect and opinionated radio than the BBC. Usually in the US at least talk radio outlets lack the editorial oversight of a NEWSORG. Feel free to offer evidence otherwise. Andre🚐 21:40, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Andre, what is the "everything you are seeing" which suggests that LBC is a "right-wing orientated talk radio"? As mentioned above, many of their presenters are centrist or left-wing, and explicitly state those views in their show. Their news partners are Sky News, a reliable organisation, and their news output is covered by Ofcom's rules on impartiality and accuracy. These rules are actually much stricter than those which apply to the British newspapers we accept as reliable sources.Boynamedsue (talk) 08:18, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Particularly this Guardian piece. Andre🚐 08:52, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Well, that is an opinion piece from 8 years ago. A lot has changed in that time. Nobody is arguing there aren't right-wing presenters at LBC, particularly Ferrari, but flagship-presenter O'Brien (whose liberality the author questions) has become one of the strongest anti-Brexit voices in the media and is an open supporter of the current Labour leadership. And even back then, the article mentions the breakfast show hosted by Red Ken. The news coverage is regulated to be more neutral than the talk output, which would always only be valid as attributed opinion anyway. --Boynamedsue (talk) 09:12, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

That's fair, I still feel this opinionated/biased talk radio outlet isn't a reliable source for information about gender identity or medical endocrinology, or for statements such as Scottish NHS bosses have been forced to apologise and launch an investigation after the organisation published a document to its staff suggesting eunuch should be recognised as a formal gender identity, and as a result, men seeking castration should be helped to receive it. I stand by "no" Andre🚐 09:24, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

@Andrevan: Thank you for your reply, though I respectfully disagree. Opinionated/biased talk radio outlet isn't a reliable source for information about gender identity or medical endocrinology- I definitely agree that this is opinionated, and caution is needed per WP:DUE (which isn't a RS issue), along with extraordinary claims definitely requiring additional caution. But to me that is mostly within the boundaries of WP:BIASED and might push it over to additional considerations apply, nevertheless, I still don't see a convincing case it should be downright unreliable here. Many thanks! VickKiang (talk) 09:30, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Respectfully, reliability requires a demonstration per WP:NEWSORG and WP:RS of editorial oversight, fact-checking and accuracy. The claims by Boynamedsue that simply because the UK gov't mandates some impartiality and accuracy demonstrates that LBC Radio News has a reputation for it, doesn't hold water. Please provide some evidence of this reputation, as I did not find any. The question is not simply whether it is WP:BIASED but whether it is offering alternative facts as suggested by the Guardian for contentious topics. I agree there is not much evidence of RS fact-checkers checking LBC, but I do not think it should be treated as generally reliable absent evidence thereof. The idea that they have a socialist commentator means they are reliable is quite flawed and silly. Andre🚐 09:36, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your detailed reply. The Guardian piece describes that O'Brien loves the fact that LBC is editorialised like a newspaper, which shows that it describes this as resembling WP:NEWSORG. This probably falls under News reporting from less-established outlets is generally considered less reliable for statements of fact, though my reading is that less reliable... doesn't mean generally unreliable. The piece frequently mentions its apparent bias, e.g., The current incarnation of LBC has a clear bias to the right, Is this butch, right-of-centre tone, though I would also point out that for offering alternative facts as suggested by the Guardian for contentious topics- most of the content from The Guardian piece is denoting to opinion talkshows, which I believe per WP:RSOPINION is already not usable. Of course, I'm not contending that the source is generally reliable on par with BBC, it definitely needs more caution and should not be used on itself for extraordinary claims. Many thanks for your replies, let's wait for more editors to comment here and thanks again! VickKiang (talk) 09:43, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes we will see what others have to say, I agree that the "less reliable" or "marginally reliable/unreliable," is what I was thinking of here, as a less-established outlet and one that may be largely opinionated and should be used with care as its reliability may be unclear or considerations may apply, and may additionally be biased. However, I am open to considering additional evidence, as I understand the Guardian piece is just one old piece and is limited. Thanks. Andre🚐 09:48, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply! Of course, those are just my subjective takes, this isn't a RfC but if so I'd imagine a no consensus outcome. Many thanks! VickKiang (talk) 09:50, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

@Newimpartial Here is the report from the same site you mention for the Telegraph, which is a British newspaper of record and a pretty much unquestioned source here. It gives it as further right than LBC and also mixed. I think there are possibly a lot of American users here giving opinions on media they have not actually got any direct experience of. "I don't know" is a valid response when you don't actually know. --Boynamedsue (talk) 08:26, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Let's agree that MBFC is not usable per VickKiang below and established consensus. Andre🚐 09:49, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Given that The Telegraph has been documented in academic and other high-quality sources as canpaigning against transgender rights (including in its reporting), it may be your pretty much unquestioned evaluation that is in need of revision, rather than that of MBFC. And I am not an American user. Newimpartial (talk) 11:48, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

It is not my evaluation that the Telegraph is reliable, it is a collective decision of the users of wikipedia. Political positions do not affect reliability. --Boynamedsue (talk) 13:10, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

First of all, when political positions affect the selection, presentation, and language used in reporting, they most definitely do affect reliability, as plenty of discussions here at RSN van attest. And more particularly, there is in fact no consensus at enwiki that The Telegraph is actually reliable for its reporting on transgender issues; you are assuming the thing that is to be proven. A broad consensus that the Telly is "generally reliable" doesn't make it reliable in specific areas where RS has noted that it is not just a BIASEDSOURCE but actually unreliable. Newimpartial (talk) 13:24, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough, I'm surprised I hadn't heard of that. Out of interest, where was the community discussion that agreed that the Telegraph is not reliable for questions relating to transgender issues, rather than being biased? The list of perennial sources should be updated to reflect it. Boynamedsue (talk) 15:50, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

So far, the relevant discussuons are taking place at article Talk pages, where some of the HQ/academic sources have been presented in an ad hoc way. A number of editors have acknowleged that a noticeboard discussion will be required to amend the list entry; I would attribute my own procrastination on this to (1) my preference to treat The Times and The Telegraph together on this, so we don't see Times pickups replacing Telegraph coverage (as currently happens when either source runs with a Daily Mail story for example) and (2) my inclination to wait for the academic sourcing on this to strengthen further (as seems inevitable given recent developments in the UK). Newimpartial (talk) 16:20, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

@NewimpartialAh, I would have been surprised that the Telegraph had been agreed to be unreliable on Transgender issues, I think that might be quite hard to do. In effect you would need to show a higher degree of factual inaccuracy in the T's output on this topic than across its general output. I introduced a similar conversation a few years ago on The Jewish Chronicle's coverage of Muslims and the British left, and despite it having had dozens of regulatory judgments against it for printing false information on these topics, it still only just scraped a "no consensus it is reliable". People are very reluctant to downgrade on single topic areas, especially controversial ones. --Boynamedsue (talk) 08:30, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

• No per Newimpartial. Andre🚐 21:32, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
• Weak Yes, Option 1-2 if this is a four options RfC. This is a decent news organisation per WP:NEWSORG that partners with the UK Sky News, which is RS. IMO the source is mostly opinion and apparently biased and opinionated (i.e., way worse compared to BBC), but that falls within WP:BIASED- Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. However, per Jayron32 it's definitely important that WP:DUE weight is considered depending on the context, and this source is not the best for extraodinary claims IMHO. However, I see insufficient evidence from WP:RS news organisations or fact-checkers such as Snopes or Politifact directly criticising coverage is false and misleading. Besides, Media Bias Fact Check (MBFC) is unconvincing, if we determine reliability based on MBFC ratings, we can assume that CNN and MSNBC, which are rated worse, are unreliable, and that the reliability of The Wall Street Journal is worse than the user-generated Rationalwiki- which is a good indication why MBFC regarded as generally unreliable per WP:RSP. VickKiang (talk) 08:55, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

  Just a note that MBFC doesn't measure reliability by Wikipedia's criteria, so it's really only useful for determining where a source stands on the U.S. political spectrum. It's standards of reliability are based on factual truthfulness, which while a very good standard, Wikipedia goes a few steps further, because user generated sources are out here; MBFC has no stance against those. Different standards are because of different purposes, it doesn't mean that one is better than the other, MBFC is fine for what it is, but it is not unreliable. It is also not reliable, it's an opinion source, and as such, doesn't fit on Wikipedia's reliability scale at all. --Jayron32 11:51, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  There is consensus that Media Bias/Fact Check is generally unreliable, as it is self-published. Editors have questioned the methodology of the site's ratings. WP:MBFC Andre🚐 17:25, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  This comes up from time to time. Please note that the RSP listing apply to use in articles, not use in talk page discussions. A number of editors, myself included, will mention Adfonts Media's bias chart when discussing sources. MBFC is another source that can be used in such discussions. Editors can consider if a source is biased, etc based in part on the MBFC listings. What we can't do is add text to articles based on that listing. We can't add, "MBFC rates CNN as an X source". Springee (talk) 17:45, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  Thank four your replies, to me Jayron32 summarised it well. I understand that the RSP wording discourages MBFC to be included in mainspace articles as generally unreliable. On talk pages and noticeboards it is neither deprecated, disallowed, or explicitly discouraged (except for using it as the sole evidence in a RfC), but personally I take those with a grain of salt, as it's primarily one person's opinionated, poorly updated view and doesn't separate fact and opinion in the same way that WP editors do. Ad Fontes also is in the same vein but Allsides is marginally reliable. I browse some of these ratings as a good starting point when evaluating a source I don't know, it would usually not be far off but it is nowhere near decently accurate and it doesn't make sense to me that a common rating of "centre-right" and "mixed" would demonstrate unreliability. But IMHO MBFC is better than other (even worse) bias fact checkers, i.e., The Factual, which I critiqued in a separate RfC (it rates two marginally reliable sources with an almost perfect score), but to me Politifact and Snopes are way more accurate and established. VickKiang (talk) 20:30, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  If a source is unreliable, it can't be used to determine reliability. It's not categorically barred from being mentioned, but per RS, a source's reliability can only be determined by other RS. Andre🚐 20:56, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  Where is that in policy or guideline? Springee (talk) 21:55, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  Reliable scholarship – Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses. ... News sources often contain both factual content and opinion content. News reporting from well-established news outlets is generally considered to be reliable for statements of fact (though even the most reputable reporting sometimes contains errors). News reporting from less-established outlets is generally considered less reliable for statements of fact. What I guess is not explicitly spelled out but is true from long-standing consensus practice is the idea that you won't determine reliability of an RS using a non-RS. But it's clearly implied that what determines how "established," or "well-regarded," or "reputable," a source is, must itself come from other RS. Andre🚐 22:52, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

  Actually, we come to consensus as to what is “established”, “well-regarded”, “reputable” via the messy process of discussion (and argument) - sharing our own opinions as to the source’s reputation… it’s a purely internal determination. Blueboar (talk) 23:12, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

• Yes. I would tend to agree with VickKiang that this is probably in the Option 1-2 range in that it doesn't appear to be rock solid source but it also doesn't appear to have any red flags that would tell us we can't treat it as reliable or with no weight. Springee (talk) 17:48, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
• Yes, mainstream site, surprised to see this being an issue. --Andreas JN466 08:32, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
• Yes, per Spy-cicle. - LilySophie (talk) 20:07, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
• No', separate from the discussion about the one specific article that started that, I find the sources about them being right-wing talk radio convincing. I don't see anyone who's offered actual proof that they are reliable, like some kind of editorial or corrections policy. The two combined means I have to vote no here (on the ordinary 4-level RFC, probably 2-3). Loki (talk) 19:15, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

TimesNext - reliable?

TimesNext is being used as a source in a few articles. It doesn't seem a reliable source to me, I can't find any indication of it being considered a mainstream news source and the about page does not inspire confidence with the heavy blockchain focus. There's a related issue that some of the links have been added by one of their founders User:Heena Vinayak but I'd appreciate a general opinion on if they're a RS. JaggedHamster (talk) 14:57, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

The site's content appears to be limited to press releases, sponsored blog entries and top 10 lists, with https://timesnext.com/advertise giving the impression that companies can pay TimesNext to write favourable articles about them, with no suggestion that such content is marked up as being sponsored. I'm not seeing anything I'd recognise as journalism. Belbury (talk) 16:04, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Not a reliable source. It is a 3-year-old startup. As noted by Belbury above, its own website states that it will publish sponsored stories and press releases. Most significantly, I cannot find a single instance in which a story from the website has been cited by an independent, mainstream, reliable news source. Banks Irk (talk) 15:29, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Not a reliable source. Advertisements (such as this [16]) are not clearly marked, its "news" are not picked up by anyone else, and most non-sponsored articles seem to be listicles or middle-school level essays [17]. 2A01:4B00:9D42:6E00:30D4:F95D:2279:4AB3 (talk) 21:39, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Book of Daniel

No problem I understand and I feel the same, just to reiterate, the following all criticize the aforementioned theory by S.R. Driver, further developed by J.J. Collins:

Many of these are given by Collins:

Robert Dick Wilson of Princeton

Young and Baldwin.

The studies of C. F. Boutflower,

D. J. Wiseman

Gerhard Hasel,

K. A. Kitchen, "The Aramaic of Daniel." Notes on Some Problems in the Book of Daniel 31 (1965)

W. H. Shea, A. J. Ferch, “The Book of Daniel and the ‘Maccabean Thesis (1983)

Vasholz, Robert I. "Qumran and the Dating of Daniel." JETS 21.4 (1978)

Beckwith, Roger. "Early Traces of the Book of Daniel." (2008)

Haughwout, Mark S. "Dating the Book of Daniel." (2013).
— User:Billyball998

Please chime in if these sources count as WP:RS, especially in view of WP:RSAGE. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:39, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

My position is that the underlying facts and analysis have not changed principally since the relevant works were created (except one issue, arguably in favor for the works, certainly not discrediting). Unless it can be demonstrated that a work is relying on an antiquated set of information that is distorting their findings, it should be treated as relevant.

"Especially in scientific and academic fields, older sources may be inaccurate because new information has been brought to light, new theories proposed, or vocabulary changed. In areas like politics or fashion, laws or trends may make older claims incorrect. Be sure to check that older sources have not been superseded, especially if it is likely that new discoveries or developments have occurred in the last few years. In particular, newer sources are generally preferred in medicine." Wikipedia:RSAGE

The article is clear that "older sources may be inaccurate because new information has been brought to light" not that they are inherently outdated. Billyball998 (talk) 00:52, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

And Wegner, Walter E. "The Book of Daniel and the Dead Sea Scrolls." (1958). tgeorgescu (talk) 01:07, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

• This isn't how you present an RS query. Nobody is going to go through a list of allusions to sources, like that presented in the first part of your quote, trying to find out what they are. In the second part, you give us no publishers' information or details on the author. You give no information on the claim you wish to source, which means uninvolved users lack any context to judge reliability.

In terms of the RSAGE query, when we are talking about the Book of Daniel, anything from the nineties onwards is almost certainly fine unless there was some earth shattering discovery in 2003 that changed what everybody thinks about the question; like, I don't know, archaeologists finding a lion's den with "Daniel was here, but I'm nor actually a Hebrew" written on the wall in Aramaic or something. A 1965 source should probably be considered outdated if it espouses views that are no longer current, but may be included as part of a discussion of the history of the debate on a question, or attributed to an author with the book's age mentioned in the text.

Having said that, my initial feeling is that this is not a reliability issue,Boynamedsue (talk) 07:01, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

• • I would not trust the 1965 source. It was written by Kenneth Kitchen, a so-called biblical maximalist who has spend his career defending the historicity of the Old Testament. He does not even accept the documentary hypothesis, he is that much of a fringe voice. Dimadick (talk) 05:35, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

• When you say: "As far as dual authorship, the jury is still out. The idea was first put forth by Spinoza..." I would note that you do not need to be looking further back in time to look for current updates on scholarship but forwards. Anything older than a 100 years is almost totally void in terms of modern scholarship except as an example of the history of the modern scholarship. For current updates on a debate you are looking at the last two, three decades max. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:57, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 10:29, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

This quotation is not a helpful addition here, what do you actually want from people on this board? Boynamedsue (talk) 11:17, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

I simply want to know if the sources championed by Billyball998 (talk · contribs) may be used inside the article Book of Daniel. That means if those may be used in order to show that there is a controversy about its dating inside the mainstream academia. Since IMHO such sources do not WP:V the claim that there is a controversy raging in the mainstream academia. tgeorgescu (talk) 12:21, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Ok, so what you would do in that case is to present the sources individually, giving details of where they are published and links to them in the case that this is possible. What you really shouldn't do is post quotations from a discussion between yourself and another user, which is impossible to understand without context. I have added a section below for you to clearly post the sources you believe to be questionable with as much detail as possible. Links to them would really help here, but it is essential that you state who published them (author and publisher/journal) and whether they are books or journal articles. If these details have not been provided by the other user, then there is no debate to be had, as the claims can not be considered to have been sourced. Boynamedsue (talk) 15:01, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

That would be a waste of editor time and effort. I think even the best respected and most authoritative reliable sources acknowledge and discuss the "controversy", but the discussion should be the nature of the debate and how to put in proper context. That discussion can't be had while editing such as this and this is ongoing. As tgeorgescu puts it a controversy raging in the mainstream academia and looking at Billyball998's edit and arguments, the clear answer from WP:RSN should be no, that's an inappropriate use of sources, move along. fiveby(zero) 16:09, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu I understand your position but could you explain what about the sources dont hold up for you, ie they are missing crucial information. Billyball998 (talk) 17:40, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

I no longer play your game, that's sealioning. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:32, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

you are asserting the sources are not appropriate for seemingly no reason, it is not sealioning to ask you what your claim even is. I'm not even asking for evidence at this point Billyball998 (talk) 20:42, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

In answer to @Tgeorgescu and @fiveby. This is the reliable sources noticeboard, if you don't want to discuss the reliability of sources, this is probably the wrong place to be. As Tgeorgescu did bring this here, I thought they might want to discuss the reliability of some sources. I seem to have been mistaken. Boynamedsue (talk) 22:14, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

@Boynamedsue: As far as I am concerned, the final verdict fell with what Fiveby stated. I take their advice to the heart. Further prolonging this discussion seems unnecessary. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:17, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

The truth is that it seems @Tgeorgescu wants to deny my sources all my sources in one fell swoop without even explaining the assertion against them, unfortunately. Billyball998 (talk) 22:25, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

An unpublished Master's thesis will never amount to a WP:RS, here at Wikipedia, for a start. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:27, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

If the complaint is Mark Haughwout's work cited is unpublished, then I would point to the Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Definition of published. If you need help finding it, please let me know. If your complaint is that it is not published with a mainstream publication, I would ask why you believe that would disqualify it, assuming it represents appropriate scholarship? Also that would apply to only the one source, the other sources aren't affected by the assertation. Billyball998 (talk) 22:36, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Your statement only shows that you completely lack any WP:CLUE. E.g. no WP:RS claiming that such controversy is raging in the mainstream academia in the 2000s, or in the 2010s, or in the 2020s.

But, of course, why your position lacks any WP:CLUE is only apparent to those who have a WP:CLUE. We are the cabal of cluocracy. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:46, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu: I strongly suggest that you do not attempt to use the brief comment by Fiveby as support for your position on the talkpage. No consensus yet exists on this page as to the reliability of the sources you have questioned, largely because you have not posted them here in a format which can be understood. You have also decided to continue to bicker here, instead of engaging in constructive discussion. This is very bad form, and a waste of other users' time. --Boynamedsue (talk) 08:05, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

@Boynamedsue: I took your advice to the heart. As you see, there are only two sources published in the 21st century, one of which a pious editor like StAnselm finds that it isn't WP:RS. And yup, there even is a source from the 19th century.

A safe assumption is that Beckwith reflects the situation of the debate up to and including 2001 AD, i.e. more than 20 years ago. And Thompson (2020) is in fact a 1993 book, i.e. not written in the 21st century. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:59, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Can i ask why post 2000 vs pre 2000 is an important distinction for you in the scholarship? thanks Billyball998 (talk) 21:03, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Please read the quote by Iskandar323 above. Please list 10 post-2010 works listed in the annotated bibliography, i.e. Thompson (2020).

"The pretended certainty of the criticism is imaginary" is a judgment dated 1930 AD. It is attributed to Gerhard Charles Aalders.

What Thompson (2020) says in his own voice is that the liberal perspective became normative in the 19th century. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:16, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Sorry but iskandar's claim is unsubstantiated unless it can be demonstrated, or at least explained why, as of now there is no reason not to accept works dating much further back than that, especially considering there is very little scholarship on the issue since 2000, and once again, there have been no new discoveries that would make older sources outdated, to my knowledge. Billyball998 (talk) 21:20, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Funny, you're the one claiming that a controversy about the dating of Daniel is raging in the mainstream academia in the 21st century. If it raged in the 20th century, then it is simply a thing of the past, already left behind. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:27, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

please see the "commentary" section in the introduction where Thompson gives a complete synopsis of the argument. Also i think these comments don't have to do with the reliability of the sources and should be listed on the Daniel talk page instead. Billyball998 (talk) 21:30, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

I mean, here we are judging if the sources which you have pushed are reliable for the specific claim that a controversy about the dating of Daniel is raging in the mainstream academia in the 21st century. There is no such thing as a source reliable in general.

E.g. Bart Ehrman makes some valid points about physics and biology, but we do not WP:CITE him as an authority upon either of them. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:45, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Still it is for discussing the reliability of the source, not debating who the source supports, nevertheless I have uploaded a preview of the source and will place it with the source in the source section below (https://ibb.co/s9YVy5b) Billyball998 (talk) 21:56, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

• Haughwout is not a reliable source; Beckwith certainly is. StAnselm (talk) 16:36, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Note: Andrews, JETS, Themelios, and Tyndale publish only evangelical scholars (if we count the SDA Church among evangelicals). tgeorgescu (talk) 20:24, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Thompson (2020) is in fact a reprint of Thompson, Henry O. (1993). The book of Daniel : an annotated bibliography. New York: Garland Pub. ISBN 0-8240-4873-3. OCLC 25507833. at Thompson, Henry O. (2020). Book of Daniel: An Annotated Bibliography. Taylor & Francis. p. xxx. ISBN 978-1-135-77658-9. Retrieved 2022-11-06. it says that the liberal perspective did not became normative until the 19th century, i.e. the opposite of Billyball998's POV. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:49, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

I was citing it for the statement that I quoted on the talk page, it is a second print, from 1993. Also i think you should make comments similar to this one above or on the talk page, not here with the sources. (edit: the comments have now been moved) Billyball998 (talk) 20:55, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

• Source 1: Not reliable for anything but Haughwout's opinion, the notability of which can be discussed at the relevant talkpage. Source 2: Reliable. Source 3: Reliable. Source 4: Reliable. Source 5: Reliable. Source 6: Reliable. Source 7: Reliable. Source 8: So old it is impractical to use. Source 9, 10, 11: Reliable, but very old. Source 12, 13, 14, 15: Reliable. Source 16, probably just about too old to be practically used. Source 17: Very reliable. All but the last source are clearly from a similar evangelical perspective, but are generally the work of serious scholars. However, they are mostly composed of the scholars' judgments on the question, so the actual factual comments can be used without attribution, but great care should be taken to separate fact from opinion. The degree of weight given to their perspectives is difficult to assess, and it may be necessary to find a non-evangelist source (such as the last one) to effectively do this. However, that discussion is for the talkpage and would refer to WP:DUE. --Boynamedsue (talk) 08:05, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

BTW, many thanks for posting the sources. --Boynamedsue (talk) 08:15, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

• Largely concur with the foregoing assessment. Haughwout is not reliable. The rest are reliable - published by independent, in most cases scholarly publications or publishing houses. I would be cautious about those more than 50-60 years old. I'm not saying don't use them, but I have no idea whether, and to what extent, there is anything "new" in this particular field of scholarship since that timeframe. Banks Irk (talk) 17:54, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  @Banks Irk @Boynamedsue @StAnselm @Tgeorgescu Thank you very much for your help, and everyone else who contributed here. Billyball998 (talk) 19:34, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Sources in question on the Book of Daniel article

Source 1: Mark S. Haughwout, "Dating the Book of Daniel. A Survey of the Evidence for an Early Date", self-published, M.A. The Bible and the Ancient Near East, Hebrew University Jerusalem, 2013, http://markhaughwout.com/Bible/Dating_Daniel.pdf

Source 2: Beckwith, Roger, "Early Traces of the Book of Daniel", Tyndale Bulletin, scholarly article, 2002, https://web.archive.org/web/20211018172928/https://nevt.org/doc_474318.pdf

Source 3: Vasholz, Robert I., "Qumran and the Dating of Daniel", The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, scholarly article, December 1978, https://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/21/21-4/21-4-pp315-321_JETS.pdf

Source 4: Arthur J. Ferch, "The Book of Daniel and the 'Maccabean Thesis'", Andrews University Seminary Studies, scholarly article, Summer 1983, https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1609&context=auss;THE

Source 5: K.A. Kitchen, "The Aramaic of Daniel", The Tyndale Press, part of a book, 1965, https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/tp/notes-daniel/daniel_kitchen.pdf

Source 6: Gerhard F. Hasel, "The Identity of the 'Saints of the Most High' in Daniel 7", Biblica, scholarly article, 1975, https://www.jstor.org/stable/42610712

Source 7: D. J. Wiseman, "Some Historical Problems in the Book of Daniel", The Tyndale Press, part of a book, 1965, https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/tp/notes-daniel/daniel_wiseman.pdf

Source 8: Boutflower, Charles, "In and around the Book of Daniel", Society for promoting Christian knowledge, book, 1923, https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=W-g2AAAAMAAJ

Source 9: E.J. Young, "Daniel's Vision of a Son of Man", Tyndale, book, 1958, not on public web

Source 10: E.J. Young, "The Messianic Prophecies of Daniel", Eerdmans, book, 1954, not on public web

Source 11: E.J. Young, "The Prophecy of Daniel", Eerdmans, book, 1949, not on public web

Source 12: Joyce G. Baldwin, "Daniel", Inter-Varsity Press, book, 1978, not on public web

Source 13: Joyce G. Baldwin, "Is There Pseudonimity in the Old Testament?", Themelios, scholarly article, 1978-1979, https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/themelios/pseudonymity_baldwin.pdf

Source 14: Joyce G. Baldwin, "Some Literary Affinities of the Book of Daniel", Tyndale Bulletin, scholarly article, 1979, https://tyndalebulletin.org/article/30610-some-literary-affinities-of-the-book-of-daniel.pdf

Source 15: Robert Dick Wilson, "Studies In The Book Of Daniel: A Discussion Of The Historical Questions", G. P. Putnam's Sons, book, 1917, https://www.amazon.com/Studies-Book-Daniel-Discussion-Historical/dp/1437138012

Source 15: S.R. Driver, "The Book of Daniel. With Introduction and Notes", The Macmillan Co., book, 1900, https://books.google.com/books?id=YC82AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Source 16: Wegner, Walter E., "The Book of Daniel and the Dead Sea Scrolls", Quartalschrift-Theological Quarterly, scholarly article, 1958, http://essays.wisluthsem.org:8080/bitstream/handle/123456789/626/WegnerDaniel.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Source 17: Thompson, Henry O., "The Book of Daniel: An Annotated Bibliography", Routledge, book, 2020, https://www.routledge.com/Book-of-Daniel-An-Annotated-Bibliography/Thompson/p/book/9781315056609 relevant section:https://ibb.co/s9YVy5b

Source x:

Of the 17 sources, only one dates from later than 2000 (the Thompson book was published in 1993, not 2020), and most are far older, up to half a century or more. That alone would make them very dubious as reliable sources. Achar Sva (talk) 20:50, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

My field of greatest expertise is the linguistics of dark age Britain. The key text was published in 1953, and is still cited in every single article on the subject. It is cited on 46 articles here. Boynamedsue (talk) 21:08, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I am just a dabbler in your field, though I am on somewhat more solid grounds in biblical linguistics. While your point is taken and mere age does not invalidate a source, I think it is fair to say the field is ever-evolving, especially as it has diverged (though never fully separated) from its historical religious underpinnings. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:13, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

@Dumuzid I would disagree that it has evolved substantially since the early 20th century, the routledge bibliography actually says "a review of scholarly history finds an amazingly consistent set of arguments—the same arguments are used by both camps today, a century ago, two centuries ago."

Not trying to be argumentative but I think its important, thanks :) Billyball998 (talk) 23:53, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

For the Book of Daniel, the key texts are those of Collins and Seow. Achar Sva (talk) 02:16, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

The New York Observer

Rate the reliability of The New York Observer.

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting.
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply.
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting.
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated.

IdiosyncraticLawyer (talk) 15:24, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Comments (Observer)

• Option 1 or 2 - It has a reasonably good reputation for fact checking and accuracy - with a center-right bias. Care must be taken to distinguish opinion and gossip from factual event reporting (as is true of most online journalism, the lines can be blurred)… and, of course, headlines are not reliable. Blueboar (talk) 16:17, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
• 1987-2006, Option 1; 2006-current Option 2. The New York Observer newspaper changed hands and is considered, based on my reading, generally less accurate and respected after the purchase by Jared Kushner in 2006. Why is this under discussion? Is there some significant credibility issue we are resolving? If we are discussing reliability, I believe we should divide that into time frames, say before the Kushner purchase and after. I am no content expert, but I did live in NYC during the double naughts, and the general feeling among my rather knowledgeable and diverse crowd was the subscribers had been torpedoed by the purchase. Today it's a rag, IMHO. Suitable for the birdcage, except no print version. BusterD (talk) 20:26, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Question. I ask again of the OP, why are we having this conversation? Normally we don't have these sorts of evaluative discussions on RS/N unless we have a specific issue with the source or we've seen a pattern of issues with the source. What sort of activity or usage was seen which provoked this inquiry? BusterD (talk) 12:56, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
• Comment These two CJR pieces too would suggest that greater care would be required in judging TNYO in more recent years. The first speaks about the variable quality (...readers are left with a highly variable product...) and diminished editorial oversight (The old Observer was edited, on a story-by-story basis, in a way that the new online Observer isn’t...), and the latter to bias (...use the paper to settle scores or reward cronies...). Abecedare (talk) 21:20, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 2006-present per BusterD. Andre🚐 21:31, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
• Pre-2006, Option #1; Post-2006, Option #2 Per the observations above. Banks Irk (talk) 17:46, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

The Hindu

Per WP:RSP, we should treat The Hindu as a newspaper of record.

So I would have thought this article in The Hindu is –

1. reliable for statements of fact about the book and its author ("published by Westland", "written in four months", "scriptwriter living in Mumbai", etc.)
2. reliable for sourcing the publication's description and assessment of the book discussed (e.g. that the book's style is "simple and racy", that it takes the reader on "an interesting journey", deals with "aspects of cricket, including the dark side of the game – match-fixing ...", that the author "drifts from the subject midway when he writes more about the off-field activities of the cricketers", etc.)

Does such use of this source strike anyone as incompatible with sourcing policies and guidelines? --Andreas JN466 17:39, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

• Hmm. An article in the Metro Plus section with no by-line and consisting largely of quotes by Sinha and Tom Alter (who was apparently the chief guest at the book launch) and the most cursory form of commentary (""simple and racy", "an interesting journey") is hardly a good quality source to build an encyclopedic article on. Not saying that it is an unreliable source per se; just a low-quality one that should be given minimal, if any, weight. Abecedare (talk) 19:57, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

• Abecedare, this is CIR at play. See this strange paraphrasing or the OP's proposal that our decisions invoking DUE be influenced by relevant publications in blacklisted publications. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:11, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

• I agree with Abecedare - this is a very poor quality source and definitely, far from a book review. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:12, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  Obviously, the article is reliable for statements of fact. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:19, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

news18.com

1. Does this book review on news18.com pass WP:RS?

2. What are editors' views on news18.com more generally? It's cited in about 1,000 articles and is a sister site of Firstpost, Forbes India and CNN-News18. --Andreas JN466 18:33, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Not seeing a problem with this one especially since Sayoni Aiyar has reviewed books for CNN-IBN/News18 at least semi-regularly (eg, [18], [19]) and not always positively (which eases my concerns of sponsored content and republishing of lightly edited press-releases, which is rampant in the subject area). Abecedare (talk) 20:04, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

@Abecedare: Thanks for commenting here and in the section above.

What do you think of this review in The New Indian Express? It's by Meera Bhardwaj, who wrote several hundred book reviews for that paper, and was quite capable of panning a book ("contrived and predictable", "not an interesting read", "lacking thrill", "disappointing", "hardly lucid") or of providing nuanced criticism ("a story that could have lived up to its full potential with just a bit more care", "some stories are interesting, some are pretty boring"). Best, Andreas JN466 16:51, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Not exactly a comment on reliability but... Wow! that is such a poorly written "review"! Just count the number of redflag and/or superlative claims in it that cry out for a {{cn}} tag: "credited with inventing the genre of political thrillers in contemporary Indian writing", "moved away from his usual genre" (IIRC, in one of the earlier interviews you had linked to, Sinha had said that he intentionally tried to pen his first three books to be in different genres), "One of its kind", "first-of-its-kind book released in recent times" (what does that even mean?!), etc. Also the whole third paragraph is such a cliche-ridden over-generalization. Reads to me as a breathless fluff piece. If cited (which can be decided per WP:DUE on the article talk-page), be especially careful not to use it as a source for any disputable factual claim. Abecedare (talk) 17:21, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Well, his usual genre was fiction; this was his first non-fiction book. As for "One of its kind" etc. I took that to be referring to its being a book about parenting from an Indian dad's perspective.

I agree with you that the diction sure is flowery and not what we'd expect to find in a UK or US paper, but that applies to much of what I read in Indian newspapers (not just the book reviews). So I am not sure what it means – beyond the fact that a woman who wrote hundreds of reviews for an RS newspaper appears to have liked the book and said so.

I agree it should be used as a source for a reviewer's opinion on this book rather than as a source for more general factual claims of the type you mention ("inventing the genre"). Andreas JN466 20:49, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

• Reviews are pure opinion, and are not subject to WP:RS-type analysis, unless we believe the source misattributed the review or altered the authors original words in some way. If we believe the source accurately represented the opinion, then all that matters is if the authors opinion is WP:DUE, due to their expertise or regard in a particular field, not whether or not the source that printed the review is reliable per WP:RS. --Jayron32 17:13, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  @Jayron32: In this case we have a reviewer who regularly reviewed books for The New Indian Express, one of India's leading dailies, for a number of years. Yet the review has been thrown out of the article, based on an argument that the source is "unreliable" or that it is "not a review". Andreas JN466 18:50, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  See, here's the deal, I'm not assessing the reviewer. I don't have the expertise to do so. What I am saying is that, by Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, there is no magic pill that overrides discussion and consensus building. What you need to do is use the article talk page, start a discussion there, seek outside attention on the discussion via WP:30, WP:RFC or other dispute resolution methods, ask at some relevant Wikiprojects, etc, etc. You've characterized him as a well-known reviewer at a major newspaper. If that is the case, other people who know the situation well enough will agree with you, and you'll have built consensus to include the review. If you aren't correct in your assessment, or if you are correct, but other people feel like it's not relevant to the situation, then they will say so and consensus maybe doesn't go against you. Seeking to short-circuit discussion by saying "This is XXXX, which means no one can every remove it from an article" should not be ever used as a rationale. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. Not "is a reviewer who regularly reviewed book for the New Indian Express", which while it may be evidence that will convince outside people that the review should be included, is not by itself enough in the absence of consensus support. --Jayron32 19:19, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  Jayron32, I am here because I was told on the talk page that "This is not a review - go to RSN". So coming here seemed like a good first step to establish that including this review is a matter of consensus, rather than a matter of policy. (I'm familiar with dispute resolution, thank you.) Regards, Andreas JN466 10:57, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

  I mean, I'm telling you that I think the person who told you that was wrong, because reviews are not reports of factual information, so are not really subject to the same kind of analysis. But what do I know. Maybe the person who told you that knows much more about Wikipedia's policies and guidelines than I do. Maybe I really am as worthless and stupid as everyone seems to think I am. Ignore me and carry on. Good luck, vaya con dios. --Jayron32 11:18, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks for your input. Andreas JN466 15:45, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

@Jayron32: I agree with you that reviews are opinions, and thus any published review is technically a "reliable source for the author's opinion" (assuming authorship can be authenticated, etc). Thus the determinative policies for whether a review should be cited in an article are WP:DUE and WP:CONSENSUS.

That said, in determining how much weight should be given to a review we look, in part, at factors (expertise of author; form and place of publication, depth of review; whether it has been quoted by secondary sources, etc) that are similar to ones used to judge source-quality more generally. The regulars on this board have an interest in, and knowledge of, those factors. Therefore IMO it is useful for editors to be able to post queries like the one Jayen466 did on this board (rather than, say, WP:NPOVN) and get some independent informed opinions. Abecedare (talk) 03:34, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, Abecedare. Coming back to this specific source, Meera Bhardwaj, the author of this review, is an award-winning journalist who was chief copy editor at The New Indian Express at the time.[20] She was one of the interviewees in a peer-reviewed academic study on Indian women in journalism.[21] Hers is the most prominent review of the book available. I find it hard to see how anyone can argue in good faith that mentioning it in our article on the author is undue. This is routine sourcing that would normally pass without controversy.

You are aware that the man is taking the WMF to court over his biography. What a completely avoidable waste of money for both parties. He feels he is being picked on by editors here who are hostile to him because of his affiliation with the BJP, the party currently in government in India.

Judging by the evidence so far, starting with an AfD filed by a now indeffed sockpuppet (block only appealable to ArbCom ...), and with Monty Pythonesque arguments like this review "is not a review" being brought forward on the talk page, I do understand how he came to feel he is being picked on.

Let me add that I have absolutely no interest in Indian politics. My interest is in the moral integrity of our BLP handling. I have a track record in this respect. Regards, Andreas JN466 10:20, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Again, I disagree; source quality is all about "can this statement in Wikipedia be verified by this source". That's what this board is supposed to be about. Insofar as Wikipedia says "So-and-so said blah blah blah" and we believe that the source in question can be trusted to report what so-and-so says, WP:V is met; the source is reliable enough for the purpose. If we take on every dispute at every noticeboard, it dilutes the purpose of that noticeboard. The discussion in question is important to have, but it's important to have elsewhere. --Jayron32 12:39, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Hip in Pakistan

Is this a reliable source for Khoobsurat (TV series)? To me, this seems to be a promotional website with no editorial policies that shows a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, with its about us page being vague and refers to social media stats. However, Lillyput4455 contends that it is reliable critic page. VickKiang (talk) 20:21, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

• Fails WP:NEWSORG and WP:RS. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:20, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Jerusalem Post unreliable for archaeology?

See [https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/the-jerusalem-post-recycles-old-claims-about-goliaths-skull-at-golgotha?fbclid=IwAR2Ew2Yl4oedbIAJAirKD4Rl03Q3LRYiKmS5u8H3wZJD_48Cm27Dx_sfSRk] and [https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2021/08/11/no-archaeologists-have-not-found-the-trojan-horse/?fbclid=IwAR3Gk7p60w4XHdTC18_RNGWL6kk-oiT6DeqF0tKx63tBusldDnpqPcAhMu8]. Doug Weller talk 17:53, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Vast majority of news websites are worthless for academia, you need expert sources for stuff like this. News websites can (Imo) provide evidence for notability of a find, but should not be used to support historical claims.★Trekker (talk) 12:56, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

The Jerusalem post article is probably not reliable, it attributes a view to "Biblical scholars" without naming them. I would probably say it is a fringe theory, unless there are better sources out there.--Boynamedsue (talk) 13:01, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree with StarTrekker… the question shouldn’t be whether the Jerusalem Post is reliable for archaeological information, the question should be whether any News media is reliable in that context. Blueboar (talk) 13:12, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Byline on the JP article is Walla! ie themselves promoting themselves. Not reliable. Selfstudier (talk) 13:10, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

This is true (as is the above, that we should never be using news for archaeology) but I also want to note that Jerusalem Post in particular has a befuddling difficulty with translating content it aggregates from Hebrew media, which has resulted in several completely false stories which remain on their site. For example: this is total nonsense, the original said that they now have the ability to midair refuel. This was fixed after I complained but initially claimed falsely that a rabbinical court can just free women if it's been too long. I'm pretty sure there have been significant errors in archaeological translation also, though I can't think of an example right now. GordonGlottal (talk) 14:05, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Doug Weller Yes. Their coverage of archaeology-related topics is worse than most other mainstream sources. StarTrekker pointed out that nearly all news websites are bad for academic topics, but I believe that the Jerusalem Post is uniquely bad when it comes to archaeology. I say this as someone with only rudimentary knowledge of the topic. Scorpions13256 (talk) 18:42, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Trójmiasto.pl

Is trójmiasto.pl a reliable source for articles about the Tricity area? It doesn't cite sources, however I still would call it a primary source of information and I need an opinion from the general Wikipedia public. I am not trying to cite ther website in an article right now, but information about what is and isn't reliable still would be helpful. Thanks! :-) Luxtay the IInd (^{talketh to me}) 14:30, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

This is just a local news outlet and AFAIK it is not among those bought by Orlen, a state-owned company, in 2021, so I'd believe that it is generally reliable about all local news subjects related to the Polish Tricity area, including politics. Could you please post the link to the article you have doubts about? Szmenderowiecki (talk) 10:02, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

@Luxtaythe2nd yes - it’s reliable for the Tricity area (and not only for the area), but it’s not reliable for WW2 history of Poland (1933-45) unless written by a historian. (Right Szmenderowiecki? Why don’t you share a valuable ArBcom ruling link with the user?) - GizzyCatBella🍁 14:36, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Campus Reform

I had been defending an edit to the page David Sanders (biologist) that quoted the subject making some controversial remarks on abortion that gained noteriety in at least some circles. The subject is a public figure and the edit cited an article from the website Campus Reform and a YouTube video with 17,000 views. The edit included a direct quote from the subject so whether he said these remarks is not in dispute.

Although it has an ideological slant, in my view Campus Reform issues corrections, list it's editorial team and in the case of this particular news story, it is not engaging in gossip or the tabloid journalism that is condemned in the guidance on BLP articles. But what does the community think? Can a right-leaning website that issues corrections and lists its editorial team be a source on at least a case-by-case basis? JA1776 (talk) 15:31, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

So, the issue is not one for this board, which deals only with the reliability of things cited in Wikipedia in context. Which is to say, does the source reliably verify what the Wikipedia article says. This is not a reliability issue, since as you say "a direct quote from the subject so whether he said these remarks is not in dispute." We can reliably verify he said these things. THAT having been said, that doesn't mean that Wikipedia must include the quote. While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. (bold mine) This is a matter of WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE and all of that; this is the sort of thing that's determined on the article talk page by consensus discussions. There's no magic pill you can find to force the quote into the article, it needs to be agreed that the quote is relevant to the subject at hand; and that's not something that exists on a binary status. There's a sliding scale for these things; is he well known for these opinions, repeating them frequently in public fora and using his public status as a means to advance a position, or is this something he's mentioned about his own beliefs a few times, but doesn't make it a big deal? Is the position in the quote essential to his on notability in a Wikipedia sense, or is it an inconsequential part of his biography? All of this needs to be discussed on the article talk page if there is a dispute, to decide what and where in the article and how to cover such material, and the conclusion may even be to not include it at all; but it isn't an RS issue. --Jayron32 17:09, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Britannica

I have used Britannica as a source in my articles, and when expanding new ones. But is is reliable, can I use it as a source? I have heard that the articles on Britannica are created by experts, but I don't know if that's true or not. I don't think I've seen Britannica be used as a source in other articles, I however have used it as a source before. Lyricca (talk) 18:07, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

The most recent discussion is Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_364#Britannica:_a_"strong_reputation_for_fact-checking_and_accuracy"?. Editors views on it's reliability seem pretty mixed. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:13, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Britannica's RSP entry. Curbon7 (talk) 18:14, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Like both the discussion and the RSP entry above point out, WP:SECONDARY sources should generally be preferred over WP:TERTIARY, and Britannica is a tertiary source. Though WP:TERTIARY also points out that these sources can be helpful in determining WP:DUE weight for material to include. Siawase (talk) 20:50, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Victoria Arakelova

Victoria Arakelova is particularly used as source for Azerbaijanis and other related articles, especially for the population estimates. After listing some of her estimates on the demographics of the Iranian provinces that Azerbaijanis inhabit, she ends up at "a comparatively safe figure of the Iranian Turkophone groups (i.e. Azaris, alias ― “Azerbaijanis”) ― 6-6,5 millions, maximum less than 5 % of the total population of Iran" Now, considering that this source is from the year 2015, the population of Iran was 78,492,208 in 2015. ([22]) When we divide 6 million (the lowest estimate) by this number, we get 7.64407 % of the total population, not "maximum less than 5 % of the total population of Iran." Moreover, the total population of each Azerbaijani-inhabited Iranian province that she based her estimate on apparently comes from the 2011 census. Then, Iran's population was 75,149,669 ([23], this is the site she cited), which is even less than 78,492,208. So, she definitely didn't do the calculations correctly. Does this still make her a reliable source? Because she is deflating the percentage of the Iranian Azerbaijanis for her population estimate by more than 50 percent, which I would regard as a clear manifestation of bias and the arbitrary nature of the article. I am currently on a rush, but we can also discuss later who she is, her tone in this article, and put all of this into context to reconsider her reliability. Thank you so much to anyone who reads and responds. Ayıntaplı (talk) 02:22, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

The percentage does seem like a mistake on her part. I don't think it makes it automatically not reliable. The question is whether her estimate is a fringe view (and thus should be mentioned minimally or not at all) or part of the spectrum of scholarly estimates. Alaexis_¿question? 10:15, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I followed Arakelova for many years and she is a mainstream academic researcher (though of course she is Armenian which somehow influences her views). Ymblanter (talk) 10:36, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

@Ymblanter, I would like to say that her being Armenian isn't the main rationale that I'm using to claim her bias, because that would be ethnic prejudice, and I have added many sources from Armenians on controversial topics. Though, this piece sticks out due to personal actions. Just in the excerpt I provided, we can see questionable words such as "alias," as if this is a criminal case. @Beshogur has previously noted that she had posts including the phrase "безбашенного турка" ("reckless Turks"). When we consider the Armenian genocide, this may make these comments reasonable, but this also makes me think of a conflict of interest that she may have, which would explain the repeated mentions of politics in this work. Ayıntaplı (talk) 15:30, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

@Alaexis, I wouldn't really regard it as just a mistake, when we put the whole paper into context as in my response to Ymblanter. She is able to calculate that if West Azerbaijan province (with 3.1 million people) were 70 percent Kurdish, there would be "not less than 2 millions" of Kurds there (2.16 to be exact) but cannot correctly divide her estimate by the total population of Iran, which doesn't even require a full calculation, because it is obvious that it would be more than 5 percent when the population of Iran was never more than 100 million, which is also something she had access to and even included a link to in her paper. Coming to the question that whether her estimate is a fringe view, it is indeed an outlier among the other estimates on the Iranian Azerbaijani population, which starts from 10-11 million, when we peek at Azerbaijanis. So, it is not a part of the spectrum. Ayıntaplı (talk) 15:17, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Well, I've also looked at the sources in that article and to be honest it's hard to understand what is the scholarly consensus. The estimates vary widely (from 9 million according to Amanolahi to more than 20 million) and some of them refer to all Turkophones (Azeris, Turkmens and others) in Iran rather than just Azeris. Considering that Arakelova's estimate is published in a scholarly journal, I don't see much harm in having her numbers listed alongside the other estimates. However if someone does a careful analysis of the scholarly sources and shows that this is indeed a fringe position I wouldn't be against removing it. Alaexis_¿question? 21:41, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Just a note: Amanolahi's estimate comes from 2005, when Iran's population was slightly less than 70 million. Arakelova's estimate comes from 2015, when Iran's population was 78.5 million, though. So, the difference between the lowest estimate (I stand corrected) and Arakelova's would either be larger or not comparable.

On a different note, regardless of what comes out of this discussion, is it okay to include the percentage she mentioned? Ayıntaplı (talk) 22:39, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

@Alaexis I checked the scholarly journal. It has its own page: Iran and the Caucasus This journal is published by Brill Publishers in collaboration with the Caucasian Centre for Iranian Studies (Yerevan) and was founded by Garnik Asatrian, who is the head of the center and the editor-in-chief of the journal. Arakelova is the associate editor, and the vast majority of her publications were published in this jorunal. ([24]) Asatrian and Arakelova are academicians in the same university, Yerevan State University, and even in the same department. So, it doesn't come as a surprise that the aspects of her article that make it possibly unreliable could have been ignored. Ayıntaplı (talk) 22:45, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Does anyone have any additional input? Should the faulty percentage that doesn't correspond with the author's estimate be removed? Would the source be considered reliable considering the aforementioned circumstances? Ayıntaplı (talk) 21:25, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

References

World-Wire

In Kari Lake, her date of birth is sourced to this article at world-wire.com. World-Wire used to be a press/news release distributor (about a dozen-and-a-half mainspace articles link to press releases that used to be available from it) but appears to have transitioned to be a conservative news website providing "quality information content for Conservatives, politics, current events and affairs from USA and around the globe." Here is their editorial policy. Any thoughts on the acceptability as a reliable source of the cited article or of world-wire.com as a whole? – Archer1234 (talk) 03:23, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

This falls under the WP:DOB part of the WP:BLP policy and would require the information to be "widely published" to be included. The world-wire "editorial policy" linked above appears to be boiler plate copy and paste that is in used on a large number of clickbait sites, see google search and as such it seems the site is very far from reliable by Wikipedia's standards. Siawase (talk) 13:30, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Whether WP:SPS by Austin Bessey is a reliable source

At Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sheesh! we are debating whether an SPS by Austin Bessey is a RS. I believe that this assessment boils down to 3 elements: 1. Whether Bessey is a subject matter expert for songs, 2. Whether his work has been published and 3. whether this particular review which is just 3 sentences about the song "Sheesh!" constituted WP:SIGCOV. Bessey asserts here that he has "over 6 years directing and managing the music programming for the national Radio Disney and Radio Disney Country stations". As a college radio DJ in the 1980s, I imagine that a radio music programmers job in the 2010s (era of digital and streaming submissions) included determining which fraction of 1% of all music submissions for airplay would be included in the airplay rotation and how heavily they should be rotated. At this AFD, I am unable to get a concession that a professional music programmer for a national radio network constitutes a subject matter expert on songs. In regards to whether his work has been published, I submit that the fraction of 1% of the songs that he endorsed for airplay on the national Disney Radio networks are considered publications of his opinion of their quality and merit. Back when I was assessing whether works by relatively unknown up and coming acts such as Run DMC, Beastie Boys and Whitney Houston should be aired on our station in the 1980s, I presented my opinion on songs and albums that came in for consideration. If Bessey reviewed hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of songs in a week and wrote 3 positive sentences about one of them, that is a significant opinion. The fact that songs made the airwaves was a form of publication for the field of musical programming. The third consideration is whether a 2-sentence paragraph about a song and a 3rd sentence declaring it a landmark for the band constitutes significant coverage.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:10, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

• Not reliable SPS The exception for SPS as sources has two criteria:(1) Subject-matter expert and (2) previously published by an independent reliable source. He may or may not be a subject-matter expert, but I do not find any articles, reviews etc written by him published by independent reliable sources, only his own blog. Banks Irk (talk) 12:46, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
  • For his field of music programming could one make the case that his endorsement of a song is published by its presentation on the airwaves?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:50, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
• Focusing on the wrong policy - someone’s blog is always reliable for verifying that person’s opinion. The question is whether that person’s opinion is worth mentioning… and that is a question of DUE/UNDUE weight, not reliability. Blueboar (talk) 13:12, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

  @Blueboar the question of reliability is important here because the article is part of an ongoing AfD as Tony said in their first sentence. They've been looking for sources to cover notability for the article, and they think this one is maybe just potentially questionable enough that it could get a pass, and that's why they came here. It's also why they posted the same question at WikiProject Albums this morning which this page should know about. QuietHere (talk) 12:58, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Who? Slatersteven (talk) 13:01, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

• I've made my case at the AfD, but could I point out here that Radio Disney had already shut down by the time Mr. Bessey had reviewed this song, so he was no longer working there (indeed, his "About" page makes it very clear that it was in the past tense) and so it cannot be in any way taken as an endorsement of the music he used to program at the station... he is reviewing it purely in a personal capacity as a blogger. Richard3120 (talk) 14:42, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

User only adding dubious links to many articles

User:GEMNCNY who has been around for some years appears to only add what appears to be linkspam to articles - often when there is a perfectly reliable alternative source that can be used. Sources used are:

• https://golfreviewsguide.com/
• https://dailyhomelists.com/
• https://dailyhomelist.com/

Old edits also include:

• http://www.bettingpro.com.au/

I would welcome views on these sites and propose that they be blacklisted.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   12:30, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi Velella, the recent edits done today was when I noticed broken links being used. Thanks for querying. GEMNCNY (talk) 14:38, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

So how should I interpret this edit where you introduce link spam and give the reference your user name. Difficult to AGF with this?  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   19:29, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree this is obvious linkspam, I removed a few more instances of these links. GEMNCNY should be blocked and/or the urls blacklisted if it continues. MrOllie (talk) 14:55, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Polarguidebook.com

There is disagreement about the credibility of https://polarguidebook.com in the Flag of Antarctica page in relation to the claim "[The flag] is widely considered to be the official flag of Antarctica and is the only one to be recognized by [Antarctic] treaty members" from their article Who Owns Antarctica? I personally consider this to be a credible source for two reasons.

1. The website seems to do its due diligence

• Their about page states "Everything on this site is backed by research and science with our resources referenced throughout. We have a strong editorial process with expert fact-checkers to ensure accurate and up-to-date information."
• They have a dedicated fact-checker, Dr. Jackie Symmons, on staff.

2. The claim in the article is corroborated by multiple sources

• Vexillum, the journal of the North American Vexillological Association, Issue 16, p. 4, 2021 (the article is behind a paywall)
  • "For the first time in history, national Antarctic programs, expedition teams, and other Antarctic organizations from around the world have collectively adopted a flag for Antarctica. The adoption of the flag, called True South, is the result of an international effort to promote cooperation and bring great"
  • Dr. Pavel Kapler, manager of the Czech Antarctic Research Programme [said] “True South is designated to be a reminder that the stewardship of Antarctica is the privilege and responsibility of all of us.”
  • “Antarctica is a unique continent in which all the countries in the world live and work in the spirit of science, peace, and friendship. They all have their own flags, but their solidarity and collaboration is represented by the True South flag,” said Dr. Christo Pimpirev, Director of the Bulgarian Antarctic Institute.
  • Dr. Burcu Ozsoy, Director of the Polar Research Institute at the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, Marmara Research Center [said] “Leaving our differences aside, let’s unite under the True South flag in order to explore Antarctica with science while protecting and promoting its unique beauty and nature.”
• 99% Invisible "There's this one flag that's fairly recent and somewhat official... It was actually really quickly adopted by various Antarctic nonprofits and expedition teams, so it's already been flown in camps and research stations and by fans around the world who've never even been to Antarctica."
• Design Week "Several countries – including Bulgaria, Turkey and the Czech Republic, all of which have Antarctic research programmes – have already adopted the flag, and it is flown at several locations across the continent."
• Matador Network "The new flag of Antarctica is now recognized by National Antarctic programs, nonprofits, expedition teams, and individuals from countries across the globe."
• Dezeen "According to Townsend, it is the first Antarctic flag to be supported by any National Antarctic Program"

 Not A  Witty Fish 15:11, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I would use another source. This site is just a bit amateurish. They've done a good job trying to build a publication, but you'll quickly notice that nearly all the content is written by the founder, which makes this more like a blog. There are other folks mentioned on the staff page, but there is no indication that they regularly contribute, as there are only a couple articles linked to these other people. There is also some Amazon affiliate linking going on, and AdSense, which indicates to me a young site trying to monetize, but isn't yet to the size where the editorial oversight is reliable. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 17:52, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! I appreciate how closely you looked at the source (I haven't been able to find the Amazon linking yet.) Do you think the source is okay to use in this specific context since the claims are corroborated by other, more reliable sources? Or do you think it's unacceptable to use for any citation?  Not A  Witty Fish 22:51, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

@NotAWittyFish Why not use the other sources if they're better? I feel like I'm missing something... Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 22:55, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Most likely because the Polarguidebook one is the only one to explicitly make the claim that the True South flag is the one and only "official flag of Antarctica", which the other better sources don't actually claim. User:NotAWittyFish is here hoping for a green light to overhaul the Flag of Antarctica article contrary to an overwhelming talk page consensus that there is no official flag.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 23:11, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I think @Vanilla Wizard just offered the context... I came here trying to resolve a dispute on the talk page that's becoming increasingly hostile. In short, Vanilla Wizard did not feel any of the other sources were acceptable citations about the adoption and recognition of the flag either. I appreciate your input @Pyrrho the Skipper and have suggested a potential resolution on the article's talk page.  Not A  Witty Fish 01:56, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @Vanilla Wizard for providing the backstory that I was too lazy to look into myself. Nice to see everyone acting civilly in the discussion. Hope it stays that way. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 05:05, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Is thetorah.com a reliable source

As in the edit I reverted here[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pi-HaHiroth&action=history] and similar by same new editor. Doug Weller talk 21:27, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Hmmm. I was not familiar before this, but the editorial staff and submission guidelines look fairly promising; I don't know if it has the sort of reputation for accuracy we look for in a reliable source, but I would say that's the way I would lean, at least as an initial reaction. That of course doesn't mean it is necessarily WP:DUE in any particular context, of course. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:34, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

It is the least dogmatic Orthodox Jewish website that I have ever seen, and seems devoted to academic excellence. Here is coverage of its development from Haaretz. The author of the specific article in question has a PhD in Egyptology from the University of Liverpool and is not even Jewish. I would consider this website a generally reliable source. Cullen328 (talk) 22:45, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks all. Doug Weller talk 08:40, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: I'm not convinced. The article in question is an argument for the historicity of The Exodus. The argument is made in a careful but completely non-critical manner; I would call it superficially scholarly. To see more clearly what the author is about, consider another of his articles "What Kind of Construction Did the Israelites Do in Egypt?" The majority of modern scholars don't believe the Israelites were in Egypt at all. A scholar who seeks to refute this conclusion would start by admitting it exists but instead this writer pretends there is nothing to refute. Zero^talk 11:50, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

@Cullen328@Dumuzid do you still hold to your opinions? I can’t see it as reliable. Doug Weller talk 12:13, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I should add that some things on the site are probably citable. For example, I see some articles by Emanuel Tov who is /was the director of the Dead Sea Scrolls publication project. A serious top scholar. (I met him once.) I just think it is one of those sites which must be treated with great care and articles it hosts should be judged individually. Cullen328 is correct that it isn't as dogmatic as most Orthodox websites. Zero^talk 12:48, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Doug, while I don't personally love the site and I think Zero's caution about judging articles individually is well taken, going to first principles, I still believe it leans towards reliable. There's the big caveat of reputation, which could go either way and of which I am unaware, but yes, I am still generally with Cullen on this. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 13:33, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I think that there is a big difference between accepting a source as generally reliable for the etymology of a place name as opposed to the historicity of the Exodus. Cullen328 (talk) 17:18, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

There should be a big difference, but when the place names in question are those in the biblical narrative and the solutions proposed are those that support the biblical narrative, it is reasonable to ask whether the cart or the horse is leading. Zero^talk 00:16, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I too have my suspicions about potential bias here, but that doesn't undo the basic indicia of reliability, and I think attribution is a better way to handle that issue. Moreover, as Cullen says, not all claims are equal. A potential etymology which doesn't have any real academic pushback (even if it is supportive of a certain reading) is necessarily going to be treated differently than a hypothetical claim that the Exodus started in 1224 BCE. As ever, reasonable minds can differ on the subject! Dumuzid (talk) 00:51, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

RfC on inclusion of denials in BLPs, and on self-published denials

There is an RfC on self-published rebuttals/denials taking place at WT:BLP, and it may have implications for the ways WP:RS are used. Additional input would be helpful. Newimpartial (talk) 03:02, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

• Note that an RfC was opened before the one above, to determine which wording WP:BLP should include about living persons' denials of crimes or such sllegations. You may find it here. DFlhb (talk) 04:19, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

10th November 2022 update

Both RFCs were started without prior consensus on their scope or wording. One ran into an impasse (with editors disagreeing on what the options would actually mean if applied), and the other seems to have sputtered out. I've started a discussion to workshop a new RFC, with proper consensus on its scope & options, that would subsume both RFCs above. Everyone is invited to join us in workshopping it; the outcome of this future RFC may have very wide-ranging effects for all BLPs, and on our sourcing requirements for denials, so it's important that it reflect a wide consensus. DFlhb (talk) 08:22, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

The "Russian Constitution"

There is agreement at Talk:Republics of Russia that the Russian Constitution is a primary source.

Do editors here consider the Russian Constitution (Конституция Российской Федерации) (relevant section apparently here) and the Russian government's website, reliable sources for the notion that territories in Ukraine are now constituent territories of Russia? This is for the article Republics of Russia. Cambial — foliar❧ 10:09, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Of course not. All the source establishes is that the Russian government claims that the territories in Ukraine now belong to Russia. The fact that Putin's government makes that claim can be established through secondary sources, such as major newspapers, so there's no need to cite a primary source. NightHeron (talk) 10:18, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't think this is a reliability issue. The constitution is a reliable source for the statement "Russia considers X its territory." We should also say who controls the said territory and that it's considered Ukraine by nearly all other countries. Alaexis_¿question? 10:38, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Normally I would agree with you Alaexis, as I agree with NightHeron that it essentially goes without saying. But another editor has claimed at talk (in the 2nd para of this long post), that there's no other meaningful standard for determining the number of territories and We could use these two primary sources on the federal subjects of the Federation. I agree with your view that any statement based on these sources would need to be framed as "the Russian government considers...", but am seeking more eyes on this. Cambial — foliar❧ 11:37, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

• Government websites containing codified law are reliable for the position of that government, so I see no problem with citing these webpages for their claim. The issue here is not reliability but how (and if) to add DPR and LPR to the list of these republics without equating these republics to those internationally recognised as part of Russia (Dagestan, Buryatia etc.). You should make it clear through secondary, reliable and independent sources that not all of the claimed territories are controlled by the Russians and that (almost) no one says these territories are Russian. I believe a good way forward is to have two tables, one for republics that are legitimately part of Russia and others that are not but are administered by the country. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 11:38, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

  I also agree with this view, and that solution is what I advocate in the RFC on that subject. This specific discussion is about the lead of the article (see talk link in my previous comment). Cambial — foliar❧ 11:43, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

• It'll be as reliable as any particular constitution, which are primary sources. On this particular issue, the last I read up on the matter the constitution mostly just listed the entities, and did not define much about the supposed new territories (eg. their borders), so the constitution is likely insufficient for even the Russian stance. I think Alaexis is right that this is not really a reliability question but a question of effective framing. There's not really an exact parallel given there is an active war. Looking around, for uncontrolled areas Territories of the United States lists them and Provinces of China includes them in a different colour, and for controlled territories Regions of France doesn't distinguish Mayotte and Prefectures and provinces of Morocco puts the Western Sahara territories into their own subsection. That said, there is an active war, so it seems inappropriate to note anything as strictly controlled, and the page remains subject to changing current events. CMD (talk) 12:34, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

They are RS for Russia's claim, not for that claim being true (or even what they claim actually constitutes, geographically). Slatersteven (talk) 13:03, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Is indiantelevision.com a reliable source for an award win

This is the article concerned: [25] Good to go? --Andreas JN466 11:29, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Is that award even notable? Canterbury Tail talk 19:51, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

It was notable then (the source is from 2005). Here is a 2003 Times of India report.

The Indian org giving the awards dated back to the days of radio but eventually ran into trouble. Here is a report from 2009 saying the RAPA awards would be cancelled for the first time after 33 years. I think it was downhill from then on.

The article also contains additional biographical detail of Sinha. indiantelevision.com is currently cited in over 700 articles so I would have thought it's considered reliable for statements of fact. I'm just double-checking with the community here because it's been a contentious article. Andreas JN466 07:55, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

The Indiatelevision.com article is a SaharaOne Television's press release with two sentences added; one of which is Indiatelevision.com crediting Sinha for taking the Indiatelevision.com's scriptwriting course. I personally don't doubt the truth of those claims but that's not an independent source that establishes that they are worth mentioning. Abecedare (talk) 09:30, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

His taking an indiatelevision.com scriptwriting course is a routine biographical detail of the sort we mention in the "Early life and education" section of any number of biographies. Why on earth would we not mention it here?

The fact that an article is in part based on a press release in no way means that it is unreliable. If HBO publishes a press release saying the latest Game of Thrones spin-off has been cancelled, media outlets report on it, and then so do we. –

At any rate we seem to have established that we both believe the source to be reliable as to the facts described. Perhaps this is indeed all we can do here. Regards, Andreas JN466 13:35, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

• Why are we here? The issue is whether the award, conferred by Radio and TV Advertising Practitioners' Association of India, is notable enough to be accorded a mention which needs to be settled at the talk-page. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:01, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

  What we are here for is to establish to your satisfaction that indiantelevision.com is a reliable source as to the facts described in this article. I take it this has been done. May I assume that going forward, you won't contend that indiantelevision.com fails WP:RS? For your reference, it is currently cited in over 700 articles.

  (Also, just to be clear, Notability is a concept that applies to article subjects, not to article content. Content is governed by WP:V and WP:NPOV.) Andreas JN466 10:02, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

  I did not ever claim the source in question to be unreliable. You won't get to include UNDUE content with these strawman arguments. TrangaBellam (talk) 11:35, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

  You deleted that source, and the sentence sourced to it, in this edit, with the edit summary "Rm unreliable sources + copy-paste of reviews."

  For reference, here are Google Books links about the RAPA awards: [26] Andreas JN466 11:53, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

TheArticle.com

Hi, could I get an assessment on the reliability of this website? I haven't come across it before, or seen it cited in wikipedia. It's based in London, the main editor is Daniel Johnson, with articles by numerous writers. Specifically, can this be treated as a reliable source with respect to the reported death of Brian Eley? (https://www.thearticle.com/brian-eley-the-jimmy-savile-of-chess). There does at least appear to be some degree of editorial oversight here.MaxBrowne2 (talk) 01:22, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Both WP:BLP and WP:REDFLAG apply here, so this would need multiple high quality sources. What I found of an editorial policy for TheArticle ("We check our facts and expect our journalists to do the same") does not seem to rise to the level of a "high quality" outlet. Did not find any history of them correcting previous errors either. The writer of the article, Fiona Pitt-Kethley, is a freelance journalist who previously had her work published by (quoting her article here:) "The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Guardian, The Times, The Big Issue and others". But that this article by her appears in an unheard outlet is not a good sign. In my opinion, the article does not reach the "high quality source" requirement, and multiple high quality sources would be required for inclusion on Wikipedia. Siawase (talk) 08:59, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. The chief editor is Daniel Johnson, formerly of Standpoint. We can expect a conservative/right wing bias, but that shouldn't be relevant when it comes to recording someone's death. He was published in The Times, Telegraph etc so we can expect him to know his trade. Fiona Pitt-Kethley also has credentials as a journalist, and her article indicates she did her research (contact with the Lutheran pastor etc). Sure it would be better if it was published in one of the "papers of record" but I'm worried that we're still going to be saying Eley's alive 50 years from now, because no sufficiently "reliable" source has recorded his death. This is the best source we've got so far cause findagrave is obviously self-published. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 09:56, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm worried that we're still going to be saying Eley's alive 50 years from now considering that our article doesn't say that he's alive now I don't see that's really a concern. At worst we won't be saying that he's dead, and our readers will be capable of concluding for themselves that a man born in 1946 probably isn't still alive in 2072. We have articles on people who lived a lot longer ago which don't explicitly say their subjects died: Wikipedia hasn't fallen because Thutmose (18th-dynasty vizier) doesn't give a date of death, and he lived 3500 years ago!

I agree with Siawase that as this is a major claim about a living or recently-living person, we should look for the highest quality sources, and a single article in an obscure publication without an established reputation is not sufficient. The cost to Wikipedia for not explicitly saying that Eley has died when no major news outlets have reported it seems to be negligible; it would be much worse to wrongly report that he has died. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:44, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

• So... despite being run by an established journalist, despite the editorial oversight, despite the writers who are also established journalists, TheArticle.com is not considered reliable? And is wikipedia going to be the only site on the internet that doesn't acknowledge Brian Eley's death? MaxBrowne2 (talk) 10:54, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Economic Policy Institute is a reliable source for charts

Economic Policy Institute. EPI is not listed at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources.

See this version of Minimum wage in the United States.

Scroll down to the "Historical trend" section. There are 2 graphs using the same 2 sources to create the graphs: the easily found record of US federal minimum wage increases. And Consumer price index values. The more recent graph from EPI is more understandable because it lists the actual peak value of $12.12 in 1968.

But one editor keeps removing the more recent EPI graph because he says Economic Policy Institute, the source of the graph, is an unreliable source. See more EPI graph info on the Commons:

• File:Timeline of the real value of the US federal minimum wage (adjusted for inflation).png

There is no problem with Wikipedia:Verifiability because the chart sources and data are listed in the EPI article: The value of the federal minimum wage is at its lowest point in 66 years. By David Cooper, Sebastian Martinez Hickey, and Ben Zipperer. Posted July 14, 2022. And: Chart by itself. "All values in June 2022 dollars, adjusted using the CPI-U in 2022 chained to the CPI-U-RS (1978–2021) and CPI-U-X1 (1967–1977) and CPI-U (1966 and before)." The data tab below the chart lists all the data used to create the graph.

I think you would be hard pressed to find a more reliable source for data and charts they put out. EPI is run by economists. "Since 2021, the EPI has been led by economist Heidi Shierholz, a former Chief Economist of the Department of Labor."

You may disagree with some of the interpretations, but the data is right there. So it fits with WP:NPOV. In the form of: "EPI uses this chart to claim such-and-such based on this data from these sources." --Timeshifter (talk) 02:03, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Perennial sources is for sources that have been brought up several times on the RSN, but a search for "Economic Policy Institute" only turns up this discussion. As the EPI is a political think tank and activist organization, I would consider it to be reliable only for its own opinion, similar to the Cato Institute. It should not be used to verify statements of fact, and if it's used at all, it should be clear that it's only the opinion of the EPI. If you're trying to verify a fact or statistic, I suggest finding a more authoritative source. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:59, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

The facts are not in question. The chart is not an opinion. EPI is not being "used to verify statements of fact".

EPI just created a graph from facts. Lots of charts and graphs are found on the Commons from all kinds of organizations.

But they can't stay in articles if their data sources are not clear. Whether the organization is left or right leaning has not been important in my experience.

It's the data sources that matter, not the organization.

EPI has not been shown to lie about its sources for charts, etc.. So it is a reliable source in that sense.

Same thing is true for the many charts, graphs, and maps created by editors. If one reads their user pages one clearly sees that most editors lean left or right or whatever. It's their sources that matter as to whether the chart or graph gets put in an article.

The graph is actually in the public domain. See: commons:Template:PD-chart. I uploaded this public domain graph to the Commons. I am left leaning on most issues, independent on others.

So is the graph disqualified because I am left leaning? Of course not. Its data sources are what matters.

So Economic Policy Institute is a reliable source for charts. It lists its data sources. What more do we want from them? Or me? Or any organization or editor that creates charts and maps? --Timeshifter (talk) 08:41, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Here are the graphs from the article version:

Timeline of the real value of the US federal minimum wage (adjusted for inflation). Peak value of $12.12 in 1968.

Timeline of federal minimum hourly wage for nonfarm workers for the United States. Nominal dollars. And inflation-adjusted dollars.

References

--Timeshifter (talk) 07:06, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

The first graph has no y-axis units, which is a huge red flag when it comes to graphs. It appears that it is not WP:TOSCALE, which is incredibly misleading. This is exactly why we don't use information (even graphs) from activist sources. On the other hand, I see no immediate issues with the second one and think it could be quite useful. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 14:31, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

returning to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sheesh! with a different set of RS issues

Above I brought forth a RS regarding this contested subject and have been convinced it should be accorded minimal weight and does not pass the test for RS. However, I believe that there are 3 RS. On a scale of 1-10 in terms of RS, many of the sources are 1s, 2s and 3s. However, I think I have 3 sources upon which a stub could be created that achieves WP:SIGCOV. I don't think this subject is being treated fairly in terms of its presentation of RS in regard to the following three sources:

1. https://www.beyondthestagemagazine.com/surfaces-interview-september-2021/ - This (print magazine with an editorial process) is the main RS that provides coverage of the production of the song (Malibu in-home studio rental), reveals its debut performance details (the night before Lollapalooza and then widely at Lollapalooza), gives a source of quantifiable audience feedback (stream count). This source is independent of the subject and its information alone with corroboration from other RS should justify a stub.
2. https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/enthusiasts/what-is-the-song-in-the-corolla-cross-commercial/ar-AAWXGtN - I think MSN.com is generally considered an RS and is independent of the subject. The depth of coverage that they provided on the subject would be considered SIGCOV without a doubt if they had gotten the story right. In this case they got the story partly wrong, but I think notability is largely conferred based on their coverage of the subject, regardless of whether part of their coverage is misleading. The problem is that they confused the pre-May 2021 use of the sound/slang term with the August 2021 song. The article I presented has fleshed out the details on this correctly. The story also neglects to mention that the Toyota commercial was a Winter Olympics ad campaign (also fleshed out with other sources in the article), but this is an unnecessary detail. IMO, what the article does present is a confirmation of the band and the name of the song in said Toyota commercial.
3. https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2021-10-01/acl-fest-music-recommendations-from-close-to-home/ The Austin Chronicle is by all accounts a WP:RS, although Austin, TX is close enough to College Station, TX that it borders on local coverage, they are independent of the subject and they present the most significant review commentary on the song that we have.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:30, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

https://www.allmusic.com/album/sheesh%21-mw0003585256/credits I think All Music is considered a RS for limited subject matter so I am not sure if that is true for the content it supports here.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:38, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

P.S. I am also not sure whether Ispot.tv is a WP:RS, but the two sources from that domain just provide color (as well as commercial debut dates).--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:30, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Twitter Blue and verified Twitter accounts

Currently, WP:TWITTER notes that In most cases, Twitter accounts should only be cited if they are verified accounts or if the user's identity is confirmed in some way. Recently, Twitter has made changes to what it means to be "verified" on Twitter, allowing any subscriber or Twitter Blue to be marked as "verified". My understanding is that we can't actually verify that an account belongs to a particular person the account claims to be if it is "verified" by virtue of its subscription to Twitter Blue. I would like to get input from other editors regarding how we treat Twitter accounts with the blue checkmark granted by purchasing Twitter Blue when we're applying WP:BLPSPS and WP:ABOUTSELF. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 02:52, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

"verified accounts" should only apply to those with legacy verification blue ticks, which can be distinguished from twitter blue blue ticks, see [27]. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:57, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Legacy verification will be ending within a few months, [28]. Zaathras (talk) 02:59, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

I mean, given Musk's fickle and erratic approach to operating Twitter thus far, I think the timetables on that unlikely to be set in stone. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:02, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Still, we should plan for it. The current plan at Twitter is to turn every checkmark into This account is verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue. Even some legacy-verified users are now showing this after subscribing to Twitter Blue, so the transition has already happened to some. DFlhb (talk) 03:04, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

The obvious solution is just to remove "if they are verified accounts or". That said, no point doing that until it becomes necessary. CMD (talk) 03:08, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

I was about to propose that exact change. And it is already necessary, since the point is that people can currently call themselves "Barack Obama" and buy a blue checkmark for $8. Twitter will ban it, given some time, but checkmarks are no longer sufficiant verification. I'll note that it never was, since it was possible (as Musk recently tweeted, and as I've long had second-hand knowledge of myself) to buy blue checkmarks if you have friends who work for Twitter. DFlhb (talk) 03:21, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Agreed that this seems like the simplest solution. Verification historically was a method of confirming the identity of the account, so the "if they are verified" clause was always redundant anyway. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:35, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't think I'm alone in suspecting that Twitter itself might be ending in a few months. The Financial Times reported two hours ago on an internal email Musk had sent to Twitter staff that Elon Musk, warned that bankruptcy was a possibility. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:07, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Fair, but even Myspace is still around in a reduced form. In any case, Twitter collapsing a few months from now still leaves a few months where we have to deal with Twitter Blue granting bluechecks. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 04:00, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

I actually agree. We should swiftly find that Twitter is unreliable or at least marginally reliable if possible. Because they have apparently abandoned their editorial oversight for the Elon Patreon. Andre🚐 05:36, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Is Twitter not already broadly covered by WP:USERGENERATED, and so inherently unreliable except for the WP:ABOUTSELF/WP:SELFSOURCE criterion? I'm not sure they ever had editorial oversight. Abuse and spam prevention maybe, but not editorial oversight. In any case, adjusting the text for WP:TWITTER-EL seems OK for now. Sideswipe9th (talk) 05:42, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Given their recent changes, an exception or carveout should exempt WP:ABOUTSELF since there are a bunch of verified "Real Elon Musks" running around now. At least until things calm down, a self-tweet from a verified account might just as easily be a scrawled note on a paper airplane thrown by a child. Andre🚐 05:46, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Aaah, yeah, I see what you mean now! Funny, I saw someone verified pretending to be Chiquita earlier, with some dark humour take on the whole banana republic stuff.

I would have said that the alternative for people known for their Twitter presence is to use reliable third-party sources would have covered this situation, but then I recalled that some pretty famous names are leaving the site, and I would assume that those handles will at some point become available for cybersquatting. Unless we want to caveat that caveat with something like and who have not been confirmed to have left the site based on reliable third-party sources? Sideswipe9th (talk) 05:55, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Legacy blue checkmark twitter accounts can be verified from archives prior to the Elon Musks takeover, via archive.org or similar ie [29]. And while people can pick arbitrary display names for twitter accounts now, they cannot take over the url account names. It's also often possible to verify that a social network or blog account, on twitter or elsewhere, belongs to some entity because the official website for the entity links to external communication channels. Siawase (talk) 08:59, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

As Hemiauchenia said above, for however long Elon Musk decides to allow it, it's easier to just click the blue badge and check that way. Endwise (talk) 09:36, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't have any issue with using archived verification, since that system was previously deemed reliable enough. I think the bigger problem in this is what to do going forward. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 14:03, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

• Should we just make a note in the RSP entry for Twitter (WP:RSPTWITTER) that you need to click on the verified badge to check if the account really is verified (or if the user just bought Twitter Blue) before using it as a source? For the time being, while there is still a way to check for "legacy" verification, I think it's still fine to use verified Twitter accounts for e.g. WP:ABOUTSELF purposes. Endwise (talk) 09:36, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

  Assuming you can see that by clicking, agree. It seems unnecessary to declare all the cited "old blue" worthless if there's a reasonable way to tell them apart. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:33, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

• It would be simpler and cause less conflict if we just said it is no longer an RS for information as an SPS. We have now a ton of fake accounts with blue ticks, and at some point (if we allow it) someone will argue "but it's a blue tick". Slatersteven (talk) 12:39, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

  Why not assume competence? Someone can argue it, but they'd never gain consensus. DFlhb (talk) 12:55, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

  To save the time of getting consensus in the first place? Slatersteven (talk) 13:31, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

  Very much agree with this. I think we can grandfather old uses of Twitter, but for the moment, I think at least a moratorium is wise. Things seem to be changing so quickly that any coherent policy response here would be a quixotic endeavor. Cheers, all, and here's to those who sacrificed before us. Dumuzid (talk) 13:38, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

  The chaos continues. Twitter pulls the plug on Twitter Blue, subscriptions and paid-for verification blue checkmark no longer available. But what about those already set up and paid for? I think until this settles down we can't assume anything. Slatersteven (talk) 14:38, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

• We should treat a twitter account representing a specific real person or company, when and only when RS make that connection. Cinadon36 14:44, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

RfC: The Economist

What best describes The Economist's news coverage of transgender topics?

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated

gnu57 13:35, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

This seems to be trying to get a simple answer to a complex question. Reliability on a single issue (such as transgender) is not necessarily determined at editorial level, and could be down to the columnist. Transgender issues vary over social, legal and medical matters. We already have WP:MEDRS which does not regard the popular press as reliable sources for biomedical information, so to the extent that a transgender issue is biomedical, it shouldn't be used. The anonymity of articles in the Economist is a problem wrt judging the reliability of the author. -- Colin°^Talk 14:14, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Bias is not an issue. Slatersteven (talk) 15:25, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

RfC: The Telegraph

What best describes The Daily Telegraph's news coverage of transgender topics?

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated

gnu57 13:35, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Discussion: The Telegraph

• Option 1. This is a standard quality press WP:NEWSORG based in the United Kingdom. It seems to be generally reliable for factual reporting of news, even in politically fraught areas. That being said, no WP:NEWSORG is WP:MEDRS, so it cannot be used to support claims relating to human biomedical information, much in the same way that we should not use the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal for claims relating to human biomedical information.— Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 14:00, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
• This seems to be trying to get a simple answer to a complex question. Reliability on a single issue (such as transgender) is not necessarily determined at editorial level, and could be down to the columnist. The Sunday Telegraph has a different editor. Transgender issues vary over social, legal and medical matters. We already have WP:MEDRS which does not regard the popular press as reliable sources for biomedical information, so to the extent that a transgender issue is biomedical, it shouldn't be used at all. Of the three sources published recently, The Telegraph is the most problematic wrt transgender issues. Its editorial stance is strongly hostile to transgender rights. It publishes trans-hostile articles nearly every single day, and sometimes many on one day. As I posted elsewhere on the 3rd November, a glance at the previous day's news, 2nd November, produced for anti-trans articles:

• Daniel Radcliffe is surely the world’s most ungrateful man: The actor has once again sought to cancel his creator JK Rowling for believing that women are women and trans women are trans women
• Transgender criminal makes history by appearing in court as both a man and a woman: Offences committed by Alan and Alannah Morgan - the same person - heard at Dundee court
• Nicola Sturgeon’s trans crusade will cost her dearly: By allowing herself to be captured by extremists, she has united both nationalists and unionists against her
• Data on trans BBC staff to be collected by Ofcom: Regulator seeks to better understand gender identity of employees at major broadcasters (if you read other sources on this, gender identity is one of many changes in recent diversity questionnaire, which affects all broadcasters, not just the BBC, but trans, and the hated BBC are the only ones to make the title of the Telegraph article).

Given the small number of trans people and the fact that we are in the middle of an economic crisis, political turmoil and a war in Europe, this does suggest the Telegraph has entirely lost its head wrt transgender. The Telegraph routinely uses the transphobic shibboleths such as "transgender lobby" and "extreme trans ideology" or "gender ideology". This is a newspaper that regards the mainstream medical profession as extremists. I think it should be regarded as a radically trans hostile publication and treated accordingly wrt reliability and weight. -- Colin°^Talk 14:33, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

RfC: The Times of London

What best describes The Times' news coverage of transgender topics?

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated

gnu57 13:35, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Discussion: The Times of London

• Option 1. This is a standard quality press WP:NEWSORG based in the United Kingdom. It seems to be generally reliable for factual reporting of news, even in politically fraught areas. That being said, no WP:NEWSORG is WP:MEDRS, so it cannot be used to support claims relating to human biomedical information, much in the same way that we should not use the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal for claims relating to human biomedical information.— Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 14:00, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
• As I said on the other two RFCs, this seems to be trying to get a simple answer to a complex question. Reliability on a single issue (such as transgender) is not necessarily determined at editorial level, and could be down to the columnist. Transgender issues vary over social, legal and medical matters. We already have WP:MEDRS which does not regard the popular press as reliable sources for biomedical information, so to the extent that a transgender issue is biomedical, it shouldn't be used. The Sunday Times has a different editor. The Times published this Editorial which is strongly anti-trans but not as rabid as The Telegraph, such as their agreement that the fuss afforded to this issue is out of place in a world where we are at war and have an economic crisis, and they put the word "woke" in scare quotes. The Times recently published a guest piece by Kezia Dugdale which was pro-trans rights. I'm not clear that this paper is unreliable but its editorial bias is clear and should be bourn in mind when determining the weight and balance in our articles. -- Colin°^Talk 14:36, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

A reminder that Editorials and op-Ed columns are opinion pieces, and are held to a different standard of reliability than strait news reporting. Opinion pieces are expected to be biased on the issues they opine about, so we use in-line attribution to indicate that they ARE just opinion. Blueboar (talk) 15:12, 11 November 2022 (UTC)