Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 407

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Healthline

Is the Healthline website a reliable source? I couldn’t find it on the RSP. Thanks Wolfquack (talk) 21:39, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Almost certainly not for anything of medical significance, no. See Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine). As for anything else, you'll have to be more specific. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:56, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
@AndyTheGrump No I was only wondering if Healthline in general is considered reliable by WP standards. Though I will admit I was vague about it. Wolfquack (talk) 21:58, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
I mean, Healthline is almost entirely medical content and he said that it can't be used for "anything of medical significance". — VORTEX3427 (Talk!) 22:37, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
It should also be noted that not finding it "on the RSP" means nothing. Reliability is always and only assessed by WP:RS and WP:MEDRS and other WP:PAGs, and it is expected that every person editing Wikipedia is competent enough to assess reliability, and permission is never needed to do the right thing. RSP is not a list of all sources in the world, only those that have been controversial enough for us to have discussed them frequently. Don't look to it for any permission or denial. Just assess the quality of the source based on what you know to be the standards, and if it meets those standards, you can use it. If it doesn't meet those standards, don't use it. --Jayron32 11:33, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
@Jayron32 Ok, thank you for explaining (: Wolfquack (talk) 14:24, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
Healthline is definitely not WP:RS and could never be used to support any health, nutrition or medical content on Wikipedia. Their model of writing articles is to present one person - who may be a dietitian, nutritionist or blogger with a MS degree - as the author of articles that have been "medically reviewed", as if such people were medically qualified (they are not).
Among numerous examples is this article on blueberries, proclaiming such nonsense that blueberries are a "superfood" or are "mighty", are "loaded with nutrients" (they have meager nutrient content, as shown here), have diverse and extensive anti-disease effects, and on and on with abundant misinformation, as shown in that deplorable article. Zefr (talk) 17:45, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
@Zefr Haha LOL, not surprising that a media company like Healthline would say that! Thanks for the response. Wolfquack (talk) 22:54, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Is Head Topics a reliable/major source

Head Topics is a tabloid-esque celebrity media site that, for some reason, is used rather extensively throughout Wikipedia. Ground News lists their factual record as "mixed" and compares them to Fox News or the NYP, both are Deprecated sources. They don't have an about us section on their website, and I searched around and can't find anything about their staff or editorial process. Could anyone give me more insight into them and if they are a reliable/major source? Scu ba (talk) 14:16, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  • I would rate Head Topics as completely worthless as a source. Although the site has an "About Us" link at the bottom of its front page, the link just redirects to the front page with no content about the site. The front page also has an illiterate description of the site: "Head Topics, publish breaking news of all around the world. Local headlines and stories are HeadTopics.com immediately." [sic] As far as I can tell, all of the Head Topics' content is copied directly from other sources, which if they are reliable should be cited directly (rather than to the copy appearing on Head Topics), and if they are unreliable should not be cited at all. Furthermore, Head Topics prominently features on its front page both content that is intended to be true and also satirical content from The Onion. For all I know, Head Topics' editorial "staff" could be an algorithm rather than a human editor. Any citations to Head Topics on Wikipedia may need to be replaced with better sources. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 00:17, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

https://www.rebellionresearch.com

Is this source reliable? Specifically, it is used on Battle of Wadi Saluki, I haven't come across this site before, and it seems as if it is just Israeli soldiers view of the matter?

Specifically, it is used to source this sentence in the info-box:

  • Result: Israeli Victory , Israeli troops succeeded to cross the river.

That seems to me a bit simplistic to me, seeing that the Israelis lost 33 soldiers. And this article in Haaretz presents a different view. Comments? Huldra (talk) 22:00, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Wouldn't have thought so. It's an AI research company and the research is likely being pulled together by AI and data analysts, not written by actual historians or military analysts. Now the book they reference, Battle of Wadi Saluki : August 11-13, 2006 : 2nd Lebanon War Written by Efim Sandler, may be and that's a different issue. If it is then that should be the reference, not this pulled together piece. However a cursory search suggests Efim Sandler is ex-IDF and therefore not entirely neutral in this discussion. Canterbury Tail talk 22:40, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
I don't see how they'd be reliable for anything outside of claims about themselves. Per CT above, as well. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:26, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Hank Williams paid ghost-writing claims

According to WP:EXCEPTIONAL, “Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources,” with red flag examples of “Surprising or apparently important claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources; Challenged claims that are supported purely by primary or self-published sources,” and “Claims contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community or that would significantly alter mainstream assumptions.”

Claims of alternative authorship by Paul Gilley of songs traditionally attributed to others have been inserted in multiple pages, Cold, Cold Heart, I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, Crazy Arms, I Overlooked an Orchid, and They'll Never Take Her Love from Me.

These claims have not been covered in mainstream sources, and what coverage they have garnered are scant in both number and details. The two main sources for the claims are a book by Chet Flippo, Your Cheatin’ Heart (1981), a fictionalized biography of Hank Williams, and a self-published book by an athletic-coach-turned-local-historian, W. Lynn Nickell, Paul Gilley: The Ghost Writer in the Sky (2012) (good luck finding a copy). All other coverage, including a 2013 piece by a Kentucky public television station, derive from those two sources. The few critics who have weighed in express skepticism about the claims. 1 2 3

My question is this: are these sources sufficient to warrant a mention in the above mainstream articles? Tom Reedy (talk) 00:02, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

It seems pretty weak and anecdotal. Wikipedia should follow the sources, not lead them. If the mainstream articles do not give the matter any coverage, why would Wikipedia, based solely on a single, obscure source? The distinction between "fringe" and "minor but still important" is always how believers in the fringe theory cast issues. Fringe theory promoters want to have their theories included in Wikipedia, as it's seen as validating and legitimizing the claim. That calls for taking a conservative approach rather than including even poorly sourced and speculative claims. For that reason I'd recommend omitting this claim unless there are additional high-quality sources. Bomagosh (talk) 22:30, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
Your header misrepresents the situation by promoting your definition of the issue as "fringe". The situation at Wikipedia is that you call it fringe, and I call it a minor but still important issue which has been discussed in multiple sources, including Hank Williams historian Bill Koon who was open rather than dismissive. Koon offered praise to Chet Flippo for discovering this aspect in his research. The Paul Gilley songwriter controversy has been in the literature since 1981, and it has been revisited by media observers several times since, with a big boost in 2012 with the Kentucky historian Nickell writing a book about Paul Gilley.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Binksternet (talk • contribs)

What are the good sources for this claim? Nickell is self-published; we can't use that except for Nickell's opinion, unless it can be established that Nickell is an expert in this field. The linked Kirkus review of Flippo is scorching and makes me disinclined to trust it. @Binksternet: what work(s) has Bill Koon written, what did he say about Flippo, and what did he say about this specific issue? Mackensen (talk) 12:03, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Bill Koon first wrote about this issue in 1981, part of a collective book review of three new Hank Williams biographies, including Chet Flippo's work. The 1981 review appeared in The Journal of Country Music, volume 9, page 96. Koon said "Flippo's book is the most interesting of the three" and he praised Flippo's research: "He has ransacked the usual sources, additionally, he has researched Toby Marshall, 'the quack doctor whose prescriptions led to Hank's death,' and Paul Gilley, 'who sold Hanks some of his best-loved songs.' He studied Hank's medical record and autopsy report and gained access to a private collection of papers of Audrey Williams." Note that Flippo's Toby Marshall discovery is currently in the Wikipedia biography, showing that Flippo is not considered an unreliable source in terms of his hard research about Hank Williams. Koon even praised Flippo's decision to fictionalize the prose, giving the narrative "immediacy and fire", contrary to other reviewers of Flippo.
Koon wrote again about Hank Williams in 1983 in a Greenwood Press book titled Hank Williams: A Bio-Bibiliography that surveyed all of the prominent Hank Williams literature. In this work, Koon reworked his earlier Flippo review, writing "Flippo uncovered a wealth of previously unused sources, some of which contained startling information", specifically calling out Flippo's discovery of "Oklahoma state legislature files that detailed the criminal activities of Toby Marshall, the quack doctor whose prescriptions led to Hank's death, and Paul Gilley, who sold Hank some of his best-loved songs". This material was published in a newly reworked form by University Press of Mississippi in 2001 under the title Hank Williams, So Lonesome. Koon sets the scene on page 131:
Koon is cited many times in Wikipedia's biography of Hank Williams. In the cited source, Koon says he got several facts straight from Flippo, such as Hank checking into sanitariums to try and kick his alcoholism. In essence, we are citing the parts of Flippo that Koon has endorsed. Binksternet (talk) 16:34, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
Right, so Koons is primarily a bibliographer. How about biographers? Do biographers accept the claims? Koons is not exactly endorsing Flippo. Also, I would sayNote that Flippo's Toby Marshall discovery is currently in the Wikipedia biography, showing that Flippo is not considered an unreliable source in terms of his hard research about Hank Williams. is a non-sequitur; articles often incorporate unreliable sources until someone thinks to challenge them. Mackensen (talk) 17:45, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
I don't accept your implication that a bibliographer is somehow less reliable than a biographer. Certainly it's true that we cite Koon in the article as a reliable source. In any case, Koon's 2001 book was reworked so much that it presented as a biography, not a bibliography. Through the book Koon offers his own view of Hank's life, supported by many references to other authors and their viewpoints. Binksternet (talk) 06:19, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
He's certainly reliable as a biographer, and as a bibliographer also. Which is why it's telling that Koon doesn't endorse Flippo's claim in his own biography of Hank (the first section of both editions). Tom Reedy (talk) 01:19, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Here's the first paragraph from Wikipedia's content guideline about fringe theories: In Wikipedia parlance, the term fringe theory is used in a very broad sense to describe an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field. Because Wikipedia aims to summarize significant opinions with representation in proportion to their prominence, a Wikipedia article should not make a fringe theory appear more notable or more widely accepted than it is. Statements about the truth of a theory must be based upon independent reliable sources. If discussed in an article about a mainstream idea, a theory that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight, and reliable sources must be cited that affirm the relationship of the marginal idea to the mainstream idea in a serious and substantial manner. How exactly does the Paul Gilley claims differ from that? Reading the Paul Gilley page itself, which is written in a factual manner and mostly based on press releases published in obscure newspapers and a piece from a regional human interest show, makes one wonder how it's not categorized as a fringe theory.

The Hank Williams page is a biographical page based on reliable sources; it's not a bulletin board to post every comment that's ever been made about him. No biographers besides Flippo mentions the Gilley claims, and even he treats it shallowly and neglects to furnish any evidence. Had he offered any kind of evidence, the news would have reverberated throughout the country/western industry. He didn't and it didn't, and all of the "multiple sources" claimed to discuss the topic merely comment on the original claim, they all provide the information about Gilley's putative authorship only in passing ... that is not related to the principal topics of the publication, so citing them as independent sources is merely circular reporting. Since there's absolutely zero evidence for the claims, they have not met with any kind of acceptance and have been largely ignored, and I daresay the only thing keeping them alive is the earnest manner it's treated on the Paul Gilley Wikipedia page. Wikipedia's stated purpose is to fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Including it in the Hank Williams biography page would give it undue weight.

But we're getting away from my original question: are these sources sufficient to warrant a mention in the above mainstream articles? Tom Reedy (talk) 00:02, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Also, I think it is important to see the context from which the quotations from Koon have been taken. You can read the original 1983 review here. The two subsequent Koon essays mentioned above are virtually identical. As you can see, Koon is far from complimentary, and in fact he writes "...Flippo's kind of writing does not admit a means of separating fact from interpretation" (94), and goes on to say "It cannot be counted as traditional biography" (95). It is also interesting to note that in Koon's own biographical treatment of Williams's life, the chapter "The Singer: A Biography," pp. 1-90 of his Hank Williams, So Lonesome (2001) (first published as Hank Williams : A Bio - Bibliography, Greenwood, 1993, so once more we're not looking at three separate commentaries by Koon, but one reprinted three times), Koon doesn't mention Gilley. The discussion of Flippo and Gilley comes up in the bibliography section, the last third of the book. Tom Reedy (talk) 06:11, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Actually, no. Koon greatly reworked his 1983 material for the 2001 book, which is given a completely new title. His views stay consistent but in 2001 he forms his own story about Hank Williams. Tellingly, he said in 2001 that there is a Grand Ole Opry mythology about Hank Williams which many try to protect against well-supported contradictory reports. On page 128 of So Lonesome, Koon says that "the Opry inner circle of the day did not know just what to say because Hank's behavior usually clashed with the wholesome image they had workd hard to cultivate. Unravelling it all has become the work of those of us eager to establish the real biography, and we are many." Koon is saying that biographies of Hank have emphasized too much of the myth of Hank as a "plain country boy" with unquestioned authenticity. Binksternet (talk) 06:19, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
Actually, yes. The copyright page of Hank Williams: So Lonesome clearly states "Hank Williams: A Bio-Bibliography by George W. Koon, was originally published in hard cover by Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1983. Copyright © 1983 by George W. Koon. This edition by arrangement with Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2001 by University Press of Mississippi." The Smithsonian also lists it as a second edition, as indeed WorldCat does.
The biographical section (which I have no objection using as an RS) and the song criticism section are virtually identical in the two editions. The interviews section from the 1983 edition is deleted (which is a loss IMO), and the bibliographical section contains some added sources. But the most important fact for this discussion is that Koon's treatment of Flippo is virtually identical in both editions; he does not expand on the Gilley claim at all. Nowhere does he say that he accepts or endorses the claim, he merely (mockingly) reports that Flippo makes it "without giving us too much evidence." And as I pointed out, he does not include the claim in his biography of Williams at the first part of the book. You want to know what Koon thought about the claim? "I wish that Flippo provided more hard facts and less the air of exposé." Koon does not discuss Gilley's claim, he discusses Flippo's claim, so Koon's bibliographical commentary cannot be used as support for biographical facts. Unless you can come up with a credible, reliable source for the claim, it has no business in the articles I linked to in my initial post, nor should it be added to the Hank Williams page, and the Paul Gilley page should be rewritten to reflect its real-world status. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:26, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
You are setting the bar too high, as if we must prove that Paul Gilley wrote songs and sold them to Hank. All we have to do is tell the reader about the claim, which is treated in multiple reliable sources talking about Hank Williams. The claim by itself is notable; it meets WP:GNG, the basic Wikipedia requirement for notability. Despite this notability, you want to erase it from existence. Your blockade attempt cannot stand. Binksternet (talk) 03:00, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
No, I'm asking for the "multiple reliable sources talking about Hank Williams" in which you say the claim is treated. So far you have one, Koon, who reports that Flippo wrote it. Koon doesn't discuss it other that to wish for some evidence, and he obviously doesn't think it significant or credible enough to include it in his own biographical treatment. No other biographer of Williams even mentions it, and with good reason. You haven't answered any of the questions anyone else has asked you, and you fail to iterate exactly how WP:GNG lends notability to the claim. Newspaper articles giving publicity by quoting press releases are not independent sources; using them is like using a newspaper notice about a Pearl Harbor Day memorial to source the date of the Attack on Pearl Harbor. So far your only argument is assertion. I suggest you read WP:GNG to learn what "significant coverage" entails. Tom Reedy (talk) 05:08, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
That's not how this works. You are making up reasons to relegate the claim to obscurity, despite it being treated by enough sources to bring it up to minor mention status.
The bar is lower than you think for mere mentions of minor issues surrounding the life and career of Hank Williams. At this point, the biography doesn't even name every one of the sanatoriums that Hank checked into, skipping for instance his stay in Prattville, Alabama, in 1945, his time at Madison Sanatorium in late 1949 just north of Nashville, and a period at St. Margaret's Hospital in Montgomery, Alabama in late 1951. There's quite a bit of room for details. The article sits at about 6400 words of readable prose right now, which is not so large as to prevent expansion. Why you are opposed to a small mention of this issue is unexplained; perhaps you are among those who Bill Koon described as the keepers of the myth (Grand Ole Opry types) rather than the searchers for the truth. Me, I'm on the truth spectrum. Binksternet (talk) 22:21, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
"That's not how this works. You are making up reasons" I have been quoting policy; it is you who seem to be making things up. And you don't seem to be able to marshal up any reasons based on policy, just your personal opinion and my motivations as detected by your mind-reading abilities, apparently. The biography page is not being discussed here; it is a work in progress and it will follow published, reliable biographies and not include original research.
"Why you are opposed to a small mention of this issue is unexplained" Are you not reading my comments here? I suggest you scroll up and read my original question that kicked off this board discussion. Tom Reedy (talk) 22:34, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
Comment Seems to me that we lack the number of reliable sources to promote this kind of claim in multiple articles. Anyone can "claim" anything, but it seems like the amount of coverage to warrant including these kinds of claims throughout an encyclopedia needs to be higher than this. Regardless of the language, just reporting the claim serves to legitimize it somewhat, which is why the bar needs to be high. I could write a book, get it published, and claim that my dad wrote several Hank Williams songs, too, but that wouldn't make it so. And it also wouldn't warrant coverage. Rray (talk) 22:16, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
Sources

These sources are certainly enough to show that the issue has been treated by the media. Some of these take the Gilley authorship at face value, most do not. But the songwriting controversy is part of the literature about Hank Williams. Binksternet (talk) 22:46, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

The third one on your list has been dead for quite a while. Here's an archived version of the page, but the interview is lost to the ether. It and the Flavell link are press releases promoting the Nickel book, which has already been ruled unacceptable. The two TV links are actually the same show based on Nickel's book, and as I said earlier, the three Koon sources are identical. Your Black Empemera and Countrymusikkens "sources" are prime examples of WP:OR violations, specifically the sentence "In general, article statements should not rely on unclear or inconsistent passages or on passing comments." If and when a Hank Williams biography or a real music critic significantly covers it, that's when it should be included on main pages. As it is, right now the Paul Gilley page needs to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Tom Reedy (talk) 01:59, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
But the songwriting controversy is part of the literature about Hank Williams. But that's not the test for inclusion in an encyclopedia, or Wikipedia. These aren't based on independent sources. They all reduce to quoting Flippo, many of them explicitly reviews of Flippo's book. Find someone who has independent evidence supporting the claim. Bomagosh (talk) 03:10, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
Actually, the sources from 2012 and afterward are responding to the Kentucky historian Nickell. Nickell's book provides a lot more evidence that Flippo lacked. Nickell talked to locals and dug through records. The media reporting about Nickell's book is what gave this issue its notability on Wikipedia. Before Nickell there was no possibility of a biography about Paul Gilley. Binksternet (talk) 17:51, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
Nickel's self-published book (all of his books were self-published, and he was not a trained historian, nor was he any kind of music expert) doesn't provide any evidence at all, and it is full of errors of fact. He basically interviewed a bunch of people who said that Gilley said he wrote some hit songs (and strangely enough, Gilley never repeated his claims after he left college). On page 177 he writes, "With all the evidence I have presented in this book, I never could find the one thing I was looking for, the evidence, in black and white, no grey area, that Paul Gilley wrote the many hit songs sung by Hank Williams and others." He admits it comes down to belief.
And I think everyone has heard enough from you and me. Let's give it a rest and wait for the result. Tom Reedy (talk) 18:11, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Is bambooecotours.com a reliable source?

Hello, I am reviewing Draft:Echuya Central Forest Reserve and I am not sure if bambooecotours.com is a reliable source. It seems to be a travel guide by a tourism company. Carpimaps talk to me! 02:45, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

@Carpimaps Definitely not an RS, it's a sales site in any case. I'd also stay away from travel guides in general. Doug Weller talk 14:19, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
Definitely not. Tom Reedy (talk) 18:18, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Census of Quirinius

This is about [1]. IMHO, Liberty University is an institution of religious indoctrination rather than an institution of education and research. tgeorgescu (talk) 15:33, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Perfectly reliable. This is an article published in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society and not really anything to do with Liberty. It should be in the article as a relevant scholarly opinion and I notice that the addition was neutrally phrased, presenting it as an opinion, so it's fine. StAnselm (talk) 15:57, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
The author of the study is employed by Liberty University... The question is, is this really due to include to begin with? Wikipedia:Verifiability#Verifiability_does_not_guarantee_inclusion. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:05, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
It's under the subheading "Religious defenses," so it seems appropriately placed to me, though it probably should be part of the first paragraph. Tom Reedy (talk) 18:26, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
IsCroy, N. C. (2022). "Luke's Explanation: The Census under Quirinius". In Escaping Shame: Mary’s Dilemma and the Birthplace of Jesus. Novum Testamentum Supplements. Vol. 187. wplibrary "the grammatical solution" on point here? If so the text and fn 100 lead me to believe there are a number of sources to choose here for the content, and should pick the from the best. fiveby(zero) 18:24, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
And Brindle is one of the scholars cited. StAnselm (talk) 19:19, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
There is nothing wrong with citing this source for this particular purpose, which is to explain "religious defenses", that is, how some Christians defend the accuracy of the Gospel of Luke with regard to the timing of the census described therein. The article is being cited to represent and describe an opinion, not as proof of the statements therein. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 20:35, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society supports Biblical inerrancy, according to our article, which is an ahistorical approach. The journal therefore is not a reliable source for matters of historical fact. It might be cited as an opinion, but that should be with textual attribution that clarifies that the source supports Biblical inerrancy. John M Baker (talk) 23:50, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Wall Street Journal opinions

Presently our RSP entry for WSJ says it is generally reliable for news and to refer to WP:RSOPINION for opinion pieces. I've read the WSJ for many years (long-time subscriber) and have found its news reporting consistently excellent. Its opinion pages? Not so much. Contrasted with, say, the NYT, which rigorously factchecks their opinion pages, the WSJ editorial board has an apparent free speech absolutism ethos that opinions don't need to be factual. They're just opinions, after all. Notably, many WSJ journalists share my concern.[2][3][4]. Like its sister publication, The New York Post, WSJ editorials (in particular) and op-eds have a long history of publishing outright falsehoods. Shameless lies, in fact. I commonly LOL reading them.

Consequently, to preclude editors from using WSJ editorials and op-eds as sources, I propose the RSP entry for WSJ should explicitly prohibit their use. soibangla (talk) 03:59, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. Think Newscorp, Fox News, New York Post, and all owned and controlled by Rupert Murdoch. Not a single letter in any of them exists in the same universe as a true RS. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:06, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
Opinion pieces should not be used to source facts at all, regardless of the outlet. If we're talking about sourcing a fact to an opinion piece, then something has already gone wrong. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:13, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
Outside of relatively rare situations we already preclude editors from using WSJ editorials and op-eds as sources. IMO thats the point of pointing to WP:RSOPINION. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:17, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
I don't defend the essay-class WP:RSP page, but it is a fact that opinions are WP:NOTCENSORED. Occasionally I see arguments about whether some WP:NEWSORG's editorial or regular column or op-ed is WP:DUE, but that's not a WP:RSN concern, and can be argued on the talk page of the article where the item is cited. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:45, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
You appear to be mistaken, WP:RSP is information class not essay class. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:20, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
The page which you link to is WP:ESSAYPAGES, I didn't say essay page, I said "essay-class". See WP:INFOPAGES: "... information pages, like essay pages, have a limited status ..." The top of the WP:RSP page was changed in January without discussion that I noticed, but I don't care since it doesn't change status. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:11, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
WSJ opinion articles should have weight equal to those of NYT or WashPo etc. They should be allowed in the same instances when opinion articles from those other sources would be allowed. As that is very rarely what problem are we trying to solve here? Is there an example article where this issue has come up? Else this doesn't need to be litigated. Springee (talk) 02:48, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Unreliable sources can only be used for ABOUTSELF, especially if BLP is involved. They have zero due weight. Like all content in unreliable sources, if a RS mentions it, we can then use the RS to document the WSJ opinion.

The WSJ opinions, like all things touched by Murdoch, should be downgraded or deprecated to ensure their use is limited to ABOUTSELF situations. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:07, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

  • No need - Opinion and editorials are already severely limited by WP:RSOPINION. It does not matter which outlet they appear in. Blueboar (talk) 15:29, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
    • Not totally true. It still allows attributed use of opinions for non-BLP matters. All Murdoch-related sources are so unreliable, especially for politics, science, and medicine, that they should be limited to only ABOUTSELF situations. Treat all of them like we treat the National Enquirer. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:54, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Depends on the author, as with all opinion pieces. If it is by an expert we accept it if it is on their blog, why would we not because it's in the opinion section of the WSJ? If it is an editorial by the board then potentially attributable to the WSJ board, if it is by an individual contributor without academic expertise then it is out anyway. Do we trust the WSJ to honestly and faithfully reproduce the words of a contributor? Yes. In that case it is the contributor's qualifications that matter. So, in sum, this is a waste of time and no change is needed. nableezy - 02:58, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Like WP:RSOPINION already basically says, it's reliable only for quotes and paraphrases attributed to the writer themselves and WP:DUE is taken on a case-by-case basis, to be discussed on article talk pages in matters under dispute. Plain facts in Wikipedia's voice should basically never be based on newspaper's opinion sections. regardless of which newspaper. Beyond that, however, you're going to need to be specific. Show us what Wikipedia text is being cited to which opinion piece so we can see if it is being used appropriately. --Jayron32 18:01, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose. For starters, the underlying petition from the "many WSJ journalists" that you link as evidence is about an opinion piece called "The Myth of Systemic Police Racism". [5] In it, the author said that the police were not systemically racist, citing a piece of peer-reviewed research[6] that was not retracted until after the opinion piece was released, and was only retracted because the authors were unhappy that theirwork has continued to be cited as providing support for the idea that there are no racial biases in fatal shootings, or policing in general.. In order for the WSJ to have caught this supposed error, they would have needed a better review process than the actual academic journal. You just claim that "WSJ editorials (in particular) and op-eds have a long history of publishing outright falsehoods" and provide no examples of this claim. Your only evidence is that "I commonly LOL reading them" as well as a single petition, as well as other editors that say any publication owned by Rupert Murdoch should be deprecated. Chess (talk) (please Reply to iconmention me on reply) 02:57, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Student publishing services

ProPublica published a piece a few weeks ago on how some companies offer peer-reviewed services to aid in getting into college. The piece raises a question: are they reliable? Journal of Student Research had been discussed 9 years ago, but there are a few more that ProPublica found. I found two articles that cite to jsr.org, Demographics of Shanghai and TikTok food trends. These journals' sole purpose to exchange money for a published article makes me think they're not reliable. SWinxy (talk) 07:22, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Rock in Rio

Rock in Rio (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

There is an article content dispute which comes down to a dispute about what has been reliably reported to be the attendance on 26 January 1991 for the performance of A-ha. I have my own opinions as to which sources are the most reliable, but I am asking for the views of editors who are experienced in reviewing questions of reliability. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:48, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

https://duyt0k3aayxim.cloudfront.net/PDFs_XMLs_paginas/o_globo/1991/01/28/03-segundo_caderno/ge280191003SEG1-1234_g.jpg (the mention is on the second paragraph of the top article)

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=0qX8s2k1IRwC&dat=19910128&printsec=frontpage&hl=en (the mention is at the very bottom of the page)


  • "O trio Pop norueguês teve o maior público não apenas do evento como também de toda a história na época, levando 198 mil pessoas ao Maracanã durante seu show e quebrando recorde do Guinness Book. Ainda assim, os nórdicos acabaram ignorados pela mídia brasileira e mundial mesmo com o sucesso estrondoso de “Take on Me”, que impulsionou toda essa fama."

https://www.tenhomaisdiscosqueamigos.com/2023/05/07/a-ha-rock-in-rio-recorde/

  • "Eles alcançaram sucesso planetário nas décadas de 1980 e 1990. No Brasil, chegaram a tocar para quase 200 mil pessoas. Mas nesta quarta-feira, em São Paulo, se exibem para uma plateia menor. Antes de matar a saudade do público brasileiro, os noruegueses da banda A-Ha conversaram com a repórter Marina Araújo."

https://g1.globo.com/jornaldaglobo/0,,MUL1057248-16021,00-AHA+SE+APRESENTAM+EM+SP+E+NO+RIO.html

  • " In 1991 it set a world record for the largest paying audience for a single band when 198,000 people came to see pop group A-ha."

https://www.britannica.com/place/Maracana-Stadium

  • A-Ha was the big star on January 26, 1991. The fifth artist to perform, in a day with 7 attractions, appeared with some frequency in the country's hit charts and that led many people to Maracanã. The audience record of 198,000 people put the band in the Guinness Book of Records. The Norwegian trio played a show full of hits like “Hunting High and Low” and “You are the One”.

https://rockinrio.com/rio/novidade/retrospectiva-rock-in-rio-26-de-janeiro-de-1991/ Robert McClenon (talk) 15:48, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

BBC Brazil is probably your best bet here. The rest are superfluous. --Jayron32 16:29, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
I've just machine-translated the BBC Brazil link, and the Globo link. They appear to be the same, as in one of them has copied the other. What is more significant is that I don't see where either of them mentions what the audience was for A-ha in 1991. Am I missing something? Robert McClenon (talk) 01:35, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
The specific mention is under an image in the 9th section (Decoradores),O show do A-ha em 1991 foi visto por 198 mil pessoas no Maracanã. Google translate makes thatA-ha's concert in 1991 was seen by 198,000 people at Maracanã. Globo is just reposting the BBC article, and can be ingored..-- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 12:57, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
Maybe I didn't ask the right question, or maybe this is an issue of policy as well as of article content.
My opinion is that, in this case, the relative reliability of journalistic sources may be somewhat different from the relative reliability of historical sources. In Wikipedia, in historical articles, we prefer more recent scholarly assessments over less recent ones. In this case, are the reports immediately after the event more reliable? Maybe User:JimboB and User:Mortyman should explain their points of view here. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:29, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
i only saw this now. I wasn't aware that I was allowed to post here. I imagined that, for being one of the parties, I should keep out of this space. Sorry about the misunderstanding.
The first two sources that Robert shared here are the ones I champion. They come from reputed Brazilian newspapers with their own pages on Wikipedia. Here they are, for reference. They are in Portuguese, but I could provide translation in case someone asks me to.
https://duyt0k3aayxim.cloudfront.net/PDFs_XMLs_paginas/o_globo/1991/01/28/03-segundo_caderno/ge280191003SEG1-1234_g.jpg (from O Globo; the mention is on the second paragraph of the top article).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Globo
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=0qX8s2k1IRwC&dat=19910128&printsec=frontpage&hl=en (from Jornal do Brasil; (the mention is at the very bottom of the page)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jornal_do_Brasil
These were published two days after the performance, in January 28, 1991, by writers who were in the actual event and collected audience numbers directly from organizers and/or city officials. I argue that no one is more entitled to say how many people were at an event than someone who was actually there and collected their numbers first hand.
The links that the other editor, Mortyman, provides are all recent and echo a bombastic version that A-ha fans have been promoting for years: that the band attracted a record audience of 198.000 to Maracanã, purportedly the biggest audience of all time for a single act (a claim which is, in itself, inexact for it was a music festival and no less than seven acts performed on that night).
The exact origin of Mortyman's numbers is lost in time. They started doing the rounds in the 1990's, when the original sources I bring were simply unavailable unless someone could pay a visit to o Globo or Jornal do Brasil's headquarters and search their archives personally. Meanwhile, fan clubs were pushing their own story in their own channels. In the 2000's, when Rock in Rio emerged from a long hiatus, that version had acquired a semblance of truth and even reputed sources started echoing it since it was more widely available. Hence the confusion.
I believe my links, who come straight from the mouth of the historical fact, so to speak, reestablish the truth.
I'm available in case anyone wishes to discuss this. Thank you. JimboB (talk) 02:41, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
I am sorry. I was not aware of this post in this discussin bord, so I am a bit late. I am of the belief that I have provided a multitude of various sources both on A-ha's 198.000 audience number and also the fact that Maracana back then, before uppgrades in recent years, could accomidate such audience number, wich is something that JimboB has also argued that is not correct. I have now provided sources from BBC, Globo, Britannica, Guinnes Book of Records and two sources from the official Rock in Rio website. Why would Rock in Rio mention A-ha of all bands and not some bigger international act or local band for such a big audience number if it was not true ? Mortyman (talk) 13:55, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
A quick addendum, with a very simple compromise I can accept: that the article simply doesn't mention which was the biggest audience for that particular edition of Rock in Rio, since this isn't mentioned at all for most of the other editions. If the information is contentious and not central to the article, leave it out. That I can accept. JimboB (talk) 15:39, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

https://www.guyanatimesinternational.co and guardian.co.tt

Earlier this month, I created an article for the Trinidadian and Tobagonian musician Raymond Ramnarine. (It is currently a draft, at Draft:Raymond Ramnarine). He has plenty of mentions in Guardian Trinidad & Tobago (guardian.co.tt), which is used as a source in many other articles about Trinidad and Tobago, such as List of prime ministers of Trinidad and Tobago. From its widespread use in Trinidad and Tobago - related articles and the fact that, per WP:RSPSS, The Guardian is a reliable source, I am pretty sure other countries' Guardian magazines are also reliable sources, but I just wanted to make sure.

I am far less sure about Guyana Times International. I have used an article from that newspaper site as a source for the information in my article about Raymond's performance in a January 2013 singing contest. Is Guyana Times International a reliable source? Thanks. Seckends (talk) 17:39, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Just to be clear The Guardian and the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian are completely unrelated, and other countries with similarly named sources are also unrelated for reliability purposes. Saying that the TT Guardian has been in print since 1917, and is a reliable source in itself. Guyana Times International (.com not .co) gives me pause, it appears to be defunct and it's postings on chloroquine don't inspire confidence. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:29, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

What-when-how.com

I recently came across an article from http://what-when-how.com/ used as a reference. It looks like an unreliable source to me, since many of the articles are copied from elsewhere and others are of very poor quality, and I get a feeling they might be compiled by an AI. Some examples:

All in all, it looks like a very poor source to me, but it is used in several articles on en.wikipedia. However, I am unsure how to go on from here. Sjö (talk) 18:01, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

They say the site was started by ADARP NGO, the only mention of which online is this site. They have obviously already had copyright issue as the copyright page goes says that the DMCA notices they have received are all "fake". Neither page shows they understand how commas and spaces work together. I doubt we should like to the site at all, let alone use it's for referencing. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:41, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
I didn't find this old discussion until now and thought it might be relevant: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 192#Is what-when-how.com ever a reliable source?. There are 100 references to the site in the article name space so it is something of a problem. Can it be blacklisted? Or should I tag all references with "unreliable source", or would it be against the rules to simply remove them? Sjö (talk) 05:30, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
Per WP:BOLD you can remove references you believe are unreliable and replace them with {{citation needed}} tags. If editors disagree with the removal further discussion here would be warranted. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:30, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

https://www.avetruthbooks.com/

Should Wikipedia allow this website [7] to be displayed in urls of books that the website has free access to? I would say no. Why, well let's first get into the most pressing matters - they are genocide deniers, of the Armenian genocide specifically. I have already taken screenshots in case they try to hide it, but here are a few examples (look at the hashtags too);

[8] [9]

This is the type of stuff that the website hosts, which also includes tons of books published in Azerbaijan, which is well-known for its Armenian genocide denial and historical negationism. HistoryofIran (talk) 12:28, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

This sounds like more of a question for Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard; do you have an example usage in an article? Mackensen (talk) 12:56, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
I see, so I guess I should make a thread there? And do you mean an example where the link of the site is used? HistoryofIran (talk) 12:59, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
Yes. To expand, if the question is about the reliability of the source then yes, we should discuss that here. If the question is about linking to various sources on this site, regardless of the reliability of the sources themselves, then I'm not sure that discussion belongs here (and yes, I agree that seems like a bad idea). Mackensen (talk) 14:30, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#External links: concerns over copyrights and genocide denial. Mackensen (talk) 14:32, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
I think you've got the wrong end of the stick here. It's not that they're a genocide denialist site -- they claim to hose 250,000 books, and their Twitter feed just seems to be a listings of the books they add. Finding two books in their collection that may have content of concern is not proof of anything; your local library has some crap things if you look closely enough. They're not the real publishers of the books in question, so it's not a question of whether they are a "Reliable source" beyond whether they present unaltered versions of the books in question. No, the real problem is that they appear to be a pirate site, which would make linking to them very much against WP:ELNO. (It is a concern though that you are trying to rule out possible reliability based on the language used. Great and horrible things are written in all languages.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 15:20, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
As long as they are faithful reproductions of the works then it's not an RS issue. However if they are faithful reproductions of unlicenced copyrighted works that's an entirely different issue. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 16:02, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
I agree with you, NatGertler. Though that wasn't precisely what I was trying to imply. I hastily wrote this comment as I had to go to work, my bad. Anyhow, I guess whatever I now say say here is all irrelevant now, considering I posted it in the wrong thread and an ANI discussions is now up. --HistoryofIran (talk) 11:25, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
As I stated elsewhere although the source might be reliable doesn't mean it's not a copyvio that should never be linked to. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 11:50, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
That too! I briefly completely forgot about that one. --HistoryofIran (talk) 12:15, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Massive disregard of wp:RS (and wp:NOTNEWS) on Russo-Ukrainian war topics

I hate to be essentially dragging up a dead horse here, but once again, there's a serious disregard for reliable sourcing on russo-ukrainian war topics. For example, as of today, we have this: [10], where while the sources themselves seem reasonably reliable, the unclear content they report is repeated uncritically, without any editorial discretion on not including unconfirmed or rapidly changing facts. Frankly, phrases likeIf reports are true should never be found on an encyclopedia. BrxBrx(talk)(please reply with {{SUBST:re|BrxBrx}}) 19:21, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

@BrxBrx The phrase in question seems a paraphrase from Ref 2:The alleged incursion would be the largest attack of its kind since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. On the surface, I don't see an issue with it. Could you explain why you think we shouldn't write something like that? Is there a policy or guideline against this? Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:15, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
@Nederlandse Leeuw:, yes I believe the relevant policy is WP:NOTNEWS, in particular, part 1: paraphrasing or repeating first-hand reports would make wikivoice into a primary source. I personally subscribe to the WP:NOTNP interpretation as well - we are not here to be journalists; we are not here to ingest firsthand reports and re-syndicate that: that's the job of news agencies. BrxBrx(talk)(please reply with {{SUBST:re|BrxBrx}}) 23:48, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
Fair enough, that seems reasonable. I agree we should not use such phrases. It might also skirt WP:CRYSTALBALL in the sense of predicting something to be confirmed eventually. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 23:54, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Is Life.ru reliable?

Life.ru, a pro-Kremlin online newspaper is used to cite the life stories, political affiliations, and military claims of various Russian groups in Ukraine, namely the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom of Russia Legion. According to their own Wikipedia page they have a close relation with the Russian security services, have straight up made up reports, and have been banned off YouTube for being pro-Kremlin propaganda. Should I remove any citations from these guys? or are they actually a reliable source of information. Scu ba (talk) 15:41, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Just no. Volunteer Marek 15:55, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
Obviously not reliable. Per WP:CANVASS, we can't tell you what to do or not to do. Is the number of citations large enough that a deprecation discussion is needed? Adoring nanny (talk) 15:59, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
@Adoring nanny: you linked the wrong thing, canvassing is about soliciting participation in a discussion not offering suggestions on edits to articles. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:27, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
Interesting, I had always thought of WP:CANVASS to include asking someone to do something. But you're right, it doesn't say that. Is it really OK to ask someone to do something such as remove a particular source? Adoring nanny (talk) 20:32, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
As long as there isn't something wrong with the edit in another way (say you were using it to harass a third party, are in an edit war over the issue already, or you knew it wasn't verifiable) its by my understanding ok. Anyways I take Scu ba's comment as more asking for permission than instruction per say. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:43, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
Scu ba hasn't asked anyone to do anything, they asked if they should remove the references as they suspected the source was unreliable. That's not canvassing, it's the purpose of this noticeboard. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:51, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
Not reliable, this is a tabloid like Daily Mail. Alaexis¿question? 16:12, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
Owned by Aram Gabrelyanov, who is a propagandist per his own words"We tell the truth -- of course -- but we tell it the way that will lead the audience to the conclusions we need. That is what our country, our ideology, needs." Should be removed on sight. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 16:21, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
FacepalmFacepalm If you always start with "the conclusions you need", there is no way to guarantee you have arrived at, or will ever arrive at, "the truth". This is confirmation bias 101. Completely unreliable by definition. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 22:46, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
I agree with this. This needs to be cross-verified against other sources, judged on case to case basis, etc. After quick checking, I found only a couple of pages where using this source for specific claims was clearly problematic and fixed them. My very best wishes (talk) 20:34, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
If the remaining refs are not contentious bthey can probably be sourced to something better than this. It does appear that the entire journalistic staff was fired and replaced someone point after Aram took over, so older refs might be reliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:46, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
You provided zero examples. So I will. Article Responsibility for the Russo-Georgian War, section Other reports by Russian media, beginsOn 4 August 2008, Life.ru reported that after the end of the "Kavkaz 2008" exercises, the paratroopers from Pskov remained to occupy the key positions on the Roki and Mamison passes on the border. (Added on 22 September 2014 by UA Victory.) That's attribution along with explanation of the source's nature. Never questioned on the talk page. I oppose this context-free ban-without-question suggestion. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:15, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
This is certainly an example of usage, but how does it disprove that that Life.ru is a tabloid and is not generally reliable? The fact that no one has challenged it isn't enough. For the record, I don't support a blanket ban either, Unreliable would be sufficient. Alaexis¿question? 18:08, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
I won't try to disprove what I regard as irrelevant. In a section titled "Other reports by Russian media", asking to remove cites of Russian media makes as much sense as asking re The Communist Manifesto article: "Should I remove any citations from these guys?" Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:42, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
God hell why a Putin-Kremlin sources is reliable? -Lemonaka‎ 00:57, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Would Inner-City News be reliable for BLP information?

link I could not find anything about this source so I would like additional input. Carpimaps talk to me! 10:36, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Is there a particular article you're interested in, and what details do you want to add? BLPs have more stringent sourcing requirements, and a blanket response isn't possible. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:10, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
I am reviewing this draft: Draft:Iman Uqdah Hameen. Carpimaps talk to me! 03:21, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
Yes it looks reliable, it has a editorial team and belongs to professional associations. Also the details seem non-contentious. If the details were of a more contentious issue then I would suggest a better source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 09:20, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

saints.ru

I would think that websites about saints in general are unreliable, because they are often written from a devotional (promotional) perspective about the person who has been canonised as a saint. Typically they don't seem to be scholarly in any way, citing publications or anything, but full of praise about what a great person they were (WP:POV). I'm only asking because I haven't seen "saints.ru" discussed in the archives, and http://www.saints.ru/ya/5-Yaropolk-Izyaslavovich.htmlhas been in use in Yaropolk Iziaslavich, ever since that article received "Good article" status on 31 March 2008. But I'm getting the impression that "Good article" status is not/no longer warranted for various reasons, and this website (which is used in other bios as well) is one of them. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 16:51, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

I agree. There are many good sources about Russian historical figures and we absolutely don't need to use such a source. The only legitimate use I can see is to confirm his canonisation and maybe briefly describe why he was made a saint. Alaexis¿question? 20:00, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Yes, perhaps. If saints websites are only invoked for supporting such basics, we don't have to remove / replace them. But I suppose such basic details can probably also be found in a more reliable source, which should be preferred at all times if available. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 20:52, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
I don't think such a site is usable even for such information as that. Scholarly works or official institutional websites would be. —DIYeditor (talk) 10:39, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
Agreed that the numerous amateur religious sites are a perennial thorn in our side, saints.ru doesn't appear to be a reliable source it looks like an amateur religious site. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:25, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
Seconding HEB above, except that the website seems to be maintained by Holy Trinity Novo-Golutvin Monastery. So to what degree it is amateur, I am not sure. But it is certainly not academic. We should avoid this for anything remotely controversial/non-neutral, at minimum. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:32, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
Well said. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 13:00, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
In general, the term used for the writing about the saints of any religious denomination by the faithful of that denomination is hagiographic, and writing in Wikipedia about saints, or anyone else, should be neutral. So yes. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:31, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
This is a local Church website [11] and as such is a poor source. My very best wishes (talk) 17:22, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Is NEWSONE a reliable source for Foundational Black Americans?

Here's there "about" page[12], not encouraging. The second source only says "Several Black Americans, like Way, whose ancestors were enslaved, said in public comments to the OMB that they would like to be identified in a category such as American Freedmen, Foundational Black Americans or American Descendants of Slavery to distinguish themselves from Black immigrants, or even white individuals born in Africa, as well as reflecting their ancestors’ history in the U.S." The third source says "Some of the possible terms that have been discussed for Black individuals who are descendants of slavery are “American Descendants of Slavery,” “American Freedmen” and “Foundational Black Americans.” Looks to me as though we only have two reliable sources which mention them once and do not suggest it's at all widely used. Doug Weller talk 08:51, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

The "About Us" page is, indeed, not encouraging for establishing how important they find producing and providing reliable information through editorial review. Their main concern seems to be how many people they reach with their "brand", listing all their affiliated brands. In other words: making money. Perfectly legitimate business, but not what we need in an WP:RS. Otherwise I don't see any NPOV issues with the About page (e.g. "diverse opinions").
I agree that it seems like we don't have WP:SIGCOV for the topic Foundational Black Americans yet. This is not a well-established concept yet, just one of several competing terms that are being suggested in certain circles to identify a certain group of people. (If this were a CfD, this would probably fall under WP:NONDEFINING/WP:COP-HERITAGE:The heritage of grandparents is never defining and rarely notable. But articles follow different rules). Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 11:01, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
The term American Descendants of Slavery is mentioned each time Foundational Black Americans is used, this is probably better handled as a section of that article. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 11:49, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
Sounds about right. Merge to American Descendants of Slavery.
About newsone.com's reliability.... I'll just drop this here: https://newsone.com/742485/the-11-most-compelling-911-conspiracy-theories/ with a nice little See also section: For more NewsOne coverage of conspiracy theories, click here. SEE ALSO: Five Celebrities Allegedly Tied To The Illuminati. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 17:19, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
Most of the original reporting on actual news stories, where bylines exist beyond "NewsOne Staff" seems to be to legitimate journalists. However, a lot of the content is fluffy listicles like shown above. I think stories from the site with a credited ByLine to a legitimate journalist with a CV that we can verify is likely OK, but that's only a small amount of content. I would put it in the same category as stuff like Cheddar (TV channel) or Buzzfeed (back when it had news) or the like; individual actual-news-articles from the source are probably fine, but the bulk of the content is just clickbait that has little use at Wikipedia. Individual news articles should carry the reliability of the journalist in the byline, but for content on historical matters, find an actual historian, for articles on scientific matter, find a scientist, etc. --Jayron32 18:35, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
That may be an apt assessment. Something with "on a case-by-case basis"? I think I've used Cheddar once as a source (it was a video that provided its sources that were very easy to verify), and BuzzFeed... preferably not if a more reliable source says the same thing. On closer inspection, the other items within the "conspiracy theories" category of newsone.com weren't that click-baity, and usually about why a certain conspiracy theory was not true, or harmful towards Black Americans (newsone.com's target audience). I've also seen some Google Books use newsone.com in their footnotes. Still, the quality control does not seem to be very high. A serious journalistic news site would not throw around lists of 11 conspiracy theories that might actually be true, and just embed a bunch of low-quality videos to lead people to believe in these CTs, with a bunch of links below to share it everywhere on social media. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:56, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
Doesn't seem like a notable topic from what I could find, probably should be a redirect to Tariq Nasheed who is the primary proponent and creator of this term. I changed the article to be singular and the title italicized since it is about a term rather than a literal topic. —DIYeditor (talk) 10:52, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Netflix documentary as a source

Attributed uses of a Netflix documentary in Roger Stone were removed by @49ersBelongInSanFrancisco: saying that 'Netflix documentary is a very tenuous source for a controversial BLP'. I think we'd be cutting ourselves off if we don't allow ducumentaries in the biographies of controversial people, and that in general they should be treated like books. Is there a guideline on this or what do people think about it? NadVolum (talk) 07:47, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

I think it's similar to WP:YouTube: it depends. Both are video platforms, one of which has an open end (YouTube) and the other doesn't (Netflix), but reliable and unreliable sources can be found in both. Notoriously unreliable documentaries can also be found on Netflix (e.g. Ancient Apocalypse has been panned aspseudoarchaeological by experts such as Peter Hadfield (journalist) (Part 1, Part 2), so just because Netflix has a closed end doesn't mean it's suddenly always reliable. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 08:10, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
THat's exactly what happens with books too, but we seem to allow books about people. NadVolum (talk) 08:18, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
The issue with Netflix is that we can't consider it a reliable publisher; it regularly publishes nonsense that it claims as fact. Instead, we need to assess each documentary individually; I don't know anything about the Roger Stone documentary and so can't comment on it. BilledMammal (talk) 08:34, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
What BilledMammal said: assess on a case-by-case basis. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 08:36, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
Expanding on that comment: The documentary is Get Me Roger Stone and thankfully there are links to two reviews, and there probably are more reviews. So I guess it comes down to what the reviews say and whether the writers/directors Dylan Bank, Daniel DiMauro and Morgan Pehme have a reputation for fact-checking or not. Sjö (talk) 08:55, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
I could have been more clear in my commentary, thank you to all who joined the discussion. My reasoning is that this movie is closer to a self-published book than a book published by a reliable publisher. The problem isn't that it's distributed via Netflix; per @BilledMammal, @ActivelyDisinterested and @Nederlandse Leeuw there are both reliable and unreliable sources on Netflix. But this one doesn't appear to have been produced by a known studio that would give some indication of fact-checking and reliability. The reviews mentioned in Get Me Roger Stone seem to indicate that the producers have a POV (e.g., the executive producer said viewing footage of Trump's election "was making me physically ill"[13], Stone called it "a liberal hit piece"[14], etc). Other reviews don't give a plus or minus to reliability/POV (e.g., no comment in The Atlantic [15] or the LA Times[16] about reliability/accuracy). This isn't a hill I'm willing to die on, but it seemed like the claim in the Stone article could have been better sourced than an independent documentary. 49ersBelongInSanFrancisco (talk) 04:47, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
Generally Netflix documentaries should be handled with skepticism, they've published some absolutely nonsense. The documentaries range in quality from docu-tainment to fringe/conspiracy bull#π&%. Get Me Roger Stone appears to be at the better end of the scale, but maybe be careful with selfserving statements by the subject. If possible just find a better source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:48, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
I think one should always treat what a person says about themselves as something to be attributed to them rather than taken as fact! NadVolum (talk) 11:22, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
My point was that what a person says about themselves isn't always due, not that they should be treated as fact. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 11:34, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
I'd say usable for what Stone says about himself in the piece, but I'm not sure I'd use it for much beyond that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:33, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
  • The original text removed, with things clearly attributed to Stone or the reporter, seemed fine. Netflix is not a publisher as such, more a distributor, and case to case is the way to go. Of course Stone himself is about the least reliable source imaginable, but the article seems well aware of that. Johnbod (talk) 16:47, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
A side point that while Netflix is primarily a distributor they do also publish some original content. See List of Netflix original programming for more. Thats not really relevant to this particular case though as it does not appear that Get Me Roger Stone was produced by Netflix. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:52, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Mushtaq Soofi's Dawn article

For the page Damodar Gulati - Modern scholarship has delineated Gulati as Punjabi Hindu courtier. A Dawn article authored by Mushtaq Soofi contends that he may have been either a Hindu or a Sikh [17]- Mushtaq Soofi is a columnist and a professor of Punjabi at the Institute for Art and Culture in Pakistan [18]. I wasn't able to find reliable sources that speak to IAC's stature as an academic institution, including Pakistan's HEC [19], although IAC is a recognized institution. I want to ascertain whether Soofi is a reliable source here before adding or deleting any content sourced through him on the Gulati article. Thanks Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 03:24, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Ukraine UAP Study

In the light of NASA now also looking into UAPs (https://www.youtube.com/live/bQo08JRY0iM) ...

I find the Ukrainian UAP study very interesting. But before I add sightings from the study to the List of reported UFO sightings first I would like to ask the experts here if the it qualifies as (WP) "reliable source"?

Link Part 1: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2208.11215

Quoting: 》Conclusions

The Main Astronomical Observatory of NAS of Ukraine conducts a study of UAP. We used two meteor stations installed in Kyiv and in the Vinarivka village in the south of the Kyiv region. Observations were performed with colour video cameras in the daytime sky. A special observation technique had developed for detecting and evaluating UAP characteristics. There are two types of UAP, conventionally called Cosmics, and Phantoms. Cosmics are luminous objects, brighter than the background of the sky. Phantoms are dark objects, with contrast from several to about 50 per cent. We observed a broad range of UAPs everywhere. We state a significant number of objects whose nature is not clear. Flights of single, group and squadrons of the ships were detected, moving at speeds from 3 to 15 degrees per second. Some bright objects exhibit regular brightness variability in the range of 10 -20 Hz. Two-site observations of UAPs at a base of 120 km with two synchronised cameras allowed the detection of a variable object, at an altitude of 1170 km. It flashes for one hundredth of a second at an average of 20 Hz. Phantom shows the colur characteristics inherent in an object with zero albedos. We see an object because it shields radiation due to Rayleigh scattering. An object contrast made it possible to estimate the distance using colorimetric methods. Phantoms are observed in the troposphere at distances up to 10 -12 km. We estimate their size from 3 to 12 meters and speeds up to 15 km/s.《

Link Part 2: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2211.17085

》Conclusions

The Main Astronomical Observatory of NAS of Ukraine conducts a study of UAP. We used two meteor stations installed in Kyiv and in the Vinarivka village in the south of the Kyiv region. Observations were performed with color video cameras in the daytime sky. A special observation technique had developed for detecting and evaluating UAP characteristics. There are two types of UAP, conventionally called Cosmics, and Phantoms. Cosmics are luminous objects, brighter than the background of the sky. Phantoms are dark objects, with contrast from several to about 50 per cent. Two-site observations of UAPs at a base of 120 km with two synchronized cameras allowed the detection of two variable objects, at an altitude of 620 and 1130 km, moving at a speed of 256 and 78 km/s. Light curves of objects show a variability of about 10 Hz. Colorimetric analysis showed that the objects are dark: B -V = 1.35, V -R = 0.23. We demonstrate the properties of several phantoms that were observed in Kyiv and the Kyiv region in 2018-2022. Phantoms are observed in the troposphere at distances up to 10 -14 km. We estimate their size from 20 to about of 100 meters and speeds up to 30 km/s. Color properties of bright flying objects indicate that objects are perceived as very dark. Albedo less than 0.01 would seem to make them practically black bodies, not reflecting electromagnetic radiation. We can assume that a bright flying object, once in the troposphere, will be visible as a phantom. All we can say about phantoms is to repeat the famous quote: "Coming from the part of space, that lies outside Earth and its atmosphere. Means belonging or relating to the Universe".《

wikt:ELI5:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E2ZSlLH0TzE

Foerdi (talk) 17:44, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Its a bit of a nitpick, but do they say UAPs are UFOs? Slatersteven (talk) 17:53, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
They don't. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:59, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
According to WP itself an Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon is an UFO (redirects there). Are we seriously discussing the fact that UAP is synonymous to UFO now? Foerdi (talk) 19:02, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
Nothing in the study would validate adding anything to List of reported UFO sightings. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:59, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
I am really interested in your train of thought. Can you please elaborate / give examples as what you would see as "validates adding"? Foerdi (talk) 19:04, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
Any source which talks about a reported UFO sighting. This one does not. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:08, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
See my reply above. UAP = UFO Foerdi (talk) 19:10, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
And is there any independent reliable source which talks about a reported UFO sighting or is it just the primary source? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:18, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
I did not know the concept of reliable source is based on web of trust, where you must be invited to the club by existing reliable sources? Is there some documentation regarding this rule somewhere in WP? I can accept if this is one of the mandatory criteria, but honestly it is hard for me to understand the sense of it (thinking of the scenario where one malicious existing so called "reliable" source could introduce many fake reliable sources if it is really that easy) Foerdi (talk) 19:26, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
A source which did that wouldn't be reliable. The message you should be getting is this: even if the source is reliable you shouldn't be adding anything to List of reported UFO sightings based on a single source. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:36, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
perhaps we could say their multi-site and multi-sensors approach (more than one meteor observations stations located in different cities, with each using multiple cameras) qualifies as "secondary source(s) (LightTM)"? Probably not in your eyes... Foerdi (talk) 19:33, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
Thats just not what the terms mean, a secondary source would be another article which talked about the findings in this article or an article in the popular press about it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:36, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
Quick Google Search results:
... and so on Foerdi (talk) 19:42, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
Then what are we doing here? Use those instead of the pre-print. Its more a WP:DUEWEIGHT than reliability question. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:51, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
Like I said, I had the naive mindset that also the upstream source (the study / PDFs) to all the media articles must itself qualify as reliable in the eyes of WP. Not only the media which talk about the study. But I get it, the media is reliable, they vetted their upstream sources in the eyes of WP. OK, great, then I can go ahead ... Foerdi (talk) 19:55, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
I think you still aren't understanding what WP:RS means and how it differs from WP:DUEWEIGHT. Perhaps I am not the on who will be able to make this educational breakthrough with you. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:11, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
As it's a pre-print I would suggest it shouldn't be used for anything contentious unless other reliable sources treat it as reliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:38, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Please note wp:rsp, Wikipedia is not an RS. Slatersteven (talk) 08:15, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Is warheroes.ru a reliable source?

A previous banned user, user:PlanespotterA320 has imported a lot of photos, descriptions and other information from this site. However, after checking a little bit, this is a user-generated content site.
Related discussion on WP:ANI is Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#user:PlanespotterA320 and aftermath. -Lemonaka‎ 01:11, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

For more information, please read about this site. -Lemonaka‎ 01:14, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
What makes you think it's user-generated? I didn't find a way to edit or add information there, and they have a team of editors [20]. This is not to say it's necessarily reliable, the best indication of that would be other RS using their data. Alaexis¿question? 19:54, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Last two paragraphs of about pages (although translated by machine) indicating that they are based on one hand sources. -Lemonaka‎ 20:02, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Yeah they do ask people to send them information but my understanding is that they exercise the editorial control over what they publish. They also list the sources for any given page (e.g., [21]). Alaexis¿question? 06:42, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
As can be seen from the team page the people running this site are hobbyists, so it shouldn't be considered a reliable source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 12:53, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
Not a reliable source, its an amateur military history group blog of the kind we've addressed many times. This is however I believe the first such foreign language source we've dealt with at RSN. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:15, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
FWIW, I remember I had a discussion with user:PlanespotterA320 about this source on the talk page of Alexander Prokhorenko. Difool (talk) 06:08, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
This source is a typical secondary source: they took information from other sources, study, summarize and contribute it to the site.
It is even better for wiki.
Also anyone who is not lazy and can search through "Google books" can easily find sources verifying all claims made there. Kursant504 (talk) 12:46, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

How is this even a question? The very URL and name of this website (unless it was sarcastically intended, which it clearly isn't) is a violation of WP:NPOV. The About Us page confirms the site's purpose as WP:PROMO ("popularisation") of certain people as "war heroes" of the Soviet Union and Russian Federation: ...we pay tribute to the memory of many of those who selflessly built and strengthened our country, and those who heroically defended it. Ye, nah mate. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 23:16, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

We have a ton of articles on Medal of Honor award recipients based mainly on US government promotion of those people as war heroes. The fact that this site is writing these articles because they feel patriotic isn't a reason to ignore them. If we are ignoring the sources, it would because it's a hobbyist website. That being said, Andrey Simonov is (according to an article written by PlanespotterA320) a published author in this field, works on the mentioned blog, and is also a Wikipedia editor. He links his account on the website, [22] and is an active editor over at the Russian Wikipedia as User:Андрей Симонов. Maybe the best solution to this issue would be to just ask him to contribute to User:Lemonaka/Factcheck? He is likely familiar with his own website and would have access to the original sources. If there are articles cited entirely to this website, it may be simpler to just ask the website for sourcing details than it would be for us to try to refactor every article on our own. Chess (talk) (please Reply to iconmention me on reply) 00:21, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
Medal of Honor award recipients based mainly on US government promotion of those people as war heroes. That is an official designation, so that is a different case. Indeed, the hobbyist nature of this website (a group of like-minded enthusiasts in order to popularise the history of the peoples of the Soviet Union and its successor, the Russian Federation, using the example of the military exploits of the defenders of the Fatherland, as well as the glorious deeds of the working people.), where regular citizens start unofficially promoting certain people as "war heroes", is the problem. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 08:27, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
We also have a ton of articles on the winners of Russia's highest award for bravery. Slatersteven (talk) 12:07, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
If these are official rewards, reported by a reliable source, that is fine. What is not okay is random sources randomly assigning random praises, heroisations and glorifications to random people according to their own random personal POV. This goes for any country or nationality, of course; such random websites exist across the planet. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 13:55, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
PS: See also the section about #saints.ru below about saints websites, which usually engage in hagiography, the religious equivalent of military heroisation. Certain purported "saints" have been officially canonised as such by certain ecclesiastical authorities or religious organisations. Official ecclesiastical sources confirming such basic details as the date and stated reason(s) for their beatification/canonisation, feast days, and perhaps birth and death dates, birth and death places etc. may be relied upon. Otherwise, such devotional sources typically contain many WP:RS/WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:UNDUE issues; they are to be avoided in favour of more reliable sources critically treating the subject's life, and any memory culture that may have been developed around their legacy. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:06, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
That is an excellent point, with both the Soviet military heroes and the saints we face the problem that the primary contemporary historians (that would be Church and Party) are unreliable because they were regularly passing off fictional events as real for political and social reasons. Panfilov's Twenty-Eight Guardsmen are a good example. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:48, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
I agree. Of course, this doesn't just apply to Soviet or Russian history, but all human history. And what I was trying to say: even if the sentenceOn 21 July 1942, the Guardsmen were all posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. is only supported by some Soviet propaganda book from the 1960s, we do not necessarily have to doubt it (except the word posthumously, perhaps, which is part of the refuted claim, so we might add " " to "posthumously"). It is a factual claim about an official designation by a relevant governmental authority. Bestowing the title Hero of Foo on Bar doesn't necessarily make Bar a "hero" in a real sense (that's just something Wikipedia cannot say per WP:NPOV); it just means Bar has been granted the title Hero of Foo by the government of Foo.
Similarly, I don't think it's necessarily wrong to use saints.ru to support the basic claim[Yaropolk Iziaslavich] is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, with his feast day falling on the reported day of his death, November 22. But otherwise I wouldn't trust either source on Wikipedia for factual claims of these people's supposed "achievements" in order to assign them some heroic or saintly status. Wikipedia is not in that sort of business. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 17:01, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
That is kind of my point, Some bloke on the internet saying Ivan Scvainsky Scavar was a hero is not the same as the Soviet government awarding him a decoration for bravery. Slatersteven (talk) 18:31, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
Exactly. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 06:01, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
off-topic, something disruptive caused by planespotterA320
        • The case of Crimean Tatars ia actually rather unusual because as an unrecognized ethnic group at the time the encyclopedias were compiled, their entries in the encyclopedias say "Tatar" and not Crimean Tatar. However, the fact that the Crimean Heroes are Crimean Tatar and not Kazan Tatars is ireffutable since they were born in Crimea and have all been since officially recognized as Crimean Tatar (with books like Крымские татары во Второй мировой войне / А. Велиев; пер. c крымскотат. Э. Велиева. — Симферополь : Крымучпедгиз, 2009 specifically dedicated to them) and specifically indentified personally as Crimean Tatar in their activities with the National Movemenet if they survived the war, plus Crimean Tatar newspapers regularly accouncing the anniversaries of the births with articles and do interviews with their surviving family in the Crimean Tatar not Kazan Tatar language.--74.215.211.214 (talk) 10:29, 30 May 2023 (UTC) WP:SOCKSTRIKE. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 06:47, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
          WTH are you talking about? BTW, this is another IP sock of PlanespotterA320 and I will submit a SRG for this. -Lemonaka‎ 12:13, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
  • @Lemonaka Thanks! On an entirely unrelated note, I've been sent a message to my talk page on Uzbek Wikipedia (where I have never been active) uz:Foydalanuvchi munozarasi:Nederlandse Leeuw by 195.146.2.115 (Special:Contributions/195.146.2.115 is account creation blocked). 195.146.2.115, whom I've never seen before, goes on a lengthy rant that The two-volume Soviet encyclopedias about heroes of the Soviet Union compiled by Ivan Shkadov DO list the ethnicity of all people. I think it's not entirely to be ruled out that this IP address might just be connected to now-permanently-globally-banned User:PlanespotterA320. Just a guess. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 09:33, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
    PS: You might wanna update the link in your OP to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1128#user:PlanespotterA320 and aftermath because it has been archived. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 09:46, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
    TB: before banned, planespotterA320 was a trusted sysop on Uzbek Wikipedia and had lots of trust there. However due to checkuser evidence, this user is doing disruptive editing and vandalizing pages by sockpuppets, outing wikipedian on private reddit group, sending threatening emails to other users and cooperate with Russian government to press other users. Then they got banned, first by community, then by wmf. -Lemonaka‎ 21:07, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
    Blimey! That's not funny at all. :O I've rarely seen abusive people go that far. Thanks for explaining this, I missed this part of planespotterA320's past behaviour. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 21:22, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
    I highly doubt someone working for the Russian government would write about things that enrage the Russian government the way planespotter did. You yourself tagged articles by Planespotter with maintenence tags about Crimean history that Russia doesn't like. Some were just really really odd like a BLP tag on a dead guy. Sorry but it makes no sense that someone who clearly really, really, really pissed off the Russian government and is despate to get mercy was working for Russia. There is a big difference between being terrified of the Russians and working for the Russians. The only people I know of who deny discrimination against Crimeans are hardline Russian nationalists, and even then most Russian hardliners don't deny it happened but just claim that they deserved it or worse. Never once have I ever heard of or met a Ukranian who denies that there was repression of Crimean Tatars. So it's clear that you are not Ukrainian but an agent trying to entrap people into accidentally saying something politically wrong, and it's also very clear that Planespotter deeply regrest writing about Crimean issues, but that doesn't mean that they are hoaxes, both the Russian and Ukranian governments recognized that the exile happened. I am also very certain that Planespotter was just really naive and didn't realize that Radio Liberty was funded by the US government until they already used it as a source nor did they know that Avdet was run by the <ejlis. While it's a large Crimean newspaper, very few Crimeans know that it is from the Mejlis and it is better to just tell them so they know who runs it than to assume that they are Mejlis collaborator. Planespotter is very obviously not Mejlis or Radio Liberty, but rather very naive and too emotional person who wrote without thinking of the political implications of the content and clearly tried to compensate for it a lot by writing lots of articles that make slavs look good like about the best Russian and Ukranian pilots. We also need to remember that just because something is politically dangerous to say or that there is no mention of it in one particular language doesn't mean that it is false or said with bad intentions.--74.215.211.214 (talk) 02:06, 30 May 2023 (UTC) WP:SOCKSTRIKE. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 06:47, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
    Yeah, this is obvious planespotterA320, I got something more harsh on Uzbek Wikipedia. You can just report these mess to wmf as ban-evasion or to stewards since they are open proxy. -Lemonaka‎ 21:09, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
    Thanks for doing this already on my behalf, I appreciate it. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 21:19, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
    Glad I can help. -Lemonaka‎ 22:17, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
    @Lemonaka and the saga continues... uz:Foydalanuvchi munozarasi:Nederlandse Leeuw#Regarding the claims by Lemonaka. planespotterA320 is now using my Uzbek talk page as a battleground against you. Can or should I do anything to help you, or are you already on top of this? Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 05:34, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
    Funny how Lemonaka never actually denied being a Russian agent. I think we should be very careful what we say with them watching and make sure he knows that we are not conspiring against Russia.--74.215.211.214 (talk) 02:06, 30 May 2023 (UTC) WP:SOCKSTRIKE. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 06:47, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
    Yep, Can you help me make another report to the sysops there? Thank you. -Lemonaka‎ 07:02, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
    @Lemonaka something like this? I've tried to put it in simple English sentences in case someone needs to autotranslate it. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 07:47, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
    Oh, cool. BTW, you may want to turn off your email notification if they starts email-spamming. -Lemonaka‎ 10:55, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Warheroes.ru is not user generated content because it has an editorial team. The biographical profiles on the site are of people who were awarded the Soviet state title Hero of the Soviet Union and the Russian state title Hero of Russia, the highest government award in these states. It is not a subjective database of people considered "heroes" but of people who received the highest state award. Warheroes is a valuable source because it compiles data from numerous out-of-print books published about Heroes of the Soviet Union that otherwise would be hard to obtain outside of Russia. Site author Andrey Simonov is a published author of books that include a biographical dictionary of pilots awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union that used newly available Soviet military documents to provide a less hagiographic account. Finally, Warheroes.ru is cited by numerous books, as can be seen from a google search, including several English language academic publications [23], [24], [25]. Any comparison to websites about religious saints is spurious because warheroes is about real people who actually existed and have documented information about them, just like Medal of Honor recipients. Kges1901 (talk) 14:05, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
    Thank you, @Kges1901. I'm totally blank about Russian or Soviet topics. Now here's the problem, is this site documented all the official details or mixed with their researches? -Lemonaka‎ 00:49, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
    I have cross-checked the profiles on the site with primary source documents and the cited sources when I could access them and can confirm that the profiles match the sources. Kges1901 (talk) 01:18, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
    @Kges1901 For good measure, do you think it's okay that List of twice Heroes of the Soviet Union only links to warheroes.ru, and no other source? Or should we at least try to verify these claims through other sources? Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 06:41, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
    It's perfectly okay because the information that these specific people received the award multiple times and the dates they received the awards, are the most uncontroversial aspect. The dates on warheroes.ru match with those in the biographical dictionary of Heroes of the Soviet Union and the original award documents. There's no need for an unnecessary make-work project here at all. Kges1901 (talk) 13:32, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Oryx, random twitter accounts, Zvezda

The sources in question are:

The article in question is:

The information in question is:

  • The tables in section on Losses cited at the moment to Oryx.

Past discussions regarding these sources (Oryx in particular):

While Oryx is a great and interesting twitter account/blog, the fact that it is WP:SPS means that it is potentially not reliable for this information. Of course, in cases where the blog is cited by OTHER outlets, like BBC or Reuters, that info would be RS. But that is not the case here.

While Oryx is being used in the article itself, on the talk page users are posting links to videos on twitter to justify the inclusion of the information. Additionally it appears that the photos in question (according to one user) originally originated with the Russian fake news/disinformation TV channel Zvezda, run by the Russian Ministry of Defense (originally posted to their Telegram channel). The argument on talk is that that somehow bolsters the reliability of the information but... personally I think it's actually the opposite. If nothing else, then the info should be attributed as coming from a Russian Ministry of Defense disinformation source.

I did add a "unreliable source" tag to the section but it was removed [27] by User:RadioactiveBoulevardier, with a revert incorrectly marked as "minor edit". RadioactiveBoulevardier has not responded on talk or explained their revert.

On top of all that, WP:NOTNEWS applies. Volunteer Marek 16:03, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

  • None of those twitter accounts appear to match the criteria at WP:RS. The twitter videos are at best WP:PRIMARY sources which are at best published by accounts managed by unreliable Russian state media. As primary sources, we need reliable secondary sources to interpret what they show. The "just watch the video" type assertions by the editor at the article talk page is not good enough. I have no way of knowing what I am watching or what it pertains to unless a reliable, secondary source tells me. And we have none of that. Zvezda is the among the worst of Russian state-owned sources, which is really saying something. None of it is reliable, and no content sourced to any of those twitter accounts, TV channels, etc. Oryx is probably good stuff, it appears to be endorsed by numerous other scrupulously reliable sources, so anything which comes from Oryx is probably good, but needs to stick to exactly what Oryx says, and not introduce information that can only be sourced to the twitter videos or to Russian state media. --Jayron32 16:27, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
    You're looking at destroyed Ukrainian equipment abandoned at the border checkpoint in the belgorod region which they previously took control of. This is confirmed by geolocalization of the area. I can list the equipment in question. Andrea e luca (talk) 16:52, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
    furthermore you have the secondary source telling you what you're looking at: Oryx. Andrea e luca (talk) 16:53, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
    You are not a reliable source. So I don't really care what you have to say about what I am looking at. Oryx, as I said, is probably reliable enough for this information, but narrowly only for what it directly says. The rest of it has to go. --Jayron32 18:06, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
    The facts speak. I am simply relaying the facts. Andrea e luca (talk) 18:20, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
    If you ever were so gracious to at least look at the evidence, which is also republished by Oryx as factual, you would do us all a favour. Andrea e luca (talk) 18:22, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
    If oryx is writing the information, cite Oryx. There is no need to cite videos of unknown provenance and unverifiable content. --Jayron32 15:02, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
    @Jayron32 Excellent explanation, can only agree. Uwdwadafsainainawinfi (talk) 17:15, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Zveza and the anon Twitter should go immediately. Oryx it's possible to argue its SPS by subject-matter experts. We should always be careful with breaking news sources, which I believe we consider by definition primary. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:14, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
I think we should add a caveat that Zvezda reflects the official position of the Russian MoD which may or may not be due in this case. Alaexis¿question? 20:02, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Oryx may qualify as an WP:SPS or perhaps WP:PRIMARY. If I were to use it, I would use it with caution, and always say "According to Oryx" or something. It is certainly more reliable when it comes to loss statistics than any other source I've seen, including the Russian and Ukrainian MoDs, because of overclaiming problems. It is likely that the real losses are higher than reported by Oryx (because there isn't always visual evidence collected, submitted, checked and published), but the ones they do report are probably accurate. Many reliable sources refer to Oryx. If they do, I would cite those sources instead of Oryx itself, which should be used with caution. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:30, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
As I said on the article talk, it was unintentional and most likely something to do with the visual editor.
You seem to expect that Wikipedians be active, and respond to notifications, 24 hours a day. I was asleep for most of the period since that edit. You’re lucky I checked my phone before eating breakfast, which I’m currently trying to stop doing.
I don’t in the least object to putting that tag back. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 19:43, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Hah, I know the feeling. Hope your sleep and breakfast were nice. :) Happy editing! Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 20:49, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Oryx is a group blog with two principles: Stijn Mitzer and Joost Oliemans. Both are arguably subject matter experts so usable but this is one of those cases where editorial discretion is key because they publish a lot of different content and we have to keep in mind that for our purposes a feature length report on a years long weapons project and a breaking news blog post about a photo that appeared on twitter carry different weights. Attribute when used. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:22, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
Well said. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 20:58, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
  • I never heard about this source, however the specific claim (the table with losses) is not consistent with other sources, and in any case would required multiple secondary RS to be included on the page. My very best wishes (talk) 20:49, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
    Why should "consistency with other sources" be a criterion? If lots of tabloids report the same figure, but it is false, what does consistency matter? I think reliability matters. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 21:44, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
  • I find Oryx excellent and trustworthy as a reader, but I have all the above qualms about using it on Wikipedia. It's an excellent blog, but it's a blog. It's also far too fresh as news for us, I think - David Gerard (talk) 13:33, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

BR Bullpen

Baseball Reference has its own mini-wiki called BR Bullpen. It gives basic information on people who have contributed to baseball in any way: written books on subjects, were prominent journalists, etc., etc..

BR Bullpen Wiki is written in collaberation with the Society for American Baseball Research and Baseball-Reference. I use it to get basic information on lesser known people in baseball - birth and death dates, place of birth, where a person was educated. This is especially useful in stub articles or for sportswriters. I used it on a draft I wrote (Draft:Ed Linn) and for Jane Leavy to verify their birth dates AND on Chuck Sheerin to verify his minor league statistics. For some reason, a user has decided to remove this source every time I have used it.

Here is a link to BR Bullpen and its purpose. It does a great service for baseball and collecting its history and I want permission to use it for BASIC INFORMATION such as birth and death dates. While it may not be accurate about obscure people (and, I should remind you, neither is Wikipedia), it does its best, just like we here do. -- All The Knowledge in the World (talk) 10:55, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

The wiki can be edited by anyone, see WP:UGC, this is not a reliable source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 12:22, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
Hi. I've cleared it up with the user in question. They explained this to me and gave me the links to previous discussions on the topic. -- All The Knowledge in the World (talk) 15:03, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
It's a wiki clone and user edited, it's non-usable. I've edited there in the past. Oaktree b (talk) 17:42, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
I understand. Like I mentioned above, the user in question cleared it up with me. I was under the impression BR Bullpen, too, used sources. Clearly, they don't. I won't be using it from now on. Thanks though. -- All The Knowledge in the World (talk) 17:48, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Russia 1985–1999: TraumaZone

Can a TV review published in The Mail on Sunday be used as a reliable source for the views of the author (in this case, Peter Hitchens) with regard to the TV series reviewed? Can this edit be restored? A discussion has begun on the talk page of the article in question (Talk:Russia 1985–1999: TraumaZone). I started an RfC, but it was deleted by Redrose64, who recommended that I raise the matter here. Khiikiat (talk) 23:08, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

The edit can't be restored, as it isn't supported by a reliable source. Every time there has been a discussion about some kind of exemption for particular content from WP:DAILYMAIL it has failed to get community support. Another RFC for TV reviews is as unlikely to come to any consensus. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:08, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
note: I'm the editor who originally removed it as almost certainly UNDUE - it's in a deprecated source, and Hitchens isn't a noted expert on Russian history or something of that sort of relevance (even as he was apparently in Russia at the time), it's just a TV review. Nor would the cite pass ABOUTSELF, which I'm pretty sure is strictly when it's the DM or MoS talking about the DM or MoS, and not the fact that a reviewer wrote something - David Gerard (talk) 11:03, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

(copy of my response to the now-deleted RFC at the talk page.) (Invited by the bot to the now-deleted RFC) First a disclaimer, I'm against all such over generalizations regarding sources and am also quick to point out that the linked overgeneralization page is neither a policy or a guideline. A better criteria is expertise and objectivity with respect to the text which cited it. So, regarding the source, it's clearly suitable to support that Peter Hitchens said that. Next is whether or not Hitchen's view should go into the article. My second disclaimer is that everything I know about Hitchens I learned in the last 5 minutes. My thought would be to include.North8000 (talk) 13:20, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

So IMO there are two questions there, one of them not germane to this noticeboard. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:20, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
Yes restore. I guess that David Gerard's edit summary "rm deprecated DM/MOS, UNDUE and unusable" refers to Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. The RfC about Mail on Sunday doesn't apply here since we're talking about a review, i.e. an opinion, and opinions are okay RS-wise as was established for Daily Mail. (I also regard Mail on Sunday as WP:NEWSORG but acknowledge that David Gerard and I disagree about that guideline.) As for calling it UNDUE, that's a subjective WP:NPOVN matter which really should be up to the people who really work to improve the article, but since it's brought here I'll opine that Peter Hitchens seems at least as well known as the other reviewers cited in the article (Stuart Jeffries and Dan Einav). Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:01, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
I don't see why this opinion piece should be given leeway, other sources for reviews exist. Use them instead, as per the community consensus. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:59, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

KFYR-TV

Is it reliable? I wish to use it for its news content related to North Dakota legislation. QuicoleJR (talk) 23:45, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Also asking about IGaming Business and Williston Herald for the same reason. QuicoleJR (talk) 23:52, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
KFYR/KMOT should be generally reliable for North Dakota news. Most local TV stations generally are reliable for the areas they cover. (Disclosure: this is my topic area, and I've edited KFYR-TV fairly heavily.) Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 04:17, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
Alright, thanks! QuicoleJR (talk) 13:54, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

MSN and politics

Not just about politics, I don't understand the overall consensus over MSN considering its not a news source, just a web portal. But I see MSN being used to a significant extent over at 2023 Indian wrestlers' protest in the form of [28] [29] [30]...etc. If its reliable for politics, is it reliable for Indian politics? >>> Extorc.talk 12:14, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

I doubt its an RS for anything, as it is now a news service, it is (as you say) just a web portal. Slatersteven (talk) 12:17, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
@Slatersteven, I would really prefer removal of this source from the page considering the page is already plagued with WP:CITEKILL and alot!! of WP:UNDUE additions. What is your take on this? >>> Extorc.talk 12:24, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
As I said I doubt its an RS I have no issue with you removing it. Slatersteven (talk) 12:37, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
MSN runs a lot of syndicated content. Does it have original reporting too? Because there's 17,715 uses of msn.com in mainspace. I'm wondering if it's more like Yahoo! News or strictly just reprints, in which case we may have a slight mess - a lot of it's RS material, but a lot of it just isn't. Might be worth a clarification on RSP - David Gerard (talk) 12:52, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
  • This is probably due to people not understanding the difference between a news portal and a news source - and that we need them to cite the actual source, not the portal. Perhaps we need to make the distinction clearer in our policies? Blueboar (talk) 13:14, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
    And also maybe a soft filter for links to prominent web portals like MSN, if we decide that they need to be excluded entirely? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:49, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
    A filter might not be a bad idea, the problem with such portals is that they can hide the original source. Both MSN and Yahoo syndicate content from the Daily Mail for instance. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:50, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
  • I'm finding a lot of the MSN links in Wikipedia are turning out to be dead links - they don't seem to keep all syndicated content up. We may in fact have cause to want to discourage its use - David Gerard (talk) 23:59, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
  • Generally it's not hard to find the original article using a web search for any verbatim sentence in the article, so these are fixable manually. But nobody should be citing syndicated MSN/Yahoo content directly, because without knowing the original source you can't evaluate reliability. — Bilorv (talk) 20:38, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
I think it's just better to call-out news sources for any wrong information they published under criticisms. They point should be it should list exactly what the allegation is/are against the news outlet or journalist rather than just 'they publish all lies' or the equivalent. CaribDigita (talk) 00:12, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

NBC, MSNBC and Russiagate

As details emerge, many plots that were originally deemed to be Russian bots, may not have been.

Even the Pentagon papers many initially suspected was a Russian plot, but turned out to be an American servicemen.

Hamilton 68 is one such example, where the organization now claims that media misunderstood them, and they never claimed the 600+ accounts they were tracking were Russian. Kudos to Business Insider for correcting their posts on Hamilton 68 [31]

It appears MSNBC still hasn't corrected some of their stories for example this 2018 article [32] , [33], [34]

Morrell testified that he concocted the letter with the 51 agents that "certified" that the Hunter Biden laptop was likely Russian disinformation, in an effort to influence the 2020 elections.

Did Russia aim to influence the 2020 elections? Yes, however the extent of the impact of IRA was 0.1% or negligible compared to American tweets, according to university studies. [35]

Shouldn't media that jump to the conclusion that whichever plot is "Russian interference" without adequate evidence (which includes anonymous sources) be labelled as unreliable? For example the letter with 51 agents, clearly stated that they did not have evidence to say it was Russian interference, it just fit what they thought it could be. Shaping public influence to vilify the FBI who said the Hunter Biden laptop did not appear to be Russian disinformation.

In this video are many clips from msnbc which turned out to be false, and clearly sensationalistic. [36] Aufumy (talk) 03:02, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Is PRISM a reliable source or not?

Recently, user:Fumikas Sagisavas added and changed a lot of contents related to climates, especially temperatures from this source, e.g. Special:Diff/1158651729. This source is called "PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University". The url is http://prism.oregonstate.edu/explorer/ .
I'm not an expert on Climate changes and temperatures, so I brought it here. -Lemonaka‎ 01:53, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

User talk:Fumikas Sagisavas#Climate campaign -Lemonaka‎ 01:55, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Because it is calculated based on a large number of perennial meteorological observations, climate data and related information, there may be slight errors from actual measured values. When there is no NOAA weather station in the area, it can be used as a substitute, such as NOAA does not have a weather station on the summit of Mount Rainier.
Of course, when PRISM and NOAA data appear for selection, NOAA data must be used first, because NOAA data is based on actual observations. Fumikas Sagisavas (talk) 05:12, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
What? A model generated information can be used as the NOAA measured numbers? Are you sure? -Lemonaka‎ 05:15, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
I mean, PRISM is a climate model generated by a computer program based on Oregon State University's collection and observation of meteorological data in multiple places. And NOAA is the actual measurement.
Another point is that PRISM has nothing to do with NOAA, and at most it refers to the data of NOAA. Fumikas Sagisavas (talk) 05:20, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
You said "When there is no NOAA weather station in the area, it can be used as a substitute"... Which means "a model generated information can be used as the NOAA measured numbers". I'm a little bit astonished by this topic and I decided to wait for peer-review. -Lemonaka‎ 05:23, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
In addition, the website climate-data.org [37] is also based on the PRISM computing mechanism, which generates regions of any country other than the continental United States, including Antarctica. There are at least a thousand articles using this source. Fumikas Sagisavas (talk) 05:16, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

RfC: La Patilla

An RfC regarding La Patilla's reliability has been started in the article's talk page. NoonIcarus (talk) 11:28, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Nazario Collection and use of YouTube (and the media)

This uses a YouTube video 87 times[38]. At WP:FTN#Nazario Collection the article creator User:Old School WWC Fan points out that the speaker and the institute are reliable sources, but despite that it appears from the discussion 3 and a half years ago at Talk:Nazario Collection#El Nuevo Día article written by a free lance journalist, not Ramos that the video, a conference speech made 7 years ago was meant as a placeholder and that a peer reviewed paper was being published. So far that doesn't seem to have happened. I'm also concerned about the heavy use of the media. Doug Weller talk 14:50, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

The video was published by an academic institution and the speaker is a PhD in archeology. El Nuevo Día is the main newspaper within the territory and I would understand the concerns if the pieces were simply written by a “freelance journalist”, which is not the case as was already explained in 2019. Instead, they were published following interviews with the archeologist and echo his stances, so, the reasons to question their reliability are spurious. The guidelines quoted by the assessment department of the archeology WikiProject do not mention anywhere that all references must be from academic, peer reviewed or otherwise specialized publications.
This is evident in some of the project’s Featured Articles such as Acra (fortress), which does feature some interesting sources such as “Bible History Daily” from the Pseudo-Archaeological organization “Biblical Archeology Society”. Newspaper references abound in those articles, for example, Ancient Egypt quotes the Egypt Independent and Arab News (both of which, unlike ENDI, are categorized as either “very conservative” or outright “unreliable”). And about using the same reference, well, featured pieces like Buckton Castle and Brougham Castle do so as well. Lastly, the scientific work has been partially published in the form of a preliminary catalogue, as previously noted. The COVID-19 pandemic did happen the following year. - Old School WWC Fan (talk) 23:08, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
Shocking that the Creationist source was not noticed. I've removed it - in any case that section was about an academic's opinion and shouldn't have had another source unless that source was discussing the author. Examples of bad use of sources in other articles don't mean we can use them here. Ironic that you’re using Media Bias/Fact Check shows up when I read the above highlighted by a script as unreliable - which it is. Isee you've also used it to argue that another source is unreliable. Yes, those two articles rely, probably too heavily, on the same reliable sources, not a 7 year old conference presentation not followed by a paper. I don't see how Covid could have prevented publication. Doug Weller talk 07:23, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
A drop of enrollment to 48.9% of capacity led to lack of funding and for some time the campus that he works for (UPR Utuado) was on notice for potential closesure. It remains low with only ≈100 more students. I do not expect you to be familiar with archeology or academia in the island, but if you do, then you should know that funding is scarce. No money, no tests, no publishing. That is how COVID intervened.
The script is not really necessary to figure that those sources are slanted and biased. You missed the point behind the examples, it’s not ”other stuff exists”, it’s “this is the threshold of reliability used by ARCHEO” and moving goal posts. The usage of the video to source the nonsense that was theorized about the pieces for decades can be solved by replacing them with the bulletin of the PR History Academy, which is peer reviewed. But, is it really more reliable? They include everything, including Barry Fell. Sure, they would meet RS as the author and those involved in peer reviewing his article would check almost all of the arbitrary points of HISTRS. But I preferred the actual archeologist. I have tried to discuss the importance of the context with you, the issue could have been easily solved by splitting half of the article to cover the noise and kept the new studies in (in a manner similar to what Pyramidology is to the Giza pyramid complex). Old School WWC Fan (talk) 23:58, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
Even if the presentation video and El Nuevo Día article are good they're overused. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 07:36, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
From FTN, remove all or most content cited to the video and news articles. Rodríguez Ramos has published on the history of the collection, that should in general be usable, but remove all the speculation which hasn't undergone peer review. fiveby(zero) 12:51, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
Removing the sources for things that are facts, as in removing all, should be reconsidered. If C14 dates them to the Y to X timeframe, that is a stated fact that ENDI or any other newspaper can cite from him as an authority on the subject without the need for the expertise of the journalist. It’s a standard that even applies to expert witnesses within the legal system. I don’t mind one way or another if you remove the theoretical ruminating, as that will eventually become redundant either way. Old School WWC Fan (talk) 23:58, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
I'd think the C14 dating should be published first. Doug Wellerthe use-wear analysis concluded that the pieces were genuine antiques, Groman-Yaroslavsky confirms. “We don’t know how old they are,” she told Haaretz.[39] looks reasonable? fiveby(zero) 15:38, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
What makes Haaretz a reliable source for archaeology. Should we use thisBiblical City of Ziklag Where Philistines Gave Refuge to David Found, Researchers Claim? I'd say no to both, we need a peer reviewed paper. I doubt that many archaeologists read Haaretz. Doug Weller talk 16:00, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
And note the response at Ukraine UAP Study just below that we don't even use preprints. Doug Weller talk 16:05, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Independence of source

I'm having a discussion my talk page about the independence of a source, User talk:Fram#About the Flatwoods monster revert, about this edit and my revert of it. I tried explaining things, referencing MOS:POPCULT, but we have a fundamental disagreement about whether the official yugioh Twitter account is an independent source for information about a Yugioh character, and after this I think it is better if some uninvolved people gave their opinion here. Fram (talk) 14:28, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure which exact policy covers it, but a press release from a production company doesn't merit inclusion. It's not an independent source. Folly Mox (talk) 14:37, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
This is not a press release. Aberration (talk) 14:40, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Also, I don't like the fact you're basically suggesting we should apply the same policy to documenting fiction and documenting real-life events. The official sources for a fictional media are the ultimate authority on the facts over what happens in their fictional media. In fact, any kind of source other than the official one for a case like this would be inadequate. If this is actually a non-independent source by Wikipedia's standards (even though I don't think so, because by its definition, you cannot have any gain from the events inside fictional media), then I say a non-independent source should be preferred when it comes to documenting fiction. Aberration (talk) 14:51, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Inclusion of 'popular culture' content in contexts like this requires an independent source to demonstrate significance - to show that uninvolved commentators care enough about the connection to consider it worth writing about. 'Authority' has nothing to do with it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:02, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I raised this issue on the MOS:POPCULT Talk page as well. I think our policy for that is completely ineffective, and mentioned some of its faults. Aberration (talk) 15:04, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
https://myanimelist.net/character/217326/Mitsuko_Hiramori
Would this source be enough to count as an unrelated commentator? Aberration (talk) 15:06, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
No, absolutely not. Not even remotely. I'd strongly recommend that before you start griping about Wikipedia policy on sourcing you take the time to actually read it. Start with WP:USERGENERATED. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:22, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
I wasn't aware it was a user-generated site. Aberration (talk) 18:23, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Maybe take a look at the anime and manga project, they have a list detailing the reliability of sources specific to the area. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:48, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

CIA Factbook vs Scholarly Articles

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

It is stated in the Lebanon page, that 95% of the Lebanese population is Arab according to the CIA factbook (quite unclear how they deemed them to be Arab) [40] while multiple journals have stated them as being genetically Canaanite. [41] [42] Shouldn't the journals have precedence over the factbook ?

Zlogicalape (talk) 02:02, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

There's two points here. First is there is discrepancies between sources it usually best to mention this in the article, something that can be worked out on the articles talk page. The second is that genetics and culture don't have any real link. So someone could be a descendant of Canaanites but still culturally Arabic. Unfortunately sources tend to talk above both ideas with the same language. It might be best to mention the topics separately, but again I suggest discussing that in the articles talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:50, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
Culture wasn't used as a form of identity, if it was then that too isn't Arab ! Even if we were to assume that one is Arab and the other is Canaanite, why choose one over the other ! The talk page will be fruitless as most strongly identify with the Arab identity regardless of what genetics, culture ... say. Zlogicalape (talk) 15:54, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
Are there any sources which say these two findings are incompatible? Also note that the linked articles do not state "stated them as being genetically Canaanite" they say that they're descendent from the Canaanites not that the modern ethnic group is called Canaanites. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:59, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
I'd go with the CIA factbook. Caananites haven't existed as a distinct people for 3,000 years. Calling the Lebanese Cannanites would be like calling the English of the present days the "Bell Beakers" because of the close genetic relationship of present day English with the ancient inhabitants of England. Yes, Lebanese are genetically related to the ancient Caananites (so too are many Jews). The majority of present-day Lebanese would self-identify as Arabs and are they are regarded as a majority Arab country by virtually everyone. Smallchief (talk) 15:29, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
The key is that the given sources are not calling the contemporary Lebanese Cannanites. OP appears to be trying to use them to shoehorn a point which they actually don't support Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:33, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
The sources provided by OP aren't actually "multiple journals" either - they seem to be two reports about the same journal article. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:46, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
What do you mean by haven't existed as a distinct people ?! If you mean that they didn't have self-governance then sure but that is irrelevant ! But other than that, the people have remained the same within the same lands under different rulers. Does being ruled over by foreign empire erase your identity ?
Self-identification is irrelevant, and is not the discussion ! That could be a section on its own but should not be confounded with the reality of their identity ! Moreover, what ppl regard them as is also highly irrelevant ! Would you argue the earth is flat, bcz of the "majority" and "believed by virtually everyone" ? (in older times) We don't make arguments based on people's beliefs !
P.S: Many self-identify as Arab due to the misconception that they are genetically and culturally Arab ! Zlogicalape (talk) 16:12, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
They state 'over 90% genetically Canaanite' which makes them Canaanite ! And by incompatible, are you referring to if Arabs & Canaanites are distinct people genetically ?! Zlogicalape (talk) 15:58, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
How does that make them Canaanite? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:00, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
How does it not ?! Zlogicalape (talk) 16:15, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
I agree with HEB, Canaanite is a historical ethnicity i.e. a group of people defined by self-identification. Nobody in contemporary Lebanon considers themselves a Canaanite. Zlogicalape shows a complete failure to understand the very important distinction between genetics and ethnicity. The phrase "genetically Canaanite" is meaningless gobbledygook because it confuses these concepts. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:17, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
(ec) There are several issues here. As Hemiauchenia says, there seems to be a confusion between genetics (which the original academic source makes clear is complex here), and ethnicity. Having said that, there are undoubtedly better sources than the CIA World Factbook to consult when discussing ethnicity. It is a tertiary source, often outdated and simplistic, and of little use when discussing the complexities involved when discussing 'Arab' identities. Ethnic self-identification is frequently fluid and contextual, and it can't be reduced to simple 'facts' in a database. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:37, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
1- A large portion of Lebanon identifies as Canaanite ! (False assumption)
2- Ethnicity includes includes genetics in its definition hence very much interlinked Zlogicalape (talk) 16:29, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
No, ethnicity does not 'include genetics'. It (usually) involves concepts around descent, but as defined in academia, is about self-identification, rather than biological principles the persons involved need have no understanding of, or see no relevance of. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:37, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
{{citation needed}} for both of those WP:EXTRAORDINARY claims. Per our article on Ethnicity,Ethnicity may be construed as an inherited or as a societally imposed construct. Ethnic membership tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage, ancestry, origin myth, history, homeland, language, dialect, religion, mythology, folklore, ritual, cuisine, dressing style, art, or physical appearance. Ethnic groups may share a narrow or broad spectrum of genetic ancestry, depending on group identification, with many groups having mixed genetic ancestry. In other words, the consensus view is that while ethnic groups may share genetic markers, genetic markers are not determinant of ethnic groups; ethnic groups are socially constructed. signed, Rosguill talk 16:38, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
From the definition, ethnic groups TEND to be defined by cultural heritage, ancestry ..... OR ... In other words, there are multiple factors with genetics being one. If one is culturally Greek, linguistically Russian and genetically Chinese, what would his ethnicity be ?! Please clarify Zlogicalape (talk) 12:14, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Their ethnicity would be whatever reliable sources say it is--we can't independently infer people's ethnicity from circumstantial information as that is a form of WP:OR. signed, Rosguill talk 16:09, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
If a large proportion of Lebanon identifies as Canaanite, then you should go off and find sources that say that. Then you can present it in the article alongside the mainstream view, should WP:FRINGE not apply. While ethnicity has a degree of correlation with genetics in many, but not all, cases, it is a different thing. If you wish to define ethnicity, you must find articles that explicitly talk about that, rather than ancestry. Boynamedsue (talk) 16:40, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
This is going deep into WP:RGW and WP:OR territory. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:44, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Canaanites don't exist today. Until reliable secondary sources say that Lebanese people are Canaanites rather than are descended from Canaanites, we can't call them Canaanites. —DIYeditor (talk) 23:54, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

This is really the crux of the matter. The sources cited by OP may be reliable for the claim that there is substantial genetic continuity between the ancient Canaanite population and the modern Lebanese one (though really we should cite the scholarly article rather than news articles based on a press release about it!) They do not claim (and are therefore not reliable sources for the claim) that the modern Lebanese population is Canaanite or not Arab. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:51, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Could both of you please expand on how a person that has Canaanite genes as the vast majority of his genes not be Canaanite and be Arab ?! If 90% of my Genes were Ethiopian, I'm Ethiopian (putting aside linguistic and cultural identities). If most of my genes were Greek, I'd get the citizenship ... Zlogicalape (talk) 12:22, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
This gets into WP:OR and WP:SYNTH territory. It's best to stick to describing obvious facts and what can be cited to a WP:RS. You are drawing a conclusion rather than citing a source. As I explained, saying that someone "is a Canaanite" is different from saying that someone "is mostly descended from Canaanites". This are not equivalent statements. For just a simple illustration, a Japanese-descended American might be 100% descended from Japanese people (not likely but just for illustration) but we would not describe them as Japanese simply because that is their genetic background. Someone in Scotland might be 90% descended from Picts (just for illustration) but that doesn't mean we would call them a Pict. —DIYeditor (talk) 12:30, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
But that is a different topic and a different form of identity ! I'm not drawing out conclusions , just stating them , from a genetic point of view, which is one of the forms of identity which is also mentioned in ethnicity ! I believe your example states the problem perfectly, the first person you mentioned is Japanese but also American ! As each are different ethnic groups ! Genetics aside for the moment, If I am culturally Greek, linguistically Russian and nationally Syrian, then how would you define that person's ethnicity ?! Zlogicalape (talk) 12:54, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
It's very simple. If you want to say that modern Lebanese people are mostly Canaanite, you need to find a reliable source that says that. A source saying that they are descended from Canaanites, or have Canaanite genes, is not the same thing. You can find reliable sources which say that Danny Dyer is descended from Edward III: you would I hope agree that this is not the same as Danny Dyer being Edward III. The sources you are citing do not say that modern Lebanese people are ethnically Canaanite, or that Canaanite is a coherent modern ethnicity. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 13:35, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
I understand what you are trying to say but that is not how it works ! Ex: If my great great Grandfather was Chinese but my genes are Russian (due to immediate family) that doesn't make me Chinese. The article clearly states that Modern-day Lebanese are genetically Canaanite which is different (though not separate) from having Canaanite ancestors. Moreover, being racially the same is separate from being identical which you have described in your "Danny Dyer being Edward III" example. They can be ethnically the same (racially speaking) Zlogicalape (talk) 16:06, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
RE " If most of my genes were Greek, I'd get the citizenship " I think you might be surprised to find that Greek nationality law does not appear to have any genetic component at all. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:14, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Not surprising given that many members of my family have applied. Zlogicalape (talk) 21:37, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Tertiary sources, such as the CIA Factbook, get their information from secondary sources. Where those sources conflict, they choose whichever they consider better but don't tell us what sources they used or how they resolved any differences. Because of these problems, this type of source is best avoided and a better source should be used.
However, since Canaanite refers to a civilization that existed four thousand years ago, it's a WP:REDFLAG claim that they still exist today and therefore we would need to show that that is the common description in reliable sources. :TFD (talk) 12:19, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
But the same applies to the Greeks, just because the name changed in the case of the Levantine coast, it shouldn't be any different ! Zlogicalape (talk) 12:25, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
That could make a big difference, because people draw continuity between ancient and modern Greeks. But we still require proof that the modern Greeks have the same make up as the ancient ones. TFD (talk) 14:57, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
And yet they are called Greek, and though Lebanese have the same make up as the Canaanites, they are called Arab. Zlogicalape (talk) 16:31, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Ok, let's try a different tack. YOU don't see a difference between ethnicity and genetic ancestry. Do you understand now that many other people do? Boynamedsue (talk) 16:47, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Four thousand years is far and away way enough for all the people in Lebanon to have a common ancestor with all those in Scotland, probably much less than 1000 years would do it. So by that argument they're all Scottish. But anyway as others have said we have to work from reliable sources and you haven't found one saying what you wamt to put in the article never mind what is commonly said. NadVolum (talk) 17:11, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
I know it's a pile-on by now, but in this topic I gladly join just to add to the crushing weight: no, ethnicity is not defined by genetic ancestry which latter by its very nature can only be established by extracting bodily material and analyse it in a lab. Ethnicity is a social construct based self-identification and communal consensus. It's fluid, dynamic and based on variable objective and subjective criteria. Ancestry may be among these or not, but when it is, this does not refer to genetic ancestry, but to socially "known" descent (parents, greatparents, known ancestors, real or construed genealogies, etc.). Nowhere have people aligned themselves socially based on lab result (well, some people start to do now in the age of Quackery.com websites). As I have said on several occasions, the very idea defining ethnicity based on lab result is dystopian. But unfortunately, it is not uncommon among amateurs (see Talk:Moroccans#Terminology for a very similar example).
That said, we definitely need better sources than the CIA Factbook for information about ethnic groups in a country. It seems to me that the CIA Factbook naively takes linguistic affilation as token of ethnicity for granted (such Arabic-speaking = Arab). In the case of the Lebanon, the situation is much more complex. Whilst Arabic-speaking, there are strong non-linguistic communal identities (especially religious), and great portions of the population primarily self-identify with their communal group (which it is at least reflected in a note). –Austronesier (talk) 19:31, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Socially known descent ?!! All of these 'ancestry' are based on perceived blood relations to populations which genetics gives a much clearer answer to. Because genetics is modern things, people previously relied on oral traditions of ethnicity and genealogy ! Many have now changed their supposed Arab identity after finding out that their ancestry does not consist of it ! You might see self-identification as logical but do not ! You cannot be culturally Greek and yet say you are culturally Chinese. What happens to people that based their ethnicity on their ancestry that didn't turn out to be Arab but Canaanite and now refer to themselves as Canaanite, has it shifted because they changed their self-identification or because of the 'lab results' that gave them clearer answer ?
P.S: technically not Arab speaking but this is a topic that doesn't have any articles discussing it (though hopefully soon enough one will be released) Zlogicalape (talk) 21:36, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
If they did, it would have been shown in the genetic results. I know that many people differentiate between ethnicity and genetics (everything related to genetics is being slowly decoupled) BUT since, as per definition, ethnicity has a genetic component (as well as others) then it shouldn't be overlooked. Regarding finding an article that "says what i want to say", the study provided does that but our conundrum lies in involving it in ethnicity ! (Note: most of the aspects of ethnicity regarding Lebanese are also not Arab but I do want to contest the withdrawal of genetics from ethnicity ) Zlogicalape (talk) 21:22, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Our article Arabs says "an ethnic group who identify with each other on the basis of language, culture, history, or ancestry". Genetics is part of "ancestry", but certainly not the other three things. --GRuban (talk) 22:04, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Yes, i agree which is what i'm saying ! If the others can agree on this then we can move on because It's simple
P.S: Culture isn't Arab, Linguistics debatable (though can be left Arab), History (which I find weird to be included) is intertwined with multiple populations BUT i wanted to make the genetics aspect clear so that I can move on to the others Zlogicalape (talk) 22:21, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Fine, as long as you realise, the consensus is that you can't make the changes you wanted to.Boynamedsue (talk) 03:22, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Can somebody please close this discussion? The consensus is clear, and it would probably be a good idea to lock away the knives before someone hurts themselves.Boynamedsue (talk) 22:08, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

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

RfC: Instagram

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Closed RfC per WP:RFCNOT. This is covered by WP:SPS, WP:UGC, and WP:RSPUSE. RfCs are for proposals, not questions about policy. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:59, 4 June 2023 (UTC)


Per previous discussions, [43][44][45][46] what is the reliability of Instagram, same as Facebook (which is also unreliable since 2020), which is owned by Meta since 2012. There are many sources in biographies of living persons (instagram.com HTTPS links HTTP links, but the exception of help.instagram.com). 112.204.197.139 (talk) 22:51, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Instagram can only be used in WP:ABOUTSELF situations. Carpimaps talk to me! 09:53, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

LWN.net

LWN.net both publishes articles with editorial oversight, they edit submissions. They state they require a high level of technical competence for publishing articles.

However, they also re-publish mailinglist posts, I think for archiving purposes. Nothing wrong with that, but I would like to establish some reliability regarding wikipedia policies. I propose:

  • Reliable for technical articles and establishing notability
  • Primary source for published mailinglists

PhotographyEdits (talk) 12:23, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

I mean, we don't really need an RFC for this. LWN is treated as an RS in practice - they're an actual publication with standards and a tremendous respect in their field, but reprints are extremely obviously reprints. Is this a live issue in dispute somewhere? - David Gerard (talk) 13:52, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
@David Gerard Yes, see this edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Libreboot&diff=prev&oldid=1158802872
I believe that a whole paragraph based on an e-mail that was re-published by LWN has no place on Wikipedia. PhotographyEdits (talk) 13:59, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
In the first instance, we could just say: @Yae4: it's really pretty clear that's a mailing list reprint, not an editorial piece, and it's standard practice that press releases are treated as press releases even when a publisher runs them - David Gerard (talk) 14:10, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I think the suggestion is generally correct for how to treat LWN. There are some LWN posts that blur the line a bit (mostly reprinting a mailing list post with some commentary) but their articles and analysis are clearly reliable and their pure mailing list posts should be treated almost as if you were citing them on a straight mailing list, but I think it makes them more valuable for citing simple facts which we do sometimes cite to PR/announcements about the subject themselves.
In this case in particular, however, I think that using the mailing list post to cite the certification by FSF is acceptable per WP:SELFSOURCE since the X200 is otherwise discussed there? It probably should be cited to LWN in prose even if used as the source in the cite and just say something like "In 2015, the FSF announced that..."? Skynxnex (talk) 14:36, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
PhotographyEdits, (1) It was a single sentence. Calling it a paragraph is misleading, even if the single sentence stood by itself pending copy-edit. (2) It was emailed to LWN.net, but calling it a mailing list post is also misleading (see below for FSF cite).
David_Gerard, Even if it is a "press release", WP:PRSOURCE says "Press releases cannot be used to support claims of notability and should be used cautiously for other assertions." I used it cautiously to introduce and go with the immediately following PC World source summary on the same info'. Similar for a later ZDNET cite. IMO, it adds some weight and credibility when another independent publisher chooses to re-publish the announcement, with or without comment. FWIW, LWN.net today says it [has discontinued its press release section] to free time for more interesting news. I agree the FSF announcements were dull. IMO typical FSF announcements are not typical press releases, because they do not fit the mold of in general "have effusive praise, rather than factual statements." To the contrary, FSF announcements are more bland and factual. LWN.net does not appear to practice "churnalism". AFAIK they didn't publish every "press release" or announcement they received. The same basic info appears on "news" at FSF[47], where an update was added saying "This page was edited on May 19, 2017 to reflect the fact that this product is discontinued"; updates like that are a sign of "reliability" IIUC. I would have cited that, but wanted to postpone that discussion.
Skynxnex, Yes the X200 is covered a couple times: a mention citing Linux Journal, and the ZDNET source covers Libiquity's Taurinus X200. -- Yae4 (talk) 18:28, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
An outlet running a press release does not give the press release any weight. In fact, even barely reskinning a press release tends to be treated as just the press release in AFD or NCORP discussions - David Gerard (talk) 19:38, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
The guidance quoted above does not say "press releases" cannot be used. Any opinion on citing the FSF "news" source directly? -- Yae4 (talk) 20:40, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
> t was a single sentence. Calling it a paragraph is misleading
That depends. See: https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/paragraphs/
>A paragraph is defined as “a group of sentences or a single sentence that forms a unit” (Lunsford and Connors 116).
I think it was a 'unit' because of whitespace around it. PhotographyEdits (talk) 07:07, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
Calling it "a whole paragraph" when it was a single sentence, makes it sound like more than it was. -- Yae4 (talk) 14:18, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment: Correction to what I said above about their editorial policy on re-publishing announcements: I observed as of April 2023, they were still publishing FSF announcements[48]. So, if they actually stopped as they said they did[49], as mentioned above, it was very recently. -- Yae4 (talk) 14:44, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
  • LWN is a reliable source. It can be used to establish newsworthiness, because what gets included in the weekly issue (even if it's republished and linked from the issue) is selective. That doesn't magically eliminate any conflicts of interest the authors may have, so of course one always needs to apply the usual care in using sources as with everything else. Nemo 06:27, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Two+ book reviews in Indian NEWSORG and their use in supporting notability

While as far as I'm aware, only NCORP, not NBOOK or any other SNG (or the GNG), mentions this noticeboard... The AfD for a book, Bose, was relisted by DRV due to the source review from delete !voters being somewhat deficient of sufficient context. The best two sources, to my eye, are

The byline identifies a specific columnist in the former. An additional two sources were identified by খাঁ শুভেন্দু as part of the best four, but I elected to not copy them here as they appeared less likely to satisfy "directly and in detail". Since the new participants have been more or less commenting on the same lines, I figured it was worth a shot advertising it here also. Alpha3031 (t • c) 14:08, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

  • 'The Print "review" (and also the ones in Times of India or The Statesman) are advertorials and thus not RS. Indian papers are well known for this type of thing. The Deccan Herald one is better, but still doesn't give the idea of a detailed review as such, more of a synopsis. Black Kite (talk) 14:21, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Is this a reliable source for Acquiescence bias#Social desirability?

[[50]]. I don't see any evidence that "Clearer Thinking" meets RS, but I may have missed something. Doug Weller talk 07:02, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Whatever the status of the site, the article seems to be a non peer reviewed study and therefore not reliable. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 08:26, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
I found no information on editorial policy. In my opinion the "Research" section is unreliable because it presents non peer reviewed studies. The "Blog" section seems to consist of popsci articles and it's safe to assume that for anything useful there will be more reliable sources. To sum it up: in my opinion, most likely not reliable. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 08:34, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
I would also be weary of their relationship with sparkwave.tech. In its about us page it says it gets a grant from sparkwave, but at the bottom of the page shows that the entire site was created by sparkwave. Looking into the privavy policy and terms of service of the site you see that if you have any issues you're meant to contact "info@sparkwave.tech". All in all this looks like undercover marketing and anything it publishes shouldn't be considered independent of Sparkwaves commercial interests. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:47, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
Thanks all. I'll remove it. Doug Weller talk 16:07, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Per WP:COPYVIO, Wikipedia does not allow links to copyvio material, and that includes when linked from a reference. In investigating such links, I've found an egregious pattern of aggressively linking to worldradiohistory.com. This site hosts PDF scans of broadcast and music industry magazines, like Billboard (magazine), Broadcasting & Cable, Broadcasting, and so on.

There were about 2000 such links in the encyclopedia. I've cleaned up a couple hundred links, most notably in WGN America and in Superstation. Through these edits, I've convinced myself that these links are deliberately placed with great frequency:

  • One {{cite web}} tag per page, rather than a range of pages in one tag
  • Use of links in external links for parameters like page= in order to have more links
  • dense referencing patterns, suggesting superfluous references to again increase the number of links

so I've become suspicious that these are deliberately placed as link spam, maybe for SEO or ad revenue or something else.

Here are some diffs of my fixes:

What is the best way to fix these? Editing them out is quite tedious. Can the worldradiohistory.com website be blacklisted? -- Mikeblas (talk) 22:21, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Pinging radio expert @Sammi Brie who may know more about this website. —Kusma (talk) 23:07, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
So there are a few pieces to this puzzle, Mikeblas and Kusma.
  • I actually that I have a minor COI, not with the content hosted on it but with the site itself (I've contributed some non-content-related material to it). I also know the founder from being on the same discussion forums about radio. For what it's worth, the site FAQ notes,Much is used with the owner's permission but we can not sell it. Further, fulfillment would be a great burden for a non-profit site. There is also a take-down policy (which uses the site's former domain and name), and I have seen some publications removed at publisher's request. If more information is warranted, I can see about putting you in touch with the founder. I suspect some of the site's oldest US material (though probably not much-cited) could be PD, as there are some 1920s radio magazines in the catalog.
    • The take-down policy reads as follows:www.americanradiohistory.com makes digital versions of collections and publications accessible in the following situations: 1) They are in the public domain 2) In the case of periodicals, the journal ceased publication and no apparent rights holder is accessible wherefore abandonment is assumed. 3) www.americanradiohistory.com has permission to make them accessible 4) The item is out of print and the publisher can not be located for further clarification. 5) We make them accessible for education and research purposes as a legal fair use, or 6) There are no known restrictions on use.
  • I know exactly the user who can be pinpointed to the referencing patterns, multi-page misuse, and dense style: User:Tvtonightokc. His page and writing style is so unbelievably dense that it has caused me concern for years—a concern I've raised on his user talk with little success (Special:Diff/1073719486). (Try reading KWTV-DT vis-a-vis KFOR-TV!) There is a reason that some of my GAs in this field actually saw a 40-percent or more decline in readable prose size when I worked on them. I also find myself fixing lots of these "individual-link" errors when I work on pages he has edited heavily.
  • And I've added probably thousands of links myself in working on hundreds of such pages. I know Broadcasting and Radio & Records are also in ProQuest, but not in TWL's subscription to it, and later years of Broadcasting & Cable articles are in Gale General OneFile (which TWL has). Converting refs to use database links will be a chore galore, though it should be possible for a user even with TWL ProQuest access to search by article title of non-full-text items.
I'm hopeful there's some sort of solution where everything doesn't have to be wiped, but I obviously understand this as a site policy concern. Pinging someone I know who should also see this discussion immediately, Nathan Obral. I am also on Discord if you need further coordination. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 23:57, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
I don't think there's any question that the site is on very weak IP territory. I don't see the FAQ you're quoting, but what you quote ("abandonment is assumed" ... "educational fair use") just isn't the way copyrights work. The disclaimer visible on the site is more of the same. If the site did have permission to redistribute complete issues of magaiznes, it would claim so clearly and unambiguously.
Not everything needs to be wiped. It's just that the links need to be removed to comply with WP:COPYVIO. You can see this in the diffs I posted -- magazine, issued date (or number and volume), and page number remain; the link goes, and the via= param goes with it. -- Mikeblas (talk) 00:09, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
I don't believe 2). and 4). are valid copyright exemptions. Per WP:COPYVIOEL..links to websites that display copyrighted works are acceptable as long as the website is manifestly run, maintained or owned by the copyright owner; the website has licensed the work from the owner; or it uses the work in a way compliant with fair use. Abandonment or being unable to contact the publisher doesn't mean copyright is no longer in effect, and isn't fair use. 6). Also seems shaky as copyright exists unless established otherwise (e.g. it has entered the public domain or the creator of the work has given up the copyright to the public). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 00:49, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
Before sanitizing the links, let's get the problem pages figured out and dealt with first. Especially if the sourcing issues are coming from Tvtonightokc and his incredibly dense writing style, which has absolutely frustrated me over the years.
Sammi Brie and I entirely blew up 1994–1996 United States broadcast television realignment and rewrote the whole thing AND are in the process of merging that with Repercussions of the 1994–1996 United States broadcast TV realignment. You can see here how badly bloated and unreadable both pages were here and here. I noticed there were things poorly attributed, with one urban legend existing on MULTIPLE pages because of a long-dead website, Michiguide.com (here. here and here.)
Point being, this is an eternal cleanup job, and using WRH has helped my cause with trying to tackle all this stuff alongside Newspapers.com and NewsBank. (Sammi has access to GenealogyBank, I don't.) Nathan Obral • he/him • t • c • 00:51, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure I follow. Why shouldn't the links to copyvio be removed (to promptly the WP:COPYVIO and WP:COPYVIOEL policies) before re-writing the articles? It seems straight-forward (but tedious) to relieve the links, but rewriting a couple dozen articles will take a long time. Maybe I've misunderstood something. -- Mikeblas (talk) 02:10, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
My concern is that there exists no choice but to rewrite the articles in question. When I redid the realignment articles, I made it a concerted effort to retain as little of the original text as I could, effectively working under the mindset it WAS riddled with copyvios (including redoing all of the inline refs, which were poorly set up and often didn't include things like page numbers).
I noticed the changes on WKEF and it is actually inexcusable that the local paper (the Dayton Daily News) isn't cited at all in the station's early years. There is no reason for Broadcasting magazine to even be used in an article like that unless it was for some unavoidable reason. Nathan Obral • he/him • t • c • 03:07, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
Probably a less confusing way to say this is, the articles are more the problem here and need to be addressed, no matter what. Nathan Obral • he/him • t • c • 03:18, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
I have a hard time responding to limiting statements like "no choice but to rewrite", "there is no reason", and "no matter what". I think it's quite viable to remove the offending copyvio links leaving the complete (but lin-linked) date/issue citations behind. That can be done promptly, and any overall editorial concerns about the articles themselves can proceed concurrently and takes a long as needed -- but the copyvio issue needs to be addressed. Why do you exclude that path ... and all others? -- Mikeblas (talk) 16:06, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
This merits a comprehensive technical solution than just stripping out the URLs. I’m currently brainstorming a possible method that could be tried. YES it will mean more work in the short term but will spare incredible headache in the future trying to backdate ProQuest template insertions and not knowing what pages need to be fixed. The current stripping out doesn’t do me or Sammi Brie any favors as we need a path to find a solution first.
I have to consult others more technically versed to see if my idea is even workable before I propose it here, so I please ask for the benefit of some time here. But this can be handled in a much better way that can at least help me and Sammi and others. The current proposal is more a hindrance to us than a help, moreso because Sammi is the only one right now capable of FIXING them due to WMF not having the necessary PQ libraries on hand in the Wikipedia Library, I’m terribly limited here.
And yes, I stand by my assertion that the aforementioned articles need to be rewritten wholesale anyway, as further elaborated by Wcquidditch below. The topic fields of TV and radio have numerous articles that make me and Wcquidditch and Sammi cringe to no end, even as all three of us (and numerous other editors) have been working our butts off trying to fix them all. That to me remains a core problem here regardless. Nathan Obral • he/him • t • c • 19:44, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
The copyvio link policies exist because Wikipedia is negatively affected by such links. I don't think those policies have escapes for editor convenience. ProQuest is a subscription service, so updating links to point to it only benefits the few people who have access to ProQuest (and who have a subscription that includes access to those collections, and ...) I'm sorry, but I don't think the correction of the URLs should wait. "FIXING them" means removing the copyvio URL.
My understanding is that Sammie wants to convert the deleted links to ProQuest links. Presumably, they'd want add ProQuest links any appropriate reference (any references to Billboard or C+B, for example), not just any reference that used to have a URL pointing at copyvio material. Solving that problem isn't requisite to eliminating the copyvio issue as far as I can tell. -- Mikeblas (talk) 21:48, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
I strenuously and vigorously object to this insistence that only one solution can be had. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater without a fair and proper assessment of usage of links in WRH is wrong and I oppose it completely. It’s already been shown that some of the publications are in fact public domain or hosted on the website by the blessing of the publisher, so the blanket copyvio claims for every link on the site is entirely inaccurate and presents a larger array of problems in the long run for WPRS and TVS, denigrating those articles further than they are.
I simply cannot abide by such rash and harsh reasoning that we have no choice but to do something so rigid and inflexible. There has to be a much better solution to this problem. Nathan Obral • he/him • t • c • 18:36, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
Looking at Superstation... the article just needs to be redone outright. It's too burdensome and cumbersome to even be workable and I can't see how the subject matter is even remotely accessible to the lay reader who knows nothing about the intricacies of broadcasting. Same with WGN America. Nathan Obral • he/him • t • c • 01:25, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
I have removed the WorldRadioHistory links from Superstation (and a few other articles). -- Mikeblas (talk) 13:44, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
You’re better off excising the affected sections or sending the entire article to AfD as it is impossible to rehabilitate them. The articles remain the problem and I remain steadfast on that. Nathan Obral • he/him • t • c • 16:42, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
  • Just a note, I've started overbuilding some of the Broadcasting (& Cable) references in articles of mine with the ProQuest IDs associated with them, e.g. Special:Diff/1157508502. I am going to need an army to do this on probably thousands of pages, and the fact that WMF does not have in its ProQuest bundle the right database will make this slightly more difficult for other users to carry out. (If anyone from WMF is listening, you want Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive, collections 1 and 2, which will solve the most-used WRH publications.) Plus, that still doesn't cover annuals; books; and other sundry matter. Another courtesy ping to Wcquidditch, one of our broadcasting editors at volume who will want to see this and who has probably added another large number of these links. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 03:27, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
    As it happens, I already knew of this discussion and was already preparing a response! Couldn't there be some way to automate (with a bot or other tool) the removal of the links in question? That would probably aid with the tediousness. (Bad writing styles are a problem that should be dealt with too, particularly when they are as much of a chore to read as to edit — but not necessarily with the urgency of anything related to copyright policy.) As for sunsetting WRH as a path to cite these magazines… as someone who, admittedly, has (as Sammi Brie correctly noted) often used it to help source broadcasting-related articles, I have wondered at times whether its use actually complied with policy or has been a topicwide systemic linkvio. (This topic area has often been terrible at strict adherence to policies and guidelines over the years — off the top of my head, too many station articles still have non-free former logos that need to go, many more still bold the applicable letters of a call sign meaning against the MoS, the topic area was rather lax on notability for a long time, the perennial problems with OR, synthesis, and crystal ballery (and a lot of those can bring us back to what Nathan Obral said aboutthe articles are more the problem here) — so uncovering another policy issue might be anticlimatic to some.) I cannot say I am completely surprised someone, after all these years, finally brought this up to a noticeboard.
    One additional note: Any cleanup of these links should also take into account the 12,347 links to americanradiohistory.com, the site's previous name, and the remaining 504 (mostly dead) links to davidgleason.com, the personal site of WRH's proprietor which housed its content early on. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 03:37, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
    Any link removal should be coordinated with a ProQuest ID tagging (as what Sammi Brie mentioned above). I do not have access to this because it's not a part of PQ's offerings in the Wikipedia Library. I don't know if bots are capable of things like that... Nathan Obral • he/him • t • c • 04:00, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
    (edit conflict) @Wcquidditch Removing the links is trivial if something like GreenC bot can handle this. But yes, I agree with a lot of what you have said. This field has had a years-long odyssey to anything approaching respectability and some really painful moments. For the benefit of non-topic editors, we had an RfC about adhering to MOS:ACRO and an attempt to update the SNG that was turned back with a suggestion to conform to the GNG, which may explain the state we're in. More broadly, is there a utility that can find ProQuest IDs (including some fuzzy matches) for a source given a date, possible title, and publication to search? If it exists, it would need to run on a lot of pages, but it would solve the vast majority of the issues with the most-used publications. The rest would likely be intractable annuals, books, and other material. There are also some 1920s publications, and possibly pre-1964 books, that would be PD in the US. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 04:02, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
    I've written a tool that removes the links (and: via= and access-date=, plus any archive-tags, and converts the reference to {{cite magazine}}). That removes all the link information and leaves the publication name, issue date, and page number information -- all still available for a viable reference, and all supporting any conversion that might be desired in the future.
    This is working pretty well, but I don't want to fully automate it because I wouldn't be able to do adequate testing. I need to review the changes it makes each time before submitting them. WRH seems to be linked dozens of times from individual articles, while ARH seems to be linked here and there -- sometimes often, but only a few times per article. That makes cleanup slower. Also, this tool only addresses {{cite web}} references; raw external links aren't parsed because they don't have a consistent structure.
    So far, I've done this for:Loring Buzzell, List of Billboard number-one singles of 1941, KFDA-TV, KTVQ (Oklahoma City), TBS (American TV channel), WGN-TV, KOCO-TV, and KOTV-DT ... and probably a few others. -- Mikeblas (talk) 13:53, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
    • A note: my overbuild process for references has identified so far at least one publication so far for which no copyright renewal was ever filed that is in WRH's holdings, Radio Guide. [51] This publication probably should be exempted from link removal. There are also likely more obscure pre-1963 periodicals that are not specifically called out as non-renewed in the first renewals for periodicals listing. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 05:18, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
      An audit should be done for all of the publications in WRH and to see what legitimately falls in PD and what doesn’t. A few of my Commons uploads survived a deletion request after verifying that a WGAR promotional album hosted in WRH (which I list in the bibliography for WHKW, by the way) did not file a copyright renewal and actually WERE verified PD. Nathan Obral • he/him • t • c • 12:34, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
David Gleason has been praised for amassing and digitizing his collection of magazines. The worldradiohistory.com website is described as trustworthy, used by scholars for research.[52] When people on Wikipedia are citing a magazine page hosted by a trustworthy online source, per WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT, they do not need to cite the hosting service.
That said, if other editors want to check the cited source, the URL from worldradiohistory.com gives quick access. I would not like to see these convenient links removed. Binksternet (talk) 05:19, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
I'm also compelled to point out, for what it's worth, that when modern-day Broadcasting+Cable marked its 90th anniversary in 2021, they linked to both the first issue of Broadcasting from 1931 as well as the 1982 obituary of co-founder Sol Taishoff… and in both cases, they linked to the copies hosted on World Radio History. Make of that what you will (even if it is little more than the periodical equivalent of a TV station embedding an unofficial YouTube upload of their own coverage of an old news story, something I've run into at least once)… WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 05:31, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
Where they have the licence from the copyright holder to host the material it's not a problem, but as I said in my previous comment "the rights holder can't be found" is not a copyright exemption. Being a useful research source isn't an exemption either. I don't doubt the site is trustworthy and that the content they are hosting is being preproduced faithfully, the fact the discussion is happening at RSN and not the copyright board muddies the issue at hand. If the copyright of something they are hosting cannot be verified it must not be linked to, WP:COPYVIO is quite clear about that. The reference to the magazine can stay, again this isn't really an RS issue. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 11:46, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
Broadcasting's history and lineage can be best described as convoluted. Sol Taishoff bought several publications over the years and merged them into the magazine (even Broadcasting was born out of a 1933 merger with the even older Broadcast Advertising!) which is why you see the magazine titled in the 1950s as “Broadcasting—Telecasting”. The current rights holders might be maintaining a copyright either through Taishoff or Cahners but it’s not something that I can say with 100 percent assurance. Nor do I know about the status for the merged publications. Nathan Obral • he/him • t • c • 12:13, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
@Wcquidditch: A few days after you posted this, it kinda makes me wonder if B+C’s legal counsel is even aware that a third-party website is hosting back issues of their publication. But that B+C linked to one of these files in WRH for a recent story on their website, it unintentionally conveys endorsement on their part, does it not? This is not, NOT a clean-cut situation and B+C needs to clarify their stance as much as David (Eduardo) Gleason does. Nathan Obral • he/him • t • c • 19:24, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment. The vast majority of the sources there that get cited appear to be books or magazines; it's possible to still use the site for one's research and simple fill out the relevant {{Cite book}} or {{Cite magazine}} without entering a URL field. We might have an issue with WP:COPYVIOEL here with respect to some back-copy texts, but I don't think that's reason to blacklist the whole website. I don't think it's any worse than archive dot org's user-uploaded content, and I doubt we'd blacklist the internet archive even though they presently host (for example) a full-length upload of Gone with the Wind, a film that came out in 1939 and is still copyrighted. It is an individual editor's responsibility to use the site responsibly, just as we do with the Internet Archive, but I think this can be managed without a whole-site blacklisting at this point. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 01:38, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
    At this point, the fact that a wholesale blacklisting under blanket copyvio claims is even a thing and already taken place has incensed me to the point where I cannot in good conscience continue as an editor in these topic fields. I am completely opposed to offline sourcing in TVS and WPRS and find it particularly grating that I now longer have no access to correct actual cases of copyvio by other editors. Nathan Obral • he/him • t • c • 16:30, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

About Issue*wire, stylised as Issue*Wire

Hi all,

Apologies if this is malformed - "Before starting an RfC please consider: is your question a one-off, or is it project-wide? Is it about reliability or prominence?" - posting on this page generates an RfC?

This website describes itself as "PRESS RELEASE DISTRIBUTION NETWORK Distribute your Press Release to over 150+ media outlets, magazines, major news outlets. Get Genuine Media Coverage and Exposure at Major Media Outlets" at https: //www. issuewire. com/

It is currently (5 Jun 2023) used as a reference in these articles:

It would appear to me that citations from a website that advertises itself as generating press release copy for other press releases would not be in any way considered a reliable reference.

Your thoughts about this?

Shirt58 (talk) 🦘 11:23, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Press releases distribution companies generally host and have their byline on press releases generated their clients. Press releases are considered usable under the strictures of WP:ABOUTSELF. There are examples in your list of both proper use (Uncle Nearest, a whiskey company talking about its history and distribution) and improper (Horowitz Publications, with a comic book seller talking about a used comic book they are offering.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 15:05, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
  • edited to avoid black-listed website
FacepalmFacepalm I should have know better when I clickedPublish changes and the relevant edit filter disallowed my edit before posting. As for Horwitz Publications, I see no issue whatsoever here. As for Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, I would first ask that a very large sample of their sippin' whiskey be sent to Peter in Australia aka Shirt58 at his home address <redacted>, <redacted>, Melbourne, Australia, as an interim discussion point.--Shirt58 (talk) 🦘 10:58, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Your experience drinking the whiskey cannot be used as a reliable source on the whiskey itself, under WP:SELFSOUSED. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 17:31, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Pink News

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

I cannot imagine how or why PinkNews is remotely considered a reliable source. It is LBG/TQ propaganda (mostly TQ, these days as the lobby becomes increasingly brazen in pushing its agenda). Anyone who disagrees with them or with whom they disagree on almost any issue is automatically "transphobic", as well as a homophobe, a racist, and a white supremacist at the same time. The aggressors become the victims -- as in its reporting of the 2023 Glendale, California battle between schoolkids' parents and Antifas; the latter attacked the former but somehow it became the reverse in PinkNews' coverage whereby the mostly Armenian and Hispanic parent protesters became "right-wing activists" ([53]). Perhaps the fact that the parents got the better of the SoCal Antifa domestic terrorists galled/galls the PinkNews' editors. 65.88.88.54 (talk) 20:01, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

I am unsure what article and what citation you are claiming Pink News is inappropriately being used as an reliable source on. However, given that your complaint is that Pink News's coverage depicted a certain group as starting violence in Glendale, and given that their coverage of Glendale specifically states "It is currently unclear who started the violence", it seems that your complaint is not rooted in reality. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 20:11, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
IP you're being misleading here. Nowhere in the article linked on the Twitter thread you posted does it say who started the violence. And as Nat Gertler pointed out, in their coverage a day later they explicitly state that it was unclear who started it. The article also does not call all of those parents who were present protesting "right-wing activists". It does however say that there are reports that a number of known Proud Boys members were present within the group of anti-LGBTQ+ protestors. This seems to broadly match up with the LA Times reporting of the same event.
Additionally, The Guardian's reporting on this also points out that local journalists had recorded thatmultiple rightwing activists who have a history of violence – and who live elsewhere in California – were present at the local school board protest, and that one journalist found evidence of Proud Boys stickers being left behind by those in attendence.
None of the reporting on the violence by reliable sources have mentioned any Antifa presence at this protest, though I do see that some unreliable sources are trying to claim as such. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:33, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article in "International Journal of Aerospace Sciences"

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


I was adding following claim to Lithium perchlorate (diff):

I cited that article (there's some trouble with doi, so here's the direct link [54]]):

  • Tian Ze Cheng; Mahir Tuli (2014). "Dissolving Lithium Perchlorate in Prepolymers for Easier and Cheaper Propellant Manufacture". International Journal of Aerospace Sciences. 3 (1): 1–5. doi:10.5923/j.aerospace.20140301.01.

And was warned by edit filter that I'm citing predatory open access journal. I've found their website: [55](warning: it's http), and now I'm confused. They are open access, but they have the editorial board and claim to peer-review submissions. That looks good, but I haven't much experience in those parts. So I have a question: is the article published in this journal reliable enough for the claim about use of LiClO4 in APCP? Comrade a!rado🇷🇺 (C🪆T) 10:08, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Lots of journals claim to conduct peer review. “Having an editorial board” means essentially nothing. You should treat articles from a garbage publisher like this as garbage. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 11:51, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
Alright, thanks! I'll try to find something better to cite. Comrade a!rado🇷🇺 (C🪆T) 12:04, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
Update: I've found million times better sources for more general use in propellants and pyrotechnics, so this is
Resolved
Comrade a!rado🇷🇺 (C🪆T) 13:06, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC: Wikipedia:WikiProject Venezuela/Reliable and unreliable sources

Wanted to notify users about a WP:RfC regarding Wikipedia:WikiProject Venezuela/Reliable and unreliable sources. The discussion can be found here. If there is a way to centralize the discussion or move it here to WP:RSN, then that would be greatly appreciated!--WMrapids (talk) 15:23, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

RfC: Reliability of La Patilla

Wanted to notify users about a WP:RfC about the reliability of La Patilla. The discussion can be found here. If there is a way to centralize the discussion or move it here to WP:RSN, then that would be greatly appreciated!--WMrapids (talk) 15:23, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Duplicate of #RfC: La Patilla. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:19, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia-nato-crimea

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

Jacobin is approved on the Wikipedia list of sources. Why are people saying I cannot use it to edit Russo-Ukrainian War when it is reliable? [56] Chances last a finite time (talk) 14:24, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Becasue you want to use it to Change "the Euromaidan protests" to "the far-right U.S.-backed Euromaidan protests", we are not saying its not reliable for its claim, we are saying the claim violates wp:undue. Slatersteven (talk) 14:30, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
For context, the discussion being referred to is here. Mr rnddude (talk) 14:32, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
You said it was "commentary" and not "news reporting", but [57] says that it "meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering". Chances last a finite time (talk) 14:34, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
[58] says this too. "the far right Svoboda party was the most active collective agent in conventional and confrontational Maidan protest events, while the Right Sector was the most active collective agent in violent protest events". Chances last a finite time (talk) 14:46, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
Although all content must be reliably sourced, but just because something is reliably sourced doesn't mean it has to be included (see WP:ONUS). You will need to find consensus on the articles talk page for your changes. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:57, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

RfC: Is Jacobin generally reliable?

Many people are saying that Jacobin is not reliable when I try to use it, but it is on the approved list of sources. Fellow editors: is Jacobin generally reliable? Chances last a finite time (talk) 20:58, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Discussion: Is Jacobin generally reliable?

  • Absolutely reliable. There was a conversation [59] where an arbitrator ruled that Jacobin "meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering". It is one of the best news sources in the English language: it has incredible integrity, and it publishes important facts-first journalism, and it holds power and capital accountable. Jacobin is fiercely independent and does not share the biases of western mainstream media. We need to use it so our articles can be comprehensive and factual because it is reliable. Chances last a finite time (talk) 20:58, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
    I removed the pointy RFC tag. Above it appears that people are trying to explain WP:DUEWEIGHT, not saying the source isn't reliable. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:10, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
    The tag is there because I want to request comments from the community of Wikipedia editors about this. Chances last a finite time (talk) 21:41, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
    There is already a consensus on this source editor time is the most valuable commodity, and you're wasting it because you're unwilling to listen to what other editors are saying. As a new editor editing a contentious topic you should be listening to the other editors. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:46, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
I think you need to take a step back and look again, what people are telling you appears to be much more nuanced than that (for example the title being treated differently from the body). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:24, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
@HandThatFeeds says that Jacobin does not fit RS with regards to September 11 attacks. I do not like that this generally reliable source is excluded in so many places. Chances last a finite time (talk) 21:38, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
Wow, that's just a blatant, naked lie. What I said was that this particular Jacobin article did not constitute a RS for the 9/11 article, as it was entirely about a conspiracy theory. I specifically pointed out that we were not claiming Jacobin itself was inherently unreliable. I'll thank you to strike the above accusation. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 21:58, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Unreliable for this at minimum and this article series is so dreadful that I'd question whether we can consider the Jacobin to be generally reliable. Generally reliable publications don't publish crackpot 9/11 conspiracy theories. Toa Nidhiki05 22:03, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
Depreciate. This is very bad source, full of lies and propaganda. Editor is propagandist. The CIA did not do 9/11 This is opinion and hyperbole source. Euromaidan was a popular revolution of dignity, not a nazi plot Euromaidan: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia. This is not reliable and it is not news. The decision was bad. Ghost of Kiev (talk) 22:05, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
I do not like quick ending [60]. I want to depreciate Jacobin. Ghost of Kiev (talk) 22:20, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
This should be speedy closed. The preceding discussion shows it's unwarranted. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 23:20, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
Over a year ago is not “recent” and the recent publication of crackpot 9/11 conspiracy theories (or, as presented above, actual pro-Russian propaganda) is a substantial enough problem to throw its reliability into doubt. This is worth discussing. Toa Nidhiki05 23:33, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
It’s more than recent enough. If we rehash everything every year or two nothing would ever be concluded. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 06:37, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
The final !vote in that discussion is from August of 2021, so it seems more than ripe for re-discussion. The 9/11 conspiracy theories are not a good sign, but I have to look more deeply before committing a !vote. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 00:30, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
On a separate note, it might be better to add the standard four options at the top, just for convenience sake. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 00:31, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
All of the contentious Jacobin articles added by the OP seem to be coming from the same author: [61], [62], [63], [64] (Branko Marcetic). Are there such articles by other authors on the site? –Vipz (talk) 01:42, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Whether we continue to consider the publication as a whole as generally reliable source, we should assess Jacobin articles on a case by case basis, taking in the author's credibility. I'd say that articles by Marcetic (a Jacobin staff writer who rarely publishes elsewhere) would almost be filed in the not-reliable category. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:06, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
I would not object to revisiting Jacobin with a new RfC, especially given the previous one was not terribly conclusive (and that this is apparently a source that dabbles in conspiracy theories?). But this is definitely not the right way to do it. It's either an issue of WP:POINT or WP:CIR on behalf of the user that opened the RfC. And given that several users have already explained this to them and asked them to stop before this RfC was opened, I think the behavioral element needs to be addressed before an RfC is formed under more reasonable circumstances. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:00, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Agreed. This RfC should be closed as unnecessary, since Jacobin's reliability is not at issue in the present instance. OP has demonstrated a WP:CIR / WP:LISTEN problem which is behavioral in nature. The content they are seeking to add is obviously, wildly WP:UNDUE, as has been explained to them by numerous experienced editors. Generalrelative (talk) 02:46, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
I'd concur with that close. XOR'easter (talk) 02:59, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
I would as well. I do think the 2021 RfC asked the wrong question and mixed up reliability and dueness, and a new RfC should confront that squarely (e.g. should Jacobin only be used as attributed opinion, or some such). Mackensen (talk) 03:03, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
This seems to be an issue (so far) with one particular author on board of Jacobin, what's the correct approach? –Vipz (talk) 03:09, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
It should also be careful to distinguish Jacobin magazine from its peer-reviewed offshoot Catalyst, which publishes some decent scholarship and scholarly reviews, albeit of course always from an anti-capitalist perspective. Generalrelative (talk) 03:18, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Exactly Lukewarmbeer (talk) 06:38, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment: It's not that long since the last RfC. If we are considering it again, (a) was there an issue with the closing? (I note about 15 of 35 participants last time !voted for generally reliable, and I would have closed it as "No consensus, unclear, or additional considerations apply" but with similar text) or (b) has anything changed, e.g. new revelations of bad editorial practice? (I don't think so, although possibly the war in Ukraine might have brought into focus some of the more fringe positions it publishes on Russia-related geopolitics). In short, I think we should probably keep with the old consensus unless there is some pressing reason to reconsider. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:00, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Flawed RFC No one has challenged its reliably until this thread. As such the original question is meaningless and smacks of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Slatersteven (talk) 11:40, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
    Seconded. Let's get a speedy redo of Abecedare's close here, and throw this mess out. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:18, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
    Thirded. Selfstudier (talk) 13:24, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Not reliable While I can understand the opinion that this particular discussion is pointy, I'm surprised anyone could consider an extremist propaganda piece like Jacobin reliable. It is the equivalent of Breitbart, just with a different political point of view. Both Breitbart and Jacobin regularly publish lies and distortions when it suits their respective political agendas, and would never publish anything not in line with those agendas. Jeppiz (talk) 13:56, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
    Can you show they have a reputation for knowingly telling lies? Slatersteven (talk) 14:00, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
    Can you show anything at all other than your own opinion? Selfstudier (talk) 14:30, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
    Jacobin is hardly comparable to Breitbart IMO. If I were to make a comparison to another publication with a political slant, It would be something like National Review or Reason Magazine.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 15:38, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Generally reliable. The magazine publishes fact-based articles and does not promote conspiracy theories, although it is indeed a biased source, so proper attribution should be recommended.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 14:54, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
  • A good point was made above that all of these problematic articles are by the same author, that to me would indicate that the issue isn't widespread enough to impact our assessment of Jacobin and we should instead rule that the author Branko Marcetic should be ruled unreliable. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:03, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
    Broadly agree but need to be a little careful. He occasionally publishes in outlets a little more reliable than Jacobin (e.g. The Nation, In These Times) and those sources might be usable if due. Of course, he also occasionally publishes in less reliable sources, and those we should remove on sight. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:46, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
    If an author is unreliable they're unreliable in every publication they write for, outlet has no bearing on it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:58, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
    Don't think we are determining here if the author is unreliable, I have no opinion on that atm, but this RFC really needs to be shut down, it's all over the place, so I am going to take off the tag and turn it into a discussion instead if that's OK. Selfstudier (talk) 16:09, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
    And please refrain from purging his content from the encyclopedia as you have been doing in the last hour. No consensus has been reached on the reliability of Marcetic's work. I have already reverted one of these instances.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 15:53, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
    No thank you, don't forget to open a talk page discussion to get consensus for your desired additions! Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:57, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Generally UNreliable - once it was (for some info) but it has gone way down hill and these days its content regularly strays into WP:FRINGE territory, with it becoming comparable to garbage like Mint Press News Volunteer Marek 16:18, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I see that this has already been closed and my note is not about this edit or this source in particular, so I thought it'd still post it in case a future RFC is in consideration. It is common for reliable sources with an editorial team review to clearly distinguish categories, like: official news, paper editorials (op-eds), columnist opinions and press releases or reviews (i.e. concerning companies or products like books or films). Some sources are mostly blogs that cannot be considered reliable by themselves and every post is a particular contributor's opinion, something that is rarely useful for sensitive material. For those with more structure, the author matters less because articles supposedly go through the team's review before publication. In which case, when a source is considered reliable or unreliable, it mostly relies on that editorial policy and attitude that would be expected to comprise self-policing, the retraction and correction of errors, etc. —PaleoNeonate – 13:52, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

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