Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 473

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current main page.

The following discussion will be of interest here. Feel free to join us and explain how the RS policy works in this case:

Talk:Mueller special counsel investigation#When RS make false claims, we do not treat them as true.

The RS policy does not imply that all content from RS is accurate. We know that there are situations where RS make mistakes. In such cases, we are supposed to use our common sense. In this case, many RS make false claims about what Mueller said his investigation found.

We are dealing with the contrast between Mueller's clear finding and false claims by Barr and Trump (and many RS) about what Mueller found:

1. Mueller: the "investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."
2. Others: Mueller found "no collusion" with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

My position is that we should not use the false aspects of what those RS say. We should ignore the false part. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:11, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

See WP:NOTTRUTH. It touches on what your mentioned. We do not determine what is true, but RS do that. Not sure who the source for "Others" is. When multiple interpretations exist among RS, then attribution seems appropriate. Ramos1990 (talk) 03:04, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

If we choose to use the sources, then we would attribute the false words to them and state that those words are false. We do not leave readers in doubt. That is one option, and since many RS make this mistake, we should document the issue. We have a whole section (currently misleading by lack of mention) dealing with this (Mueller special counsel investigation#Conspiracy vs collusion), and we need to make examples of some of those RS getting it wrong. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:08, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

see WP:SOURCEWRONG. sometimes even reliable sources are wrong. Briefly perusing talk page discussion, maybe approach 4 could be best. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 03:15, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

That's a good resource. Thanks! -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:53, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

The issue here is your have done a lot of personal research on a topic and determined what you think the truth is, to back that up you found a lot of sources from right around the incident that you feel support that POV. The issue is the majority of sources disagree with you and more specifically more contemporary sources are much more likely to disagree with your view on the subject. I think it would be best if you just follow current RS consensus on it. PackMecEng (talk) 13:00, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

See WP:SOURCEWRONG. When myriad RS get it wrong, they get it wrong, and we may need to explain the contradiction between Mueller and those sources which mistakenly claim he found "no collusion". He did no such thing, and he pushed back against that error. He only evaluated "conspiracy" and "coordination", not "collusion".

The claim there was "no collusion" was a lie told by Barr and Trump, and still repeated by myriad RS. It's okay to say that Mueller could not prove "conspiracy" and "coordination", but it is very misleading to claim Mueller found "no collusion". It's also okay to use RS that explain the contradiction between Mueller and those sources. That's what NPOV tells us to do when there is a significant difference of opinion. In this case, it's a difference between an unchanged factual statement by Mueller and erroneous descriptions of that statement by many RS. They get it wrong, and we should explain it using the RS that explain it, including Mueller himself when he pushed back against that error. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 13:13, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

The entire "NOTTRUTH"/"SOURCEWRONG" response to this is TL;DR. It's really quite simple, the people trying to make it complicated seemingly have an agenda.

The reliable source for what Mueller said is Mueller himself. He is the primary source. A source which does not accurately report what Mueller said is not reliable for purposes of reporting what Mueller said, and when Mueller's statements are published by Mueller himself, it should be easy to check the primary source, Mueller, to confirm what the secondary sources said, he actually said. – wbm1058 (talk) 21:04, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

There's a BIG difference betweenMueller found "no collusion" (meaning there could have been collusion, but he just didn't find any) and "Mueller found that there was no collusion" – which is false. – wbm1058 (talk) 21:14, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Bingo on both points. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:33, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Editors should follow sources not what they believe to be the truth, but that only includes reliable sources. If a source is obviously misquoting or misstating something then it's not reliable for that detail, no matter how high quality and reliable the source is in general. Sources are only every generally reliable not absolutely reliable, editors need to use their good judgement in handling the specifics. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:53, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

• The error here is Mueller is a primary source and all the RS saying no collusion are secondary sources interpreting the primary. As you note Mueller said they were not looking for collusion which he notes is similar but legally different. So what is happening here is most RS look at the Mueller report (a primary source) and make interpretations from that, which is what a secondary source should do. What YOU are doing is making that interpretation for them because you think they are wrong, which we should not be doing. PackMecEng (talk) 13:18, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

  I think it's a bit strong to say it's just their opinion that it's wrong. There's a Times Magazine article[1] on myths about the Mueller investigation that points out that this is wrong, and a Politico article[2] about the same issue. It may be worthwhile discussing the issue in the article. So have the article talk about how papers reported the point, and how it's not quite right. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:32, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

  "Mueller said they were not looking for collusion which he notes is similar but legally different"

  No, Mueller didn't say that they're similar. He said

  "most RS look at the Mueller report (a primary source) and make interpretations from that, which is what a secondary source should do"

  And they frequently made the same mistake because they weren't paying attention to the difference between collusion and conspiracy and, equally important, because they weren't paying attention to the legal difference between "found no evidence of" and "did not establish". As noted above and also on the talk page, that a source is GREL does not imply that it is reliable for all details. We can certainly note that many in the media reported that there was "no collusion," but we also note that better sources reported it correctly. ActivelyDisinterested already noted an article written by two law professors noting that "no collusion" is a "myth." Here's another written by a lawyer with significant expertise (a former General Counsel to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence) pointing out the "no colllusion" problem. I'm sure that I can find other discussions by legal scholars / lawyers with significant expertise. It's also easy to find non-experts in GREL sources pointing out the same problem: such as here, here, here, here and here. Per WP:BESTSOURCES, we should "bas[e] content on the best respected and most authoritative reliable sources," and those are going to be written by legal scholars who understand why "no collusion" misrepresents the actual findings. But we can also say that plenty of GREL sources written by non-scholars made this error and others noted that it's an error. FactOrOpinion (talk) 15:54, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

  Sure there are sources that make that claim they are just in the minority and generally older, from right around the time of the event. Its basicslly cherry picking sources to say what you agree with and why largely WP:RGW. Again, the majority of current strong RS disagree with you. PackMecEng (talk) 16:12, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

  That reliable sources disagree about something is a thing that is usually discussed in an artcile, the issue here appears to be the common usage of collusion rather than it's legal term. Discussing that in the article would appear appropriate. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:40, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

  Again: WP:NPOV says to go with the strongest sources. I invite you to present a source written by legal scholars that thinks "no collusion" is accurate. Here's another article about it written by a law professor, again demonstrating that such a claim is false. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:02, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

• This is why we work with verifiability not truth, thats just too high a standard for us to meet at the end of the day. When sources conflict we generally defer to sources which are stronger and/or more recently published... But that isn't the same thing as assigning values of true and false. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:44, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

  The idea that newer sources are somehow better in this case ignores the fact that the Mueller report has not been revised and no newer information has proven that Mueller's "I DELIBERATELY did NOT evaluate collusion" (paraphrase) was a misstatement justifying later secondary RS to claim that Mueller concluded there actually was "no collusion". Mueller treated "conspiracy" differently than "collusion", so it's not okay to just switch them. We don't get to use careless reporting in RS to engage in historical revisionism.

The sources that are getting it wrong are putting words in Mueller's mouth that he never uttered or implied, not just asserting their own opinion that there was "no collusion". They are also repeating Barr's and Trump's lies.

The idea that newer sources are often better applies to changing situations where newer revelations cause us to revise our understandings and update our content. This is not such a case. No matter how many RS were to say it, they don't get to place words in Mueller's mouth that clearly contradict what he actually said.

Interestingly, the longer we get from the Mueller report and the 2016 election interference, the more RS describe evidence of many forms of collusion and even conspiracy. (That is not at issue in this discussion, but that is a situation where newer information does cause us to change our previous views. Mueller did not examine everything in depth. Later research and documents are incriminating.) -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:41, 18 March 2025 (UTC

I would still weight newer sources higher. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:30, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

We often work with truth. Truth is a key factor in determining whether a source is/isn't a reliable, as fact-checking and accuracy involve attention to the truth. Truth is what determines whether a quote is accurate (did the source actually say this, or did the editor pretend that it's a quote when it isn't?). When we encounter something that's false in an article, truth often motivates us to search for a source that allows us to correct it. We don't go around inserting what we believe to be true if we don't have an RS to verify it, but when we do have several RSs verifying the truth, it's absolutely appropriate to say "these other sources are GREL, but they've gotten this claim wrong; it's not true, so they're not reliable for this particular claim." FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:18, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

No... Truth is what determines whether a quote is true, verifiability is what determines whether a given representation of a quote is accurate. "Cheese causes AIDS" can be a verifiably accurate quote, but it wouldn't be true. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:30, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about whether the quoted claim is itself true. I was talking about whether the ostensible quote is an accurate quote. We attend to the truth in deciding whether [claim that appears in a WP article in quotation marks] = [text that appears in the source]. Either the purported equality is true (it's an accurate quote), or it's false (it's a misquote). More generally, we attend to truth in assessing whether WP text is verifiable: is it true that the source supports the WP text? (WP:V says "The cited source must clearly support the material as presented in the article." How do you assess that the source does indeed support the material without attending to the truth-value of "the cited source supports this material"?) Again, we don't go around inserting what we believe to be true if we don't have an RS to verify it, but that in no way implies that "we work with verifiability not truth." We work with both. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:10, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Sir you have fully jumped the shark. Step away from the hard philosophy slowly and nobody gets hurt lol. Should have guessed from the name that this was something you would have a strongly held heterodox opinion on. I will desist, but I ask you to respect WP:V regardless of what you believe to be true. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:18, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

I do respect WP:V (and other relevant PAGs, like WP:RS). I quoted from that policy to help you understand how WP:V requires us to attend to truth. Here's another relevant excerpt: "Avoid stating opinions as facts," where "facts" links to "A fact is a true datum." I have not in any way jumped the shark. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:45, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

You've mistaken a fact for an opinion, it is my opinion that you have jumped the shark. It is a fact that this will be my last comment on the matter. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:07, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

This seems to be in classic WP:WSAW territory.

In a situation where we have:

• A primary source that says A.
• Secondary sources that say the primary source said B.
• Other secondary sources that say "it's a myth the primary source said B, it actually said A.

This strikes me as a 3 (footnote) or 4a (explain notable error in prose) situation, though I could be convinced by 4b (explain conflict in prose).

I definitely don't think it's a 5 (say nothing) or 6 (get it wrong) situation. We do have the sources that say it's A. We have a primary source saying A and multiple secondary sources backing up that interpretation and explicitly calling "the primary source says B" a myth. Loki (talk) 18:17, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

It's pretty simple: we should not deliberately say things that are false. WP:V says that we must ensure that the things we write can be verified to be true. It does not say, anywhere, nor does it even slightly imply, nor does any policy imply (regardless of how much you disagree with somebody's political opinions) that we are required to PURPOSELY SAY THINGS WE KNOW TO BE FALSE: that is absurd. jp×g🗯️ 01:42, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

This. While there is rightly a WP:VNT culture at Wikipedia it doesn't mean sources are sanctified to the extent Wikipedia would relay obvious falsehoods. That would be bad for the Project. Bon courage (talk) 02:47, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

This is a bit of a side issue, but I must point out what I believe is a misstatement by JPxG, who wrote, just above:"WP:V says that we must ensure that the things we write can be verified to be true." That is not what V means. The policy says: "verifiability means that people are able to check that information comes from a reliable source." The next sentence begins: "Even if you are sure something is true...." Ability to check that information is from RS does not automatically mean the information is true. That second sentence in the opening paragraph of the Verifiability policy should be revised to say: "Even if you are sure about something..."

My own summation of the Muller issue is simply that Mueller did not find collusion because he was not looking for it. I'm not sure if any single RS puts it so plainly, but if one does, we should use it and make that point, that clearly, while we also summarize that Mueller could not establish conspiracy or coordination. DonFB (talk) 08:00, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

What causes a source to be "reliable" or "unreliable"? We do not just flip a coin. jp×g🗯️ 08:12, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

I believe you altered the meaning of the policy by implying that Wikipedia is a source of truth. DonFB (talk) 08:18, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

The statement I made was "we should not deliberately say things that are false". I do not understand how this could possibly be misinterpreted. Do you think we should deliberately say things that are false? jp×g🗯️ 11:56, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

We should not use Wikivoice to make false statements. We can use Wikivoice (backed by refs) to describe misstatements by RS if those statements are relevant to the topic. Your comment, "WP:V says that we must ensure that the things we write can be verified to be true", goes beyond the intent of the policy. "Verifiability, not truth" is no longer policy, but neither does current policy mandate truth as a baseline requirement. Instead, the policy means that things we write must be available in published RS. Better, and more faithful to the policy, if you had said: "WP:V says that we must ensure that the things we write can be verified as published in Reliable Sources."

On the actual matter that Mueller and his team did not find collusion: that statement by RS, on its face, is not false, but it is incomplete. As I wrote above, the article can (should) clearly explain that the investigators did not find collusion, because they were not looking for it, due to its lack of legal recognition. They looked for conspiracy/coordination, but concluded they could not establish it. DonFB (talk) 17:09, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Re: "the article can (should) clearly explain that the investigators did not find collusion, because they were not looking for it, due to its lack of legal recognition," I agree that they weren't looking for collusion per se, but that doesn't mean they didn't find it. The Report identified several pieces of evidence that can be characterized as collusion (e.g., the 2016 Trump Tower meeting, Manafort providing polling data to Kilimnik, Roger Stone's interactions with Guccifer 2 re: data stolen from the DNC by Russia, Flynn's discussions with Kislyak to undermine the foreign policy of a sitting president). WP's article should note that the Report found these things, also noting that it wasn't called "collusion" by the Special Counsel because collusion is not a term of law, but that expert RSs have said it's reasonable to describe them as collusion (e.g., here).

"They looked for conspiracy/coordination, but concluded they could not establish it." Agreed. But that doesn't mean that they didn't find evidence of it; it only means that they didn't think they could prove it beyond reasonable doubt in court. The investigation was sometimes obstructed. As Mueller noted, "[a] statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts."

Agreed that "current policy [doesn't] mandate truth as a baseline requirement," but I think there's an expectation that we don't knowingly include false information without identifying it as false, citing its falsity to RSs. I also agree that "the policy means that things we write must be available in published RS," but truth matters in assessing whether a source is/isn't an RS for specific WP content. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:48, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

FactOrOpinion, you make a number of excellent points. According to several expert and scholarly sources, Mueller found evidence of conspiracy, coordination, and collusion, but chose to only address the first two, and, because it could not stand up in court, he made a ruling that he was unable to prove them, and also listed some obstruction reasons that may have prevented him from getting the evidence needed to stand up in court. Note that this is not relevant to this discussion, which is only about what some RS claim Mueller said in his report. It's still a very relevant and tangential matter that could be discussed in a thread somewhere else. This is a good new article topic. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:43, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

We can describe that some RS report or opine that collusion was found, but we must make clear when giving such description that the official report contains no finding of "collusion" and that the investigators worked with the explicit intent that "collusion" was not a subject of their investigation. The sub-section "Conspiracy vs collusion" already explains this situation, although it could be tweaked to clearly point out that some RS reported collusion was found, while the official report disclaims such a finding. Our job is to describe what happened (in the investigation and the reporting), not to decide the "truth" about what happened. DonFB (talk) 18:44, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

I think there's a subtle difference between "did not find collusion" and "contains no finding of collusion," as the first phrase is using "find" in its everyday sense and the second is using "finding" in its legal sense. I agree that the report contains no such finding, but my point is that some of its findings with respect to conspiracy have been interpreted as evidence of collusion by expert RSs.

I'm not saying that it's our job to "decide the truth" when its not known, or that we can go around inserting what we believe (or even know) to be true if we don't have an RS to verify it. I'm saying that in writing WP content, we often have to attend the truth/falsity/uncertainty, and we sometimes make determinations that X is true and Y is false. For example, WP:V says "The cited source must clearly support the material as presented in the article." Sometimes we come across text that someone else introduced, and we decide "the source supports this text" is false, and we either delete the text or go in search of a source that does support it. Conversely, when we summarize something from an RS, we're implicitly saying to ourselves "it's true that this source supports this content." WP:V also says "Avoid stating opinions as facts," where "facts" links to "A fact is a true datum." I agree with your earlier comment that "Ability to check that information is from RS does not automatically mean the information is true," but assessing whether a source is/isn't reliable involves attending to truth to some extent. Could a source that we believe to be reliable get something wrong? Absolutely. But we don't knowingly present something false in wikivoice. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:31, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Agree, we don't knowingly say false things in Wikivoice. As is so often the case in a discussion like this, I see (essentially futile) arguments in which editors try to prove a point that (in this saga) collusion was found, because an xyz group of RS's said so, or collusion was not found, because an abc group of RS's said it was not found. My recommendation, especially in such a sensitive and controversial topic, is that we should clearly summarize and attribute the various RS reports-analyses-interpretations and completely avoid trying to argue against each other that [collusion/gravity/flying spaghetti monster, etc, etc] was found to exist or not exist. Unless I'm mistaken, we have a situation in which some RS report "no collusion"; some RS report "yes collusion"; other RS report statements about collusion by figures like the AG and POTUS. Our job is to describe what secondary RS report in their role in interpreting the primary content of the Mueller report, and in reporting what figures like the AG and POTUS say about the report. We also can (and do) quote relevant parts of the Report in which it describes the investigating team's approach to "collusion", but we should not do so in an argumentative fashion. Let the Report speak for itself. Let the secondary RS's speak for themselves. Let RS's that criticize other RS's speak for themselves. Let Wikipedia make no effort to steer readers toward our interpretation of the "truth" about "collusion". That is not our job.

And yes, we should appropriately apply Due Weight. I'm not aware, though, that any RS has conducted and published some kind of scientific statistical survey to determine if reports of "yes collusion" outnumber reports of "no collusion", or vice-versa. In the absence of any such reliably-sourced evidence, we'll have to muddle through, but for my money, I'd be happy to see the article just accurately describe the contending reports from RS without endlessly sweating over which is more Due than another. DonFB (talk) 23:57, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

This comes back to the question of how we decide in the first place that a source is an RS for the specific content in question (per WP:RSCONTEXT, regardless of whether it's GREL or GUNREL for content more generally) and how we decide what the WP:BESTSOURCES are for this content. In this case I think the best sources are the ones written by law professors, as they have the most relevant expertise. Yes, note that many in the MSM reported "no collusion," but also state that expert sources say that that's incorrect. FactOrOpinion (talk) 13:48, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

I suspect that you are interpreting this as some attempt by me to play 4D-chess and make a claim about some guy named Roger Mueller, so you are raising a bunch of minor objections, in the fear that if you don't, it will cause Roger Mueller to be right, or wrong, or whatever.

I do not give a damn about Roger Mueller. I do give a damn about the basic policies of the project.

Here is an example of a false claim:

The Empire State Building is located on top of the Golden Gate Bridge.

This simply isn't true. I (and likely hundreds of other editors) have been to both of these places. We have thousands of photographs of them. They are nowhere near each other.

If a "reliable" source made this claim, what do you think would happen?

We would conclude the source was not reliable for this statement.

The claim's falseness would be the basis for the conclusion.

There is no circumstance under which it would ever be policy-compliant to write this sentence, knowing it to be false, because "reliable source". jp×g🗯️ 16:06, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Before someone writes the comment of vague aspersions: yes, yes, I already know "false things are not true" is a highly complicated and deeply political statement that once and for all proves I'm a secret agent of the Democrats or Republicans or whatever. jp×g🗯️ 16:11, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

And this is why I think it's a mistake that some editors say things like "This is why we work with verifiability not truth, thats just too high a standard for us to meet at the end of the day". Sometimes it's too high a standard, whether because those with expertise don't actually know whether a T/F statement is true vs. false (e.g., "there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe"), or because it's an opinion, or because an editor doesn't know whether a statement in a source is T vs. F and hasn't found an expert commenting on it, even though an expert would know whether it's T vs. F. But other times, it's a totally reasonable standard: there are things that are known to be true (e.g., "2+2+4"), and things that are known to be false (e.g., "The Empire State Building is located on top of the Golden Gate Bridge"). We shouldn't be adding content we know to be false, and if expert sources are saying that statement X is false even though lots of GREL sources say that X is true, then those sources actually aren't RSs for X, even if they're GREL for lots of other things. There's a reason for the G in GREL; it's not AREL (A=always). FactOrOpinion (talk) 16:38, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

And now you get the issue at play. The content is not a fact issue its an opinion issue. This is the is there life out there question. Especially since it has not been proven either way. Thank you! PackMecEng (talk) 11:34, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

"The content is not a fact issue its an opinion issue." You're absolutely wrong about that. And it's astounding that you then follow that sentence by saying that "This is the is there life out there question," when I very clearly identified that not as an opinion but as a T/F matter where experts do not yet know whether it's true vs. false. Reread "those with expertise don't actually know whether a T/F statement is true vs. false (e.g., "there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe")." T/F statements are not matters of opinion. They're either true, or they're false. We may not know which truth-value it has, but that doesn't turn it from a T/F matter into an opinion. And this case is nothing like "there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe". Experts do, in fact, know whether Mueller said that there was "no collusion." He didn't. You clearly do not "get the issue at play." Don't thank me for something I didn't say, pretending that I said it. That's disingenuous, and it's another instance of your counterproductive behavior here. Stop already. FactOrOpinion (talk) 12:27, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

But that is the core of the issue, so please WP:AGF. Also, to clarify, this has nothing to do with Mueller's statement, this is about how RS interpret the report itself. The RS making the no collusion claim repeat Mueller's statement that they did not explicitly examine it. The issue with you take on the situation is the content issue at play is NOT a fact vs opinion issue and you keep trying to frame the issue around that and specifically a statement that is not relevant to prove a point and create a truth that doesnt exist. Yes Mueller said he didnt look at it and that its not a legal term. Great, that is not the issue at play here, the issue is RS interpretation of the report and assigning them as wrong based on your throughts on the subject. That is WP:TRUTH OR WP:RGW standpoint that holds not water. Its just a red herring and a worthless distraction from the actual content issue at hand. Get back in track please, and drop the surface level interpretation while letting RS guide you. This is not like one or two sources in the pocket of Trump or whatever BS is said to discredit them. Its multiple high quality sources from experts that have been deeply investigated over years. PackMecEng (talk) 16:41, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Nonsense. When RS keep repeating a false claim refuted by Mueller and many other and better RS, then no matter how recent they are, they are still repeating a falsehood. We should not use such sources for exactly that content. You have chosen the reliable sources which back your beliefs (an accusation you have made against me and others, so wear that shoe, because it fits), but in doing so you are taking a side that is contrary to what Mueller said. How convenient. We are refusing to use those sources because their interpretation is false and contrary to what Mueller said, and they are false when they put "no collusion" in his mouth. Stop your push to include sources that repeat Trump's lies as if they were true. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:55, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

My guy, if you are going to link to a section of an article that interprets the report even through Mueller said he didnt investigate it but in the same sentence say people that come to a different conclusion doing the same thing is wrong that is just hypocritical. That is why our polices go againt that kind of POV pushing. PackMecEng (talk) 17:05, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Don't repeatedly make false claims about me and then tell me to AGF. If you were actually operating in good faith, you wouldn't be making false claims about me. You did it yet again below, where you wrote "As factsoropinions points out above, its like proving aliens." That claim is absolute BS. I not say that, and I explicitly told you that you were wrong when you interpreted it that way.

As for "the issue is RS interpretation of the report," no, the issue is that you assert that sources are reliable (you are calling it "RS interpretation") despite the fact that they're making a false claim. As I've noted more than once here, that a source is GREL does not make it reliable for every single thing that it says. In this case, those sources are wrong. They are not RSs for this content. They are only GREL sources making a false statement. Moreover, as I've already pointed out, these are not the WP:BESTSOURCES, which are the analyses written by law professors.

I don't see any point to responding further. I've already made these points before, and you are clearly in WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT territory. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:37, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

• I haven't dug massively deeply into this issue, but my reading, from glancing over the sources, is that this is a case where WP:BREAKING sources and news reporting have often been wrong, or cursory, or quoted / relied on what Barr said without checking it; but that more in-depth sources by legal scholars have contradicted it. In that case it's those in-depth sources by legal scholars that are the WP:BESTSOURCES which we should rely on; it's hard to miss that one side in this debate is posting in-depth analysis from legal experts and the other is basing their position on often brief reflections in the news. Mainstream news reporting is reliable, sure - but legal experts are the best sources here, and when the two contradict, the news reporting loses out and gets reduced to eg. at best an attributed position that shouldn't be given too much focus and which should be clearly positioned as something experts have described as wrong. --Aquillion (talk) 09:22, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

  Collusion is not a crime, why would we give top billing to legal experts on something that is not a legal matter? Did he collude with Russia and God knows who else? Probably, but most RS interpret the Mueller report as coming to the conclusion that the gist of it was no collusion. Even after Mueller clarified that theh did not specifically look for it. PackMecEng (talk) 12:45, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

  [Collusion is not a crime per se] does not imply [collusion is not a legal matter].

  If you think legal matters are limited to crimes, you are very mistaken. FactOrOpinion (talk) 13:00, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

  Obviously legal matters are not limited to crimes. But per Mueller collusion is not a legal term.We did not address 'collusion,' which is not a legal term.[3] So which is it? We need to go by facts, not your opinions on the matter. PackMecEng (talk) 13:50, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

  Which is what? (Make sure that you don't invoke a false dichotomy in your answer.) I have no problem at all going by facts, including the fact that WP:BESTSOURCES is policy. FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:26, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

  You say we should use legal experts for a non-legal issue. That makes no sense, and is not in line with our best sources policy. Best sources, in this situation, would be going with what the majorty of RS say on the subject and how they interpret it. If you want to make the argument that they should be discounted in favor of legal scholars/experts, I would expect the subject to be in their field of expertise, which this is not. PackMecEng (talk) 15:13, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

  You asked me a question, "So which is it?" I pointed out to you that the referent of your question wasn't clear, asking you "Which is what?" You haven't answered. Are you afraid that answering the question will undermine your argument?

  As for "You say we should use legal experts for a non-legal issue," that's total BS. I did not say or imply that it's a "non-legal issue." It very clearly is a legal issue / a legal matter, as I've already indicated. If it weren't a legal issue/matter, then legal scholars wouldn't be commenting on it, and the Acting Attorney General wouldn't have commented on it, and the Attorney General wouldn't have commented on it, and the MSM wouldn't be discussing it as a legal issue/matter. Your claim that "this is not [in legal scholars/experts' field of expertise]" is BS as well, for the same reason. FactOrOpinion (talk) 15:57, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

  Ah so if someone comments on something it must be because its related to that field even if the people actually involved say its not. Weird argument to make and does not hold up to policy or even the slightest amount of critical thinking. But looks like we are at an impass. You want to make things up and I want to go by our policies, reliable sources, and common sense. Take care! PackMecEng (talk) 16:11, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

  So you still haven't answered the question I asked you.

  Re: "the people actually involved say its not", as you note, there are "people" (plural) involved. List them, and then you can quote what they've said that you believe substantiates your assertion that all of these people are saying that it's not a legal issue/matter. In choosing quotes, make absolutely sure that you are not conflating "legal issue/matter" with "legal term," since those phrases aren't synonyms. Three of people involved are: Mueller, Acting AG Rosenstein, and AG Barr.

  "Weird argument to make" Good thing that I'm not making that argument. Stop attributing things to me that I haven't said. Straw man arguments are both fallacious and WP:DISRUPTIVE. "does not hold up to ... even the slightest amount of critical thinking ... You want to make things up" Don't insult your fellow editors; that, too, is WP:DISRUPTIVE. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:05, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

  The point of WP:V is that readers can verify the content to a reliable source. If an editor can show that the source is wrong then it's not reliable.
  If you argue that a source has misstated a person, and that person is reported (in reliable sources) as saying they have been misstated, then the original sources are not reliable for the persons statements.
  "Verification not truth" requires verification from reliable sources. Although discussions are usually about the general nature of a source ultimately the real assessment of a sources reliability is in WP:RSCONTEXT. If in context the source is not reliable, as is the case here, then they can not be used for verification. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:14, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

I would focus more on the relative quality of sources and what sort of question this is, since the fact that higher-quality sources say XYZ is a way that we can know that other sources are wrong. Usually "find higher-quality sources that say as much" would be my advice to anyone who thinks that the sources are wrong - we do have some options if the sources are glaringly wrong, sure, but it's much much easier if we can point to higher-quality ones (that is to say, in this context, more relevant ones) that actually say as much. --Aquillion (talk) 10:03, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

• Because here we're talking about it in the context of the conclusions of a special counsel investigation, which obviously is a legal matter; the underlying question is about the precise meanings and implications of words in that legal context. A general-purpose staff writer for the NYT is not as qualified to weigh in on that as a legal scholar, and even a random legal scholar wouldn't be as good of a source as one with experience with the specific laws surrounding the investigation. --Aquillion (talk) 10:03, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

which obviously is a legal matter I mean Mueller disagrees with that so I think I am going to trust him on it rather than your assessment. PackMecEng (talk) 16:35, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Mueller doesn't disagree. You assert that he disagrees, conflating "legal term" and "legal matter" (or "legal issue"), even though the former phrase is not synonymous with the latter. This has been pointed out to you more than once. If you actually trust Mueller, then pay close attention to what he is/isn't saying. Do you understand the difference between "legal term" and "legal matter"? If not, just say. But if you do understand the difference, then don't treat them as if they mean the same thing. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:09, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

I think this is going over your head. Maybe re-read what everyone has said here and the sources if you are having trouble understanding basic concepts like this. PackMecEng (talk) 23:10, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Your ad hominem response is counterproductive. You can choose to work with me to try to find a consensus solution, or you can continue being WP:DISRUPTIVE. I hope you'll choose the former. FactOrOpinion (talk) 01:07, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

PME, that's below you. Just respond to FactOrOpinion without such uncivil responses. It makes no difference, as far as this discussion goes, whether "collusion" is a legal "term" or "matter". That's a red herring. It's about the topic of "collusion". -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:19, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, I think the distinction between "legal term" and "legal matter" does make a difference. Collusion is not a term that appears in any laws; in that sense, it is not a legal term, and that's why Mueller said "We did not address 'collusion,' which is not a legal term." But what you're calling the topic of collusion, and what Aquillion and I have called the legal matter of collusion, is not limited to whether collusion is a legal term. PackMecEng consistently focuses on Mueller's statement that collusion isn't a legal term, pretending that it means there was no collusion, when it doesn't mean that at all. FactOrOpinion (talk) 02:35, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

In this thread, it's a red herring we should avoid. It has relevance for Mueller's motivation for addressing or not addressing certain matters. It has no relevance to the conflicting issue of Mueller's clear statements that he did not address "collusion" and then Trump and some RS saying he did address it. He did not. PME, Trump, and those sources are wrong. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:46, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

What specific WP text is this debate about? FactOrOpinion (talk) 12:40, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

FactOrOpinion, this is about the deletion of the wordsMueller's investigation did not focus on "collusion" and the start of an edit war. To avoid that, I started a talk page thread here: Talk:Mueller special counsel investigation#When RS make false claims, we do not treat them as true.

At stake is the deletion by Yodabyte of wording about "collusion" (Mueller's investigation did not focus on "collusion") and PackMecEng's support of that removal. PME's edit summaries are important, as they wanted to put more weight on many RS that say "no collusion", rather than the proper weight on Mueller's own statements that he did not make any conclusion on "collusion".

This goes even further back to November 2024, when Politrukki made a long series of edits that introduced misleading wording that was not corrected immediately, thus introducing this false statement made by many RS: "Mueller did not find collusion between Trump campaign and Russia."

In my later edits, I corrected that error, but PackMecEng does not agree and continues to argue that later sources should be emphasized, especially those that make statements that Mueller found "no collusion", which is just a repetition of Trump's lie about Mueller's findings. I believe we need to clearly state that Mueller made no finding of "no collusion". No amount of RS of any age can change what he actually did not say. PME's blind application of RS, as if they can never be wrong, is disruptive.

I would restore the wordsMueller's investigation did not focus on "collusion" myself if it might not be considered edit warring. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:51, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

"Collusion is not a term that appears in any laws"?? A quick look at the Federal code finds it appears in dozens of laws. It might not appear for the specific things Mueller was investigating. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 05:05, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for the correction. I assumed that Mueller's statement, "We did not address 'collusion,' which is not a legal term" and the statement in the report that "collusion is not ... a term of art in federal criminal law" were accurate. I hadn't checked their accuracy before I made my statement, clearly a mistake on my end. I'll assume that he meant something narrower than what he / the report actually said. FactOrOpinion (talk) 12:36, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Bad form. I suggest striking that. DN (talk) 04:35, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

• PackMecEng, Mueller distanced his investigation from making a conclusion about "collusion" and instead focused on "conspiracy" and "coordination". The investigation made clear statements and conclusions on those matters. Why do you dispute that? Why put words in his mouth? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:42, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

  This discussion is about Mueller's use of the term collusion and how RS tear/interpret that. Nothing to do with conspiracy or coordination. Mueller said, and I quote,“We did not address ‘collusion,’ which is not a legal term,”[4] Now if you want to say well he said legal term but that's not the same as a legal matter. That is BS, and if your argument is that thin then you don't have one. PackMecEng (talk) 23:09, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Why don't you just answer my question? You have introduced a red herring. It makes no difference, as far as this discussion goes, whether "collusion" is a legal "term" or "matter". That's a red herring. It's about the topic/concept of "collusion" (and any other forms of the word "collude").

You provide the right answer in your quote (“We did not address ‘collusion,’) and the source (mueller-refutes-trumps-no-collusion), yet you try to push the opposite POV, that Mueller did address collusion by making a "no collusion" statement/conclusion. Just listen to those words and the source you just used. They are telling the truth. Mueller "refuted" Trump's "no collusion" claim. Mueller never said or implied it, yet there are many RS which say the opposite, and they are wrong. Mueller's“We did not address ‘collusion,’ is pretty clear. Just believe it, not sources that misquote him and put the opposite words in his mouth. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:19, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

• Mueller's statement explicitly indicates in as many words that he only considered the question from a legal perspective; it makes it totally unequivocal that his conclusions are solely limited to legal implications and, therefore, establishes decisively that the highest-quality sources for interpreting those conclusions will be experts on the law. I understand that you disagree, but this is clearly a WP:1AM situation at this point; you've got the answer to your question and it's pretty clear that that answer is that when discussing the precise meaning of the special counsel report, we need to prioritize legal experts over general news stories from non-experts, even from high-quality publications, at least in the sense of giving most of the weight to legal experts in situations where their conclusions contradict each other. If you strenuously disagree, you could start an WP:RFC on it, but otherwise it's well past time to WP:DROPTHESTICK. --Aquillion (talk) 23:48, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

• Aquillion, whom are you addressing? It obviously isn't me. As I have stated above, the "legal" or not aspect of the word "collusion" is a red herring in this thread. I wish it had never been brought up. Regardless of how it is described, Mueller deliberately refused to evaluate whether or not there was "collusion" (“We did not address ‘collusion,’), yet PME insists on favoring sources that falsely assert Mueller found "no collusion". THAT is the issue here. We need the wordingMueller's investigation did not focus on "collusion" restored. I would restore the words myself if it might not be considered edit warring. Maybe you can help. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 05:00, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

Weird choice to selectively cite Mueller but exclude that he explicitly said the topic of this dispute was not a legal term. PackMecEng (talk) 11:41, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

You may be responding to Aquillion, but you should stay on the topic of this thread, which has nothing to do with the legal status of the "collusion" topic. That doesn't mean that collusion's legal status isn't also an important topic, it's just not relevant to this thread which is about your insistence on using RS that claim Mueller found "no collusion" when he did no such thing. The record is clearly against you, as explained in WaPo:

The factual wording you deleted,Mueller's investigation did not focus on "collusion", should be restored, accompanied with"We did not address 'collusion,' which is not a legal term. Rather, we focused on whether the evidence was sufficient to charge any member of the campaign with taking part in a criminal conspiracy. It was not."

RS that lend backing to Trump's false claim should NOT be used in this case. They are still RS for other things, but not about "collusion". You should stop pushing Trump's false "no collusion mantra". -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:57, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

• Support As Valjean has pointed out, the issue being raised seems like a red herring.

DN (talk) 20:25, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

@Darknipples:, to be clear, the issue of the "legal" status of "collusion" is the red herring. We should stop all mention of that in this thread.

The issue of this thread is NOT the red herring. Mueller did NOT find "no collusion", even though PackMecEng insists he did. We should not use the RS that mistakenly and carelessly repeat Trump's lie which has been debunked by other RS and Mueller himself. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:26, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

PackMecEng, you write that “most RS interpret the Mueller report as coming to the conclusion that the gist of it was no collusion”, but this is NOT about an "interpretation" made by RS of what Mueller said. It’s about what he expressly denied saying. Your poor sources are putting words in Mueller’s mouth. They may be GREL, but for this matter they are simply wrong.

Either he said “no collusion” or he did not. There are two sides to this question, and he explained very deliberately that he did NOT evaluate whether there "was collusion" or was “no collusion”, yet your sources take Barr’s and Trump’s side (and we know they are both liars and extremely unreliable), thus exonerating Trump. Even worse, they claim that Mueller actually said there was “no collusion”. That’s BS. You still haven’t provided a single example of Mueller saying or implying such a thing. If your sources are right, it should be easy to verify their accuracy and produce a quote from the Mueller report.

Mueller explained that he did not exonerate Trump and that he made no judgment about “collusion”, only about “conspiracy” and “coordination”. Neither you nor RS that get it wrong get to put words in Mueller’s mouth. You cannot “verify”, using those sources or the Mueller report, that he ever said or implied there was “no collusion”. You would need RS that actually quote the report, and such quotes do not exist.

If he later said there “was collusion” or there “was no collusion”, it would be a different matter, but it would not be the Mueller report speaking. It would be Mueller speaking his own personal opinion and not be relevant to this discussion about what he said in the Mueller report. What the report says is like the engraving on a gravestone. No amount of time or number of RS that get it wrong can rightly claim that stone says something it doesn’t say or ever said. (There is no “newer” version of the report.)

Your “majority of sources” claim (if it were even true) is irrelevant, because we will choose one accurate source that is truthful over 99 that are telling an easily provable lie. RS can get it wrong, and in this case, many of them are doing that, yet you favor them. We will document what your sources say, and explain why they are wrong, and then we will say, in wikivoice, what the one accurate source (the Mueller report) says. We will back that up with a number of excellent RS that explain why your favored sources are wrong. That’s what NPOV tells us to do with conflicting narratives found in RS. We describe both sides and give more due weight to the accurate and truthful side. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:25, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Ah I think I see the problem here. You dont know the difference and purpose of a primary or secondary source. So Mueller is a primary source and we rely on secondary sources to interpret and diguest what he says. I think that is where you went wrong. He specifically said he did not investigate collusion but you want to use his report to support the claim of collusion. While other secondary sources say it shows no collusion. Pehaprs read Wp:RSPRIMARY and WP:PSTS. PackMecEng (talk) 19:43, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

March 2019 sources say "no collusion", July 2019 sources clarify this with Mueller's testimony to note that Trump was not exonerated, and "collusion", which is not a legal term, was not evaluated. We should be using the July sources over the March sources. Mueller said there was not enough evidence to charge. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:56, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

PackMecEng, you write: "So Mueller is a primary source and we rely on secondary sources to interpret and diguest what he says. I'm no newbie and am well aware of the ways we can use primary and secondary sources, but when secondary sources lie about what the primary source says, we should not depend on the secondary sources. If they are just interpreting wrongly, that’s one problem, but when they manufacture a falsehood or impute meanings to Mueller that are contrary to his words or intents, that’s more serious. That’s what your sources are doing.

What did Mueller say? He said something so clearly about the investigation’s approach to the question of “collusion” that any secondary source that still dares to say he said there “was collusion” or said there was “no collusion” is a source we cannot trust, yet you trust them. Not only are they interpreting wrongly, they are citing wrongly. He said something that can loosely be termed “no conspiracy”. He did NOT say anything that can even loosely be termed “no collusion”. Your secondary sources are being misleadingly careless with their words, and they are twisting Mueller’s words. He made a judgment about “conspiracy”, not about “collusion”. Your sources claim he made a judgment about “collusion” when he clearly said he did not.

Again, you are not showing evidence that you are reading what others here are telling you. When I say “reading”, I mean understanding and ingesting so you change your opinions accordingly. You are not showing a positive learning curve. You are defending the indefensible. How many editors have to keep telling you that you are wrong before you will finally admit it? Nobody is defending you. This is one big IDHT “Failure or refusal to "get the point" and tendentious pushing of a fringe POV. This is another example of how defending Trump is nearly always the wrong thing to do. Our best default approach for Trump is descibed here: David Zurawik says we should "just assume Trump's always lying and fact check him backwards" because that's "how to cover a habitual liar". -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:25, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

You keep repeating the same flawed logic and not understanding how our sourcing policy works and just replacing it with your person opinions on the matter. I don't think you have anything productive to add to this conversation at this point other than WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, so until you do I think you should just take a break. PackMecEng (talk) 21:35, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Just to point out that contemporary reporting on an event is generally WP:PRIMARY, unless it goes into analysis of the event rather than just reporting them. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:03, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

To get the article back to a correct description of the Mueller report's findings, I have added a hatnote pointing to much broader and deeper coverage of this topic.

See also: Mueller report § Conspiracy or coordination vs collusion, and Mueller report § False "no collusion" claims

I also made this edit that added this wording:

"The investigation did not establish that members of the 2016 Trump campaign "conspired" or "coordinated" with Russia and did not evaluate whether or not "collusion" occurred.

I trust that other editors will defend, and improve if necessary, that edit. Also resist anymore attempts by PackMecEng to insert false content and any RS that make the false claim that Mueller found "no collusion". -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:41, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

To be fair, you are the one saying they are wrong by framing it in a way they didnt say. Again the sources acknowledge muller's statment that he did not investigateit, they say it explicitly. What they do is interpret the report, which is fine and what you want. RS on both sides did that, some finding collusion and others not finding it. As factsoropinions points out above, its like proving aliens. I just wish you understood policy better. PackMecEng (talk) 16:55, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

I understand the policies relevant to this matter just fine. As others have pointed out, that is your problem, not mine. When RS get it wrong, we do not use those faulty sources for that specific matter. You are choosing to use such faulty sources.

There is the real-life matter of "whether or not there was collusion", but that is not what this discussion is about. You claim your sources have later found there was "no collusion", but they are attributing that opinion to Mueller. He never said it, and no later information has come to light that even remotely supports Trump's claim that there was "no collusion". To the contrary, but that is not part of this discussion. (There are excellent sources that find myriad forms of collusion.)

Unlike you, with your specific choice of sources that are getting it wrong, I am not trying to RGW here about the question of "whether or not there was collusion". Just stick to what Mueller said and use RS that accurately document what he said. I have now fixed the content and linked to even better coverage in the Mueller report article. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:10, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

The solution here seems (to me) easy: Mueller said X, a bunch of sources and the Trump admin said that what Mueller said was Y, other sources said that the interpretation of him as saying Y was false or misleading because Z (examination of the legal language that Mueller used). Perhaps the large number of sources saying that Mueller said Y was demonstrably false - but it's still notable that they said this, and it had a lot of cultural and political impact. They shouldn't be excluded. The counter-claims that Mueller more accurately said X likewise are verifiable and notable and should be included as well. That's the neutral approach, and all of it is verifiable.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:09, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

I am listing below the names of some books, and I want to discuss whether these books—written in Marathi or English—are considered reliable sources on English Wikipedia or any local Wikipedia. The reason for raising this discussion is that on a local Wikipedia, I have observed that a single source has been used more than 50 times on a single page, and that too by a single individual. I am bringing this discussion here so that the outcome can be presented on the local Wikipedia, and editors or admins there would have to accept it. The books are as follows:

• Riya Prakashan: Mahamanav Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (Author: Dr. Gyanraj Kashinath Gaikwad 'Rajvansh', 2016) [Link: https://www.flipkart.com/mahamanav-dr-bhimrao-ramaji-ambedkar/p/itmeqz8gndghuczh]
• Parijat Prakashan: Dr. Ambedkari Hitashatrunchya Jaaniva (Author: Bhau Lokhande, 2012) [I tried searching for a source for this book but couldn’t find one]
• Gyan Ganga & Co. Publication: Yugapravartak Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar (Author: Dinesh Rane) [Link: https://www.pustakvaani.com/challenge-page/dr-babasaheb-ambedkar-charitra]
• Kaushalya Prakashan: Majhi Atmakatha (Author: Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, 2014) [Link: https://www.amazon.in/Majhi-Atmakatha-%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%9D%E0%A5%80-%E0%A4%86%E0%A4%A4%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%A5%E0%A4%BE-Autobiography/dp/9352203410]

I would like this discussion to evaluate whether these books, whether in Marathi or English, meet Wikipedia’s criteria for reliable sources. AShiv1212 (talk) 15:45, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

This is the place for discussion of the English language Wikipedia. Other localized Wikipedia sites have their own guidelines and procedures, and do not have to accept our judgment of their reliability. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 15:58, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Does this mean that the rules of English Wikipedia do not apply to local Wikipedia? AShiv1212 (talk) 16:04, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

To a degree, yes. As each wiki has its own admins. Slatersteven (talk) 16:07, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Is it written anywhere that the rules of each local Wikipedia are different? If so, can I get a link? After reading it, I won’t come back with such crazy questions. AShiv1212 (talk) 16:14, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Not as such, but there is also no rule saying English Wikipedia has primacy, so what we decide here has no impact on what another Wikipedia does, they can say no. Slatersteven (talk) 16:21, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

I understand that there’s no rule giving English Wikipedia primacy, and local Wikipedias can reject decisions made here. However, shouldn’t every Wikipedia, regardless of language, aim to maintain consistent standards for facts, transparency, and reliable sourcing? If a local Wikipedia heavily relies on a single source—say, over 50 times on one page—doesn’t that undermine the spirit of Wikipedia’s core principles, like verifiability and neutrality, which are supposed to be universal? I’d appreciate any insight on how this balance is maintained across editions. AShiv1212 (talk) 16:32, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

That is not a discussion for here, this is a wider issue about Wikipedia in general. somewhere like wp:villagepump might be better. Slatersteven (talk) 16:41, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Fair point—it’s not just for here. I’ll try discussing it on the local Wikipedia first using English Wikipedia’s rules. If that doesn’t work out, I’ll head to wp:villagepump as you suggested. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction! AShiv1212 (talk) 17:56, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

See the last paragraph of the intro to Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines: "This policy page specifies the community standards related to the organization, life cycle, maintenance of, and adherence to policies, guidelines, and related pages of the English Wikipedia. It does not cover other editions of Wikipedia." WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:57, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

• What is stated above is true, we have no primacy here over other wikis. However, I would also say that there are many pages on this wikipedia based almost entirely on a single source. It's not great practice, and we have a tag for it, but overuse is a different question to reliability.Boynamedsue (talk) 07:30, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

  All the sources from English Wikipedia were removed from Marathi Wikipedia with the reason that "they cannot be added to Marathi Wikipedia" [5]. And this was done by someone who is blocked as a sockpuppet on English Wikipedia but is currently an administrator on Marathi Wikipedia. Because of such actions, editors are hesitant to contribute to Marathi Wikipedia. Anyway, I agree with all your points and will avoid contributing there so that there’s no question of bringing those issues here. It seems you also have no interest in improving the local Wikipedia. If I’ve said anything wrong, I apologize. AShiv1212 (talk) 11:57, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

  If there is a cross-wiki issue with a particular user, then I would check to see if they're in violation of the Universal Code of Conduct, and if you think that's the case, you can file a request at the case page for the Coordinating Committee. This seems to be a potential conduct issue as well as a dispute over the Marathi Wikipedia guidelines. That's not something that this sources Noticeboard for the English Wikipedia can or should handle.-- 3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:46, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

• Just a passing comment that the language a source is written in does not affect reliability at all: we judge reliability based on the publisher and author's credentials, and a source can meet or fail our requirements in any language. We cite sources on the English Wikipedia written in a number of languages, including Marathi. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:51, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

That is certainly the consensus here on the English language Wikipedia… and at many of the other language versions as well. However, it is quite possible that there are exceptions. Each version of WP has its own set of policies and guidelines (as well as “unwritten rules” that editors follow but have not yet codified), and it is quite possible that some of them limit the language of their sources. In this case, you would need to see what the policies and guidelines for the Marathi version say. Good luck. Blueboar (talk) 20:09, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

• Namaste Vanamonde93,

  I agree with everything regarding English Wikipedia, but my concern about sources relates to the local Marathi Wikipedia. After thoroughly researching the books, publishers, and authors as you suggested and reading up on it, I brought this topic here for discussion. However, from some of the replies above, it appears that the local Wikipedia doesn’t accept discussions held here. This suggests that discussing it here might be futile. As a result, I’ll refrain from contributing to Marathi Wikipedia. There’s no point in arguing there, and I’ve added a reference above about an incident that happened today. An admin there stated, "This isn’t English Wikipedia; your sources won’t work here," and removed them. Per policy, they should have at least discussed it on the talk page. Anyway, this admin has done this to me at least three times so far. AShiv1212 (talk) 17:28, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

  Namaste 3family6,

  I’m not currently considering filing a complaint on the Coordinating Committee’s page. For now, let things continue as they are on Marathi Wikipedia. There are admins like Abhay Sir and Santosh Gore who are good and cooperative, but there are very few contributors on Marathi Wikipedia. Because of this, they seem to avoid taking action against an admin named Sandesh. As some people have said, if English Wikipedia’s rules don’t apply there, then let it run according to that admin’s rules. I don’t want to get into any disputes there. It was a mistake on my part to bring this issue here. Apologies for that. AShiv1212 (talk) 17:47, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

  @AShiv1212, you could try posting at the m:Wikimedia Forum. You might also be able to find advice from someone in the m:Marathi Wikimedians user group. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:51, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

  @AShiv1212: Well, it appeared from your first post that you had several general questions, and this one hadn't been answered yet. My colleagues are right as to the rest - we have no authority over the Marathi Wikipedia, and cannot compel them to accept a source. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:44, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

  Namaste 3family6,

  I had thought of ignoring this issue. Two years ago, I had a dispute with that administrator. Recently, I started a discussion on a wiki page regarding references, strictly following Wikipedia’s rules. However, this administrator has once again brought up the discussion from the talk page related to the dispute that happened two years ago[6]. Over the past two years, I have avoided disputes, and for eight months, I was away from Wikipedia. Therefore, I feel that this administrator is misusing their authority. As per your suggestion, I will definitely file a case under the Universal Code of Conduct within the next 3-4 days. AShiv1212 (talk) 15:32, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Hello,

Recently I used Decrypt as a source but my edit was reverted as the website is linked to cryptocurrency, and thus seen as controversial inside Wikipedia. I would like to open the discussion to determine if it is a valid source or not. As I understand, it's not like the website is unbiased (all news outlets are), but I'm worried about the factuality of the information presented. The website is recognized as a news outlet by News Wire, Adweek, Forbes and Axios, and from what I've seen it's at least reasonably trustable. In my case, I used Decrypt as a source about the cryptocurrency elements in Snaky Cat gameplay, so, in my perspective, this kind of use should be fine. Notsonotoriousbig (talk) 13:10, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

The larger problem here is you state you wrote the article that was being linked to, and then used it as a source in this article. That's a huge no no. Canterbury Tail talk 13:19, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes, but I wrote it afterwards. I got enough sources to created it and I did. Also, my edit was reversed even before I said anything. Notsonotoriousbig (talk) 13:26, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

• As it says at the top of this page: "Context is important: supply the source, the article it is used in, and the claim it supports". This looks like a very weak source, but maybe the context would make a difference. Bon courage (talk) 13:37, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

I suggest reading WP:SELFCITE, and WP:COI as you created the Decrypt (website) article. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:38, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Just to make things clear, I created Decrypt article after creating Snaky Cat, as I got interested in the subject and found enough sources. I do not represent Decrypt, I just like to write about companies and fulfill "empty spaces" on Wikipedia. Notsonotoriousbig (talk) 16:54, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

If you write for Decrypt, or your writing is published on Decrypt, then you have a conflict of interest with their Wikipedia article. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:29, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Sorry I misunderstood what you had written, I've struck my comments. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:31, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

"Recognized as a news outlet" does not mean "reliable"; many of the sites we forbid are "news outlets". All of your sites you point to are discussing Decrypt's own business dealings, not relying on Decrypt as a source for good information. (And that first one is a press release distribution site. Yes, Decrypt recognizes itself in its own press releases.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 16:19, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Well, if we are going there, it doesn't mean its unreliable either. Also, in my case, I'm using it to dig a very specific piece of information. Notsonotoriousbig (talk) 16:43, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

I think it would be helpful to clarify something… when user:Notsonotoriousbig says he “created the decrypt article”, I think he means he created the Wikipedia article about Decrypt (ie: Decrypt (website)) … not that he is Andrew Hayward (the journalist who wrote the article appearing in Decrypt that Notsonotoriousbig wants to cite at the Snaky Cat article).

Assuming this is the case, then WP:SELFCITE and WP:COI are not an issue here. Notsonotoriousbig is not trying to cite himself.

As to whether Decrypt is a reliable source or not… I can not opine, as I know nothing about that website or it’s reputation. Blueboar (talk) 17:57, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, that's exactly what I meant. Notsonotoriousbig (talk) 18:05, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

• I would be very concerned about treating Decrypt as a reliable source seeing as they are not independent of the company Dastan which appears to offer novel cryptocurrency products. [7] furthermore the website's manifesto claims their day-to-day operations arepowered by AI and so I'd be concerned about AI cruft in articles. They openly state they useAI editorial assistants. Frankly this source should probably be deprecated. Simonm223 (talk) 18:36, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

  Pretty much all cryptocurrency focused news sources have very serious conflicts of interest that are generally not properly disclosed. @David Gerard can elaborate Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:20, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

I chatted with Notsonotoriousbig on my user talk about this and referred them to the 2021 RSN on the matter. The objections there still apply, or are even worse in 2025 than they were in 2021:

• they look like trade papers but are actually promotional media
• all shill for their owners or refrain from reporting against them
• all allow writers to write about cryptos they own without disclosure
• CoinDesk in particular encourages writers to have "skin in the game", which in real journalism is called "massive COI"
• there are individual excellent writers I have a great deal of respect for, but the outlets are still terrible
• heck, I've written for pay for Decrypt and the Block and I wouldn't use my articles as a ref either, I have enough pubs in RSes, you can use those

See also the advisory essay (NOT A POLICY) Wikipedia:Notability (cryptocurrencies), which outlines common practices.

I know a pile of Decrypt people, Josh Quittner is an excellent editor, etc. But also it's a crypto blog like the rest and IMO not something we would use in Wikipedia in the normal course of anything.

Also, the vast majority of crypto site references are straight up spam, and IMO allowing them will only encourage the sort of issues that first caused the general sanctions hammer to come down.

I tend to remove crypto sources. Anything that can be replaced by an RS should, and anything that can't isn't sourced. Every RSN discussion of them since about 2017?18? has been consistent that they're trash.

tl;dr all crypto publications are generally unreliable IMO, and I would include any "fintech" site with a crypto category. Not sure how I'd phrase that for a formal RFC condemning them all to the low-rent part of RSP, but if anyone thinks they can I'll give that a hearty Option 3.

- David Gerard (talk) 21:06, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Source: Koener, B., Ledrait, A., & Masson, C. Managing Gender Dysphoria in Minors—What Insights Does Evidence-Based Medicine Offer in 2024?. Disease Biology, Genetics, and Socioecology. 2025. doi: https://doi.org/10.53941/dbgs.2025.100003 (Full text: [8] relevant text on pp. 2-3)

Article: Cass review

Claim: "Koener et al situate the Cass Review within a trend of systematic reviews conducted in multiple countries finding a lack of evidence for the safety or efficacy of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to treat minors with gender dysphoria. Koener et al describe the stricter regulation of these treatments implemented by the UK government in response to the Cass Review as in line with similar evidence-based policies in Sweden and Finland."

Objections raised against it:

1. The article is published in the journal's inaugural issue, so there is no history of publishing peer-reviewed research. The publisher itself has only been in business for a few years [9], and since then has started a large number of journals under its imprint.
2. The authors include the founder and a member of a French activist group Observatoire de la petite sirène which is strongly opposed to the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to treat minors with gender dysphoria, so far from unbiased about the subject on which they write. Also, opponents of the group have accused the group of spreading misinformation, although I can't find a source directly accusing any of the three authors of this.
3. The article refers to Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria as a phenomenon without making explicitly clear that its existence is not widely accepted by researchers.
4. Some of the references the article cites would not comply with WP:MEDRS or even WP:RS in a WP article, for example citations to SEGM and citations to Letters to the Editor in academic journals.
5. Some of the sources the article cites (both peer-reviewed and otherwise) are authored by researchers accused of promoting conversion therapy, according to one editor.

OTOH:

1. The publisher has a detailed peer review policy [10]. I can't find any negative information about the publisher online.
2. The claim being supported is also supported by other RS e.g. [11] [12], so we are not taking the authors on trust. The reason I want to use this source instead of those is that this source addresses both aspects (systematic reviews and policy changes) together. Other RS focus on one or the other.
3. The authors all hold professional academic positions and have published extensive academic work, in English and French.
4. I haven't before come across the idea that a source which does not itself apply WP:MEDRS or other wikipedia policies to all its references cannot be considered an RS. (We certainly have not followed this in the rest of the Cass Review article).

Previous discussion: Talk:Cass_Review#Masson_et_al. FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 21:00, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

1) The authors of this include the founder of the org... Here's an article noting their (as in the group and the authors) misinformation, deception, complete lack of expertise in trans healthcare (reThe authors all hold professional academic positions and have published extensive academic work, in English and French., multiple board members opposed to gay marriage, claiming trans kids are mostly not trans but think they are because of trauma, fighting to oppose bans on conversion therapy against trans people, etc, etc etc[13] So ridiculously WP:FRINGE it's laughable

2) The article claims that ROGD existsthis new clinical population of trans-identified adolescents, i.e., those with Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD).

3) The conversion therapist they cite, repeatedly, is Kenneth Zucker.

4) It makes claims likeseveral researchers have come to question the relevance of the “gender dysphoria” diagnosis and its causal connection to “trans-identification” [63–65]. Could the recent increase in reports of ‘trans-identity’ be better understood as a cultural idiom of distress [65], perhaps reflecting a collective way of expressing the challenges associated with puberty and adolescence? - citing their own op-eds...

Just because some WP:QUACKS known for pushing WP:FRINGE claims published something (which made numerous FRINGE claims) in the inaguaral edition of a journal with no reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, doesn't mean we have to include it. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 00:22, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

I forgot to mention in my point 4: Citation 63 is an actually reliable source, which does not support the claim they use it whatsoever[14]. Citations 64 is an interview with the primary author / founder of the pro-conversion lobby group[15] while 65 is the org members / authors of this paper summarizing a SEGM (anti-trans hate group) conference they attended as members of the Petit Siren.[16]

This is probably one of the most god-awfully poor sources I have ever come across...

What's next, we cite NARTH and the American College of Pediatricians? Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 00:38, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

• It would seem to be a partisan source written by qualified people, similar to the critique published by the Yale Law Group, which is given significant attention on the page. I would suggest Koener et al is reliable for the attributed claim in the first paragraph.Boynamedsue (talk) 06:25, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

  1) RS have pointed out none of these authors are remotely qualified in trans healthcare and repeatedly make FRINGE claims.

  2) The Yale Report has extensive secondary coverage making it due. This has no secondary coverage whatsoever.

  They are completely incomparable. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 19:57, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Speaking of "misinformation", it isn't accurate to say the authors havecomplete lack of expertise in trans healthcare. Some of their publications can be found here: Masson: [17] Ledrait: [18] Koener: [19]. I'm not sure if these are complete lists though. FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 22:17, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

I would agree that less coverage is due, along the lines that are proposed in the first paragraph. The authors are published psychologists working in reputable universities. As yet, no fringe claims have been demonstrated. I do not feel the view that the increase in trans identification is in part a cultural phenomenon is in any way fringe, especially not to someone with "sociologist" in their name.Boynamedsue (talk) 22:27, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

This source notes none have worked with trans minors, or done empirical research with trans minors.[20]

• Koener has written 3 articles on trans people, including this. One is the aforementioned summary of a SEGM conference.[21] And the other was written with conversion therapist Kenneth Zucker, head of conversion therapy organization Genspect Stella O'Malley[22], and many other quacks
• The other 2 consistently co-write opinion pieces where they rail against medical orgs and claim they've been captured by trans people, their co-authors also include the aforementioned Zucker and Malley.

And claiming ROGD exists is absolutely a fringe claim. MEDORGS are clear there's no evidence it's real and to say it is is misinformation. We've even had RFC's agreeing there's no evidence it's real.

I do not feel the view that the increase in trans identification is in part a cultural phenomenon is in any way fringe, especially not to someone with "sociologist" in their name - heard of acquired homosexuality? There's been an increase in homosexual identification in the past few decades, is it due to kids catching gay from the internet or the sociologically BLUESKY fact that when you stop pathologizing and demonizing LGBT people, they come out more often? Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 22:49, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

You've steered this a little off topic here, but in any case. The way same-sex sexual desire is expressed and formalised in society is very much a cultural effect. The idea that the current system in western English-speaking countries is the "correct" and "scientific" one is not really supported either in terms of queer studies or anthropology. In addition, ideas such as "born this way", which are near hegemonic in Western society, are not supported by science or, again, queer studies. I wouldn't say that the correlation of the increase in people's identification as gay with liberalisation of society is a great argument for the idea of an innate trans identity that has no social vector.Boynamedsue (talk) 06:08, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

These are people who have openly advocated for conversion therapy, published in a journal with no history of editorial oversight. It might be suitable as a primary source about the views of the authors, but as a source about the Cass Review it is wholly unsuitable. HenrikHolen (talk) 23:13, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

HenrikHolen can you provide a source that the authorshave openly advocated for conversion therapy? Even the highly partisan source given by YFNS doesn't claim that. According to the French WP article Observatoire Petite Sirenne opposed inclusion of gender identity in the 2022 conversion therapy ban, is that what you are referring to? FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 06:13, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

DoItFastDoItUrgent has added this source:

• Mesa, Alicia (2021-09-09). "Our Moral Duty to Prevent Autism". Medium.

to National Council on Severe Autism. The source is a blog post on WP:MEDIUM ("generally unreliable and should be avoided unless the author is a subject-matter expert or the blog is used for uncontroversial self-descriptions").

The blog post was posted in the organization's channel but AFAICT it was written by an ordinary person rather than an employee or board member. Her "expertise" is that she has a son with who is extremely disabled.

Their local website also hosts a blog that is open to supporters, which says "The National Council on Severe Autism welcomes blog submissions relating to the following topics, among others: Personal stories of living with severe autism; financial impacts of autism; perspectives of siblings..." I assume this is true for their Medium blog, though https://ncsa-admin.medium.com/about is blank. The same woman has also submitted two blog posts in the non-Medium website.[23][24] The non-Medium website says "With the exception of official letters and statements written by the NCSA and reproduced herein, the opinions and assertions stated in our blog are solely those of the individual authors, and may not reflect the opinions or beliefs of NCSA or any of its officers, directors, or advisors."[25] I don't have an account at Medium, so I can't see whether there is a similar disclaimer on the Medium blog posts written by non-staff.

The blog post is used to support two statements in the Wikipedia article:

• The NCSA (i.e., the subject of the article) "considers the prevention of autistic births a "moral duty"."
• The NCSA believes it is the moral duty of the human race to prevent anyone from being born autistic or with any other neurological disability and supports genetic research to that end. Although it acknowledges that some critics ("neurodiversity proponents") label such research efforts eugenic, it dismisses such criticism as "anti-preventionist."

Is this Medium.com blog post a reliable source for these two statements? I am doubtful that a guest post counts as "self-description", and I don't think that any mention of eugenics is "uncontroversial". WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:33, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Here is an archive of the medium post[26]. I don't know the NCSA so can't say whether the additions are true, but they are unsupported by the source provided. Reading the blog it's clear that this is the author opinion, they are no time state that it's the opinion of the NCSA.
For something as controversial as saying a group is a proponent of eugenics you need a source that directly supports that statement. That the NCSA allowed a post that supports eugenics to be posted doesn't directly show that the NCSA supports eugenics. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:29, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

I have found a FAQ on the org's official website about eugenics:[27]

By supporting research into causes and prevention, is NCSA promoting eugenics?

Eugenics refers to the practice of a government or other authority limiting or otherwise directing reproductive rights to fulfill an ideological agenda. We stand firm in opposition to any such practices. Promotion of public health is obviously not equivalent to eugenics, and we support efforts to identify risks to the public health, including neurodevelopmental health. This is the norm across societies, to which end considerable resources are invested, for example, by educating pregnant women to refrain from drinking during pregnancy, by adding iodine to salt to prevent thyroid malfunction-associated cretinism, by prescribing prenatal folate to prevent neural tube defects, by regulating lead in paint, air, and water, by regulating medications that can cause harm to developing brains, by raising awareness of acts that cause brain damage such as shaken baby syndrome, and by monitoring and preventing dangerous infectious such as rubella and Zika. If other avenues for prevention of neurodevelopmental impairment are available, those should be identified and put into practice.

Their definition may be a bit narrow compared to some: I don't know what the word is for "self-eugenics", but there are plenty of people who choose not to have children for fear of passing along a genetic disease or who use Preimplantation genetic diagnosis to avoid having affected children, and this could be construed as improving society's genetics.

But I think that's sufficient to say that being pro-eugenics isn't part of their "self-description", and, as you say, the guest blog post doesn't even mention the org's name, much less claim to be speaking for them. I'll go remove that blog and anything supported by it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:33, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

The FAQ section of the NCSA's website you cited has a false definition of eugenics (not merely a "narrow" one). Eugenics need not be an official government policy. It's merely the belief that certain groups of people (usually due to whatever real or imagined biological traits the eugenicist arbitrarily deems undesirable or imperfect) should be eliminated from the gene pool in order to "improve" the human race, and it can be formally or informally put into practice by anyone. See this article.

It is abundantly clear, based on both the FAQ page and the group's frequent platforming of one of their members who explicitly states that preventing Autistic people from being born is everyone's "moral duty," that the NCSA supports eugenics. For example, if one or more Autistic parents decided to procreate, even knowing there would be a high likelihood of their child also being Autistic, the NCSA would classify that as an "immoral" choice, rather than a morally positive or neutral one. That's eugenics, any way you slice it.

Also, please refrain from comparing the autistic neurotype to a "genetic disease." It is not even medically classified as a disease, and I shouldn't need to explain the extreme harm casually equating neurodivergence with disease does, regardless of the intensity of an individual's support needs. Just as an example that highlights said harm, it wouldn't be eugenics to cure diabetes (an actual disease) or take active measures to prevent it. It would, however, be eugenics to "cure" Autistic people or take active measures to prevent autistic births. (Standard prenatal care measures meant to improve overall health, like avoiding exposure to lead or taking prenatal vitamins, are not eugenic, and it's disingenuous for the NCSA or anyone else to compare such measures to the only two possible successful outcomes of the genetic research they champion: a "cure" or a genetic/prenatal test that would aid in either a voluntary or forcible elimination of Autistic people from the gene pool.)

It's also worth pointing out that there's a large difference between maintaining encyclopedic neutrality and just accepting any claim an organization makes as unassailable fact. The vast majority of organizations that claim to "support" or "advocate for" the Autistic community mostly or completely reject the perspectives of those they claim to operate on behalf of, and the NCSA is particularly sinister in this regard, as they stamp a specific subset of the Autistic community with intensive daily support needs as wholly incapable of autonomy (which they also misdefine) and weaponize such a position further by claiming that the very slowly growing acceptance of Autistic people by society (including self-acceptance) is inherently harmful to that subset (while at no time placing blame on the governments and private organizations that fail to provide such individuals and their caregivers with sufficient resources or prioritize tangible support over eugenic research and pseudoscience).

If you think citing the Medium post runs afoul of Wikipedia's citational standards (which I am not conceding), I'd be happy to reword my edit and cite the FAQ page directly. If even the NCSA, itself, feels that the perception of their organization as eugenicist is widespread enough to be worthy of inclusion on their own FAQ page, then it's certainly worthy of inclusion in their Wikipedia article. Otherwise, the article serves as little more than a promotional outlet for the NCSA, where anything they claim will just be repeated uncritically. DoItFastDoItUrgent (talk) 20:33, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

I think that a guest blog post from a non-expert, posted on WP:MEDIUM, that doesn't even mention the National Council on Severe Autism, can't be used at all in National Council on Severe Autism.

If you want to write anything about eugenics and the NCSA, then I suggest that you post your source(s) and your proposed text here at RSN, so that other editors can offer an opinion about whether the source(s) are reliable and your proposed text a fair representation of those sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:26, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

I am not going against the consensus here as far as the use of the blog post as a citation, but also have no intention of running every cited edit I make on this or any other subject through committee. If I make an alternative edit that you disagree with, you're welcome to bring it up on the article talk page (which is perhaps where this conversation should have begun). DoItFastDoItUrgent (talk) 00:57, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

That article is significantly under-watched, so I think a discussion here is better.

I'm not suggesting "running every cited edit [you] make on this or any other subject through committee". I'm suggesting that since your first attempt to get the word eugenics into that article cited a WP:MEDIUM blog post, then if you want to have another go at getting the word eugenics into the article during the next week or so (i.e., between now and when this section is auto-archived), you should post the new source and the new text here first. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:47, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

What you need is the NCSA saying they support eugenics, or a reliable secondary source saying they do. The source must directly support the content. You can't use a source that says "We don't support eugenics" to say they do support eugenics based on your opinion that their use of 'eugenics' is to narrow. You have to find a reliable source to back that up. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:19, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

ActivelyDisinterested has it right. I think piece itself is that weird gray area of SPS, where supposedly it was edited by a nonprofit advocacy group, so it has some editorial control. At best, we could say NCSA hosted an opinion writer who said that, but would be wrong to attribute it to an official position NCSA.

I would probably argue it should be removed for WP:DUEness concerns. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 21:42, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

We're having an interesting discussion about the reliability of Noor al-Din Modarresi Chardehi () and his book, the book "Who is the Bab and what are his teachings?" (Persian: باب کیست و سخن او چیست), as a source for a photograph of the Babi leader, Subh-i-Azal. Version with the photograph in question here: Old revision of Subh-i-Azal.

The opinion is currently split two-on-two (Talk:Subh-i-Azal#Photographs_of_Subh-i-Azal, with one person doubting first the authenticity, then the relevance of the photograph, and another one doubting the reliability of the source, after the source was clarified.

I have quite a strong opinion that for a photograph, produced some tens of years ago before the publishing of a book, it is not relevant whether the author is biased against the subject of the article. On the other hand, my fellow Wikipedian, @Cuñado, has expressed strong doubt against the photograph, for multiple different reasons after one another.

We have already gone through several edit-and-revert cycles, and would like other opinions on this matter. If you have any arguments for or against using the source, we would appreciate them. Mineemod (talk) 06:30, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Two-on-two?? Who besides you is advocating to include the image? Cuñado ☼ - Talk 14:29, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

@AimanAbir18plus was the one who put it into the infobox. Mineemod (talk) 14:39, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Besides, I really do believe I have a strong case for inclusion of the image. There isn't any other photograph of Subh-i-Azal from this time period, besides the other shot, for which I don't have a citable source. It is common for Wikipedia articles going over the life of a person to include multiple pictures of them at different ages.

You are using very strange arguments: first, you said the photo is obviously fake. I asked several people privately, no one thought that. Then, you invoke policy that is used for facts, not for photographs. Mineemod (talk) 15:19, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

To me, the image appears to be edited or not a photograph. Check out c:Category:1860s photographs. Here are a few examples of contemporary photographs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. There are many more. Then compare to File:Subh-i-Azal photo, from book Bab kyst va skhn ou chist.png. I also pointed out that the subject is covered pretty extensively in reliable sources in English, and none of them use or mention this image. You found it in an obscure, non-English, polemic, sectarian source. I asked for better sourcing. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 16:24, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Again, I don't believe that the language, or polemic, sectarian nature of a source, is a reason to deem it unreliable for the purpose of the inclusion of an image. The source is not obscure, that is your claim. The fact English-language sources do not have the image is not an argument against including it in the article. Mineemod (talk) 16:33, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't share your opinion about the photograph, your standards seem very strange to me. Yes, the photograph has some noise, that does not make it less of a photograph. Also, the fact that it might not be a photograph is not a reason to remove it. Mineemod (talk) 16:34, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Also, you made literally zero effort to check the source of the photograph, and straight went to removing it. I included everything needed to verify. Mineemod (talk) 16:41, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

I have reviewed Wikipedia:Image_use_policy and there doesn't seem to by any mention of the Wikipedia policies for verifiability also applying to images. On the contrary, users are encouraged to create their own images to upload on Wikipedia. Does this sound right to you?

Furthermore, I have found that the photograph in question also appears, in a colored and edited form, in the shrine of Subh-i-Azal in Famagusta, where a picture of it was taken by a Wikipedian and uploaded to the Persian Wikipedia, see fa:پرونده:صبح ازل.jpeg. Mineemod (talk) 19:51, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

The same depiction (colored, edited version of original one) also appeared on the Bahai Pazhuhi website. But I assume Bahai Pazhuhi takes it from Wikipedia though, not vice versa. Mineemod (talk) 20:18, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

The reliability of the source matters, because anyone can publish anything. I could very easily go publish a book with this photo and say that it is Subh-i-Azal, and then I could add it to Wikipedia. That's why you need the primary sources (the photo) reviewed and published in reliable secondary sources. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 17:15, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

• Just to note I've raised a question about copyright at WP:MCQ#Question at RSN about an image. I'm not sure that copying the image from the book is quite right, even if the original picture is out of copyright. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:58, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

  Answered[28] it isn't a problem. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:09, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

  Thank you. Yes, unmodified use does not add copyright. Mineemod (talk) 21:00, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Right. But reliability in the context of photographs is something else than reliability in the terms of content. If the author said, for example, that Subh-i-Azal ate babies alive, that would not be a good source for that.

But for a photograph, even a hostile source seems permissible. Mineemod (talk) 21:01, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Unless the "photograph" looks edited. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 22:43, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Have you seen the other take of the photograph? It seems like there is some uneven lighting in the take I used. The other one has more even lighting. That doesn't seem to be the result of editing of the photograph. The upper part looks like it might have been retouched compared to the other take. But nothing that would dispute the authenticity. Mineemod (talk) 05:57, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not rely on sources without any common sense. Anyone knows that is not Subh-i-Azal, that alone makes it inappropriate for the article. But in the case of this picture, it clearly is Subh-i-Azal.

Theoretically, if I painted a new depiction of Subh-i-Azal and included it in the article, e.g. based on other depictions that I couldn't use because they were copyrighted, it would be also acceptable. Mineemod (talk) 20:26, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

You really missed the point. I could publish any picture and claim it is anybody. The source should be reliable. If you paint somebody and publish it on Wikipedia, it would probably be rejected on their bio, but I don't know the answer. I'm sure that has come up in the bowels of Wikipedia. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 22:57, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

You don't need a citation for obvious facts, like to show whether a picture depicts a person about whom we know how he looked like, since we have other photographs of him. Mineemod (talk) 06:53, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

I've used it multiple times in articles after seeing it used in Featured Articles (Pearl Jam, A Crow Looked at Me, Tell All Your Friends, John Oliver, 4, U2, Paint It Black, Illinois, Wilco, Radiohead, The Smashing Pumpkins) and endorsed by other editors: @(CA)Giacobbe [29], @ChrisTheDude [30], @Hobbes Goodyear [31], @Fezmar9 [32], @BD2412 [33], @Ceoil [34], @Myxomatosis57 [35], Nosebagbear [36], and @MarioSoulTruthFan [37]

If it is (or isn't) a reliable source, I propose adding it to the list of perennial sources and Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Sources. Frost 11:27, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

For me is a yes to add it. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 11:30, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Just to note, at [88] I actually replaced it after doubt was cast over whether it was reliable -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:47, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

I would say that it's generally reliable for all the things it is used for: statements of fact, journalistic opinion, establishing notability.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:17, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

I have used BrooklynVegan on several GA's I have made myself (two examples being Profound Morality and Devoured by the Mouth of Hell), and have ran into no issues both times.

As far as (loosely speaking) credibility and rep, it is worth noting that, according to their Muckrack pages, both lead editors Andrew Sacher and Bill Pearis have experience working for Alternative Press and WRKR-FM (Kalamazoo, MI). Ig if one wants to invest in a muckrack deep dive, they can go here.

// Chchcheckit (talk) 17:57, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

I use Brooklyn Vegan all the time to bolster sources. I think it should be included since it is historically incredibly reliable on the subject matter it covers. Gjb0zWxOb (talk) 12:54, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

It's good for cultural coverage IME - David Gerard (talk) 14:33, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, this exactly. We are not talking about hard-hitting investigative journalism here. I have seen nothing to call into question reliability in terms of album information. BD2412 T 14:41, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

It's been discussed at WT:ALBUMS a few times, but it never really got much participation, so there was never really a consensus to include at their source list. That said, there wasn't really hard opposition either. I think I've used it sparingly in the past, without any issue. Sergecross73 msg me 14:50, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

I thought I recalled seeing it discussed there.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 14:55, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

• The perennial source list has a set of criteria, WP:RSPCRITERIA. Either the source meets the requirements or it doesn't, but inclusion isn't determined this way.
  The source looks reliable for album information and sundry. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:34, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

  I believe that they were referring to the Albums WikiProject list, not the main one.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 17:02, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

  The original comment referred to RSP (without saying it by name.) I missed it the first time too, and almost said the same thing. Sergecross73 msg me 17:06, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

  Ah. I see it. I think I read the "and" as an "at".--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:49, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

  Like it was mentioned by ActivelyDisinterested, we don't just post discussions on sources onto RSP. It does not look like this discussion is about the relaibility of the source for a claim, but about putting in RSP. clarification would be good. Ramos1990 (talk) 23:15, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

• WP:ALBUMSOURCES is a relatively robust and well-vetted WikiProject source list, so I don't see the point of adding this source to RSP (where real estate is tighter) unless there's evidence of it being serially disputed across other topic areas. It's totally fine and reasonable for discussions on this noticeboard to inform entries on WikiProject source lists. Left guide (talk) 10:06, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Added to RSP at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Benzinga - the RFC link will need updating when this is archived, of course - David Gerard (talk) 20:16, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm having a look through Benzinga usages now, and it's a sea of corporate promotional articles. Other editors may find it a useful indicator of such - David Gerard (talk) 14:15, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

The claim that Danielle Sellers had modelled for WP:THESUN's Page 3 in time for her 2017 Love Island appearance is cited to National World and Closer. Could using this Sun article for the fact that they first featured her in July 2016 count as ABOUTSELF (likely as part of a citebundle)?--Launchballer 00:09, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Citebundle is just bundling ciations. If your question is about ABOUTSELF and the Sun article, I don't think it is a primary source about themselves like twitter or social media. The Sun article looks like secondary source because the author is Tilly Pearce using perhaps social media info, but is not witten by Danniel Sellers herself. Unless you think Dannielle Sellers is coordinating with Tilly Pearce for promotion purposes.. Ramos1990 (talk) 04:54, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I know what a citebundle is, and was considering knocking the National World/Closer/Sun citations into one ref.--Launchballer 05:38, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

If there are other sources for the content, why use the Sun? Use the best source, multiple sources aren't required unless the content is very contentious. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:08, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Also as Ramos1990 said the article isn't ABOUTSELF, as it's not by the subject of the article. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:21, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I was asking as I couldn't find another source for July 2016, and I was thinking something like (Multiple refs: National World, Closer, for July 2016 see The Sun). There used to be something similar at Bonnie Blue (actress).--Launchballer 14:52, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Just curious on what the status of a claim is when historically significant reliable sources publish it based on an article from an unreliable source? Deadline Hollywood, The Independent, and Radio Times all published reports that a new series of a programme has been commissioned. These are all extremely high-quality sources (like FA-quality). However, they all state this claim was originally published by The Sun, an unreliable tabloid (see WP:THESUN). Should these claims be included with references from the reliable sources? Or perhaps even something like "According to The Sun a seventh series [...]" (again with the reliable sources)? TheDoctorWho (talk) 03:33, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

I generally think that if normally reliable sources publish with attribution information from a unreliable source (information that otherwise would not fail key content policies like BLP), that should mean they have done some type of verification on that information and we should be able to include that information but with the attribution of the unreliable source, using the reliable sources as the reference. Masem (t) 03:39, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

I think there’s a difference between “according to the Sun” with no evidence of independent verification and “as first reported by the Sun”. The Tadio Times piece is clearlye the former, I would not use it personally. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 01:57, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

When we as a community deem a source generally reliable, it means that we have enough evidence (or lack of evidence to the contrary) to trust that they are doing their due diligence in fact-checking. Mainstream book publishers and academic journals sometimes cite blogs, content farms, social media, and other "low-quality" sources. They also often perform original research, and that is fine. Another thing to remember is that it's not as if 100% of statements made by unreliable sources are false; those anywhere close to that typically end up being deprecated and/or blacklisted. The caveat though is that we should only make claims in wikivoice if the reliable source is stating it in their own voice. If the reliable source is attributing the claim to another source, then we should likewise attribute the claim to that original source. Left guide (talk) 09:49, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

User @Flyingphoenixchips: stated that the following journals are predatory:

• All pages with source code containing "/ijnrd\.org/"
• All pages with source code containing "/ijsr\.net/"
• All pages with source code containing "/ijst\.co\.in/"
• All pages with source code containing "/tlhjournal\.com/"
• All pages with source code containing "/ijssrr\.com/"
• All pages with source code containing "/mkscienceset\.com/"

Can someone confirm that? If so they should possibly be blacklisted and removed from Wikipedia articles. Polygnotus (talk) 21:48, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Unreliable sources aren't generally blacklisted, that's for sites that are being spammed into articles. See MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist. If the sources use is problematic and is regularly used then they can be WP:DEPRECATED, which adds a warning when they are used. But it's usually only used if there is a pressing need for it. Sources that are regularly discussed here get listed at WP:RSP, otherwise discussions can be found in the talk page archives. Have you checked to see if they have been discussed before?
Headbomb do you know these journals? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:03, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, I think this is the first time I ran into this situation. I'll search the archives. Polygnotus (talk) 23:07, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

IJSR has been mentioned https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_433#c-Rosguill-20240404164600-47.29.168.193-20240404093600 the others have not. Polygnotus (talk) 23:11, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't see any WP article referencing ""ijnrd.org." The search above shows results for IJNRD, the International Journal of Nephrology and Renovascular Disease, published by a Taylor and Francis affiliate. I doubt that T&F publishes predatory journals, but I don't know. ijnrd.org says it's the International Journal of Novel Research and Development, and its website doesn't give me confidence. I'm not going to investigate further right now, mostly wanted to say to be sure to distinguish between different journals with the same acronym. FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:53, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Good point, that is a different journal. The International Journal of Novel Research and Development promises to publish your stuff for ~17 euro if you are from India. Publishing takes 2 to 3 days which is rather exceptional for serious peer review. Polygnotus (talk) 23:57, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

The .org version is this journal here, not the T&F one. It's indexed nowhere selective and adverstises a bunch of trivial services like having an ISSN and being under 'major indexing' through Academia.edu, SSRN, or Arxiv. Beall lists it as predatory. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:43, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

It didn't look to me like any WP articles cite the .org journal, though perhaps I overlooked something. FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:54, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

And for the others, none look great either. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:49, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

ijnrd.org was spammed a lot in Wikipedia articles relating to india. I had removed all of those citations using the tools another user had directed me too. Flyingphoenixchips (talk) 02:29, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

https://www.dovepress.com/international-journal-of-nephrology-and-renovascular-disease-journal is definitely legit! Flyingphoenixchips (talk) 02:30, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I support blacklisting them, because these sites are more often than not also hubs of pseudoscience. Even if they try disseminating valid science, we should not use them as references as they are not peer reviewed. Plus as an academic myself, who is currently pursuing a PhD I really really do not want wikipedia to endorse these platforms by citing them. Flyingphoenixchips (talk) 02:28, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

G'day all, in a pre-GAN discussion at Talk:May 1995 Pale air strikes#Independent sources?, the reliability (specifically the question of being "independent of the subject") of the two-volume CIA history of the Balkan wars of the first half of the 1990s titled Balkan Battlegrounds [46] has been questioned. Here are a couple of reviews of the work [47][48]. The subject of the article is two airstrikes by aircraft of various NATO countries (including the US) on ammunition bunkers near Pale in Bosnia and Herzegovina on consecutive days in May 1995. The source is used for the background of the airstrikes, the details of the airstrikes, and the aftermath. It isn't used for opinion or analysis, other sources have been used for those aspects of the article. Clearly I understand that the CIA might have provided information to NATO about the target at the time, but I am struggling to see why the source Balkan Battlegrounds is not independent of the subject of the article, the airstrikes. Interested in the community view on this, and if its independence and/or reliability in general is questionable, how best to address this when using that source, or whether it should not be used at all. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:40, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

The subject of the article is airstrikes by NATO, and the CIA is not independent of NATO or it's actions. That doesn't mean it's unreliable, but it's not fully independent. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:42, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Concur. I would definitely question its independence. In general I think an encyclopedia should remain relatively skeptical about potentially self-serving claims from state espionage agencies regardless of which state they serve. Simonm223 (talk) 11:55, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

HAL open science aka HAL (open archive) is a place where anyone can upload anything for any reason.

An uploaded document does not need to have been published or even to be intended for publication.

insource:https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr

It is not impossible that a bunch of these are COPYVIO because all WP:UGC sites have a copyvio problem.

It has been used 854 times. If I am bored I might have Claude.ai write a couple of papers on theoretical physics so I can publish them under a friends name. Polygnotus (talk) 05:24, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

It’s a repository, so many of the items hosted there we cite are from respected journals and some aren’t. BobFromBrockley (talk) 05:47, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

See WP:ACADREP. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:53, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! Polygnotus (talk) 12:01, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Several Japanese articles have this text created with a tag: This article incorporates text from OpenHistory.

It refers to openhistory.org, a mostly one man project that predates wikipedia and hasn't been updated since 2006. The encyclopedia has a warning that it is "alpha quality". This seems like something that was added in the early days of wikipedia and has been overlooked in unimportant articles that don't receive much attention. DrGlef (talk) 07:23, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

For ease of reference: Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from OpenHistory. As an initial opinion, anyone should feel free to replace or tag {{better source needed}} anything that actually has OpenHistory cited as a reference, but in a quick spot check I don't really see anything like that. This isn't really too different from translating from Wikipedia articles in other languages, or otherwise incorporating compatibly-licensed UGC into our content. We're not doing it because the other UGC is reliable, and we don't need it to be as long as the text we put in can be verified in the sources we do consider reliable eventually. The tag is for attribution, not indicating that we'd want to use it as a reference. Alpha3031 (t • c) 07:42, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. How do I replace the source if I don't know what information is being cited? Also, I don't think tags are helpful. It is basically giving the work to someone else. The Oda clan page has a tag from 2016 that no longer reflects the current state of the article. I also think that finding sources for some of these articles will be difficult for anyone who doesn't know Japanese as many of these figures have questionable notability, although some are important and well cited. In those cases, the OpenHistory tag may be misleading because it may not be used anymore. DrGlef (talk) 09:05, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

In general, I would expect the articles in Category:Wikipedia articles by source of incorporated text subcategories (and Category:Free-content attribution) to retain the attribution information even if the article was mostly rewritten. We refer to other texts not only to help verifiability, but also for copyright licensing reasons and simply because we believe attributing ideas and inspirations is the right thing to do. The "source of incorporated text" tags are mostly for the latter two reasons, not the first.

An added block of text from a compatibly-licensed user generated source is not inherently more suspicious than the same text an editor thought up on their own, so there's no particular reason to scrutinise it any more than any other block of uncited text.

If you find the inline citations to be less than you'd like to be, add {{citation needed}} to claims you find possibly questionable, {{dubious}} if you believe those claims are incorrect, or either remove/correct the claim or tag as {{disputed inline}} if you are fully convinced it is erroneous. Alpha3031 (t • c) 12:02, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Looking at the first four edits at Oda clan, it appears that there was little OpenHistory text to begin with. The content was so basic and vague that it is pretty generic. The bulk of it is a list of members of the clan. Was is the guidelines for removing the attribution? Or is it not permanent?

Uncited text should be deleted. Fully convinced is a pretty high standard, at least for me. DrGlef (talk) 13:31, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Articles should balance the need to remove inaccuracies with the risk of omitting correct and relevant information. Inline citations are a means towards that end, I don't believe they should be treated as an end in themselves. While it's technically permitted by policy to challenge any uncited text, editing policy indicates a preference for tagging instead of outright removal for potentially fixable issues (WP:PRESERVE), and using the lack of current references as the only rule for deciding to content, instead of evaluating the content on it's merits, is certainly against the spirit of things and more likely to be detrimental when applied across the board without exception. Alpha3031 (t • c) 14:28, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Citations aren't an end, they are a means to verifiability. But we are getting on a tangent. Under what conditions should a OpenHistory tag be removed? Let's use Oda clan as a concrete example. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oda_clan&diff=prev&oldid=7746483 This links to the last pure "OpenHistory" version. The descent from the Taira is questioned by scholars, which the article now reflects. DrGlef (talk) 14:59, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Is the OpenHistory tag about attribution or verification? If the tag is for attribution the question is beyond the scope of this board, but if the license that OpenHistory uses requires it then it will have to stay. For verification purposes OpenHistory doesn't look like a reliable source, as it appears self-published[49]. Also using an end of article attribution code for this purpose is rather unusual, I would suggest one of the more normal methods. Obviously copy pasting text from another source doesn't verify it's content, the same way that translating an article doesn't mean editors shouldn't verify the content before publishing it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:30, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

• Courtesy ping to @TakuyaMurata:. From a random sample of article histories in that category, it looks like he was the one who created these articles using OpenHistory in 2003, and appears to still be regularly active on the project. Left guide (talk) 08:07, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

User:Tamilcontent1 is using the following source

• "Baahubali to Thuppakki: Tamil Cinema's 100 Cr Films". www.ndtv.com. Retrieved 2025-04-07.

to support the claim -

at Lingaa. I don’t have any opinion on ndtv.com as a whole, but this particular source lacks a byline and redirects to a now defunct site, iFlickz.com. Any inputs on this would be useful. Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 05:22, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

There's WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 350#WP:NDTV. From checking elsewhere in the archives, this source also seems to have been discussed other times in passing or without being mentioned in the section header. Left guide (talk) 06:03, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Notified Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Indian cinema task force. Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 06:31, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Are you telling me this borders on WP:FRUIT? Because NDTV is reliable and iFlicks appears not to be. Kailash29792 (talk) 15:12, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Maybe WP:FRUIT, yes. iFlickz.com is an unknown site and clearly not an independent journalist, so it should be considered unreliable. Also, I couldn't find NDTV listed anywhere on WP:RSPS, so I'm not sure if it's considered generally reliable or not. Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 18:42, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Quick notes:

• NDTV is a mainstream news organization and would be considered generally reliable under WP:NEWSORG, although look for the complicating factors under WP:NEWSORGINDIA applicable to many news organizations in India, and the additional concerns regarding NDTV in particular after its takeover in 2022 by Gautam Adani.
• That said, as has been noted by other above, in this particular case the reliability of NDTV is moot since the content of the listicle is clearly attributable to iFlickz.com. The latter appears to be a defunct website focussed on distributing news, gossip, and PR material related to Indian (esp. Tamil) film industry. I didn't see it listed on Indian cinema task force's list of generally used sources; didn't find any information about its apparent publisher "Gusto Systems"; or any other indication that iFlickz would qualify as a source with a reputation for factchecking etc. The form of the article, a listicle as opposed to a reported piece with identified sources and author, also does not engender trust.

(TL;DR)  If the information it is being cited for is the least bit disputable, don't use this source. If the information is true, better sources would surely be available; a Rajinikanth film is hardly likely to suffer from lack of media coverage. Abecedare (talk) 20:08, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I've seen it used occasionally, but the only time it was mentioned in a question at RSN resulted in a single person effectively replying "I don't know" few years back. Maybe we can do better? The site looks like AI generated stuff before the AI era, pretty but with very weak sourcing. For example, I looked at The Korean War: A Sudden Tragedy and the Beginning of UN Forces-South Korea Relations — Google Arts & Culture"" and it states that "Credits: All media. The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content." , then it lists the source as the United Nations Peace Memorial. Here, I'd think that a UN affiliated site would be reliable, but that disclaimer spooks me off. _{Piotrus at Hanyang| reply here} 15:42, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

It's the United Nations Peace Memorial Hall in Korea. Unfortunately I do not speak Korean, and the site isn't set up well for browser translation, so I'm not in a position to check the information on that site.

GA&C's About page says "Google Arts & Culture is a non-commercial initiative. We work with cultural institutions and artists around the world. Together, our mission is to preserve and bring the world’s art and culture online so it’s accessible to anyone, anywhere. ... Our team helps partners digitize, manage and publish their collections online." The partners include a lot of very reputable cultural institutions, so that's a good sign. On the other hand, it's unclear whether GA&C is just taking existing content from an institution's site and making it available, or if there's something else involved (e.g., an LLM creating text).

I don't want to take the time to really delve in right now, but what I'd do is look at some GA&C content from an institution with material in a language I speak, see what's on that institution's website about that topic, and compare the texts. For example, this image + bit of info is associated with the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History (which itself is definitely reliable for its content), but it's still not clear to me who wrote the GA&C text, as that verbatim text doesn't appear on the SMNH's website (per a site-specific Google search). Then again, for a language I speak, I'd rather go directly to the institution's website instead of relying on GA&C. Not sure if that helps. FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:36, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Note that parts of that site also host partial copies of Wikipedia content (example). This seems to be limited to a small encyclopedia of art and artists. You have to click on "show more" to even see the link back to Wikipedia, and there is not a clear license or list of authors given. This is fairly shaky compliance with our redistribution license. Sam Kuru (talk) 02:01, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I'd certainly be careful. I searched for Henry Moore as an example of an artist I know something about; the GA&C page has biographical information from Wikipedia, misidentifies furniture designed by a different Henry Moore as being by the British sculptor (even though their source correctly identifies the furniture designer as a different person!), and provides a bunch of automated search results which conflate the more famous sculptor with the minor Victorian painter.

Some of the GA&C pages are credited as being "in collaboration with" reputable museums (e.g. this page on Barbara Hepworth which is "in collaboration with The Hepworth Wakefield). One would expect that these are more reliable, but there are errors in these too: e.g. 10 Facts About Barbara Hepworth says that in 1939 she moved from Yorkshire to St. Ives; in fact it was from London. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:40, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Following Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_201#URLs_with_utm_source=chatgpt.com_codes, I have added detection for possible AI-generated slop to my script.

Possible AI-slop sources will be flagged in orange, thought I'm open to changing that color in the future if it causes issues. If you have the script, you can see it in action on those articles.

For now the list of AI sources is limited to ChatGPT (utm_source=chatgpt.com), but if you know of other chatGPT-like domains, let me know!

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:14, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

That's going to be very useful for highlighting content that could use a double check. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:33, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Interesting, thank you! Lova Falk (talk) 11:34, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Can financial self-reports by non-profit advocacy organizations be used as a source for information about their funding? In this case: Jewish Voice for Peace with a discussion about this in Talk:Jewish_Voice_for_Peace#3._Membership_numbers. I was referred to WP:ABOUTSELF and there I see the following:

Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the self-published source requirement that they are established experts in the field, so long as:

1. The material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim;
2. It does not involve claims about third parties;
3. It does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source;
4. There is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; and
5. The article is not based primarily on such sources.

Personally, I think all of these five criteria are met - again, when writing about their funding, not about other things. But I may be mistaken! What do you think? Lova Falk (talk) 16:51, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

In context its clearly unduly self serving, its being requested by a paid editor "Disclosure: I am requesting the following edits to Wikipedia on behalf of Jewish Voice for Peace, a client of Camino Research, as part of a paid engagement. I have been compensated by Camino Research to make fact-based, independently verifiable contributions to improve Wikipedia articles related to Jewish Voice for Peace." Basically any time a COI editor wants to add a primary source its going to be unduly self serving, they don't really do anything which isn't by definition. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:36, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

If the inclusion of some information is warranted without being requested, then making a request does not make that information unsuitable for inclusion. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 20:10, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

If the inclusion was warranted there would be no need for a request to be made. I would also note that the connected contributor claimed that their purpose was to make "fact-based, independently verifiable contributions" but unless I'm missing something this number is not independently verifiable. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:26, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Could someone confirm what content is being confirmed to which sources, and is this only about the second request about funding or the other requests? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:21, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

An organisation is usually reliable for the number of members it has, but if there has been any controversy over it's funding then relying solely on it's own reporting might be unduly self-serving. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:25, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

ActivelyDisinterested My original question was, and is, if financial self-reports by non-profit advocacy organizations be used as a source for information about their funding. For me, self-disclosure of COI is much appreciated, but also irrelevant when I make the decision about performing the edit or not. Now, for non-profit advocacy organizations, I think that information about their funding is appropriate for our article, but, I wondered if I could use this as a source or not. And I still don't know the answer to that question - except, as you say, in case there has been controversy over its funding. Lova Falk (talk) 07:18, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

IMO, using their self-published data to say "their budget was X for 2025" or "they spent X in 2025 according to their form 990" is fine. But what we're discussing here is different than that. "93% of JVP's budget comes from individual donations with an average individual gift of approximately $60" and "the organization had over 31,000 individual donors in FY 2024, with more than 7,800 recurring monthly commitments..." This is quite obviously self-serving and way in the weeds. And it has been covered in no independent sourcing and we're totally relying on them for it. Not notable and promotional. Marquardtika (talk) 13:26, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

The update from JVP seems to be a direct response to statements from other sources about it's funding. The details from JVP might be correct, but it appears to be trying to counter other sources. So I don't think it's uncontroversial. Secondary sources are always preferable, articles should mostly be based on what independent sources say about the subject not what the subject says about themselves. Here JVP are trying to counter a narrative of big donor supporters with a counter narrative of their own, again I'm not saying they are wrong but it's appears in their interest to say so. Having secondary sourcing to back up what they are saying would appear suggestible. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:36, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Concur with ActivelyDisinterested. Simonm223 (talk) 15:39, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I honestly feel like I'm living in bizarro-world. I'm being told on the article talk page that an advocacy group's own self-published website is more reliable than an article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy--"Another non-profit's views are not more relevant content for an encyclopaedia than than an organisation's disclosure of its funding." Just...what? No, that's not how any of this works. In fact we rely on and preference independent secondary sourcing. This is all so bizarre, honestly, and was spearheaded by a disclosed WP:COI editor (see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#Jewish Voice for Peace). So, to reiterate, a paid editor suggests some self-published self-promoting sources, several Wikipedians eagerly implement, I revert, and am now bombarded with Wikipedians telling me no, I'm the crazy on, we should be using a group's self-published website FAQ section over an article in a reliable publication. Ahhhhhh *screams into the abyss* Marquardtika (talk) 21:28, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

screams into the abyss. A little melodramatic.we rely on and preference independent secondary sourcing - yes. "Chronicle of Philanthropy" is not an independent secondary source. It's a competing 501c non-profit with a its own political agenda. It's not a news organisation or scholarly source. Cambial — foliar❧ 22:09, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

It seems the crux of this is whether the funding statements are uncontroversial enough for primary sourcing. I believe we can refer to article coverage to determine controversy in this case due to how widespread and detailed the coverage has been. Do we have any sources for controversy around funding? I can only recall oppositional articles emphasizing grants from foundations, with the indirect implication that this is the main source of funding, but without even making an editorial supposition that it is the case. Marquardtika, do the Chronicle of Philanthropy articles contain something relevant to this that you could quote here? Unfortunately it is a paid subscription outlet that I do not have access to. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 07:19, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Once again, returning to my original question. I somehow assumed that financial self-reports by large non-profit advocacy organizations were subject to independent audits, but once I became aware of my assumption and researched this, I did find independent audits for JVP for 2016-2019, but none after that date. So I now agree that unless we are presented with independent audits that confirm statements about the source of funding, information about this on their website is not a reliable source. Lova Falk (talk) 09:38, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

The idea that "Chronicle of Philanthropy is not an independent secondary source. It's a competing 501c non-profit with its own political agenda" is unfounded. Lots of reliable sources are 501c3 non-profits. For example, ProPublica, Poynter Institute, Institute for Nonprofit News, etc. Being a 501c3 organization is an IRS tax designation meaning a group is a nonprofit. It doesn't imply any kind of political agenda. And the idea that the Chronicle of Philanthropy is somehow in opposition to Jewish Voice for Peace is strange, I'm not sure where that idea is coming from. The Chronicle of Philanthropy article is not "oppositional", it is neutral and well-reported. And it's unequivocally a much better source than the Jewish Voice for Peace's own website. Marquardtika (talk) 15:18, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

This website is unreliable for anything other than stage credits. The IBDB often gets cited here on Wiki as a source for birthdates, when all they've done is copy the information from IMDb. And unlike IMDb, IBDB refuses to correct existing errors even when presented with ample evidence. Yours6700 (talk) 04:53, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

if it's an IMDb mirror, then it's unreliable as it's user-generated content.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:50, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

Seconded. Sergecross73 msg me 16:06, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

thirded. BarntToust 16:40, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

How do we know they're copying information from imdb? I see that ibdb provides a form to request error correction (although they caveat that with "may require documentation"), so how do we know they refuse to correct errors? Schazjmd (talk) 23:01, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

More context is needed. Any source saying IBDB is mirroring IMDB? Ramos1990 (talk) 23:09, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

This book published by Globe Pequot calls IBDB a "sister site" of IMDB. Left guide (talk) 09:55, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Schazjmd, the answer to your question "How do we know they're copying information from imdb?" is, we have eyes in our heads. This became undeniably obvious with Ross Bowman's page. Bowman was born 12/5/26, as his obituary and IMDb page both state (not to mention the umpteen public records sites that consistently give 12/5/26). Yet IBDB says he was born 4/1/27, a date they copied from an erroneous previous version of Bowman's IMDb page and steadfastly refuse to correct. IBDB's form to request error correction is useless. Yours6700 (talk) 21:07, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

As a tertiary source it's not a best source to use but I don't think it routinely directly copies content from IMDB en masse, nor acts as a mirror, although both may sometimes draw from the same works and databases of varying reliability (Silent Film Necrology, various Who's Who in..., etc.). I've seen many instances where the two sites differ in vital biographic info (someone could probably run a query on Wikidata to check). It's a source that should be used with caution. Of course, any discussion of "true" birth dates of actors, singers, and other show business people must be taken with a large grain of salt, with the observation that showbiz folks past and present often lie about their age, birthplace, real name, etc. such that throughout their career their reported ages may differ (people may also use false ages on wedding licenses, censuses, passports, and other primary sources that secondary/tertiary sources draw from). And yes, even reliable, scholarly sources can contain errors, conflations, and contradictory information. Beyond the anecdote regarding Ross Bowman, we'd need a more systematic analysis of purported errors and refusal to issue corrections. Also, there was limited previous discussion here, here, and here. --Animalparty! (talk) 22:51, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for that clarification.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 18:01, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

There's also an archived discussion from the Theatre WikiProject at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Theatre/Archive 5#Notability; Are IBDB and BroadwayWorld databases "Reliable sources"?. Given the multiple discussions with wide ranges of interpretations on reliability, I wonder if an RfC is in order to add this to RSP, especially since I don't see a WikiProject source list for the theatre project. Left guide (talk) 22:21, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

This is an LGBT-focused spinoff of Vogue magazine that is cited in many articles. Recently, it has published several false claims without correction such as the following:

• Claiming that Lisa Littman's paper about rapid-onset gender dysphoria was retracted. In fact it was not, it just had a clarification appended to it saying that ROGD is not a formal diagnosis. That clarification did not contradict any of the claims made in the paper.
• Claiming that Project 2025 calls for abolishing no-fault divorce and same-sex marriage. Both of those claims are completely false.

Given this publication's pattern of publishing uncorrected, unretracted false claims, I propose that it should be considered WP:GUNREL. Partofthemachine (talk) 03:14, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Them does not claim that Project 2025 calls for abolishing no-fault divorce and same-sex marriage. Rather, They claim that Camilla Taylor, Deputy Legal Director for Litigation at Lambda Legal, claims it. ("We know that Project 2025 calls for ending the freedom to marry for same-sex couples, just as it calls for ending no-fault divorce,” says Taylor.) Unless you can show that Taylor did not in fact say that, Them's claim cannot be considered a false claim. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 05:58, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

It's certainly not a good source for biomedical information per WP:MEDRS. Alaexis_¿question? 06:16, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I do not want to commit to participating, but I must ask as I read the one about Littman: that's all you got from that article? LightNightLights (talk • contribs) 09:47, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Partofthemachine according to WP:GUNRELThe source may lack an editorial team, have a poor reputation for fact-checking, fail to correct errors, be self-published, or present user-generated content. Do you believe any of these apply, and why? (FWIW I think publishing false claims by an interviewee without clarification probably fits into "fail to correct errors"). FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 13:53, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Not being familiar with this source, I looked at some of their recent reporting and noticed a few errors and misrepresentations.

• Trump executive order
  • This article says:On Inauguration Day, Trump signed another order declaring, falsely, that there are only two genders as determined by birth-assigned sex.
  • Another article says:In his inaugural address, Trump claimed that it will “henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.” His first order on trans equality spells out that promise, which begins with a wholesale redefinition of gender in matters of federal government policy.

These statements are not correct (although Trump's statement is also a misrepresentation, which doesn't help). The text of the order defines two sexes, not two genders:It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female... “Sex” shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female. “Sex” is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of “gender identity.”

• "Obscene matter"
  • This article's first sentence says:a Republican lawmaker in West Virginia has already introduced three new anti-trans bills, including one that would categorize trans people as “obscene matter”.

This is a misrepresentation. The actual text of the bill says:A person is guilty of indecent exposure when such person intentionally engages in obscene matter or sexually explicit conduct. A person "engaging in obscene matter" and a person being categorized as "obscene matter" are not the same thing.

• Stonewall
  • This article mentionsthe central roles trans and gender-nonconforming people played during the Stonewall riots, linking to another Them.us piece: When Remembering Stonewall, We Need To Listen to Those Who Were There.
  • A previous article said thatBlack and brown trans and queer folks led the Stonewall riots.

These statements are, at best, highly disputed, and a preponderance of historical evidence is against them. What's more, the first article misrepresents the contents of the "When Remembering Stonewall" article that it links to. "When Remembering Stonewall" says that although trans women of color such as Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera are often mythologized as leaders of the Stonewall riots, these arefalse histories that fail to accurately recognize their legacies and those of countless others who jeopardized their lives to resist the police. "When Remembering Stonewall" doesn't mention other trans people besides Johnson and Rivera, so it's not clear how this supports the original article's contention that trans and gender-nonconforming people played central roles in the riots.

The New York Times made a similar statement in an article about Stonewall, and later issued a correction. The NYT article originally read [50]:Transgender women of color led the uprising at the Stonewall Inn 51 years ago on Sunday. This was later updated to read [51]:An earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to the role of transgender women of color in the Stonewall Inn uprising, suggesting they were the sole leaders. Trans women of color were leaders in L.G.B.T.Q. activism before, during and after the uprising, but they were among many activists who led at Stonewall.

• Violence statistics
  • This article discusses a graphic about violence among trans people, writing:But as Mother Jones reported Thursday, those findings were distorted at best: not only were the prison system’s records unclear regarding incarcerated people’s gender identity, but the census data significantly undercounted the number of trans people throughout the U.K., leading to a massively overinflated false “statistic.”

First, this misrepresents what the Mother Jones article actually says. The MJ article does not say that "the UK census undercounted trans people". Rather, it says that the graphic likely does not include all of the trans people who were counted in the census:Plus, the U.K. government’s own data shows that there are likely more than 48,000 trans women in the U.K.

Second, the underlying claim made about the UK census "undercounting trans people" is also false. It was reported that the census actually may have overcounted trans people, not undercounted them [52]:The number of transgender people living in the UK may have been overestimated by the 2021 census, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has confirmed... a review found that people who do not speak fluent English may have misunderstood the wording of the relevant question and mistakenly answered that they consider themselves to be trans.

• Gender-affirming surgeries
  • This article reports on a recent study of the prevalence of gender-affirming surgeries for minors, writing:gender-affirming surgeries for minors are exceptionally rare, and are almost always performed for cisgender — not transgender — youth, according to a new study of U.S. medical data.

There are two problems with making this assertion. First, the article itself notes that the studyonly included patients who used insurance to pay for their procedures and did not represent those who paid out of pocket. Second, if you actually read the study, the article's claim that "the vast majority of minors getting gender-affirming surgeries are cis kids" is based only on a comparison for a single procedure: partial breast reductions (which are performed on boys with gynecomastia, as well as transgender minors who want to reduce their breast size without removing them entirely). Notably, this comparison does not include other surgeries such as double mastectomy (top surgery), which is a much more common procedure for transgender minors than a partial breast reduction. So what this study shows is, of the minors who received a partial breast reduction under insurance, 97 percent of them were cisgender. It does not show that "the vast majority of minors getting gender-affirming surgeries are cis kids", as the article claims.

Regardless of the source's reliability, it also has a strong bias and should be attributed for contentious statements. Astaire (talk) 20:41, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Executive Order

• These refer to his inaugural address, not the text of the order itself. And Trump's order seeks to redefine all use of gender as two sexes. To argue Trump didn't say 2 genders, he said 2 sexes, ignores that he did this to supplant legal definitions of gender

"Obscene matter"

• The bill you just quoted gives a definition of "obscene matter" sayingFor the purposes of any prohibition, protection, or requirement under any and all articles and sections of this code protecting children from exposure to indecent displays of an obscene or sexually explicit nature, such prohibited displays shall include, but not be limited to, any transvestite and/or transgender exposure, performances, or display to any minor.[53] From ThemSenate Bill 195 would amend West Virginia’s indecent exposure law to criminalize engaging in “obscene matter,” which it defines as something that a “reasonable person” would find “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” The bill explicitly includes “transgender exposure, performances, or display to any minor” as an example of “displays of an obscene or sexually explicit nature.” In other words, should Senate Bill 195 become law, a trans person could face obscenity charges simply for existing in a public space where minors might be present.[54]

Stonewall

• That first article says "a central role" which doesn't mean "led". Gender-nonconforming could also probably describe figures like Stormé DeLarverie, a butch lesbian the article notes played a central role. The second article saysLed by Black and Brown trans and queer folks, the rebellion that followed lasted six days. There were protests, looting, and violent exchanges with the police the likes of which had never been seen during that era. Though the historical record of Stonewall is often debated, many credit Marsha P. Johnson, a Black transgender woman, with throwing the first brick at Stonewall, and Stormé with throwing the first punch. What’s clear is that Black and brown LGBTQ+ folks played an integral role in the uprising.
• So neither of these articles are saying that black trans women were the sole leaders of the Stonewall uprising, in the first case saying trans and gender-nonconforming, linking to the Them article going into the weeds about the debates, and in the second case explicitly noting the debate.

Violence statistics

• Census data in this case seems to mean the 48000 figure in the graphic, not the census itself. And Mother Jones indeed saidthe number of trans women in the UK is likely far greater than the number listed - the gist of their point being that about 120k checked the transgender option without specifying their gender, while 48k specified it as trans women.
• Second, the underlying claim made about the UK census "undercounting trans people" is also false. - That article says it may have, not that it did, so it is not false to suggest trans people were undercounted.[55] This article notesFor the first time the 2021 census for England and Wales set a voluntary question about gender identity that asked: “Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?” Of those who answered yes, about 2% did not speak English well. But of those who answered no, around 13% did not speak English well. ... The overall proportion of trans people in England and Wales gleaned from the census (0.55%) is in the same ballpark as the 0.44% for Scotland. Statisticians north of the border posed a clearer question in their 2022 census: “Do you consider yourself to be trans, or have a trans history?”[56]
• I will grant there is a lack of specificity here - the argument that the census undercounted trans women (not people in general) seems very likely true as 48k said they were trans women, while 120k said they're trans without specifying how (of which only 2% did not speak English well), so that's still about 115k trans people who spoke English well who didn't specify their gender not being counted. The statementthe census data significantly undercounted the number of trans [women] throughout the U.K would have been better and more accurate

Gender-affirming surgeries

• This is why we rely on WP:MEDRS as normal WP:RS don't always cover them properly.
• In this cross-sectional study of a national insured population in 2019, there were no gender-affirming procedures conducted on TGD minors aged 12 years and younger, and procedures on TGD minors older than 12 were rare and almost entirely chest-related procedures.
• Them quotes the author:Our findings highlight a bitter irony: that by banning gender-affirming care for only TGD people, these bills are targeting a group that in reality accounts for the minority of gender-affirming care use
• Regarding partial breast reconstruction v mastectomy's, I had to look it up as this confused me myself, and ask some transmasc friends - that is indeed the code for top surgery as this insurer notesThe CPT codes for mastectomy (CPT codes 19303 and 19304) are for breast cancer, and are not approrpiate to bill for reduction mammaplasty for female to male gender reassignment [57]

Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 00:22, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Anothed day, another thread trying to act like ROGD wasn't WP:FRINGE. Simonm223 (talk) 11:01, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

That's not the claim I made in my original post. I was pointing out that the article claimed Littman's paper was retracted, which is false. Partofthemachine (talk) 23:57, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

• Trump executive order.
  • These refer to his inaugural address, not the text of the order itself. Please read the first quote again:Trump signed another order declaring, falsely, that there are only two genders as determined by birth-assigned sex. [58] This is indeed referring to the order, not the address.
  • And Trump's order seeks to redefine all use of gender as two sexes. I don't read it that way. The order does not define gender, nor does it redefine gender as sex. It clearly differentiates the two concepts:“Sex” is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of “gender identity.” [59] A more accurate way to say this would be that the order eliminates all uses of gender in favor of sex.
• "Obscene matter"
  • While the text of the bill is terribly written and confusing, please read the summary at the top of the bill. It says the bill's purpose isprotecting minors from exposure to indecent displays of a sexually explicit nature, including but not limited to, transvestite and/or transgender exposure in performances or displays to minors. [60] This is almost certainly a reference to drag shows, and other sources have covered the bill in this context: [61] Saying that the billcategorizes trans people as “obscene matter” is indeed a misrepresentation.
• Stonewall
  • That first article says "a central role" which doesn't mean "led". Gender-nonconforming could also probably describe figures like Stormé DeLarverie The article says that "trans and gender-nonconforming people played a central role" in Stonewall, and Stormé DeLarverie was not trans. That statement also links to the "When Remembering Stonewall" article, which does more to debunk this statement than it does to support it. So is Them misrepresenting the contents of its own articles?
  • neither of these articles are saying that black trans women were the sole leaders of the Stonewall uprising The second article saysLed by Black and Brown trans and queer folks, which is a very similar statement and at this point is close to historical revisionism.
• Violence statistics
  • After your analysis I agree that the problem here is likely imprecise use of language. Thanks for clarifying this.
• Gender-affirming surgeries
  • The CPT codes for mastectomy (CPT codes 19303 and 19304) are for breast cancer, and are not approrpiate to bill for reduction mammaplasty for female to male gender reassignment There are three issues with this. First, this statement is from a single insurance provider (Aetna). Second, while the AMA also recommends using CPT code 19318 instead of 19303, this guidance appears to have come into place only in 2021 [62], whereas the study examines data from 2019 [63]. Third, the study only found 5 partial breast reductions performed on trans minors in 2019 (using CPT code 19318), but a separate Reuters analysis found that in 2019, 238 minors made insurance claims for a mastectomy with a prior gender dysphoria diagnosis [64]. So assuming that these procedures were coded as 19303/19304, limiting the study to partial breast reductions is indeed a significant understatement of the scope.

Astaire (talk) 22:57, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

• It's clearly a biased source, but I would say it looks generally reliable. The "mistakes" above seem largely to be selectively presented facts used to make a pro-trans case. For example, the framing of the gender non-conforming participants in the Stonewall riots as transwomen is somewhat anachronistic, but it is a commonly held opinion, as is the exaggeration of their significance. Only the breast reduction statistic seems to be a clear fact-checking error, the response by YFNS does not deal with the point that this is a misuse of data. Given the bias, I would advise frequent attribution even where used for factual claims on trans-topics, and be very careful if a claim can't be sourced to anywhere else. (edit: special care with claims only present in this source is, imv, no longer needed as the breast-reduction claim is an accurate report of the research it cites)Boynamedsue (talk) 20:46, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
• Just noting that their pieces marked "news" still read like op-eds: for example. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 03:43, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

It's clearly a biased source, but I think that most of the time BLP, WP:DUE and common sense will result in attribution or non-inclusion where that is the right course. I'm more worried about the breast-reduction story, which does seem factually inaccurate.Boynamedsue (talk) 05:24, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

It seems to me that the only issue with the "breast-reduction story" is that the title over-generalises the study's conclusion, since it was limited to insured patients, although the significance of that is debatable. If Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist and the study itself are to be believed then Astaire was simply incorrect about what surgeries are included under "breast reduction" (the definition they described and the word "partial" do not appear in the article or study). This outlet does appear to engage in frequent editorialization, probably too much for a WP:GREL designation, but considering a WP:GUNREL designation appears to be unjustified and purely politically motivated. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 12:20, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't think that the response from YFNS deals with the point that the story refers to partial rather than full mastectomies.Boynamedsue (talk) 12:52, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Having re-read your post and also the study, I would just clarify that I now see this is correct. I have struck through my objection to this claim as well.--Boynamedsue (talk) 13:27, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

It's been 5 years and we really should come to a consensus on whether or not it is a reliable source! 97.91.34.184 (talk) 21:05, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

Personally, I feel like it is unreliable. Angrythewikipedian (talk) 21:07, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

Is there some current disagreement about the source, or some use you were thinking of, that could give your question some context? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:18, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

What claim is this source being used on? Ramos1990 (talk) 23:07, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

Context? Angrythewikipedian (talk) 15:46, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

It's listed at RSP as "no consensus". For convenience, I've just created WP:ASKMEN, a new redirect shortcut to its entry. Left guide (talk) 09:26, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps Left guide's reply answers the IP's request... Ramos1990 (talk) 04:44, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

• The last time this was discussed, five years ago, my conclusion was that it doesn't distinguish between advertising and other content. That said, it does have a corrections policy:AskMen makes every effort to correct errors. Grammar, spelling, and style errors will be corrected in the text. If the error is factual, the correction will include an editor’s acknowledgment at the bottom of the story. I think that the current yellow categorization is probably correct - it is a low-quality source, but not so glaringly terrible as to be automatically unreliable. In terms of academic discussion, there's not much; [65], but it doesn't really talk about reliability. There are a few other papers out there that have cited polls it has run or have cited its recommendations as examples of cultural masculinity, which (in the absence of anything outright critiquing it) suggests that it's not totally unreliable. --Aquillion (talk) 10:35, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

• There is a saying: "If there is any doubt, there is no doubt". In this case, there is plenty of doubt. So I have no doubt that AskMen is unreliable. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 23:25, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• Very obviously unreliable. Guy (help! - typo?) 10:24, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
• I agree with the yellow listing and Aquillion’s comments. It is not the worst and has some oversight. It really depends on the claim being used with it. Ramos1990 (talk)

This source has been discussed here twice: 338, 463. The source is used in several articles, most notably List of Roblox games. Not sure if it is reliable or not...

There are four options:

1. Reliable
2. Situational
3. Unreliable
4. Deprecate

brachy08 _{(chat here lol)} 00:02, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Has there been some new disagreement, discussion, or usage that requires a RFC? The prior discussions seem to suggest this is a marginal source, but possibly usable in it's area. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:25, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

not sure. however, one thing i noticed is that the source highlighting thing that i am using used to mark beebom yellow, butit suddenly changed from red. it has been recognised by forbes, which is unreliable if im not wrong, but ngl i think it has a strong editorial, so its more of a little confusifying and not only will i know if its reliable or not, but other people can refer to the RSP when they see beebom as a source. just saying brachy08 _{(chat here lol)} 06:39, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

The RSP is meant to be a log of sources that have been regularly discussed here, so starting a RFC just so a source can be added to the RSP is back to front. The source highlighters aren't control by this noticeboard, you would need to discuss any changes with whichever editor created the one you are using. I don't think either of the popular ones just read the RSP.
If you believe the quality of the source has changed then the first thing to do would be to just start a new discussion on it presenting your case. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:36, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

ok… well i can say that it has been used extensively in several wikipedia articles (you can search for Beebom and you should get a list) brachy08 _{(chat here lol)} 00:32, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

This is their editorial policy. It isn't the NYTs, but they aren't trying to be either. CarroGil (talk) 17:06, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

uhh what is the NYTs brachy08 _{(chat here lol)} 00:23, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

nvm (im assuming it’s the new york times) brachy08 _{(chat here lol)} 00:49, 27 March 2025 (UTC)