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De-deprecate CounterPunch

Currently this left-wing magazine is deprecated for spreading conspiracy theories, yet it should not be for two reasons: (1) A Wikipedian claimed that it denies the existence of Holodomor (cf. Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_355#CounterPunch_and_Al_Bawaba), yet that CounterPunch article does acknowledge that a famine occurred in Ukraine in 1932-33 (2) Novaya Gazeta spreads global warming conspiracy theory, yet it is still not deprecated.--RekishiEJ (talk) 14:47, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

CounterPunch was not deprecated for a single false statement, but rather for a long and repeated history of publishing false information. --Jayron32 14:59, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

This, even a broken clock is right twice a day.Slatersteven (talk) 15:14, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Denying the Holomodor was one charge (relating to one article) in a pretty vast list of dodgy articles. If you want to get Novaya Gazeta deprecated, start a discussion about that. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:02, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Have you seen the 2021 RfC? The reasoning there appears to remain solid. It is notable that a handful of editors there have been struck as socks post-fact, though, but their actual impact on the conversation seems to have been very marginal to low anyway. --Chillabit (talk) 16:36, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Novaja Gazeta is an independent newspaper that specialises in revealing corruption in Russia. It happens to be one of the few reliable newspapers in Russia. Russia Beyond is a pro-Kremlin publication. Let's assume that what says about Gazeta is true and not taken out of context. Would you deprecate a newspaper over one quote? It's a fact that The New York Times has promoted conspiracy theories. Let's assume that it has happened only once. Should NYT be deprecate over that one incident or would you say that NYT is still generally reliable? Politrukki (talk) 13:05, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

What has got to do with it?Slatersteven (talk) 13:18, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

What with what? Politrukki (talk) 14:31, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

• There was a lot of sock participation in that RFC (in addition to the struck ones, User:Inf-in MD was recently banned as a sock), which you could theoretically use as a rationale for a new RFC, but given how lopsided it was you'd probably also want to have an answer to some of the arguments made there, especially to the argument that it publishes fringe viewpoints preferentially - ideally one that wasn't presented at the time. "It publishes true things sometimes" isn't really enough unless you can somehow show that the overwhelming majority of what it says is accurate - otherwise, it's a "your honor, look at all the people my client didn't stab" sort of argument. You have to demonstrate that the things people took issue with were aberrations, not just that articles exist contradicting them. --Aquillion (talk) 06:12, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Geez, tag me if you are going to reference my edits. The piece by Grover Furr is not any evidence that the magazine is reliable in the slightest, nor does this actually address the things that concerned some editors (me, for example) the most. That, of course being the plethora of (the-Jews-did-9/11 level) conspiracy theories that it has preferentially published. There was a pretty clear consensus in that discussion, even if you take be arguments made by socks away, based upon the analysis that several editors (including me) provided regarding the source’s dubious-at-best editorial practices. Making another RfC for this sort of source is probably not wise unless you believe you have a strong argument in favor of the site being one with editorial control, editorial independence, and a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (c.f. WP:BIASED).— Mhawk10 (talk) 22:31, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

If anything, the Furr piece is actually evidence that the magazine is unreliable. Furr is a medievalist whose contributions to the field of Soviet history amount to absolving Stalin of any and every wrongdoing, and no publication worth reading would even consider asking him to contribute. I mean, honestly, the man believes that the USSR didn't invade Poland. There are cranks, and then there's Grover Furr. Sceptre (talk) 23:14, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I would agree; Furr's writings on the Soviet Union are absolutely bonkers. — Mhawk10 (talk) 18:10, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

The discussion on Counterpunch was nonsensical from start to finish. Users took a website that never made any claim to editorial control and then decided that their editorial control was lacking. They presented an incredibly distorted picture of the website, using articles from 9/11 truthers as though they were what the website was all about but ignoring the large number of articles there saying that 9/11 truthers are insane conspiracy nuts (eg [1], [2]). It also ignored one basic truth here, nobody ever ever ever cited a Counterpunch article not written by an expert in his or her field. Nobody had ever cited any of the articles that were brought forth as though they were some great problem here. It was a very effective exercise in controlling the narrative at the start of the discussion with strawman arguments about what the site is used for. It was absurd, and it ignored the countless actual undisputed experts in their field who write on Counterpunch. A new RFC is needed, but I dont think questioning the close of the last one is productive. And now we have editors removing actual experts from our articles (David Price being author of Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI’s Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists, published by Duke University Press, and writing about the FBI surveilling an activist academic.) But because it hosts material that some users find distasteful, while also hosting the opposing viewpoints, we should not use the work of actual experts. nableezy - 23:13, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

nobody ever ever ever cited a Counterpunch article not written by an expert in his or her field. Really? That's quite the claim. For an extraordinarily mundane example, let's look at radical centrism.

"Beware the Radical Center", is given prominent weight in the article. It is used to support the statements In 2017, in a 1,700-word article for CounterPunch entitled "Beware the Radical Center", Canadian writer Ryan Shah characterized radical centrism as a just-in-time "repackaging" of neoliberalism meant to sustain the political, economic, and social status quo.[139] He warned that political leaders such as Europe's Emmanuel Macron and North America's Justin Trudeau were creating a false image of radical centrist programs as progressive, and urged leftists to develop "genuine" policy alternatives to neoliberalism such as those advocated by British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Was this piece written by an expert? No. It was written by an undergraduate university student at McGill. I don't think any of us are questioning CounterPunch as a primary source for its own writing, but the way it's used in this article implies that the random piece has weight that it doesn't have and it's extremely fluffy. The reference to the article was added in this 2017 edit by someone who had made over 1500 edits at the time.

I don't see the value in claiming that nobody ever ever ever cited a CounterPunch article not written by an expert in his or her field. It's fiction, full stop. I don't see evidence that somehow editors have been particularly and extraordinarily squeaky clean with using CounterPunch (even in one of the more mundane politics-related articles). And honestly, the guidance that we should pick and choose from the source what is good and what is garbage was brought up during the discussion that took place and was generally discarded along the lines of WP:DAILYMAIL. — Mhawk10 (talk) 18:47, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Then remove that one. Nobody is arguing a random person should be cited. The example I posted above of an editor removing an established expert however is not that. And pretending that is not what the bulk of the removals by any of the banned editors socking to remove it, or the users in good standing like Shrike doing so on patently partisan grounds, is silly. nableezy - 21:10, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

@Nableezy: a few things. First, if you feel like an editor is WP:POVPUSHing by removing citations to a deprecated source, then you should make that accusation at the appropriate noticeboard or at a relevant user talk page, not here. Second, you've previously argued that nobody ever ever ever cited a Counterpunch article not written by an expert in his or her field. Do you still believe that to be the case? Third, I'm not making any claims regarding the majority of source removals; I haven't actually done the digging on that nor is it obvious to me how to conduct a systemic review. But if the vast majority of these removals that you see are coming in an extremely politically contentious field, then perhaps editors in that area should be striving to use more reliable sources rather than relying upon a magazine that has published multiple Jews-did-9/11 conspiracy theories (see points one and two of my bolded !vote in the deprecation discussion if you disagree with my characterization). Fourth, I agree that not every single reference to a deprecated publication should be purged; as WP:DEPS notes that citations to deprecated sources should not be removed indiscriminately, and each case should be reviewed separately. Fifth, if you're going to challenge David Gerard's closure, there is actually a mechanism to do so. That mechanism is outlined in WP:CLOSECHALLENGE, and involves a challenge on the administrator's noticeboard. An informal discussion on RSN is not capable of overturn the community consensus on the publication's reliability established in a request for comment about two months ago. — Mhawk10 (talk) 17:50, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes I very much disagree with the charecterization that CP has published multiple Jews did 9/11 conspiracy theories, and the only thing you claim in your comment in the RFC is that one column references dancing Israelis or that one article in your view "seems to endorse the view" (note that it does not). I already said I do not think challenging the close makes sense, but that a new RFC is needed, hopefully one in which people are not fed some hysterical BS about what is actually on the site. Sure, some CP articles on WP are not written by experts. They should be removed. A ton of CP articles are written by established experts. They should be retained. nableezy - 19:55, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Really? The quote was More, the model of the Reichstag fire false flag has been readily replicated, not least in the 1954 Lavon Affair and, most spectacularly, in 9/11 (whence the five dancing Israelis at Liberty Park?). Practice makes perfect with false flags. Add extra-judicial murders made to order. Are you saying that the person writing this is not conveying the belief that the "dancing Israelis" were conducting some false flag operation on 9/11? I certainly hope not; that would be absurd.

The quote from the other piece was "In the Western World, Corporatism has become ‘subject’ to Zionism and in consequence Capitalist Democracy has been usurped by the power of a concentrated accumulation of resources – and this- no mere product of ‘happenstance’ – but rather part of a systemic scheme whereby the rich are to get richer and the poor to get poorer? When 2.3 Trillion Dollars can ‘go missing’ from an Economy and disappear down a ‘memory hole’ as part of a historical revisionism aka denial; when the very day after the gone missing is ‘announced’ and the Rabbi Dov Zakheim as Comptroller is not held to account because it ‘happens’ there is an attack on the Twin Towers (also WTC 7) and the Pentagon which becomes the focus of attention and a casus belli for war then something is seriously wrong – and psycho political abuse is in operation? Let us also not forget the ‘weapons grade anthrax’ – such the ‘memory hole’?" Are you saying that the author is not trying to connect Rabbi Dov Zakheim to the 9/11 attacks in the context of Zionism?

I strongly disagree that a new RFC is needed at this time. You were able to make your arguments in the RfC that happened two months ago; the fact that the community (and the closer) found them rather unconvincing does not mean that we need to rapidly run another RfC where the same base arguments are going to be made. — Mhawk10 (talk) 06:06, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Im also aware that CP has published articles very specifically disclaiming any such theory as plausible (eg [3], [4], [5] [6]). But, again, nobody is arguing that we should be using CP as though it confers any reliability. What you continue to completely ignore however is the actual scholars that write there, whose work is beyond reproach. Pray tell, what exactly is your argument for why Sara Roy writing in CP should be considered unreliable? Because thats something that actually has happened here. Did anybody cite Evan Jones for anything at all? Or is that just the first in the red herrings to distract people from the fact that actual scholars are published there literally all the time. Given the, in my view, absurd to the point of being deceptive framing of the RFC, and the sustained sock participation (Icewhiz for example voted four times in that RFC, care to guess which way?), I disagree with your view on if a new RFC is needed, and there seems to be healthy disagreement below as well. nableezy - 23:09, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

It also ignored one basic truth here, nobody ever ever ever cited a Counterpunch article not written by an expert in his or her field. Worth tracking back through the links to see the citation that kickstarted the discussion that ended with CP deprecated: unattributed use as a source for facts about a legal case in the BLP article Alex Saab, citing a CP article by a retired wetlands consultant and Peace and Freedom Party activist (i.e. not an expert on international criminal law, the relevant topic) that included at least two factual inaccuracies. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:22, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

References

• The prevailing argument was that articles by unquestioned experts can be discarded because the place that published them also published rubbish by other writers. That so many editors thought that is a logical argument is a sad reflection on this place. It is a fact that a large fraction of mainstream publishers, even some academic presses, could be subject to the same treatment. Zero^talk 04:34, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

  I wonder what proportion of the editors that advocated deprecation actually understand the difference between deprecation and just calling a source unreliable. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 04:51, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

• My question is, if CounterPunch is willing to publish 9/11 conspiracy theory bollocks, can it be seriously considered to have any editorial control or fact checking at all? The claims by people who support CounterPunch are essentially stating we should ignore it as a publisher and simply rely on the credibility of the author of the piece in question, effectively making it no better than if it had been a self-published blogpost. If a post by an expert on CounterPunch by an SM Expert is equivalent to it being a blogpost, then it is unusable for claims regarding living persons per WP:BLPSPS. Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:58, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

I dont think any of the people who think CounterPunch should be usable disagree with anything youve written there. Ive always treated an article on CounterPunch as being the equivalent of a blog post, usable only if it is by an actual established academic expert. But a huge number of CP articles are exactly that, and theyve been excised in an honestly absurd way. nableezy - 05:27, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, you've recently added back CounterPunch to the Edward Said article [7] despite it being deprecated. The paragraph you were adding it back to was clearly about living people, so therefore if it is equivalent to a self-published blog post then it is a violation of WP:BLPSPS. Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:31, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

The only living people in that paragraph are Barghouti and (perhaps) Dadak, neither of whom are mentioned in the CP article. Zero^talk 05:54, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Of course there is, Said himself. The claim that Said was spied on by the FBI is a claim regarding a living person. BLPSPS is very clear: Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article. Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:58, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Thats a curious understanding of what living means. I restored an unquestioned expert writing in the exact area of his academic expertise. About somebody who died some 18 years ago. nableezy - 13:36, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Are you kidding? Look at the first sentence in the article. Zero^talk 07:44, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

New RFC or not, unless we are taking the view that CP has massaged authors' contributions and I have not seen any evidence that they do things like that, in effect they are just a hosting for contributions, good and bad, and editorial judgement should be used as regards which one it is. Afaics, there is nothing wrong with the way the Said material is being used.Selfstudier (talk) 11:15, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

No we shouldn't use material from deprecated sources if these material is WP:DUE then it should appear in other sources and if it does we should use them Shrike (talk) 12:54, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

There is nothing in DUE that supports anything you just wrote. nableezy - 13:36, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, they don't host articles indiscriminately; they select which articles they wish to host. This makes them worse than a blog, as they choose to publish false information, including outright conspiracy theories, which reflects negatively on any article that they choose to host. BilledMammal (talk) 15:30, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Do you seriously hear yourself? Newspapers publish crackpots all the times as op-eds, we just dont cite those crackpots. That such a basic fallacious argument is the consensus view of this page right now reflects negatively on Wikipedia. People are seriously arguing that people like Neve Gordon ([8]), or Dean Baker ([9]), or a huge number of literal scholars writing in the area of their academic expertise where they are widely cited are somehow tarred for writing for CP. CP is cited in a ton of academic journal articles, are they likewise negatively viewed because of their association with the boogie man? You cant dismiss the views of scholars because of some other thing that appears on a website. It is antithetical to what used to be the purpose of this place. nableezy - 16:11, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Beat me to it. Blogs also publish crap so that's neither here nor there. This is simply about whether a given contribution is usable within our policies and some are.Selfstudier (talk) 16:16, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Deprecated is too harsh, given that it has occasionally contributors who are experts on the subject they're writing about. I support changing the RSN listing to WP:MREL. RoseCherry64 (talk) 17:33, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

WP:DAILYMAIL sometimes publish information by experts should we de-depreciate it too? Shrike (talk) 18:08, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Can you give an example of an expert like Neve Gordon or Dean Baker (as mentioned above) writing an article published under their names for the Daily Mail with very little or no editorial influence, where the style of writing is the same as you would find in articles by them published by outlets unanimously considered reliable? My argument isn't that they have published "information" by experts, they have published articles written by experts and those are fine to cite and I've not seen a convincing argument where those articles should be considered deprecated for citing due to the publisher. RoseCherry64 (talk) 18:54, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

During the RfC, BilledMammal wrote that the work, the creator, and the publisher all affect reliability. In this case, that means we have to take into account the fact that these sources choose to write a particular article for a publisher who regularly publishes false and fabricated information and not a more reliable publisher. I'd echo this view here—the publication does impact reliability, which is something that WP:SOURCE says, even if the author might also publish elsewhere. Good editorial oversight makes for good writing, even among experts, while shoddy editorial oversight degrades the quality of the work. (That's the whole point of peer review in the academic world, or the employment of fact-checkers in newsroooms). — Mhawk10 (talk) 19:04, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

@Mhawk10: if I'm understanding you correctly, are you saying that if an author "choose[s] to write a particular article for a publisher who regularly publishes false and fabricated information" that reflects negatively on the author's reliability? So authors who write for sources we've deprecated are not reliable even if they write for more reputable sources or simply their own blog? VR _talk 20:01, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

No, that is not at all what I am saying. What I am saying is that when an author decides to publish a particular work in a publication not known for fact-checking, that the published work is less reliable then when it is published in a publication known for fact-checking. The argument here is that because this particular publication has limited editorial oversight and preferentially publishes fringe/conspiratorial opinions, that the sorts of articles that authors might choose to run in the publication would tend to be more fringe/conspiratorial. WP:SPS material, even from experts, is generally not great for anything contentious anyway—but seeing that a work was published in CounterPunch makes the source less likely to be reliable for facts than works of the same author published elsewhere.— Mhawk10 (talk) 20:45, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Self-run blogs have no editorial oversight, yet are perfectly acceptable to use per WP:SPS which says Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. Your argument is directly refuted by our policy. nableezy - 21:10, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Articles published in CounterPunch are not self-published. BilledMammal (talk) 02:47, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I have literally no idea what that is a response to. nableezy - 02:55, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

To make an example, there are U.K. freelance journalists who have written for both WP:DAILYMAIL and The Guardian as a freelancer. Even though the author might have pieces in both publications, one is deprecated whereas the other is considered WP:GREL—even if the subject is something as mundane as crime beat reporting—because of the differences in editorial integrity between the two publications. — Mhawk10 (talk) 20:50, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

These are not "freelancers", these are established academic experts. Scholars. Who create scholarship. That is an asinine comparison. Neve Gordon is author of books and peer-reviewed journal articles in the topic of his expertise. He is a distinguished professor, a scholar invited to the top universities on the planet. But you seriously compare him to a freelance journalist writing in the Daily Mail. Hey, here is Sara Roy being removed when she is cited for what she is likely the worlds foremost expert on, the economy of Gaza. But no, she is basically a freelance journalist writing in the Daily Mail. Not one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet on the topic of Gaza's economy under Hamas. That is the level of argument here. nableezy - 21:10, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

@Mhawk10: a simple question for you. Suppose an academic expert X writes content Y and publishes Y in (a) CounterPunch and (b) on X's personal blog. Would you agree that both are about as equally reliable? If so, then would you agree that if an academic expert writes in counterpunch that is similar to WP:SPS? VR _talk 02:07, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

This seems to be arguing against deprecation as a concept; "CounterPunch" in your question could be replaced with most deprecated sources. And the answer is the same for all of them; an article published by a publisher independent from the author can no longer be considered self-published, even if it is mirrored on a blog or similar; in such circumstances we continue to consider the publisher to be CounterPunch, the Daily Mail, or RT. BilledMammal (talk) 03:07, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I'll re-ask my question: is an article published by a deprecated source more, less or equally reliable as an article published by the author themselves? My answer is "equally". If your answer is "less", please explain why.VR _talk 03:13, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

If I have understood your rephrased question correctly: less. Per WP:SOURCE, the publisher impacts reliability, and so an article from an otherwise reputable journalist that is published in, for example, RT is not reliable, because in the case of RT and other deprecated sources the publisher has a negative impact on reliability.

If I have misunderstood the question: equally. Once an article has been published by an independent publisher, it is no longer a self-published source, even if it is mirrored on a blog or similar; if it is unreliable in RT, it is unreliable on the authors blog. The opposite is also true; if it is reliable in NYT, is it reliable on the authors blog - although citing the blog rather than NYT would not be best practice. BilledMammal (talk) 04:19, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I'd argue that the exact nature of the source's unreliability matters. For example, in the case of The Daily Mail, there were instances of them doctoring their own archives, i.e. they aren't even reliable for what they themselves say (and therefore are not reliable for much of anything). In the case of Counterpunch, there's been evidence provided that they do not fact check submissions and print fringe perspectives, but not that they deceptively misrepresent themselves or the authors published there. There's no substantive reason to treat an SME printed in Counterpunch worse than when they're self-publishing. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 06:11, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I would disagree, as articles are not independent of the publisher they are written for.

A principle from WP:SPS seems appropriate here; if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent, reliable sources. If the only place we can find information is in a source such as the Daily Mail, RT, or CounterPunch, then it is probably not suitable for inclusion on Wikipedia, regardless of the credentials of the author. BilledMammal (talk) 08:34, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

The Said article actually has two Counterpunch sourced refs, the other being an article by Said himself (url dead, http://web.archive.org/web/20070930023922/https://www.counterpunch.org/said2.html to see it). You would say that Said writing about himself is no good because he wrote it in Counterpunch?Selfstudier (talk) 11:03, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Per policy at WP:V, deprecated sources can be used for WP:ABOUTSELF statements. BilledMammal (talk) 11:14, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree the the exact nature of the source's unreliability matters but think this description -In the case of Counterpunch, there's been evidence provided that they do not fact check submissions and print fringe perspectives, but not that they deceptively misrepresent themselves or the authors published there. - doesn't catch the arguments made in the RFC about the exact nature of Counterpunch's reliability. The problem clearly documented through a large number of examples there was not a simple failure to fact check submissions, but an editorial policy of - an active preference for - actively publishing material that challenges mainstream reportage, and therefore includes a considerable amount of dubious, fringe, conspiracist and disinfo content, including dangerous anti-vaxx material as well as antisemitic content. It is this that many editors considered pushed it from generally unreliable to deprecated status. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:31, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

The deprecation judgment, when not a pretext for nationalist POV pushing by suppression of contrarian material, has become an excuse for laziness. See CounterPunch cited? Strike the source on sight, without even analysing who wrote it. This is how Shrike reads this. His objection seems to be to elide anything from that source which reflects negatively on Israel’s occupation. CounterPunch, which has a long history as the fav target for ‘pro-Israeli’ socks at RSN, covers the I/P conflict closely, with details rarely reported in the mainstream press, and many of its authorities are academic specialists, or Israelis or Jews. That is discomforting ergo, as Nableezy noted, following that, to me, erratic discussion, we now have systematic removalist abuse at

• Gaza City they removed Sara Roy because she wrote in CounterPunch. I’ve actually read Roy’s monographs. They are recognized as authoritative in that field.
• At Edward Said Shrike removed a reference written by Edward Said himself for Counterpunch.
• Then removed David Price, an authority on FBI surveillance history, from the same article, because Price’s article was carried in CounterPunch.

Where does this censorious opportunism lead, of exploiting a debatable conclusion about CounterPunch to set up a Pavlovian reflex of cancellation at sight of anything, regardless of quality, associated with that webzine?

I wrote a good part of the article on Raul Hilberg – in my view one of the greatest historians in that trade since the year dot, and a personal hero. So I cited

• Norman Finkelstein, "Remembering Raul Hilberg". CounterPunch. 22 August 2007.
• Michael Neumann. "In Memoriam: Raul Hilberg", CounterPunch. 15 August 2009. (I even posted at RSN about this. No one objected. No one replied.)

In the way this deprecation judgment is being read, anyone can mangle articles like that on Hilberg by erasing Finkelstein or Neumann for writing their commemorations of that historian for Counterpunch.

The founder of CounterPunch was hostile to conspiracy theories, antisemitism, nutters of whatever description, as is its present editor, but as the editor of, not a ’ left-wing magazine’ (above), but a libertarian webzine that hosts views ranging from the Republican right to the heterogeneous left, including at times crap I scroll past. Like many who have had occasion to cite it here, I look at the quality of the piece and who wrote it.

As the deprecation is being manipulated, we can expect that wikipedia will slowly be shorn of trenchant and highly focused reports by Alexander Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn (the latter a widely published authority on Iraq), Uri Avnery, es:Gary Leupp (brilliant on the orient), Melvin Goodman, (incisive and with a deep professional grounding in American security doctrines) security, Ralph Nader, Andrew Levine, Winslow Wheeler (works from Capitol Hill- knows everything about congressional budgets),Naomi Klein, Brian Cloughley, Mark Weisbrot, Serge Halimi, Norman Pollack,Neve Gordon, Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, Michael Brenner, Sheldon Richman, Ramzy Baroud, Vijay Prashad, Robert Fisk, Gareth Porter, Mel Gurtov,Henry Giroux, Rodolfo Acuña, Ray McGovern, Deepak Tripathi, William Quigley, Michael Neumann, Michael Hudson, Tom Engelhardt, John Feffer, Jeremy Scahill, William Loren Katz, Andrew Bacevich, Edward Said, Tariq Ali, Bruce Jackson, Sam Bahour, Marjorie Cohn, Russ Feingold, Andre Vltchek, Lawrence Davidson, Lawrewce Wittner, Stephen Soldz, Lenni Brenner, Karl Grossman, Frank Spinney, Paul Krassner, Gabriel Kolko, Stan Goff, Diana Johnstone etc.etc. That implication, that these, for Wikipedia, if they choose to write for Cockburn's webzine, are personae non gratae, following on deprecation is dazzlingly obtuse.

So, ladies and gentlemen, can we wake up to the potential damage, and tweak the deprecation badge of shame, so that as commonsense dictates, that doesn’t become an enabling excuse for people with a POV drum to beat to cancel, erase, eviscerate scholars and writers of the quality listed above, and, by giving editors a warrant for gutting indiscriminately numerous pages of even uncontroversible material, allowing them blindly to throw the babies out with the barfwater?Nishidani (talk) 15:07, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

@Nishidani: Having a hard time comprehending what you wrote here but some parts of it look important. Is the issue you raise that the deprecation was inappropriate, that the deprecation is being misused, that deprecation as a concept shouldn't exist, or some combination of the above? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:17, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks and my apologies. I had an urgent appointment for an afternoon of swilling slops at the local pub, and was rushing. I don't follow much wiki technical policy arguments. I opposed deprecation for the simple reason that far too many eminently quotable scholars, journalists of distinction, choose on occasion to publish there. The analogy with the Daily Mail collapses simply there. And yes I object to editors leaping at the deprecation in order to remove at sight (I suspect without even reading the articles or recognizing the qualifications of whoever writes them) any references to that webzine. In this case, I cited, for lack of time, just a few examples of abusively deleting Counterpunch references when their authors pass our strongest RS tests, and the deletions are simply POV dislike (WP:IDONTLIKETHAT. That's why so many I/P socks have militated over several discussions going back to 2008 to get any use of it banned.Nishidani (talk) 22:02, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Nishidani, your list, which I commented on in the previous RFC (11:55 am, 28 September 2021, Tuesday (2 months, 23 days ago) (UTC 1)), includes a number of names of genocide deniers and conspiracy theorists, among some significant writers. I argued for generally unreliable rather than deprecate because of the experts published, but the fact it has promoted so many antisemites and denialists is not a good argument against deprecation! BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:39, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

No Bob. I don't think you commented on my list in that RfC. My list mentioned 52 writers/journalists/thinkers. You said 5 of them- Gareth Porter; Ray McGovern ; Tariq Ali; Lenni Brenner; Diana Johnstone – had in their long careers once or twice published what you consider suspect material. Ray McGovern compared 9/11 to the Reichstag fire. So what? Check it out. Is that cranky? Nope. Lenni Brenner is cited also by antisemites? So? As we all know from Antonio’s crack in the Merchant of Venice, 'The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.' - that is a cheap rhetorical trick of guilt by (unwanted) association; Gareth Porter, like Seymour Hersh and Theodore Postol, challenged a general consensus here and here. Maybe he’s wrong. But the articles are strongly reasoned and documented: Diana Johnston? Sure, I disagree. She has a record of excellence blotted by excess polemical zeal on at least two occasions. I don’t read widely to find, as your remark in that RfC assumes, confirmation of my own views or some ‘mainstream’ consensus. And Ali, Porter and Johnstone weren’t being cited from CounterPunch.

Disinformation is regularly disseminated by a large number of states, from the US, Australia and Israel to China and Russia and scores of others. Contrarian webzines like CounterPunch exist to query and question the mainstream. They may and, undoubtedly have at times, host stuff that proves decidedly wrong. They also publish eminently good exposes that time has proven to be correct (numerously with regard to the slanting of the New York Times on the Middle East).

You of course place your trust in what strikes me as a glaring partisan pseudo-analysis of CounterPunch by a blogger, i.e. a certain Elise Hendrick, 'CounterPunch or Suckerpunch?', Meldungen aus dem Exil, 2015, who, contradicting the impression by numerous wikipedians commenting on Counterpunch at RSN on several occasions, managed to conclude (certainly not by analysing all 55,000 articles it had printed from 1999 to 2015, but simply a minor sample), that Cockburn’s website ‘mainstreams a far right, white supremicist’ ideology. Interesting. That counts as a conspiracy theory, since it implies that unknown to most of its readers, it deviously turns leftists into suckers for the very ideology they find abhorrent. I completely, like most other readers, missed this, despite reading it desultorily for nearly two decades. Diligent research means reading a wide range of views, not narrowing one's focus to sites, newspapers, or writers within one's comfort zone. Nishidani (talk) 15:47, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• This discussion seems to really get to the heart of "what is deprecation" and how it has been used. I'm not a fan of how deprecation is often used. In most cases it seems to be used for sources that we decide we really don't like vs the Daily Mail case which was a special case where it was argued the source was both changing their own articles without notice and was falsely reporting things like quotes. Basically there had to be something that set the Daily Mail apart from run of the mill bad sources like Occupy Democrats and Infowars. I would suggest that only sites that have clear histories of inventing quotes/facts or modifying their previously published articles without notice should be considered for deprecation. Other sources may be unreliable because they have poor fact checking and a strong partisan bias etc. That makes them an unreliable source. Not one that should be deprecated. In context of this discussion, and without verifying the claims of others, it sounds like CounterPunch acts mostly as a publisher of the opinions of others with little editorial oversight. That makes them an unreliable source/one who's weight/reliability should be treated as if it were a self published work by the author. That doesn't mean it should be deprecated in my book. Again, I'm basing this on the claims of others made above. Springee (talk) 18:24, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Occupy Democrats is currently depreciated and Infowars is not just depreciated but actually blacklisted so it can't be added anywhere. That said, my recollection of the argument for the first depreciation during the Daily Mail discussions was that it is for when there is universal agreement that a source is basically, broadly unreliable to the point of unreliability while also having a number of people who continue to try and use it in clearly-unusable contexts, making a firmer statement against using it necessary. The key point of depreciation was not "extra-secret-super unreliable" (although it it's only for articles at the most extreme end of unreliable by definition), the key point was that it was a measure for when a broad enduring consensus that a source was generally unreliable had failed to keep it from being used. This leads to a paradox where the sources we depreciate are often not the most obviously unreliable (because there is no dispute over those at all and therefore no need to resort to depreciation), but the ones that are broadly agreed to be unreliable but which may appear reliable to some editors at first glance, necessitating the "hey, this source is unreliable, are you sure you want to use it" warning. --Aquillion (talk) 20:24, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

• Agree it should not be deprecated. For the most part, the articles are the same as articles that appear in major mainstream media and the authors are the same. The difference is that while the first publishes articles from writers across the policial spectrum, but mostly from the center, CounterPunch specializes on writers from the Left. Since the articles are mostly if not entirely opinion pieces, they would in any case be subject to the same standards as if they were published in any other publication, i.e., as self-published. TFD (talk) 19:46, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• What facts are we unable to source without CounterPunch? What viewpoints are we unable to summarize? What articles are we unable to write? We shouldn't use a source unless its reliability is more or less unassailable, at least relatively speaking; there's no need to dip to the bottom of the barrel, we should be offering our readers the best sources. For what content is CouterPunch among the best sources? There are more scholarly and highly-reputable journalistic sources that cover history, politics, and current events, than we will ever be able to read and summarize; more is written every day than we summarize here. So why do we need to spend time debating CounterPunch, or any similar source? Levivich 07:14, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

  I doubt anyone is arguing that CP is at all reliable (they don't actually produce anything afaics) but that deprecation is inappropriate because it knocks out all the good stuff at the same time. The latter may or may not be available elsewhere, I think that is not the point. I have said in one or two other places that I think we are a little too quick to deprecate, that should be reserved for egregious cases like the Daily Mail.Selfstudier (talk) 10:03, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

We shouldn't use a source unless its reliability is more or less unassailable-

That sounds fine in theory,-it would waste, if applied, 90% of articles on Wikipedia- and personally I try to adhere to that rigorously, meaning in the IP area for one, most of the facts on villages I am familiar with are not reported, because they don't attract much, if any coverage, in the mainstream press. By that standard The Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post and Ynet should not be used because no one would claim that their reliability is unassailable' - it's a real test of patience to figure out the facts in their coverage of major incidents. No one is arguing that CP is reliable, but that many authors there have proven subject matter competence, and therefore shouldn't be prescriptively erased. Reliability in these cases should be relevant to the author not the vehicle they choose to publish for, and I gave over 50 names of important commentators who contribute to that webzine all of whose work, if cited from Counterpunch, is threatened with automatic excision. Winslow Wheeler's analysis of congressional budgets - he works there in that capacity - would be flamed etc.etc.etc., while we use persistently third-rate tabloids (Algemeiner Fox News etc., quite liberally) gave readers here examples of what deprecation and bots or editors could automatically remove from say Raul Hilberg: two important articles by scholars who knew him who wrote obituaries for him for Counterpunch. Nishidani (talk) 21:07, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Sally RooneySara Roy is such an unassailable source on the economy of Gaza. David Price is such an unassailable source on the US government surveillance of academic activists. Those two are literally the best sources for that material. nableezy - 20:59, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

@Nableezy: I don't think that Sally Rooney is who you are referring to. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:04, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Youre right, sorry, mixed up articles. Fixed. nableezy - 21:14, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• CounterPunch should remain deprecated. The fact that experts publish on it sometimes is a case where WP:SPS applies. It has to do with the fact they're experts, not because of any

evidence that CounterPunch editorial has some quality or peer review process, unlike WP:RS. The fact there are experts is nowhere apparent from the fact they're writing for CounterPunch. So articles using CounterPunch shouldn't automatically have their references removed, but it does likely mean we need to explicitly state who we're citing, as an authoritative subject expert. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 11:11, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• Provided the exception you just outlined there is made clear, then I have no objection, since that is my only reason for arguing against deprecation ie using that status as an excuse to erase or dispute valid (and attributed) sourcing.Selfstudier (talk) 16:11, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

But deprecation is used to erase or dispute attributed sourcing, and to make a a misleading warning appear for discouraging anyone who tries to restore. Some facts -- that deprecation merely means disapproval according to primary dictionary definiton, that closers of Daily Mail and Breitbart RfCs made clear that any opinions not just aboutself are allowed, that even the "no moratorium" closer ToThAc acknowledged there was a consensus that there should have been prior discussions or WP:RFCBEFORE -- have been ignored or misunderstood. I'm happy to see that a Counterpunch cite has been restored on the Edward Said article, Wikipedia needs more such. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 20:37, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

articles using CounterPunch shouldn't automatically have their references removed This is what deprecation implicitly does. Deprecation means that a bot automatically revert any edits which add references with the website URL from IP and recently registered users. counterpunch.org is on User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList.

You argue for deprecation but what you describe seems to be more like WP:GUNREL. Most self-published aggregator sources like arXiv, Blogspot, Medium are GUNREL, not deprecated and they do not get automatically removed by bots when added by new/IP editors. RoseCherry64 (talk) 20:39, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

A rampage of reverts is now underway to remove any mention of CounterPunch on Wikipedia, as this review of the deprecation decision is still underway. See See here below. This is essentially preempting the discussion, still open here, taking the prior conclusion as foregone. Is this acceptable? Nishidani (talk) 22:12, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

This is not a review, it's an attempt to "nuh-uh" a deprecation RFC. You've been told already you'd need another general RFC to oppose it. Deprecated sources are meant to be removed, and constitute a backlog of workthat needs doing. So I'm doing it. You saying "but I don't want it to be deprecated!" doesn't mean it isn't deprecated - David Gerard (talk) 22:18, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Since my attempt to deal with a specific source was undone by a user (who somehow was uninvolved enough to close the RFC, but is reverting to enforce his own close, and is voting in the follow up RFC), Ive started an RFC on the subject down below in #RFC: Counterpunch nableezy - 02:41, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

• Honestly it feels like you're beating around the bush. Individual cases can always be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, even for depreciated sources, but the standard is always going to be very, very, very high. If people think that there are generally going to be things published there that ought to be used as sources, the thing to do is to hold another general-reliability RFC and try to get it reclassified as "other considerations apply." I'm unsure whether another RFC would succeed, but I think that both the back-and-forth in this discussion and the heavy number of socks in the previous RFC are sufficient to at least justify another RFC, and it would avoid all these interminable discussions. (The socking in the other RFC wasn't itself sufficient to swing the majority, but the RFC was closed early as WP:SNOW, which probably wouldn't have happened as fast without the socks.) And in any case the argument that another RFC would be a waste of time is a bit meaningless when we're already wasting that time in two separate discussions - especially this one, which can't actually accomplish anything. --Aquillion (talk) 05:24, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

• Aquillion, individual cases can never be evaluated on a case-by-case basis for deprecated sources. (See Deprecated.) You are confusing it with Generally unreliable. If a source is deprecated we can have no confidence that the authorship of the article is genuine. There's like no chance that an article by Dr. Fauci in The Onion is real for example. Can you explain why this source should not be considered generally unreliable? TFD (talk) 05:59, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

No, even a depreciated source can be evaluated on a case by case basis; it is just that the standard for doing so is so high that using one is almost never justifiable. See WP:DEPS: Deprecation is not a blanket retroactive "ban" on using the source in absolutely every situation, contrary to what has been reported in media headlines. In particular, reliability always depends on the specific content being cited, and all sources are reliable in at least some circumstances and unreliable in at least some others. Citations to deprecated sources should not be removed indiscriminately, and each case should be reviewed separately; language elsewhere is similar (The source is considered generally unreliable, and use of the source is generally prohibited, emphasis mine.) And I say this as someone who spends time removing / replacing depreciated sources. The reality, though, is that, first, in cases where it would be justifiable to use a depreciated source, it is usually trivial to find a better source anyway, or a better source even exists already (anyone who has spent time removing depreciated sources can attest to this - part of my bafflement at the extended argument below is that a better source was easily found.) And, second, in cases where a depreciated source is the only source, it's usually something exceptional or controversial that we wouldn't even begin to consider making one of the exceptions. That is why I haven't weighed in on the RFC below directly - I think it is technically true that a depreciated source could sometimes be used subject to the restrictions of SPS, but it is practically true to that there is virtually no case where we would actually end up doing so, so saying "it can be used as a SPS" as some sort of sweeping statement is bizarre and misleading. As to whether or not Counterpunch should be reassessed, I am not sure - I haven't actually bothered to go over it in-depth because there's no point unless another RFC actually occurs - but one thing I would say is that it might help to focus more on how it is covered by others; it looked to me at a glance like the past RFC focused heavily on a handful of terrible things posted there. Those are not irrelevant, especially given the lack of any indication of a retraction, but the crux of RS is a source's reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; the reputation bit is key. Things editors find objectionable there - even stuff that is blatantly, obviously wrong and terrible - is secondary to how it is viewed by other RSes, and demonstrating that it largely has a good reputation, including but not limited to strong WP:USEBYOTHERS, could therefore support the argument that the examples shown in the previous RFC are aberrations. Of course, conversely, people might just show it has a terrible reputation; but the relative lack of any focus on that aspect was one thing that struck me as off about that RFC, relative to most other depreciation RFCs. Either way, again, if a significant number of people think the previous RFC reached the wrong conclusion, the thing to do is to stop talking about it and start another RFC; this discussion can't really overturn a formal RFC, and the discussion / RFC below is honestly a bit silly, since what it's really asking is for CounterPunch to be classified as "other considerations apply" without actually asking that. --Aquillion (talk) 06:22, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

See, this is the primary problem here. You are saying individual cases can be handled, and others are saying ABOUTSELF should be respected, but it is not the case. Down below David is not even addressing the individual case. Nobody is honestly. One person just voted no because it is deprecated, and nobody else has addressed the individual merits of the article. You have some people arguing that a source should be deprecated but that there should be exceptions, but others, admins in fact, literally edit-warring over these exceptions. I am actually fine with CP articles to be presumed unreliable. So long as evidence can be evaluated to overcome that presumption on a case by case basis as needed. Seriously now, the David Price piece is literally referenced in peer reviewed journals, books, news articles. All of them credit him and that article with uncovering the FBI surveillance, and it is the exact area of his academic expertise. But that even consideration of that is being refused. I dont understand how anybody cant recognize how insane this set up is. People are arguing deprecated is fine because the occasional source can still be considered, and then people are editing saying no source can be considered because it is deprecated. As far as the bit about reputation, youre missing an important part. CP is not the source, David Price writing in CP is the source. David Price, or Sara Roy, thats whose reputation for factual accuracy we are relying on here, not CP. It is the same as any op-ed. We arent putting our faith in the publication, we are putting our faith in the author. Just as we do for blogs or other SPS. The only thing that matters is did CP faithfully represent the author's words. If there is any evidence that they have ever manipulated a column, then sure, out every column ever it goes. But that is not the case. nableezy - 05:03, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

That's bout the size of it, there is no real difference between generally unreliable and deprecated except for the manual removal squads enforcing the second, someone I think even said that the problem with generally unreliable was that the sources weren't being removed "fast enough". If nothing else the discussions have shown the arbitrary nature of the classifications. Why not have a super deprecated and a bot that removes them indiscriminately? Selfstudier (talk) 10:14, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

And more to the general point, this place has really gone downhill since its become a polling place for how many people like or dislike a source. DAILYMAIL was such an extreme case that it should been treated like Bush v Gore, a regrettable thing that even the people voting for it were like oh no we cant have this again. But it apparently set a precedent that overruled the way we have always examined sources here. In context and on their own merits. Now its you need an RFC and then hit the polls. nableezy - 06:05, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Requests for comment: Deprecated and unreliable sources

An RFC about sourcing and deprecation has been started on a separate page: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Deprecated and unreliable sources and would be appropriate to attention here - David Gerard (talk) 22:51, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

It is mentioned several times on this page in the Counterpunch sections above.Selfstudier (talk) 23:01, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

And it's well beyond discussing Counterpunch in its ambit, and warrants more notice called to it - as a discussion of discussions that happened on this page, that would normally take place on this page but was hived off to a standalone page somewhere else for unclear reasons - David Gerard (talk) 09:27, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

I believe the initial creation was just a reaction to the ANI discussion and then became something a bit different, I would say it has been generalized to some extent. I don't know where it might go but right now, it seems it is at the draft proposal stage described at Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Good practice for proposals so probably a little early for advertising just yet. Selfstudier (talk) 12:36, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Teller Report

As somebody who has written on many subjects outside the English-speaking world but who lives in the English-speaking world, I see many websites like the Teller Report in my search results. These websites Google Translate major news websites from the rest of the world. The articles are 1) often incomprehensible and 2) violate copyright. Teller Report is cited on many pages: [10]. It is my opinion that there is no room for negotiation here: this site must be blacklisted for 1) copyright violation and 2) not being written or edited by humans. I found on Ralf Rangnick that a Teller Report page had been removed on request from the German newspaper Zeit. For those unfamiliar with the Teller Report's content and quality, here is a story from today which even copied the image from RT: "Zhirinovsky proposed to increase the holidays of Russians at the expense of holidays" Unknown Temptation (talk) 20:16, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Sounds sensible. The references to Teller report should be replaced with the references to the original, assuming the latter is reliable. Alaexis_¿question? 21:19, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

The second link doesn't have perfect English but is understandable. The headline is very poorly worded to the extent it can't be understood without some guessing or reading the article but headlines are not taken as part of a reliable source anyway. In the absence of some clearer example of a problem with it, I don't think the second link shows us anything that useful about the reliability of the Teller Report. If it is simply a copy or translation or mangled version of the RT article then this suggests Teller Report is not an RS and also probably should be blacklisted for COPYVIO reasons but I find this difficult to judge with a single article. Nil Einne (talk) 06:00, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

The main problem is not inaccurate translations but the fact that it is a translation. I work in translation and one of the first things you must know is that you have to abide with copyright. I cannot make my own English version of the new Paulo Coelho book without his permission, but I can translate something old like Augustine of Hippo or Voltaire. The fact that Zeit - a paywalled German site - complained and got the Teller Report's article pulled tells us that a) TR are not asking permission to translate and b) they are affecting authors' commercial rights by reproducing paywalled content. Unknown Temptation (talk) 16:58, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Requests for comment for deprecation of Elon Musk's tweets

Older discussions: [1]

Which of the following best describes the reliability of Musk's tweets:

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

If option 3 or 4 is chosen, I suggest to make the tweets depreciated, since he is being used for referencing on many articles, by many users. For reference, Twitter itself is considered generally unreliable. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 16:39, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Do you have any examples where they are being used as sources, and not WP:ABOUTSELF? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:42, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

It's very easy to find one. Examples of which are SpaceX Raptor, Tesla Model Y, Tesla Cybertruck, etc. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 17:01, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Leaping straight to an RFC seeking to depreciate them is the wrong way to try and correct that, since we already have existing guidelines for citing tweets. I would close this and start a more general discussion pointing to examples of Musk's tweets being misused and asking for opinions on it (and help correcting it.) Also, have you tried removing / fixing it, and if so, did someone object - that is, is there an actual dispute? RFCs are for resolving disputes - if you just want to call attention to a problem you shouldn't use an RFC for that. Even if there is a dispute you'd want to discuss it first per WP:RFCBEFORE. And even if there was an RFC this one isn't really quite worded properly because it would be strange to depreciate one person's tweets, especially given that tweets are already considered generally unreliable for most things - again, an RFC isn't usually necessary to ask people for help enforcing clearly-existing consensuses, especially in the absence of any dispute. And even if you could make the case that there is something uniquely wrong with Musk's tweets that makes them unusable even for the very limited ways tweets are normally allowed to be used, it is really unlikely that they are being used so often that it'd be worth the time and effort to reach some formal conclusion on that via an RFC - RFCs like these are for sources that are being used hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of times across Wikipedia. --Aquillion (talk) 09:54, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Oh, now I get what RfC is supposed to be, I am in the wrong here. Feel free to close the RfC, and I will make another discussion at a later time. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 09:57, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Elon Musk's tweets are a reliable source for what Elon Musk has tweeted. There are some things they could be cited for, but even for material related to Tesla specifically he has not exactly been accurate (going private at 420 being the most obvious example, but there are plenty of other exaggerated or inaccurate tweets) I dont think that would be usable for factual material. But his tweets are certainly reliable as a primary source for what he has said, and subject to all the restrictions for using primary sources. This board used to be about examining a source in context, not trying to set these general rules that may or may not be relevant depending on the context. What exactly is somebody trying to source to one of Musk's tweets? nableezy - 16:44, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Some reasons may be WP:TOOSOON stuff, where someone want to update the information really quickly. In my experience, if the info is notable enough and considered true, it will get covered in other 3rd party reliable source. Musk's tweets are cited a lot, so I do an RfC to see what people think. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 17:04, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Not actionable. Agreed with nableezy here, the concept of deprecation isn't event plausibly applicable to tweets of a single person - which are inherently self published. (Twitter can't be deprecated either since it doesn't publish anything - at least to my knowledge) But again, for WP:SPS material, if the author is an established expert, these can be used with attribution. No idea if Musk is a subject matter expert with regards to something, I don't think so. Mvbaron (talk) 17:06, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Should be fine if related to Tesla or anything else Musk has influence over, but if the only source of something is his Twitter feed, include posting date and that it was posted there in prose. If it's a major statement, I would get a third party source. RoseCherry64 (talk) 17:17, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

• Option 5: Treat like every other verified twitter account of a living person. Elon Musk's tweets are self-published sources created by Musk. It's a primary source that can be cited when the exact words of the tweet are worthy to include but I don't think that we would ever use it for a contentious fact. It's also probably OK for extremely mundane things relating to Musk's companies (i.e. the date construction started on something), but I really don't see any justification to treat these as somehow more reliable than a company press release. Provided that users are able to understand that Elon Musk at times runs his account like a memelord does, and use appropriate caution, I don't see reasons to deprecate. — Mhawk10 (talk) 18:40, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
• I generally agree with Mhawk10 above. I would note that Musk uses Twitter not unlike Trump (when he was on Twitter) and we should be very careful about crediting anything he says as anything other that self serving etc. Springee (talk) 18:45, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Not actionable, you can't deprecate tweets from an individual. What you can do is replace or remove them where ever it is being used as a source for facts. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 04:58, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Would an edit filter be better in this case? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 05:01, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Filter 869 is already cramped and it isn't meant to handle subdomains. There is similar misguided use of various other social media accounts and the usage here isn't particularly high either, so there is no justification for why this is such an exceptional case that needs a filter. Twitter in general is also on XLinkBot's Revert List. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 05:24, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

• As others have said, I don't think anything needs to be done/changed here. I'd also add that someone's tweet shouldn't carry any weight in an article unless it's been reported on by reliable sources. In that case, just cite the reliable sources. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:39, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Discussion: Can Musk's tweets be cited for the activities of Tesla, etc?

• While this RFC is malformed, I think there is a more useful and specific question to ask (which the previous discussion focused on a bit) - can we use Musk's tweets as a source for the plans, goals, and activities of companies he owns? I would argue no - under most cases, such tweets are going to be intended to promote things in which Musk has a financial investment, which means that they are the very definition of unduly self-serving. It's not really acceptable to rely on the personal twitter feed of a business owner to cite statements that obviously promote that business (ie. making it sound like they have something big or noteworthy planned - if there is no secondary coverage, those plans are not significant and should not be on Wikipedia; preventing someone who owns a business from tweeting out some exceptional / amazing thing that then gets picked up on Wikipedia and boosts their stock price seems like the precise thing that the unduly self-serving restriction on SPS exists for.) Generally speaking, at least glancing over how Musk's twitter has been used, this means that almost everything cited to it right now needs to be nuked from orbit. Extremely unexceptional and non-promotional stuff like eg. "this person is in this position" or "we were founded on this date" could be cited to a SPS, but absolutely not stuff like "we're gonna put a man on the MOOOOOON, woo! We're gonna have flying cars and jetpacks capable of reaching Mars in every garage by 2024!" To be clear, I'm saying that I don't think Musk's twitter can be cited for such self-serving statements even if they are attributed to him, ie. it's not acceptable to use his Twitter and nothing else to cite a statement like On Twitter, Musk said that "our company is going to send a manned mission to Mars by 2030" or something. That is obviously a self-serving statement and requires an independent secondary source, fullstop. --Aquillion (talk) 09:59, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  Hmm, pretty relevant to talk about my experience at writing Elon's topic, or more specifically, SpaceX Starship. There are many information that Elon or enthusiasts that details stuff about the launch vehicle, but as time goes on, I found that most of them are minor or just speculation. A lot of people think that Elon's tweets = noteworthy, but my experience told the opposite. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 10:03, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  The point is, it's not a matter of noteworthy. Musk's twitter is a WP:SPS. If Musk stands to benefit financially from something he tweets or says there (ie. if it makes his company sound good, or announces something exciting or groundbreaking or especially anything WP:EXCEPTIONAL) then we can't cite it to just that, we'd need a secondary source. It's very important to keep the unduly self-serving restriction of SPS in mind in a situation like this, because much of what Musk posts on Twitter is going to be overtly intended to be self-serving and therefore completely unusable (of course, we can still cite it via independent secondary sources - just not to Twitter directly.) --Aquillion (talk) 10:07, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  Yes. Elon Musk's Twitter feed exemplifies self-serving. XOR'easter (talk) 16:48, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

• This has been an issue at The Boring Company with items added to the "Projects under discussion" section based on a tweet or casual comment by Musk. Even in cases where the tweet is covered by a reliable source, they often fail WP:NOTNEWS since there's no follow-up beyond the current news cycle, and editors have often omitted critical coverage within the same source. A few examples:
  • "In January 2019, Musk responded to a query from an Australian MP regarding a tunnel through the Blue Mountains to the west of Sydney, suggesting costs of $24 million/mi ($15 million/km) or $750 million for the 31-mile (50 km) tunnel, plus $50 million per station." Although reliably sourced to Mashable, the whole story was based on a single Twitter exchange and doesn't have any follow-up coverage that I've found. Until today, our article also omitted criticism from tunneling experts which was included in the source.
  • "In January 2019, Musk stated that he had been asked by the director of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) about construction of the tunnels for its 62-mile-circumference (100 km) Future Circular Collider and that The Boring Company could save CERN several billion euros." Again, based on a tweet ("Director of CERN asked me about Boring Co building the new LHC tunnel when we were at the @royalsociety. Would probably save several billon Euros.") with no follow-up.
  • "In August 2019, Musk announced that he would be launching The Boring Company China during a trip at the end of the month." Two years later, nothing has come of this Twitter announcement.

As others pointed out, these self-serving statements can be removed or rewritten with proper context. There's no need for an RfC unless it's being challenged.

I think there are situations where a tweet or press release can be used for "X product was announced on Y date" IF said product actually makes it to development/production, but these cost estimates and proposals really aren't meaningful unless they lead to serious consideration. This is the type of stuff that most companies do every day without making a big deal about.–dlthewave ☎ 16:46, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Links reliability

Here I am citing some sources which may come useful in the development of the Draft:Sadashib (Fictional Character):- 2.https://www.bookishsanta.com/blogs/booklings-world/books-sharadindu-bandhopadhayay

3.https://beautiful-bengal.quora.com/The-story-series-for-which-Saradindu-Bandopadhyay-was-awarded-National-Award-for-Literature-adventures-of-Sadashiv-a

4.https://archive.org/details/SadashibComicbook/1. Sadashib - adikando/page/n0/mode/2up

5.https://www.parabaas.com/translation/database/authors/texts/saradindu.html

6.https://www.getbengal.com/details/saradindu-bandopadhyay-not-just-detective-byomkesh-but-a-master-writer-of-historical-novels

7.https://www.thisday.app/en/details/the-man-behind-byomkesh-bakshi

Please convey your opinion regarding the sources cited, whether they are reliable and can be used in the development of the draft.--Michri michri (talk) 17:26, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

@Michri michri, Hello! In order, 2-7:

• WP:BLOGS
• WP:USERG
• Can't view for some reason
• Per [11] this seems to be an online bookshop, "his adventures are a delightful treat for the young readers." It's not ideal. And it doesn't say a lot.
• Harder to say, can't find an about page, but text is identical to parabaas. Also, fwiw they spell it "Sadashiv".
• Per their about page,[12] this seems like a corporate WP:BLOGS.

This [13] (Sadashiv, again) source should be usable. WP:NOENG may be of interest. Consider trying to find good sources to improve the Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay article with. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:41, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång Gracias, a notelist is already placed which states that Sadashib is also written as Sadashiv as per some sources. Michri michri (talk) 12:18, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

1.https://kids.kiddle.co/Sharadindu_Bandyopadhyay - this was my first source, which I missed due to any reason.

I am going with not really RS.Slatersteven (talk) 12:23, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

What do you want to mean, Slatersteven?Michri michri (talk) 12:38, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

I mean I doubt they pass our criteria for being third party RS.Slatersteven (talk) 12:42, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

FAIR

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is an anti-immigration advocacy organization with ties to white nationalism. The Southern Poverty Law Center designated it as a hate group. I was surprised to see someone try to cite it in an immigration article, so figured I'd look for other citations. It appears in 60 articles. Some of these are legitimate (someone being appointed to its board); others are not. Going around and removing a bunch of the same source can get a little dodgy, so posting here, too, for good measure. It doesn't look like we've had a thread about it here in the past. I've removed a few citations and have to stop for now. I've also added some context to a couple articles where we simply stated e.g. "FAIR criticized" or "FAIR lobbied against" which didn't contextualize what the organization is. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:50, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Mentioning its position or lobbying efforts is a WP:DUE issue rather than the question of reliability. Alaexis_¿question? 21:53, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Sort of. One objection I frequently have to WP:RSOPINION cites is situations where a source is plainly being used to introduce a fact with an attribution slapped on it. Something like "According to FAIR, immigrants cost taxpayers $XXX per year" cited directly to FAIR itself is totally inappropriate - even attributed, that is not a mere opinion; a degree of of reliability or expertise or both is needed to cite such a statement. Something like "FAIR supported / opposed this bill" is fine (subject to WP:DUE concerns); something like "FAIR made X statement about objective reality" is not, which would sometimes include eg. their arguments for or against a bill if those arguments stray into making assertions about fact rather than just opinion. eg. "FAIR said that this bill will increase crime" requires a WP:RS as a source because, even attributed, it is plainly trying to introduce a fact rather than an opinion. --Aquillion (talk) 05:12, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Agree that it's a WP:DUE issue if we're mentioning their position or activities. It becomes a reliability concern when we use them for statements of fact, such as "Total Fiscal Burden of Illegal Aliens on U.S. Taxpayers: $115,894,597,664" (proposed here) or the several self-sourced claims at Family reunification#United States 2. –dlthewave ☎ 00:02, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Agree with the above. As I've gone around to check its usage, I did not remove it where it supported claims about their own activities, but did remove it when used for factual statements about e.g. immigration figures. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:08, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Voyage Group of Magazines likely predatory

I came across these today. They're a very slick promotional site, completely transparent about their lack of editorial oversight and their promotional mission but they've been accused of being a personal data aggregator, and one person who used them reported they won't allow submissions that don't include the emails of five other "influencers". Googling them returns a ton of scam warnings.

At minimum these shouldn't be used to prove notability or for anything that we wouldn't source to any other self-source. There's at minimum VoyageLA, VoyageATL, BostonVoyager, VoyageChicago, VoyageDallas, VoyageHouston, VoyageMIA, SDVoyager, VoyagePhoenix, and probably many more as I stumbled across a story on VoyageOhio, which isn't listed on the main website.

We currently have 148 articles sourced to VoyageLA alone. —valereee (talk) 15:51, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Looking at this they are not an RS, as it is clear they just publish any old crap.Slatersteven (talk) 15:52, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

We don't determine reliable sources by publishing not "crap" on the one line comment of one editor. Also the link that supposedly shows a lack of editorial oversight just states that they do not doctor or cut interviews which is a good thing, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 07:40, 3 January 2022 (UTC) On the other hand the mission statement is concerning that they rely on contributors rather than journalists so that indicates unreliability but the one person complainant link is confused and confusing, but overall looks unreliable, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 07:48, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Wolfgang Proske

Wolfgang Proske is a scholar who write multiple accounts that accuse Erwin Rommel of being a war criminal. As the subject attracts quite a lot of debate and the article cites a lot of journalists etc, I think that this author can be mentioned too, but my addition (that this author's main work is self-published after he failed to find a publisher who agreed to publish it as well as criticism by Lieb and Schweizer towards him) tends to be deleted for being intricate details. My passage is the following:

.Historians Christian Schweizer and Peter Lieb note that: "Over the last few years, even though the social science teacher Wolfgang Proske has sought to participate in the discussion [on Rommel] with very strong opinions, his biased submissions are not scientifically received." The Heidenheimer Zeitung notes that Proske was the publisher of his main work Täter, Helfer, Trittbrettfahrer – NS-Belastete von der Ostalb, after failing to have it published by another publisher.

.

Additionally, I've found out that this author himself tells the Schwaebische Zeitung that he is not sure that his accusation can stand on a legal basis, but he wants to call him such:

.Als Historiker würde er ihn einen Kriegsverbrecher nennen. Da er sich aber nicht sicher ist, ob diese Einstufung auch aus juristischer Sicht zu halten ist, nennt er Erwin Rommel schlicht einen NS-Täter und überlässt die weitere Beurteilung jedem selbst. Dies hat Wolfgang Proske bei einem gut besuchten Vortrag im Evangelischen Gemeindehaus deutlich gemacht.

Source When I added this, the admin User:Cullen328 undid it with the explanation that it added unnecessary doubt to the works of honest historians. Other editors, please advise me how to deal with this author and this case. Thanks.Deamonpen (talk) 08:05, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Deamonpen, mentioning that I am an administrator is a red herring since I did not mention that I am an administrator and I did not use my administrative tools. Keep in mind that I am also an ordinary editor unless I use the tools or the status. You are applying, "legal status" arguments about someone who died 78 years ago. "Scientifically received"? What the heck does that mangled English prose even mean in a discussion about World War II history? It comes off as nonsense to this native English language speaker. Gain consensus on the article talk page and I will respect it. If you fail to gain consensus, accept that Cullen328 (talk) 08:35, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

"Scientifically received" is acceptable language in scholarly publications written in English, as far as I know. I accept that you acted as an user, but please also see my reply to you on the Rommel Talk page. Thank you. Also, 78 years ago, there was international and milỉtary law and conventions regarding war crimes and people were executed for that. Accusing someone of committing war crimes is a serious thing and gives the implication that it is based on legal understanding. If the author (Proske) makes the clarification that when he accuses Rommel of such, he understands "criminal" in another sense (or that he does not have enough understanding of legal matters to assess such matters), it should be mentioned. Thanks, again.Deamonpen (talk) 08:46, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Finding a particular combination of words via a Google search is no indication that it is always appropriate: that looks like a poor translation to me. As for whether Wikipedia should report Proske's allegations about Rommel, that will depend only on whether the allegations have been significantly reported in secondary sources. There is nothing whatsoever in Wikipedia policy that even remotely suggests that a scholar's comments about someone who died in 1944 should be excluded on supposed legal grounds. There aren't any, and it would be a gross disservice to Wikipedia's reporting of scholarly research to even suggest such a thing. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:15, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

The combination is from published scholarly works, but if someone modifies it, it will be fine to me too. The thing is if I translate excerpts in any way a bit different from the originals, there will be complaints again. I don't protest Proske being included. I just ask whether his own comment, that he likes to call Rommel a criminal, but he is not sure that accusation can stand on legal ground or not, is a worthy clarification. By the way, I'm easier than most when it comes to scholars whose opinions are known through the media but not published (by a "serious" scholarly institution), but there should always be clarifications and balancing points, for a historical topic in particular. I believe that will be compatible with WP:RS. Deamonpen (talk) 01:48, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Am I missing something here? Peter Lieb is a fairly significant WWII military historian, I don't see why his opinion wouldn't be WP:DUE. The translation needs some work (I presume from context that 'not scientifically received' means 'not accepted by scholars'), but that isn't a RS issue. --RaiderAspect (talk) 05:20, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

References

Shay, Deliso

On the July 18, 1998 Albanian–Yugoslav border clashes article, There is an overarching framework about a group of Mujahideen in the article led by an "Ali Rabici" or "Alija Rabic". The sources about the Mujahideen and Alija Rabic are:

• Shaul Shay (2007). Islamic Terror and the Balkans. Piscataway, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. p. 89. ISBN 978-1-4128-0931-3.
• Christopher Deliso (2007). The Coming Balkan Caliphate: The Threat of Radical Islam to Europe and the West. Santa Barbara, California: Greenwood Publishing. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-275-99525-6
• Serbian tabloid NIN

There is no mention of Ali Rabici outside of these sources except in reproductions of the original piece in NIN. NIN was under the control of Slobodan Milosevic and used for spreading Serbian nationalism. Shay and Delsio received negative reviews[14]. Deliso’s thesis of a ‘coming Balkan caliphate’ embraces Bosnia, Albania, Kosova, Macedonia and Turkey. Deliso’s animosity in particular is directed against the Albanians, and he faithfully upholds anti-Albanian stereotypes popular among the Balkan Christian peoples. He writes of ‘the opportunism they [the Kosovo Albanians] have shown in siding at various times with the Turks, the AustroHungarian Empire, Mussolini, Hitler, and, most recently, NATO’ (p. 51), thereby repeating the myth popular among Serbian nationalists, of the Albanians as stooges of repeated foreign invaders, though the Kosova Albanians’ record in this regard is absolutely no worse than that of other Balkan peoples. due to these discrepancies with the bibliography that supported this ali rabici framework i took to the Talk page of the article and proposed their removal. since no one objected I removed it. some weeks later it was added back again by another editor, he conceded that NIN was indeed not WP:RS and therefor did not add that back. he left a message on the talk page where he said that for them to be considered to be non WP:RS there had to be an entry here. Should highly criticized sources be used for such information in the article? Durraz0 (talk) 16:12, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Unsure about these but [[15]].Slatersteven (talk) 16:16, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

This is a reproduction of Serbian sources like the Milosevic-linked NIN, the link you provided seems to be a political speech against the Clinton administration. Durraz0 (talk) 16:25, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

But it does show it is not only used in the sources you provide. As I said I am unsure, but I am also not sure your argument stands up either. Nor are all of the sources you mention "Serbian sources".Slatersteven (talk) 14:24, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

I never stated all the sources are Serbian. however this is a reproduction of the Milosevic linked NIN, furthermore this is a political speech against the Clinton administration. It is not an academic source. It is a political speech. It is like using speeches of the Republican party about the Benghazi affair as sources for the event. Durraz0 (talk) 15:25, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

You asked about the reliability of Shaul Shay (a military historian, and an academic) and Christopher Deliso (a journalist, but not an academic). So by the critira of "must be an academic" (one of these sources passes. The other may do, as he seems to be a respected journalist. So I must now rethink this and say these are RS.Slatersteven (talk) 15:32, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

WP:CONTEXTMATTERS: The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content.

A source which has seen heavy criticism about their claim for some subjects can not be treated as a valid source for those subjects. Is not that the point of WP:CONTEXTMATTERS? Durraz0 (talk) 15:46, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

I am unsure one source is enough to show "heavy criticism", rather it is enough to say "but this has been challenged" in the body.Slatersteven (talk) 15:51, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

About La voce Delle Voci, again

This Italian-language news website ([16]), although sells conspiracy theories ([17] (in Chinese)), and I had asked that it be deprecated (cf. Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 359), no other Wikipedians responded, meaning this website is still not deprecated, despite some articles use it as a "credible" source (e.g. Camouflage passport & International Parliament for Safety and Peace). In here I made the same proposal again. Hope that Wikipedians who are proficient at both Italian and Chinese can verify my claim that it is unreliable thus should be deprecated and discuss whether or not to deprecate it. Thanks!😁--RekishiEJ (talk) 15:10, 30 November 2021 (UTC) fixed capitalization a bit and added the URL of the official website of La voce Delle Voci 15:32, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

famousredwoods.com, mdvaden.com/images/redwood_year_discovery.shtml

New editor @Jqmhelios11: is posting links to these pages on numerous articles (Hyperion (tree), Sequoia sempervirens, ...), including replacing other references with them. I think these are transparently dodgy sources (see e.g. the disclaimer page at famousredwoods.com) and should not be used for anything, but perhaps others have a different opinion, or would like to help explain the situation to Jqmhelios11. --JBL (talk) 13:01, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Not reliable. We had a discussion about whether mdvaden.com was a reliable source at Talk:Grogan's Fault. The consensus appeared to be that MD Vaden was not a published expert, therefore his website could not be used as a reliable source, per WP:RSSELF. I just checked, and MD Vaden is still unpublished. famousredwoods.com also appears to be a self-published source with no obvious expert authorship or editorial control. This was discussed at Talk:Hyperion (tree). I don't see any new information that would make these sites reliable. — hike395 (talk) 15:11, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Pinging editors who previously commented on these sources (The Real Luke Skywalker—Jtmorgan—Kevmin—Vsmith—Maproom—CapitalSasha—Tryptofish—Snow_Rise) — hike395 (talk) 15:33, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. It does seem that these are self-published sources and not reliable, and it certainly does not make sense to me to replace other sources with them. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:46, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

My opinion hasn't changed since the previous discussion: as these websites do not assert any expertise or editorial control they should be considered not reliable. CapitalSasha ~ talk 21:48, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm of the same opinion as CapitalSash Hike395 and Tryptofish, Vaden's website is self published and not reliable as a source.--Kevmin § 18:02, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Given WP:SNOW, I've found and removed where landmarktrees.com and mdvaden.com are used as sources (except about MD Vaden himself). They still show up as a few External Links. In the unlikely event of any objections, I can revert. — hike395 (talk) 19:40, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

gotquestions.org and tektonics.org

I seek the deprecation of gotquestions.org and tektonics.org. See MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#gotquestions.org. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:48, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Reason: they're WP:SPS. What we won't do is quote amateur theologians who play hide and seek with their religious affiliations. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:21, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Am I correct in thinking this source is only used one time on the entire project? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:19, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: There were more instances, but I had removed those meanwhile. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:30, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Is Thanh Nien reliable?

Looking at this article - no mentions of Thanh Nien in the RS/N archives and using google translate this article appears to say Oussou Konan Anicet died via poisoning. Unsure about the reliability of this. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 10:31, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Maybe. They are read commonly in Vietnam, but international news? No idea. ( From a Vietnamese POV) Leomk0403 (Don't shout here, Shout here!) 01:50, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Is Rotoscopers reliable

There are no past discussions on this website so that is why I’m asking and it seems to be used a lot.

• Source: Rotoscopers
• Article: Woody (Toy Story), Chris Diamantopoulos, List of Pixar films, Paul King (director), Tom and Jerry, Mickey Mouse, Elsa (Frozen), Big Hero 6 (film), and a lot more.
• Content: Animation news, information, reviews, and interviews.

Please ping me. ― Kaleeb18^Talk_Caleb 03:25, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Why is no one checking this? ― Kaleeb18^Talk_Caleb 13:52, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

This looks like an unremarkable amateur/fan news site with no reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. I checked a dozen staff/contributor bios and didn't see anything about education or experience in journalism or related fields. They are cited a few hundred times by other media, but mostly by sites with poor or no reputation. Their editor-in-chief is cited only 3 times in Google news, by Cartoon Brew, Hypable, and Funtop. That's not great. They also accept user submissions, which is an instant fail in my book. Woodroar (talk) 14:30, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

@Woodroar: Thanks for the response. ― Kaleeb18^Talk_Caleb 15:05, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Source of study calling a "phase IIa trial" and my notes and texts there: "quackery nonsense"

Hi.
At https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Multiple_sclerosis&oldid=1062131102#Alternative_treatments:_some_news_(2014)_about_incense_and_more I did note to an alternative treatment with incense.
This "Talk" (title) now is removed into "history", the link here.
´Justifying´: "quackery nonsense" and ONLY "phase IIa trial".
Told here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Visionhelp#December_2021

Quote: "The results of the study have been published online in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry (DOI: 10.1136 / jnnp-2017-317101) since December 16, 2017.".
from https://www-uksh-de.translate.goog/Service/Presse/Presseinformationen/2017/Hilft Weihrauch bei früher Multipler Sklerose_-p-62549.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en
Best Regards, Visionhelp (talk) 18:37, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

This is a study of 38 people (with no control group!), a primary source, not the systematic review of multiple studies envisioned by WP:MEDRS. - MrOllie (talk) 18:49, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Ah. Many thanks, MrOllie. I understand, so far.
It is from 2017. It is about ´Alternative treatments´ possible, which will be from interesst for affected people.
I did not write into the article, just as note in "Talk".
There should be newer developments possible.
More I did not want to do as work: just this note.
Does this justify to remove into the deep going hard to find history the entire note in the "Talk" section, please ? Thank You very much.
Visionhelp (talk) 06:42, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

The study you link isn't even remotely acceptable, per the relevant Wikipedia content guidelines. See Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine). AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:34, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

I wouldn't have deleted the discussion that you created on the talk page. However, it would be extremely unlikely to result in consensus to include this text in the article. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Even in the news article that you linked, the authors say that more research is needed to evaluate this potential therapy. Using this poor quality study alone is insufficient to add the information that you proposed. AlexEng^(TALK) 08:54, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

U.S. Military Sources on U.S. Military Topics

Question about reliable sources that stems from this discussion, but more broadly potentially affects military articles in general. Perhaps specific guidance on this already exists, so if you can point me in the right direction, I would appreciate it.

Are all articles published by the military automatically unreliable sources on a military subject, and if not, when would they be considered reliable?

For example:

Would a source by military journalists (who are generally school trained in journalist standards) qualify as reliable sources if there is a degree of separation to the topic, for example, if they are from a base newspaper reporting about a tenant unit (i.e., the journalists are not in the unit they are reporting on)?

A Department of Navy journal with content about the Air Force, or vice versa? There is a good case to say these two services are distinct, and have differences in their cultures, and they consist of unrelated people with the navy having no vested interest in many topics about the air force, with the exception of working together on the battlefield.

A military journal with peer reviewed articles?

A military student who writes at a Department of Defense school and that school has a civilian accreditation and largely professional civilian academic faculty?

It seems if we say ALL military sources on ALL military subjects are not independent under ANY circumstance is limiting and does not actually follow the guidelines for independent sources. Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 22:37, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Most military documentation aren't journalistic nor scholarly, but there certainly are some examples like Naval War College Review and Air and Space Power Journal which likely could be used (again depends on the topic, about Air Force/US Navy probably not, but on a topic like Counterinsurgency why not? Do I expect such journals to be more patriotic/conservative? Definitely, but most secondary/independent sources have biases. Question is just how acceptable such biases are and whether analysis/facts could be meaningfully engaged with, without putting honus on a wiki editor to determine the WP:TRUTH. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 22:51, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't think anybody is claiming "ALL military sources on ALL military subjects is not independent under ANY circumstance", but at the same time it's unlikely anybody here is going to be able to supply you with a clearcut rule. A 2020 publication by a military history professor of the United States Army Command and General Staff College about the ACW? Sounds good to me. An article about a serving admiral in a base newspaper? Fine for factual information (e.g. So-and-so was promoted on date) but not acceptable for establishing notability or for evaluative/opinionated content (e.g. So-and-so is universally loved by his subordinates). CGSC article on Withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan (2020–2021)? Getting iffy and needs more analysis of the publication venue, e.g. whether and in-house publication series or an established peer-reviewed journal with an independent editorial board but technically published by CGSC. -Ljleppan (talk) 23:15, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm glad to hear that military sources are not summarily discounted, although there might be more scrutiny about their use. I hope that opinion is truly shared. Would you mind please commenting more about situations where one service is covering topics about another, and when that degree of separation would make them independent with respect to being considered a reliable source? Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 02:54, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Regarding "although there might be more scrutiny about their use", not any more than with any other source. There's nothing special about "military" here, except maybe how large the organization is. We wouldn't take at face value everything that Microsoft has to say about an Apple product, never mind their own product, either. Nor would we have blind trust at a history of a university written by that university's own history professor. -Ljleppan (talk) 09:03, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

As others have said, the reliability will vary based on the material. What is key is that military sources about the military are not independent sources that can be used to justify notability and a few other factors related to that. If reliable, they can fill in gaps left open by non-military coverage, but they shouldn't be the only sources present in a standalone article about the military. --Masem (t) 03:19, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. So I understand correctly, at no time should a military source be used to determine notability of military topics because they are not independent? This is true even in situations where one service is covering topics about another? Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 04:07, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

@User:ljleppan Can you comment on my statement above...would you say this is accurate? Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 12:48, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

There's a reason the various relevant guidelines are somewhat vague. I suspect that looking for a bright line rule that would apply to every situation is not going to be fruitful. -Ljleppan (talk) 13:34, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree with you there, Ljleppan. Over-specific and/or inflexible guidelines open us up to lawyering where the letter but not the spirit of the guidelines is followed.Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 13:38, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, so I better understand, can you please give me some examples of where you would see a U.S. military source being used to determine notability of U.S. military topic? Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 14:03, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I guess that depends on what time era we're talking about. Notable modern events will be reported elsewhere to indicate notability. Civil war or pre-industrial newspapers might be harder to find but exist. US military reports on enemies' weapon capabilities are wildly inconsistent in reliability and so might not be reliable enough to indicate notability of internal affairs either.Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 14:27, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! @User:ljleppan, can you please provide any possible examples? Thanks! Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 16:26, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any specific examples that would apply here. The Wikipedia community at large seems to have a consensus that military personnel are subject to the WP:GNG and WP:ANYBIO rather than a potential military personnel specific subject-specific notability guideline (even the essay-level WP:SOLDIER has been deprecated). I'm having a very hard time identifying a hypothetical scenario wherein a military personnel subject would reach WP:GNG notability in such a manner that that notability could not be attributed to independent reliable sources. The only hypotheticals I can come up with on the spot are contrived to the point of being useless and involve things like a non-independent source indicating notability per ANYBIO#1, rather than being related to the GNG. -Ljleppan (talk) 16:56, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 17:50, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I think another thing to take into account is how recent the events they're reporting on are. As far as I know US submarine crews in WWII over-reported the damage inflicted, and the Navy later on adjusted down the numbers after review. I'm sure similar things happen in other contexts where the reliability increases somewhat over time.Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 12:52, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Anyone who has watched (I cant remember its exact name) the official DOD documentry on the siege of Khe Sanh (made at the time of the siege) will also know that they often do not look all that well balanced in hindsite.Slatersteven (talk) 12:55, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Good points, and another related to time is many classified documents do not become available for many years in the future, making analysis of primary documents difficult for recent events. Semper fi! FieldMarine (talk) 13:01, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I remember in the Full Metal Jacket film, the reports from Stars and Stripes weren't 'completely' devoid of bias... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:19, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

You would be better reading non fiction such as Born on the 4th of July or Dispatches.Slatersteven (talk) 16:23, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

The only bright line I would say exists is attribution, but military sources are often usable especially in WP:ABOUTSELF contexts. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:31, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

mig-21 shooting down an f-14

Is this [[18]] an RS for the claim?

It has also been suggested this is an RS because it is based on (note not by) Tom Cooper's research, who or what is Tom Cooper?Slatersteven (talk) 16:45, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Per this edit [[19]].Slatersteven (talk) 16:51, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

If you click on the Home button on the linked page, you are taken to [20], which has a "Contributor login." Looks like a user-generated site to me. - Donald Albury 17:20, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Doesn't look like RS to me either. As for who 'Tom Cooper' is, I'd guess he's the author of this: [21]. If the claim is from his book, it needs to be properly cited to that first, so we can than look at what it actually says, and then decide whether it qualifies as RS.

Incidentally, the wording in the disputed edit, "managed to shoot down", is somewhat weasely. If it happened, it needs to be stated as a simple fact, rather than implying that there was something extraordinary about it while saying nothing about the circumstances. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:27, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I certainly wouldn't trust data compiled from some randos on a forum. As for Tom Cooper, the Amazon bio for one of his books isn't reassuring. He's prolific but doesn't have any background in history. That book was published by Helion and Company, which has been discussed at RSN because they, for example, publish books by former Nazis who believe in Atlantis. Osprey Publishing has also discussed at RSN previously. Osprey's reputation seems better, although they also publish Nazi admirers. Woodroar (talk) 17:49, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I was wondering if it was a blog.17:34, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Theme Park Junkies

A defunct website, Theme Park Junkies, is being cited by an IP editor who just wholesale reverted my cleanup efforts at Black Hole (roller coaster). The particular page being sourced is here, and aside from obvious spelling/grammar issues, there are links on the page to submit your own reviews and write your own articles. This appears to have been a glorified forum of sorts from back in the day and completely unreliable, but would appreciate a second opinion in the matter considering this is being challenged at Talk:Black Hole (roller coaster)#Lack of proper sourcing. --GoneIn60 (talk) 20:06, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

UploadVR

To be clear, UploadVR is not a reliable source in the Video Game Category. Rzzor (talk) 20:43, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

• Last discussion from 2020 Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources/Archive 23 shows support as a reliable source. --Masem (t) 20:44, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Attractions Magazine

Is Attractions Magazine reliable? I think it could be. I don’t see them promoting parks by trying to sell their tickets or anything like that but I could have missed that. Also I couldn’t find anything where people that are not staff members can contribute to it. All of its content is related to theme parks and stuff to do with theme parks. It is in articles like Marvel Comics, Cheetah Hunt, Woody (Toy Story), Sisu (Raya and the Last Dragon), Jon Favreau, and others. ― Kaleeb18^Talk_Caleb 19:44, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

For amusement park related content, it is generally considered reliable and is often cited in amusement park articles. The publication appears in Google News results and is frequently mentioned by other reliable publications. Two examples of that I just came across include this one from The Hill and this one from Orange County Register. --GoneIn60 (talk) 20:01, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@GoneIn60: Thanks, do you think this should go on WP:RSP?― Kaleeb18^Talk_Caleb 01:34, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Kaleeb18: Probably not at this time. That list is meant for sources that are "subject of repeated community discussion". Searching the archives, this thread is the only one so far that I see. --GoneIn60 (talk) 01:43, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@GoneIn60: Oh Gotcha. That makes sense since I’m the only person who has brought it up. ― Kaleeb18^Talk_Caleb 01:46, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

History of Civilizations of Central Asia: RS?

Articles: Trakhan dynasty, Patola Shahis
Could someone confirm if the following work can be considered RS (content deleted here)? More specifically the article by Ahmad Hasan Dani here is being challenged and Dani is claimed to be "non RS" here [22]. Thank you for your help! पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 10:56, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
There are several editions:

• History of Civilizations of Central Asia. UNESCO. 1 January 1998. ISBN 978-92-3-103467-1.
• Dani, A. H.; Staff, UNESCO; Asimov, M. S.; Litvinsky, B. A.; Zhang, Guang-da; Samghabadi, R. Shabani; Bosworth, C. E. (1 January 1994). History of Civilizations of Central Asia: The Development of Sedentary and Nomadic Civilizations, 700 B. C. to A. UNESCO. ISBN 978-92-3-102846-5.
• Dani, Ahmad Hasan; Masson, Vadim Mikhaĭlovich (1999). History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Motilal Banarsidass Publ. ISBN 978-81-208-1407-3.
• Comment: Dani starts the section with According to the traditional history which is a way of saying that the entire history is recorded from Humza lores, popular memory etc. collected in the 20th century. [Check the footnoted source for details.] Dani's most detailed narrative on the subject can be located at "History of Northern Areas (1991)", where he repeatedly says that nothing in his history of Gilgit can be corroborated with evidence (inscriptions/coins/literature etc.) but hypothesizes about a couple of events from our knowledge of history governing surrounding polities. To reconstruct the history, Dani had used two vernacular sources from 20th century (! - one of whom had used the local mosque-cleric as the primary source; also consult 1 on contexts of production) and he was frank enough to concede at the start that they are extremely faulty, contradictory and hagiographic with dates that made little sense.
  So, no: Dani is not a RS for this particular subject or rather, the particular line. It was a misrepresentation of Dani. At best, we can say that Dani notes Gilgit tradition to mention of a Trakhan Dynasty to have replaced the Patola Shahis.[Add a foot-note about the lack of historical evidence etc.] TrangaBellam (talk) 12:18, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

  There is a reason why not a single scholar of repute has worked on medieval history of Gilgit except Dani, making it an island among neighboring territories with extremely well-documented histories or why no historian/archaeologist bothers to discuss the aftermath of Patola Shahis. That is because, there are no primary sources to work upon. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:58, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

  We clearly not state this as fact in Wikipedia's voice, and it seems pretty clear that "traditional history" is more "according to tradition", not "traditional history" as opposed to - what, "alternative history"? Danni is not saying this is actual history. Doug Weller talk 13:16, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

  Just to be sure, you are agreeing with me that the removed line—Following the departure of the Chinese circa 760 CE, the Turks took control of the region and established the Trakhan dynasty, which would last until the 19th century. [Ref: Dani]—was a misrepresentation and at best, we can write something like Dani notes Gilgit tradition to mention of a Trakhan Dynasty to have replaced the Patola Shahis, who would rule continually till the 19th century.[A foot-note about the lack of historical evidence etc.] Right? TrangaBellam (talk) 14:38, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

  Yes. Doug Weller talk 15:21, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

• In general, the book should be regarded as an RS. TrangaBellam, you seem to be using Dani to discredit Dani! If Dani is indeed the only historian to work on the area, then we need to rely on ... Dani. You should not just have removed the content in the way you did. A slight reword may be in order, which should be discussed at article talk. Johnbod (talk) 14:41, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

  That the book is a RS in itself is obvious but specific reliability depends on context.

  Dani is indeed the only historian to work on the area, then we need to rely on ... Dani - No. Dani was for a long time (iirc, till late 80s) assigned with Pakistan Govt.'s project(s) to map a history of its geographical territories without invoking India in any possible manner and much of his scholarship reflects such a goal. [I am sure that you can find multiple sources to these effects.] Why does every historian skip the history of the region after Patola Shahis except adding a vague line about probable Turk invasions?

  That I am depending on Dani himself to discredit his own historiography is not the gotcha you seem to make of it and I have also linked other sources which are critical of his sources. I have also proposed my rewrite of the line; Dani is (re)iterating Gilgit traditions of their history and impressing otherwise upon a reader is ahistorical. You seriously believe that a dynasty was ruling for over 1000 years in C. Asia?

  RS alone does not govern inclusion of content; it operates in tandem with DUE etc. I do not know why the OP opened a RSN thread without even attempting a discussion at t/p. TrangaBellam (talk) 14:59, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

  Well.... I certainly discussed at Talk:Trakhan dynasty first. I just came here to verify your claim that the Dani source was "not RS" [23] [24]. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 15:09, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

  As the book is now agreed to be an RS - that you say is "obvious" - it was not a good idea to remove content and a ref to it with the edit summary "rm; use HISTRS". Johnbod (talk) 15:12, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

  I've agreed to the rewording. Doug Weller talk 15:21, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

  Resolved

  - The current content is quite different than what stood there, previously. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:11, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

RfC:The World News (twnews.co.uk)

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

---

User generated news site, seems to be quite new, and has so far only been used a handful of times. Mostly local news in the UK at the moment like complaints about roadworks, dogs up for adoption and such. However there are obvious issues that anyone can just "create" a reliable source there. The Adrian Câciu (a Romanian politician) article is one BLP article that uses it as a source. This might be a bit of a premature rfc, and one with a forgone conclusion but I think that it's better to deal with it explicitly now than wait until it becomes a problem later.

Is it:

1.  Generally reliable for factual reporting
2.  Unclear or additional considerations apply
3.  Generally unreliable for factual reporting (and therefore ruled out for BLP articles)
4.  Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated

I hope I've done this correctly, {{ping}} me if I've messed up. 🙂 Mako001 (C)  (T) _{^{(The Alternate Mako)}} 05:02, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Its user-generated content, little more than a blog. not an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 10:41, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, clearly not reliable per WP:USERGENERATED. Would strongly prefer that we NOT pollute WP:RSP with an entry on this. Just follow WP:USERGENERATED. Adoring nanny (talk) 16:01, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

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

Repeated blanking of a section in Mariners Church, with claims that LA Review of Books is not OK as a source

This is an article about a church in my area. I met someone who was a member, and I was motivated to improve the quality of the article, which had been somewhat of a booster piece, and make it more NPOV. I wrote a section titled "Service to the community," with what seems to me like totally vanilla material about the church's activities. The section can be seen in this revision: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mariners_Church&oldid=1063068773#Service_to_the_community I provided two sources for the description of the activities. One of the sources was the LA Review of Books, https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/how-the-pandemic-radicalized-evangelicals/ . User Avatar317 has complained, without any explanation, that there is something wrong with the LA Review of Books, has repeatedly blanked the entire section, and did not participate in discussion on the article's talk page until we had gone through several cycles of reverts. Once I finally got them to participate on the talk page, they said, "Wikipedia is not the place for alternative facts or misinformation.," which strikes me as totally bizarre, since the section is well sourced and doesn't promote conspiracy theories or anything of the sort. They have provided links to general policies, but nothing in those policies suggests that there is anything wrong with the LA Review of Books as a source. As far as I can tell, it's a perfectly legitimate journalistic outlet with no particular ideological bias. I think it would be helpful if we could get an independent read on the situation.--Fashionslide (talk) 14:56, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Well one issue might be, it's not a review of a book, that raises for me some alarm bells. Is this (in effect) a blog post?Slatersteven (talk) 15:00, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I would describe it as a piece incorporating some opinion and some journalistic techniques that was published in a high-quality, serious literary journal. The author of the piece did normal journalistic research, going around and interviewing sources. The author contacted various people in two white evangelical megachurches. The article is full of quotes from those people. The author quotes a church spokeswoman and gives his own summary of the church's actions during the pandemic, contrasting them with the actions of a different church, of which he expresses strong disapproval.--Fashionslide (talk) 15:08, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

It says it is an essay, so was it subjected to any editorial oversight?Slatersteven (talk) 15:12, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

It seems clear to me that it was subject to editorial oversight. The author is Jim Hinch. He is identified on the article's page as "a senier editor at Guideposts magazine" and an "LARB contributor." The LARB is not just some social media page or blog where Hinch can post random musings. Clicking around on the web site shows that he's a frequent contributor on religion and politics.--Fashionslide (talk) 15:17, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

• Even when it comes to its book reviews, a book review (like all reviews) should generally be treated as WP:RSOPINION - after all, their purpose is to review the book, not to make statements of fact. LA Review of Books is a high-quality RSOPINION source when it comes to book reviews, but still an opinion source, so I would usually attribute things to the author rather than state them in the article voice. And this source isn't even a book review; it is labelled as an "essay", which I'd also generally read as opinion. So it needs to be attributed. In the disputed diff, you're not attributing it (there are quotatation marks, but you don't say who you're quoting). Additionally, I'm not sure just adding an in-line citation would be enough - the purpose of quoting RSOPINION is to illustrate someone's opinion, not to establish facts; obviously if you have a section entitled "Service to the community" you are trying to establish facts about the existence and nature of such service, for which an RSOPINION source alone isn't sufficient (the other is an WP:ABOUTSELF source, which raises obvious concerns about it being unduly self-serving). On top of all this, the reference, in addition to being an essay, is only a passing mention - the author mentions it a single paragraph as a point of comparison for their larger point. I would try to find non-opinion sources first, and structure the section around those. If you can't find any, and the only non-WP:ABOUTSELF reference is a passing mention in an opinion essay, then it seems like it might be undue to give it an entire section. --Aquillion (talk) 17:17, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
• High quality journalism in an outlet with good editorial oversight. Writer is a literary journalist who seems to specialise in California and Evangelical Christianity. Possibly biased on latter topic, but not unreliable. His work here [25] and here [26] Fine to use, but attribute opinions and balance with other RSs if available. BobFromBrockley (talk) 20:41, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
• LARB is absolutely a reliable publication that has editorial oversight and fact checking -- the current copy/fact checking chief on the masthead is Cord Brooks. The name of the publication is somewhat misleading, as while it does publish reviews it also publishes more general editorial pieces, and its "reviews" are generally more substantially reported and researched than a generic capsule review would be. Gnomingstuff (talk) 08:21, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

RfC: Reliability of protothema

How should protothema.gr be classified?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable

Currently, protothema.gr is being used 201 times through en.WP [27] Cinadon36 12:15, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Survey (protothema)

• Close/withdraw. RSP-itis again. This noticeboard is for discussing reliability in context, and these RfCs should only be for "perennial" sources. If there are specific content questions, then just raise them. Alexbrn (talk) 13:49, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Oh, I didn't know @Alexbrn:, what is the the relevant venue? I asked at "Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources" but I was told it was not the appropriate page. Cinadon36 09:20, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
    • At the top of this page it says "be sure to include the following information, if available ...". You haven't done that. If there are WP:V problems arising from this source not being sufficient WP:RS for some Wikipedia content, then tell us where. If, after some years, this kind of query becomes a pattern then maybe an entry in WP:RSP might be worth considering. So far, there's no evidence of an actual problem that needs fixing. Alexbrn (talk) 09:27, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
      • I haven't met any dispute regarding protothema.gr in en.WP, I removed it from various articles, I didn't get any reverts or other issues. As I see it, this is the best available noticeboard to discuss the issue and notify other editors to use it rarely.Cinadon36 10:19, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
      • @Alexbrn: after having a second thought, I suppose withdrawing the proposal makes sense. The trajectory of my line of thought, would end having multiple unnecessary fights on this noticeboard, for no practical reason. (as if we do not have already).Cinadon36 06:49, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
• Agree with Alexbrn. -The Gnome (talk) 11:07, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (protothema)

I am re-posting what I have posted earlier in this noticeboard, but got not replies.[28]

Proto Thema is not a reliable source in my opinion. It can be found 205 times across en.WP [29] There is sensationalism, lack of accuracy and their fact are not regularly checked.

• A report for European Commission, posted by prof Anna Triandafyllidou (see also here) is devastating for ProtoThema. You can download the report from here
• Media Bias Fact Check has a small essay on protothema.gr that supports the above view. [30]
• Fact checking site Ellinika hoaxes has 188 entries on protothema.gr. [31] Ellinika Hoaxes is the sole Greek fact-checking org listed on WP:IFCN's signatories list
• Another report (on greek media coverage of covid pandemic) shows the inadequate verifiability of protothema articles (see page 9 and esp page 14 use of links [32])

Worth noting that Protothema ranks among the biggest news portals in Greece in terms of articles posted per day and traffic. (see discussion here [33])

Poor fact checking plus sensationalism means does not stand against WP criteria for RS. I think it should be included at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources with the indication "Generally unreliable" Cinadon36 12:15, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Having reviewed all of the material you present, I am unable to get a grip on what they do wrong. The report from Triandafyllidou doesn't demonstrate a lack of fact checking and accuracy. Specifically, it is only about immigration, and while it makes it clear the paper is biased, and does not " reflect migration related diversity and promote migrant integration," that's not relevant. Media Bias Fact Check is terrible and I have not reviewed it, because it is worthless. I cannot read greek - if there is a specific hoax they are accused of hoaxing, that would be relevant data. Reviewing pages 6 and 14 of that subreport, the mentions of Protothema include them not taking the Coronavirus seriously... In January of 2020, and that they used... hyperlinks in Feb of 2020. Hipocrite (talk) 14:30, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Per the above, MBFC is not a reliable or well-respected fact-checking service in the journalism world. Legitimate journalism organizations don't think too highly of it, and we should not either. See WP:MBFC. --Jayron32 17:37, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Jayron32: exclude MBFC, other citations indicate poor fact checking, and there is no indication pointing that it is reliable or accurate. @Hipocrite: regarding fact checking, Triandafillidou marks the site as "medium". It relies on official reports and does not regularly cross check data. Is that enough for WP? I think not. Moreover, rest of the report shows that professionalism is lacking. Anyway, fact checking site ellinika hoaxes has many entries on protothema.gr. There are 188 articles/hoaxes regarding protothema.gr. Report on Covid pandemic, I think it could be ok not taken seriously back in very early 2020, but misinforming on vaccines indicates lack of accuracy. Cinadon36 08:19, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

• Having looked twice now, I am not seeing any actual claim of fake news. Could well be an issue but unless OP can provide specific links to specific instances, not really sure there is anything actionable here. Slywriter (talk) 17:29, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
  • @Slywriter: I thought I provided a link but I now see it does not really works, so here:
  • it was reported that 1 million ppl in Gr has been vaccinated, but it was not true
  • photos of horses during a fire in Greece, they were photos from California and Australia (but it was not stated in the article)
  • four foods that can exterminate SARS-Cov-2, but the study was not even conducted in guinea pigs
  • illegal immigrants take down a Greek flag, but in reality, they were French students visiting the island
  • 11 month old baby dies of marijuana overdose, but that was not the case, even though there was a temporal relationship.
  • Talibans decapitated female volleyball athlete member of the national team but she was not decapitated, and she was not a member of the national team
  • There are ~261 fake news spotted at Ellinikahoaxes. Should I post more? Cinadon36 20:19, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
    • For at least one of those, volleyball, a look at the live page of the website shows they corrected the record and stated were mistaken [[34]]. Corrections are a good thing, so I am not sure they merit such drastic action as being deemed unreliable. A second look, vaccinations, shows the live article does not contain the one million vaccinated language [[35]]. Honestly, I find the source of these concerns, Elinnikahoaxes, to be a troubling as their claims seem to be snapshots that do not reflect if corrections are made. Slywriter (talk) 21:19, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
      • Regarding the death of the volleyball player Mahjabin Hakimi, notice that protothema does not admit that it published an article containing fault facts. Yes, Ellinikahoaxes uses snapshot to prove the validity of their claim. I do not think that they shouldn't be doing so.. The overall argument is that protothema.gr does not fact check the claims/facts it publishes. Ellinikahoaxes has many examples, and Triantafillidou makes a similar case. I think the case for considering protothema as unreliable, stands strong. Cinadon36 22:00, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
        • But it does, twice. Once in the body saying previous reports of beheading were wrong and italicized text at the bottom that says "this article has been corrected...". Slywriter (talk) 22:08, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
          • It doesnt say "previous reports". It says "Ενώ αρχικά είχε μεταδοθεί ότι αποκεφαλίστηκε, αυτό δεν ισχύει." meaning "While it was initially announced that she was beheaded, that is wrong" It doesn't clarify by whom it was initially announced. Last line is "Το άρθρο έχει διορθωθεί σύμφωνα με τι πολιτικές του Facebook" meaning "the article has been corrected according to Facebook policies". Doesn't clarify which article. And what Facebook has to do with it? Strange wording. Nowhere does it says "our article was wrong" Cinadon36 22:14, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
            • Let's try a different approach, can you point to an article on wikipedia where the site is being used to support a false statement? Slywriter (talk) 13:37, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
              • I haven't reviewed that part; I tend to believe that it is irrelevant. Anyway, I remember once that I read somewhere in WP, that during a confrontation of Greek and Turkish navy, the greek islanders sang a psalm to God, and that forced the Turkish ship to flee. I checked the source (protothema) and it was there! Hilarious.[[36] (See paragraph/section under the title "Έτρεψαν τους Τούρκους σε φυγή με ...ψαλμούς" translating-->"They made the Turks run away using...psalms") Also, look here[37], in 2018, protothema copies el.WP (diff of inserting the text in 2011). So, since we have reliable evidence that there is a fact checking problem, why shouldnt we proceed to classify protothema as unreliable? Cinadon36 07:36, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Los Angeles Times columnists

There is an ongoing sourcing dispute at Talk:Ryan Kavanaugh concerning two contradicting claims published by the same publication, the Los Angeles Times. This article, published on July 30, 2015, written by LA Times staff, claims Kavanaugh finished his UCLA degree in 2012. This article, published on August 7, 2015, written by LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik, claims the same degree doesn't exist.

Both claims are currently stated in the Ryan Kavanaugh article while Hiltzik's claim is attributed. The question is, do we know whether LA Times applies the same editorial oversight to its columnists? If not, we should obviously omit Hiltzik's claim. Throast (talk | contribs) 19:09, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

• Columns are opinion pieces, not RS per WP:RSOPINION. Levivich 20:20, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

That clears it up. Thank you. Throast (talk | contribs) 21:04, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Well, Hiltzik isn't the first to claim Kavanaugh didn't graduate. In October 2012, Connie Bruck wrote "Cashier Du Cinema" which called him a dropout. The litigious Mr. Kavanaugh freaked out and that's when he started telling people that he went back to college and completed his degree (and he also claimed to be enrolled in a PhD program at USC). Anyway, I don't think you will find any authoritative reliable source to clear it up, so perhaps it will be best to attribute the claim of graduating to Kavanaugh himself. --SVTCobra 22:06, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

He did drop out in the 1990s, which is mentioned in the article. LA Times doesn't attribute the claim to Kavanaugh, they just state it as fact, so there's no real basis to attribute it to him as far as I can see. Throast (talk | contribs) 22:11, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Levivich: Columns are opinions, and the guidance in WP:RSOPINION is that opinions should be attributed (which the information was). My question is whether a Los Angeles Times column is considered self-published? Self-publishing, not opinion, is the criteria for excluding information from a BLP rather than including it with attribution. Thanks, Popoki35 (talk) 02:40, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@Popoki35: Well, asserting that someone didn't graduate is not an opinion, it is a statement of fact as outlined at WP:RSOPINION, hence shouldn't be used. Throast (talk | contribs) 03:02, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@Popoki35: I don't think it's self-published, but the first line in RSOPINION is "Some sources may be considered reliable for statements as to their author's opinion, but not for statements asserted as fact," and "Kavanaugh didn't graduate from UCLA" strikes me as a statement of fact that should not be sourced to a column. Levivich 03:08, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Okay. I had thought describing his claim as his own was sufficient, but I respect your interpretation. Popoki35 (talk) 03:23, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Leaked film draft and ect

• Deadline Hollywood story- linked draft
• CBR story [38]- that reported Phillip said "Leaked Joker Script Is Outdated"
• [39] -Easter eggs in Joker reported by Den of Geek

Well, draft of Joker was leaked and released at the internet, and several media reported and linked directly. In draft, there is different set-up between film, such as existence of illusionary cat, true relationship of Arthur and Sophie, etc. I would like to refer it to describe old set-up, and add later Todd's confirmation; "Leaked Joker Script Is Outdated". Is it ok that I refer the draft directly in this context?

And, I wonder if news story of Den of Geek is good reference. Thank you. Reiro (talk) 06:03, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Gentnews

Is this source reliable as used in Mark Goldbridge? SK2242 (talk) 08:15, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

It's a pretty poor source for a BLP. Although the referenced fact does not seem controversial it could just be taken out. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:04, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Burroughs Corporation Computer History

A major computer system is not named/listed as part of Burroughs history. The B300 series systems were manufactured, sold and maintained by Burroughs in the 1960s. These mainframe systems were primarily sold to financial institutions but also to a variety of other users. Several hundred customers including the federal government owned or leased these machines.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:80a0:e00:7c:8d01:df5e:82d2:d3b1 (talk) 17:34, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Which source do you wish to discuss?Slatersteven (talk) 17:36, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Your request probably belongs at the article's talk page or at WT:WPCS, —PaleoNeonate – 00:10, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Rerun Counterpunch RFC?

Looks like there was a shitload of socking on the Counterpunch deprecation RFC.

On my talk page, there's suggestions of reviewing the RFC close. When Shibbolethink closed it, and I supported their close, it seemed pretty straightforward.

One thing that CP fans are questioning is a lot of non-ECP users. That isn't actually a rule for RSN discussions ... but personally I think it might be a damn good idea. I'm straining to find a reason for completely fresh users to be diving into deprecation discussions.

It's last thing Saturday night in the UK so I'm not going to dive in right now. But I thought it would be good to open for discussion.

(I still think myself, and especially from going through cites to it and looking how it's used, that CP is a trash source that's bad for Wikipedia and I'd support deprecating it again - I'm not doing this in the hope of un-deprecating it. But the discussion needs to be robust, not white-anted by sockpuppets.) - David Gerard (talk) 00:16, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I personally think the discussion should either be vacated entirely or re-closed as no-consensus (at least as far as deprecation, I think there is clear consensus that CP does not confer reliability on to a source), as I do not think any reading of the RFC absent the socks and non-EC accounts can justifiably be called a consensus for deprecation. I dont particularly see the need for a new RFC unless some user wants to start one, and any user should feel free to do so. But the current state is in my view untenable, as I do not think one can claim that the discussion reflects a consensus to deprecate. nableezy - 01:17, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

The rfc was closed early maybe lets strike the sock votes and let it run its courseShrike (talk) 05:59, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

• People have been tiptoeing around this for too long; all else aside, we have multiple other discussions above, and it's clear from them that it's at least possible that the clear-cut consensus the RFC closure implied may not be present anymore, especially given the heavy socking. Either way, there's obviously enough reasons to hold another RFC, so let's just do it already - it doesn't make sense to hold constant discussions over whether to hold an RFC, since these discussions consume all the energy an RFC would, without any actual possibility of settling the underlying dispute. (I'm of the opinion that RFCs with heavy socking should generally be rerun, for the same reasons we have WP:BANREVERT - it is extremely important to convince banned users that they cannot accomplish anything by socking.) --Aquillion (talk) 09:51, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
• I'd suggest the other Counterpunch RFC that's active on this page be closed off first, and any other ongoing discussions on CP. This issue has also been plagued by rampant forum shopping, as if starting as many fires as possible will convince other editors of the rightness of a position rather than just annoying everyone with apparent WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour - David Gerard (talk) 10:43, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I very much object to the claims of forum-shopping or battlegrounding as though raising your user conduct at ANI is somehow forum-shopping, and I think that your various statements and actions (eg It's really not a good source and I'm now more confident it doesn't belong in Wikipedia, not less., as someone who thinks CP is trash, as well as voting in the above RFC) demonstrate a distinct lack of uninvolvement on the topic of CP in particular and deprecation in general. You can either be the person closing an RFC on the source or you can be the person arguing that it is trash, but you cannot be both, though given your particular view on what deprecation means I would argue you shouldnt be coming near a deprecation RFC close at all. Maybe dont speak for "everyone", several admins found your actions to be objectionable, you just ignored them. nableezy - 13:55, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

No, you were forum shopping well before then, and I'm very far from the only one to have noted it, even on this page right now - David Gerard (talk) 18:05, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

There is one editor with all of 1362 edits who has claimed this looks like forumshopping for opening an RFC after you demanded an RFC be opened. Your edit-warring, careless and otherwise poor editing is what was raised at ANI, which is the appropriate forum for that. You actually have played judge, jury, and executioner on CP, closing the RFC, voting in the follow up, prejudicing the re-consideration with your strongly held views, and edit-warring to remove it. I dont even care at this point, given the basis for deprecation is a discussion that clearly does not contain a consensus for deprecation, will you kindly reverse the close and if you or anybody else wants to start an RFC to deprecate CP they can do that? But as it stands, by your own admission, the RFC is tainted and as such it cannot be relied upon for well basically your last 1500 edits in the mainspace. nableezy - 20:32, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Not only that, it is at the very least debatable whether there exists a policy basis for deprecation as it is understood by DG.Selfstudier (talk) 21:22, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

• Thank you indeed David. That readiness to re-examine this troublesome issue is a palmary example of fine administrative judgment. I'm undecided as to whether to hold another RfC or re-open the old one. I think I counted 33 editors there, and, as Nableezy documented on your page, 6 were socks, and 3 were, per some rule, not supposed to weigh in, and another dubious. I.e. of 33 editors a third turn out to be inappropriate presences. To what degree the original RfC's legitimate voters's assessments were influenced or persuaded by the socks numbers or arguments cannot be determined, but, from experience, when editors read a discussion to decide which way to cast their ballot, an impressive array of 'deprecate' votes in sequence can affect the outcome of their weighing in.

I have zero knowledge of these kinds of questions, so I leave it to more experienced editors to decide what to do. Personally I find little in CounterPunch that strikes me as of encyclopedic worth generally. The bruited 'anti-Semitic, genocide-advocating, Holocaust-denying, conspiracy-mongering spin' strikes me as a travesty of what Cockburn and St.Clair, the editors, were/are doing in allowing space for opinions from all quarters on their webzine.

The core fact remains that a significant number of respected professionals in their fields - political science, history, economics, etc - have published in that venue, and it would be damaging to eviscerate whatever they write as encyclopedically unusable simply because we don't like the lowbrow company they appear to keep. In (the) light of this, whatever we do should allow a margin for inclusion of material on the basis of strict criteria about the writer's competence in their field. If some reconsideration is opened up, it would be helpful to restrict the focus to CP, and not distract it with discussions about tabloids like the Daily Mail (which I've never read (and only know of because a few scholars once entertained me (1992) at a conference with anecdotes about the ridiculous eye-catching headlines it ran).

Ps. I think 'trash' is too harsh. When normatively we have to consider all viewpoints per WP:DUE, a site with a fair number of topshelf journalists and scholars who just happen to be critical of systemic bias in mainstream reportage, has its uses. In the areas I work, the 'mainstream' is not impeccable: indeed it is often partisan or silent on issues that, elsewhere (esp. scholarship) are minutely studied. Nishidani (talk) 10:54, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

That is the point really, all the CP bashing is not germane and a distraction from the central issue, the main thing that editors have been looking for is access to expert opinions (and not just at CP, come to that). Given the 11-11 (numerical position) on the Price rfc and the comments at the discussion intending to develop some sort of formal guideline for deprecated sources, it is clear it is not an open and shut case no matter how much some might try to portray it as such. To be clear, if to get that access, I have to ask for dedeprecation, I will do that, whereas if I had that, I would happily go along with deprecation so the two matters are connected, like or not. The recently closed ANI finished "...no consensus for any action to be taken here except to clarify, as a community, how to handle deprecated sources...". Selfstudier (talk) 14:14, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

• There's limited point rerunning the RfC if the opponents of whatever the outcome happens to be consider their side to be done in by socks on the other side. If we rerun the RfC, we need to decide in advance how to deal with (i) socks and (ii) editors trying to give the impression, whether out of good faith worries or otherwise, that the !vote is seriously stacked against them. — Charles Stewart (talk) 15:44, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

The editors noting that the vote was seriously stacked were not complaining that it was stacked 'against them' but against Counterpunch as an occasional source. All of those who were against the deprecation whose editing I am familiar with were not endorsing CP, and mostly said it should not be given a free pass as RS.To the contrary. There was common ground on this. It was simply a matter of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, not ridding articles of important professional contributions that do exist, even if not abundantly, in CP. Nishidani (talk) 17:51, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I think the previous discussion may be reasonably considered irretrievably white-anted by the socking, which is why I think we should run it afresh. Once the other discussions on basically the same issue reach a conclusion - David Gerard (talk) 18:05, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

In the meantime, can you change the RSP entry and remove CP from the list of deprecated sources? nableezy - 20:34, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

• To be clear, there were (IIRC, at this point - the total keeps increasing) five now-confirmed socks who !voted in the RFC, all with the same position. That much is not speculation or just something that editors "consider". Five confirmed socks is just too many and is enough to reasonably conclude that the RFC was being deliberately targeted. --Aquillion (talk) 20:51, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

6, 5 Icewhiz, 1 NoCal100, and 4 non-EC accounts (one of which I think is IW for that matter). nableezy - 21:05, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Can you name the 6, as I can only see 3 (see list below - who have I wrongly identified as not a sock?) BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:20, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Its listed at the top of the RFC, but Free1Soul (not tagged but blocked here), 11Fox11, Nyx86, Droid I am, and Hippeus are Icewhiz and Inf-in MD is NoCal100, both banned users active primarily in EC topics. Would bet dollars to donuts at least one of the non-EC users is likewise Icewhiz. nableezy - 19:04, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Nocal is slacking iff he only have one sock in that vote, :/ Huldra (talk) 23:52, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

• Regarding the ECP issue, I believe the argument is that given the massive number of Icewhiz socks, and given his area of focus, it is reasonable to presume that at least some of the non-ECP commenters were drawn to the RFC because of Counterpunch's position as one of the most prominent journals critical of the current Israeli government, which would be a topic under ECP restrictions. Of course, that sort of argument can get dicey - under that interpretation, any RFC on a prominent source with well-known views could fall under a massive host of DS restrictions - but the sudden flood of socks shows why it's also something we'd want to be cautious about, since the precise reasons why we have ECP protections in a topic are also a reason to be concerned about the possibility of people turning a tangentially-connected RFC into a chance to use throwaways, socks, meatpuppets, etc. to weigh in on the main topic by proxy. --Aquillion (talk) 21:18, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I think this by Only in death sums it up well. nableezy - 21:21, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. A few editors above have mentioned the "massive" number of socks skewing the discussion. I see a well-attended RfC with a small number of socks, none of whom contributed more than a line or two of discussion, and a small number of non-ECRs, none of whom contributed more than a line or two of discussion, and a two-thirds majority for deprecation even removing those. Contributors in chronological order, all ECR unless noted otherwise, are as follows. (I've put the !vote in brackets, and bolded those who made substantive contributions to discussion (i.e. potentially swayed subsequent !votes): Mikehawk10 (4), Crossroads (4), Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (4), Burrobert (2?), Shrike (4), sock puppet Inf-in MD (4), Generalrelative (4), Szmenderowiecki (?), NoonIcarus (4), GretLomborg (4), me (3 ), My very best wishes (3 /4), sock puppet 11Fox11 (4), nableezy (2), Horse Eye's Back (4), Grayfell (4), Georgethedragonslayer (4), Neutrality (4), Huldra (2), Alaexis (4), Nishidani (2), Rosguill (2), NSH001 (2), BilledMammal (4), [possilikely sock] Free1Soul (4), NorthBySouthBaranof (4), Davide King (2), [sock] Nyx86 (4), non-ECR Estnot (4), Qiushufang (2), RFZYNSPY (4), Crystalfile (4), non-ECR Kathy262 (4), Amigao (4), non-ECR AllOtherNamesWereTaken (4), blocked user Droid I am (4), Zero (2), Selfstudier (2), sock puppet Hippeus (4). So, a total of 39 participants, of whom only 3 (I think) were non-ECR. Almost all the !votes were for 2 or 4. In aggregating them, I've combined my 3 with the 4s, as I argued for more than just normal general unreliability. If the closer looked at all of the !votes, they'd have seen a ratio of 28-10 for 3 /4; removing socks and blocked, it drops to 2422-10 which remains a very strong steer. Even if you then remove the non-ECR, it's still 2119-10. And that's before you look at whether people are making policy-based arguments or simply !voting. What am I missing? On the issue of non-ECRs, the recently closed request for clarification on this seemed to say (unless I'm misunderstanding) that the ECR requirement would not apply to a project-wide discussion like this unless we were only discussing use for a ECR topic are In short or a source that mainly covers such a topic area (clearly defined by L235 in that clarification), and CounterPunch is obviously used across topic areas (the use that sparked the RfC was extradition law in the Alex Saab article). In short, I don't see a case for re-opening. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:15, 10 January 2022 (UTC) (Note: there may be current ECR users who weren't then, but I don't think that makes a difference given this wasn't in an ECR-only topic. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:20, 10 January 2022 (UTC)) [UPDATE: Have amended as per Nableezy's list above and italicised all socks for clarity. The tl;dr summary is that no socks contributed substantially to the conversation and removing them all still gives a 22-10 balance for deprecation. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:33, 11 January 2022 (UTC))

A, no it is not 22-10, given two of the votes you claim as deprecate (including your own?) are for generally unreliable, not deprecate, and b. it was 27 originally including those 2 votes, and c. that does not include the 4 non-EC accounts, two of which are very obviously I/P editors, another one seems like an Icewhiz sock, and if you believe in the idea that an editor with 7 edits in some 4 years magically shows up to an RSN deprecation vote to vote and then vanishes once more was not drawn to the discussion through underhanded off-site methods makes me want to offer for sale a bridge in Brooklyn to you. nableezy - 15:55, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I argued for 3 and My Very Best Wishes !voted for 3 /4. I have counted these with the 4 because I argued that normal general unreliability might be too week for a website that publishes anti-vaccine disinformation and extreme antisemitic conspiracy theories, and I think that my listing of the evidence for this might have had more of an impact on the consensus for 4 than the one-sentence comments of the socks. I'll stop quibbling about arithmetic now, but however you cut it the ratio is in the 2:1 ballpark. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:53, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

No, it is 15-17 to 10-12. nableezy - 16:56, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

You can only turn 22 non-sock !votes for 4 or 3 into 17 if you (a) you remove my 3 !vote and count is with the 2s; (b) you remove My very best wishes's 3 /4) !vote; and (c) apply a non-existent policy that only ECRs can participate in RSN RfC (that's up for discussion now below but isn't policy now) in order to discount Estnot, AllOtherNamesWereTaken and Kathy262. To get to 15 you have to remove a couple ECR editors because of vague suspicions. And you can only turn 10 !votes for 2 into 10-12 if you include me and My very best wishes as anti-deprecation !votes which would kind of contradict what we said. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:21, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

EC is policy for ARBPIA topic areas, and if you look at AllOtherNamesWereTake's and Crystalfile's earlier contributions you would see why it is relevant, and they are not vague suspicions, and if you think that Crystalfile showed up for his or her 9th edit in seven years unaided well again please see me at my talk page so we can set up that sale of my bridge to Brooklyn. And if the question is deprecate or not deprecate, it is 4 vs all the above. Also, it isnt 22, its 21. And the only way you get to 21 is if you include votes for something other than deprecate as though they are votes for deprecate. nableezy - 14:30, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Claiming a project wide consensus to deprecate on the basis of 15-17 qualified deprecate !votes vs 10-12 do not deprecate votes is a stretch (and there are 6 socks, so far, and 4 non-EC, all option 4), and regardless of whether it is a an EC-only topic or not, the non-EC users were also users focused on the Arab-Israeli topic area, see for example the contributions of Crystalfile, whose first edit in six months, and last since, was that CounterPunch RFC. And excepting 6 edits in March hadnt made an edit in nearly 3 years. I cant honestly believe that anybody thinks that is a good faith contribution to a discussion somebody just happened across. nableezy - 15:30, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

• Think nableezy is correct in that there’s too many abnormalities in that discussion to call it a true consensus of the community. The same applies to the Jewish Chronicle discussion I closed, although some of that discussion could be salvaged since really only one issue was under dispute. Suggest re-running the RfC to figure out what the consensus actually is. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:44, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I also think there needs to be some minimum participation requirement for discussions that have such a wide impact. Seriously, the FrontPageMag RFC had 7 editors. 7 editors is enough to make a project-wide consensus that a source may never be used? Or here 15 editors can determine a project-wide consensus? Seems insane to me, regardless if I agree (FPM) or disagree (CP) with that decision. nableezy - 15:55, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Active users, all users, active users on the article in question, active users here? What would be the criteria?Slatersteven (talk) 16:01, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Honestly, I dont know, but it concerns me how a handful of users can have such a huge impact across the encyclopedia. I think the shift from RSN being used to evaluate a given source in a given context to one where sources are being voted on in toto and one group of partisan editors can sway an entire topic area to be something that needs to be seriously examined. Daily Mail was an exceptional circumstance, and now every other section on this board is a deprecation RFC. nableezy - 16:11, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Except no decision here is ever permanent, you introduce "qualified majority voting" and they are. Depreciation is there for one reason, a source is raised so often and found wanting it is easier to just not really allow its use. The issue is thus one of "can we trust this source", not because it makes mistakes, but because it tells outright lies. Now maybe we are going to far, I think we have not gone far enough.

As I have said before we should ban all news media use until (at least) 6 months after an event. Even then we should only use news media for attributed statements, and not statements of fact. As even the best make mistakes and are biased (or at least accused of bias). If not just an outright ban on new reporting.Slatersteven (talk) 16:20, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Whether or not it is permanent is besides the point, that 7 editors can decide a source may not be used anywhere on Wikipedia is insane to me. Even if it last a week. nableezy - 16:24, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

And the counter to that would be it would be equally insane if one editor could demand a source should be used. Or that just because someone is on holiday or ill their concerns are not heard, so shoos we also wait a month before any close (is that long enough)? There has to be a way to arrive at decisions, that can't be "filibustered" (to not use the term quite accurately) by demanding that only if X (an unspecific amount so far) of users say it. Of course, this is not a perfect system, but I am unsure that creating one where it will be all but impossible to keep out take news sites will be better.Slatersteven (talk) 16:38, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

But who said one user can demand a source be used? nableezy - 16:39, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

When you have a hammer, everything suddenly looks like a nail. Selfstudier (talk) 16:42, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

They do it all the time here, indeed (not to be fair ONE user) is that not what this is about, demanding to use a source? And yes (In effect) saying you need to have a minimum number of people saying not RS means one person can say "yes RS". Hell they do not even have to stick their head above the parapet, just do not say anything and it's a yes vote. Indeed that (for me) is the bigger issue, making "no opinion" in effect be support (of course the same is true in reverse, but then it's also not a rule (other than the concept of consensus (as in everyone who cares thinks this).Slatersteven (talk) 16:49, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

• 30/500 is a great idea for RSN/P RFCs (and DRV and MR and most noticeboards and a lot of other places). This is an area where experience is sort of a prerequisite to being able to form an intelligent opinion (about whether a source meets policy). Let's do that first, then re-run RFCs if someone thinks it'll lead to a different/better result. While we're at it, let's have these "general reliability" RFCs run on another page that's ECP, and advertised here, which will also help our watchlists. Levivich 00:17, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• CP is largely an ARBPIA issue (just look at the majority of edits that resulted), so 30/500 is already a requirement for an RfC on CP deprecation. Per the ARBPIA General Sanctions, we don't have a choice in the matter. Zero^talk 11:07, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Can you explain how CP is largely an ARBPIA issue? The proximate use of it that led to the RfC was in Alex Saab. (See L235, Wikipedia talk:RFAR: an RSN discussion is "related, broadly construed", if the RSN discussion itself substantially discusses to the ECR topic, or if the source typically reports information within the topic area. But a source that covers many things including some things that are related to an ECR topic is not covered (unless the RSN discussion substantially relates to the ECR topic).) BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:35, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

CP indeed typically reports information within the ARBPIA area. It is more wide-ranging than that, for sure, but the ARBPIA General Sanctions apply to related content not just articles in the topic area. You can also look at the list of which CP citations have been removed so far and quite a lot of them were ARBPIA-related. Zero^talk 02:10, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

CP indeed typically reports information within the ARBPIA area but also obviously covers many other things. Quite a lot of the removals are ARBIA-related, but more aren't, e.g. the back and forth going on now is happening on Freeman Dyson, Names of Beijing, July 12, 2007, Baghdad airstrike, Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal, Stanley Crouch, Ishamel Reed, etc - none of which are ARBPIA. CP has historically been used across the encyclopedia, which is why its deprecation is a hot topic.BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:30, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• I would recommend a new RfC, having looked at the previous one, it does look irreparably undermined by sockpuppetry. It is also hard to argue that a ECP prohibition in the PIA topic area (broadly construed) per the clarification at ARCA wouldn't apply here. In any case considering the closer's comments, the close doesn't stand anymore unless I've misunderstood something (courtesy ping David Gerald), so I have removed it from WP:DEPS and restored the entry from before the RfC at WP:RSP. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 15:19, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you very much, if somebody wants to open an RFC feel free. nableezy - 15:55, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Erm, is that really how it works? There was no consensus here to vacate the close. Shouldn’t another RFC be run first? Also you pinged the wrong David Gerard Mvbaron (talk) 16:35, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Given the amount of socking that has now been confirmed, I'm honestly surprised that this discussion wasn't taken down from RSP sooner. ECP for deprecation discussions as a general rule also seems like an excellent idea, even new editors attempting to participate in good faith are unlikely to have a sufficiently strong understanding of sourcing policies to participate effectively in deprecation discussions. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:53, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

If the basis for deprecation is invalid then the source is not deprecated, yes that is how it works. nableezy - 16:57, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I object to undoing the RFC without re-running the RFC (and undid Tayi's changes). I am in favor of re-running the RFC. But to simply undo the RFC, and make it un-deprecated (or whatever), is to ignore the !votes of all the non-socks who participated. Because if you remove the socks and the consensus is still unreliable/deprecated/whatever, then the RSP listing wouldn't change. Whereas putting it back to before the RFC isn't necessarily an accurate reflection of current consensus, socking notwithstanding. So if we're going to challenge RFCs due to socking, we need to re-run the RFCs, not just "undo" them. If someone wants to suggest undoing the RFC without re-running it, at the very least, ping everybody who participated (who is in good standing) and see if they agree. Levivich 17:12, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Deprecation requires a consensus. The basis for the deprecation no longer demonstrates a community consensus. The closer of the original RFC agreed that the RFC cannot be said to represent a consensus. You can still have a new RFC, but in the meantime there is no consensus for deprecation and as such CP cannot be called deprecated. nableezy - 17:20, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

And as such I undid your change. nableezy - 17:21, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

In my view, there is no consensus of the community for deprecation of that source due the tremendous sock puppet activity. Absolutely not. - GizzyCatBella🍁 17:33, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Also the If someone wants to suggest undoing the RFC without re-running it, at the very least is a strawman, nobody is against a new RFC. But you cannot shift the burden here, in which a consensus is said to exist already when no such consensus exists, and you cannot maintain the result when the basis for that result is invalid. You cant demand a consensus to overturn a decision what does not have a consensus to begin with. It is an abuse of process, and it should not be allowed. nableezy - 17:41, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Really dude? "Demand"? "Abuse of process"? If you're gonna go with that rhetoric, you go it alone. Levivich 17:49, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, demanding an RFC to overturn an invalid RFC is an abuse of process. Im not going to be less than honest with you, you should know that by now. nableezy - 18:06, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry but this all seems so weird to me. You (nableeze) have written thousands and thousands of words, opened countless threads (I would even say bludgeoned this very thread here) only to immediately re-introduce Counterpunch refs into articles - all the while this discussion is not even closed properly. You could have saved so much time with just filing a closechallenge weeks ago and probably get the same result, and not waste so much time. The deprecation RFC wasn't even formally taken back. Mvbaron (talk) 18:00, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Weeks ago we did not know that 6 of the editors were sockpuppets of banned users. The closer of the original RFC says, up above, I reinserted links after the deprecation was removed. Ive actually opened two sections about CounterPunch, one here and one at ANI, if you think 2 is uncountable then sorry? And Im going to continue doing so. It seems that, yet again, a sock of a banned editor is involving themselves in that dispute. Shocking development. nableezy - 18:06, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

This discussion doesn't reverse the existing RFC, much as Counterpunch advocates might want it to. Even as an RFC closer, I can't just declare that it doesn't stand any more. This discussion is to work out what to do. We'd need an RFC of equal weight to reverse it, not just advocates jumping the gun - David Gerard (talk) 18:27, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, you can, as per WP:CLOSECHALLENGE. This is the abuse of process I was talking about, you say that the RFC that established this consensus is invalid, but you are still relying on that consensus and requiring a new consensus to overturn it. That is backwards, if the basis is gone the consensus is with it. You need to establish the consensus to deprecate, not reverse that burden to de-deprecate. nableezy - 18:36, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Erm, no, the close challenge would have to be successful first. Then it would likely be rerun. Literally this happened with deprecation of the Daily Wire. It stands until it doesn't stand, even I can't just declare it dead - David Gerard (talk) 18:42, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

If you, as the closing editor, are saying that the discussion was not robust and instead white-anted by sockpuppets, wouldn't it stand to reason that you are no longer endorsing the close and that the consensus is unclear? Tayi Arajakate _Talk 18:52, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I've opened an RFC on the ECP proposal, below - Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#RFC:_Should_deprecation_RFCs_be_open_to_all_users_or_restricted? - David Gerard (talk) 18:42, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, and thats why I went to you first. If you, the closer, agrees the RFC is no longer valid, you can vacate your close. See where it says Closures will often be changed by the closing editor without a closure review: if significant additional information or context was left out of the discussion and the closer was not aware of it. If you are now saying that you do not think the RFC is invalid and as such will not vacate it then fine, Ill proceed with the other CLOSECHALLENGE steps. But you already have said that, so I cannot understand why you are both claiming the RFC is invalid and the RFC's so called consensus still holds. I have no problem re-running the RFC, I do have a problem with maintaining the results of an invalid one as the status quo. nableezy - 18:50, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

You've been on Wikipedia since 2008, you should fully understand the weight of convention here - David Gerard (talk) 18:59, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't see how you can say it is not valid and in the next breath say it is no matter how heavy the convention is.19:02, 11 January 2022 (UTC) Selfstudier (talk) 19:02, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

If I'd meant to vacate my close, I'd have said I was vacating my close. I didn't say that, because I didn't mean to vacate my close, so I'm not vacating my close. I thought it would be a much better idea to put the matter up for discussion first. I think a rerun would be appropriate, but e.g. other editors think it should just stand as is and not be rerun. I considered it a good idea to see what other editors thought before taking a drastic action. Either way, a non-RFC discussion doesn't vacate an RFC - David Gerard (talk) 19:03, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I do, I just quoted the policy here. And I also understand how overturning a consensus requires a new consensus, but here there is no such consensus. By your own admission, the RFC does not represent a community consensus. How are you claiming it still does by restoring it to WP:DEPS? You need a consensus for deprecation, and you admit the RFC that claims that consensus is invalid. What is the consensus for deprecation then? But fine, I can proceed with asking the wide community to overturn the close if you refuse to do so. I am very concerned that an editor with strongly held views on the matter (eg as someone who thinks CP is trash) is continuing to claim a consensus while agreeing there is no consensus, but sure, will proceed with the other CLOSECHALLENGE steps then. nableezy - 19:08, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I understand that you really, really want me to vacate my close, but I'm not doing that thing, I wanted discussion before such a drastic action. You can challenge the close, of course - in which case I suggest this section be hatted, so as to minimise multiple simultaneous discussions on the same issue - David Gerard (talk) 19:10, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

No, I actually dont give a shit what you do, I was hoping you would as you obviously already agreed the discussion was invalid and that would allow us to proceed with a new RFC with a proper basis and not, as you really, really want, one in which your position that CP should be deprecated (how does WP:INVOLVED work here anyway) to be the current status quo, but Im fine proceeding with the close challenge. nableezy - 19:21, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

There are editors going around claiming the RFC has been reversed and Counterpunch is no longer deprecated so putting it back into articles. This is incorrect, the RFC has not (yet) been reversed - David Gerard (talk) 19:10, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree that's a bad reason but restoring expert opinion, I don't agree with that being a bad reason.Selfstudier (talk) 19:14, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

That was based off your own admission the RFC was invalid, and as such other editors updated the edit-filter and WP:DEPS. nableezy - 19:21, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I've to say the initial comment with which you started this discussion did make it sound like you have vacated the close but since you're saying you haven't, feel free to restore its status. Perhaps I acted with too much haste. Honestly though, it might be a better idea to just start the new RfC because otherwise this has boiled down to endless bickering and ambiguity. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 19:24, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I am fine with that, but the status quo in the event of a no consensus should not be an invalid RFC. nableezy - 19:30, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

De-deprecate CounterPunch discussion has hit the archives without any conclusion and the Price CP rfc is also still running. Maybe both those should be closed and then rerun RFC? Selfstudier (talk) 19:32, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

nableezy, if it's no consensus then its status would just be "no consensus", like with any other RfC following an older RfC. Selfstudier, well, the archived discussion can't overturn an RfC and the Price CP RfC (if that even gets closed) would get overturned by the new RfC if there is a contradiction between the two. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 19:56, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

No consensus would default to the prior consensus if one is established. Which is why David really, really wants the result to stand even when he admits the RFC is itself wholly invalid. nableezy - 19:57, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't think that is how it has ever worked and you can just ask David Gerard what would happen if the new RfC leads to no consensus? Tayi Arajakate _Talk 20:01, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Everyone should just wait for a bloody close of this section here. Discussion is (and was) very much still ongoing here. --Mvbaron (talk) 19:15, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Can anybody please point to a consensus to deprecate CounterPunch? Because right now I am unaware of a single valid RFC for maintaining that deprecation. Anybody? nableezy - 21:21, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

RfC: RateYourMusic/Sonemic interviews.

Per this previous RfC, RateYourMusic is currently deprecated. I do not intend to overturn this ruling. However, starting in 2019, they started posting short interviews with some prominent musicians (including Sweet Trip, Lil Ugly Mane, Peter Kemper, and Injury Reserve). Here's a list of all the current ones. So my question is should we allow these interviews for artists' statement attributions? (e.g. "In an interview with RateYourMusic staff, Disasterpeace said "[insert quote here]")RadarStorm (talk) 02:40, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

• Yes; the last RfC involved the user-generated content on the site, which is clearly different from interviews conducted by staff. I don't see why this should be controversial at all. (Although I would probably attribute it to "Sonemic staff" in this case.) Gnomingstuff (talk) 08:30, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
• Yes, it's fine for statements by artists in an interview. However, I wouldn't use it for notability, some of the interviewees seem to be people who are users of the site (example 1, 2). I also wouldn't use any of the non-interview articles, especially the top lists which are user generated ratings without editorial control. RoseCherry64 (talk) 08:04, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
  • Marilyn Roxie is a staff member of the site: https://rateyourmusic.com/~MarilynRoxie Gnomingstuff (talk) 23:52, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

An "interviewee" is the person being interviewed. The person interviewing the subject is an "interviewer" (Marilyn Roxie in this case). There is a disclosed conflict of interest on a few of their interviews that the subject is an user of the site. However, this is not always the case. I did some digging on a few random artists and found out that at least one member of Fax Gang is an user of the site, at least according to an user list of musicians with a RYM account (said list, page 2). This conflict of interest is not disclosed in the article at all. Thus, using it for notability is not appropriate. RoseCherry64 (talk) 19:09, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Simon MacDowall/Osprey publishing

• MacDowall, Simon (2020). Malplaquet 1709: Marlborough’s Bloodiest Battle. Osprey. ISBN 978-1472841230.

Simon MacDowall appears to be an amateur historian. I was not sure if Osprey is seen as a reliable publisher, though they have published works by academic historians(ie. David Nicolle). Should Osprey titles be assessed on a case by case basis(ie. per the author(s))? --Kansas Bear (talk) 16:00, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Ishy. When they are good they are fine. But they do seem to also publish far too much by amateur historians (not helped by the fact many see them, in essence, as uniform guides with a bit of history tacked on for context). I think its needs to be done on a case-by-case basis.Slatersteven (talk) 16:41, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Military history is an unusual case in that a lot of work is done by non-academics; to give an extreme example David Glantz is the most influential English-language historian of the Eastern Front in WWII, notwithstanding his lack of a PhD. As Slatersteven said, Osprey is a bit of a mixed bag, but they're generally okay (at least for European military history). Usable, but should be replaced with better sources if possible. --RaiderAspect (talk) 02:45, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Verlag Dr. Kovač

Does anyone know anything about Verlag Dr. Kovač? Is it a reputable publisher? This query is prompted by me seeing that MigracijeHrvata has added references to books they've published to a significant number of articles. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:36, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Looks like it might be a pay-to-publish outfit. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:46, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Convenient contribs link -> contributions

The editor in question seems to add sources from only one author, there are journal articles also added not published by that publisher. Consider warning the editor that promotional WP:CITESPAM is not allowed and if they don't stop, go to ANI. RoseCherry64 (talk) 19:52, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

(Sorry, didn't realize you were an admin.) RoseCherry64 (talk) 19:56, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

No problem! Yes, I did consider that too. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:03, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank You! Verlag Dr. Kovač is a renowned publisher of scientific literature from Hamburg, Germany: https://www.verlagdrkovac.de/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by MigracijeHrvata (talk • contribs) 19:58, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

RfC: Politico update?

Due to the complexity related to WP:PIA, should there be there be changes to the WP:RSP listing of Politico similar to Fox News and Newsweek?

Below are a few proposals:

• Proposal 1: Create a note of a potential bias with current listing
• Proposal 2: Create a listing similar to the current Fox News listing specifically for Israel-Palestine topics, e.g. WP:GREL Politico (American politics) and WP:MREL Politico (Israel-Palestine topics)
• Proposal 3: Create a listing similar to the current Newsweek listing for the overall reliability of Politico, e.g. WP:GREL Politico (pre-2021) and WP:MREL Politico (2021–present)

Thanks for any support or comments ahead of time!--WMrapids (talk) 06:34, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (Politico)

Comment: Opening an RfC as recent changes could pose potential issues for WP:PIA related articles that have been subject to arbitration, requiring the community to take a look at updating an existing WP:RSP listing.

Knowing how controversial WP:PIA articles are, I do not even participate in them. However, the recent acquisition of Politico by Axel Springer SE has raised concerns about the company's journalistic objectivity. Haaretz has said that a "pro-Israel policy" now exists at Politico while FAIR wrote that pro-Israel advocacy was introduced and its parent company has "No semblance of objectivity".

Currently, I made an edit recognizing this new distinction of a possible pro-Israel bias.--WMrapids (talk) 06:34, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

• These are concerns about possible bias rather than reporting on actual biased material, so I think it's too early to add such clarifications. FAIR, being a media bias watchdog, criticise everyone which does not mean we should add their every comment to the WP:RSP. As an example, should we say that the NYT is biased towards billionaires based on this? Alaexis_¿question? 06:57, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
  • @Alaexis: You are missing the point. The alleged support is not only sourced by FAIR and is more than a simple bias, it is now company policy. As Haaretz notes, Mathias Döpfner says that support for Israel, a "united Europe" and free market economics "are like a constitution, they apply to every employee of our company" and that workers who do not comply "should not work for Axel Springer, very clearly".--WMrapids (talk) 22:19, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
    • Worth noting that Haaretz's source, the WSJ, phrases it in a slightly more nuanced manner, as "support for ... Israel's right to exist", rather than "support for Israel", with the former appearing to be much more limited than the latter. On the EU and free market economics, though two match, although the WSJ phrases the later as "support for ... a free-market economy". BilledMammal (talk) 09:12, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
• If there are RS stating that politico is biased in one field, then it should be mentioned at "perennial sources". Cinadon36 07:06, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
  • @Cinadon36: Well, Haaretz, currently recognized as generally reliable, has described Politico as "pro-Israel", which is why it is currently mentioned. Are you agreeing with proposal 1?--WMrapids (talk) 07:30, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
    • Yes @WMrapids: I am for proposal 1. Apologies for not making that clear in my previous comment. Cinadon36 07:34, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

    The Haaretz itself marked as biased regarding the conflict Shrike (talk) 10:26, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

• The Haaretz source references an interview in the Wall Street Journal, where Springer CEO stated that he expects "Politico staffers to adhere to Axel Springer-wide guiding principles include support for a united Europe, Israel’s right to exist and a free-market economy, among others." If we are to consider them biased on any one of these topics on this basis then we must consider them biased on all - but I don't believe that this is sufficient evidence for doing so. I would also note that FAIR (1 2) was a controversial source a decade ago; I don't know if things have changed since then? BilledMammal (talk) 07:55, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
  • @BilledMammal: Thanks for bringing up the background on FAIR. It looks like one of those discussions was regarding a singular opinion on FAIR's website? Since there are multiple sources involved with the description of Politico and we are not using WP:OR, should there be less issues with this? Again, this discussion was created as a collective effort to make decisions on how to describe Politico as a source (especially in the context of WP:PIA), with this decision being based on descriptions from reliable sources.--WMrapids (talk) 22:43, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
• Bad RfC. What is your brief and neutral statement? Make the case for the change in the discussion, not in the same section that you're introducing the RfC question. This should be procedurally closed if the RfC prompt isn't cleaned up. — Mhawk10 (talk) 08:12, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
  • I would think the discussion should also ask whether a note should be added to the RSP entry, rather than starting with a note added and asking if we should go further - particularly as the note says "recognized as", rather than the softer terminology used in the RFC statement of "possible". BilledMammal (talk) 08:35, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
    • @BilledMammal: I can agree with the softer terminology and thank you for noting this. @Mhawk10:, not too familiar with RfCs and this was my best attempt of bringing up the issue at hand while trying to remain neutral, but I can move the details to this discussion section.--WMrapids (talk) 22:03, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
• News Sources should not be used by encyclopedias I'm going to keep harping on this but I don't think news sources, like Politico, are relevant to an encyclopedia project. As such, on the basis of it being a news source, I'd recommend against its use on Wikipedia. Period. Simonm223 (talk) 13:35, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
• Bad RfC as above. RfC isn't for general discussion. As for not using news sources, that makes no sense to me. A large number of our articles are of necessity heavily based on news sources. Doug Weller talk 16:55, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
  • @Doug Weller: This is not just for general discussion, this is about changing a WP:RSP listing that was already determined through a previous RfC. --WMrapids (talk) 22:31, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
    • @Doug Weller: I am very consistent in my opinion that any article that depends on newsmedia to have "reliably" sourced entries is probably subject to far too much WP:RECENTISM to be treated as encyclopedic in scope. I am sure you will recall this is far from the first time I've decried the use of newsmedia to bulk up Wikipedia's vain attempts to be a news aggregator. Simonm223 (talk) 14:57, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
• Elaborate on how it is WP:BIASED but otherwise wait and see. While the current version says a "small number" of editors consider it biased, this obviously changes that and we ought to discuss it and elaborate a bit on, more specifically, the ways that the new policy biases it - it seems hard to interpret an outright policy setting rigid ideological expectations any other way. But beyond a note about potential bias, that alone isn't enough to affect a source's reliability. We should come back later once there has been time for secondary sources to discuss the actual impact that this policy had on the accuracy of their reporting before we do anything beyond elaborating on their bias. --Aquillion (talk) 05:36, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
  • @Aquillion: Not trying to put words in your mouth, but are you implying that you support Option 1? And did you mean "reliability" instead of "notability"?--WMrapids (talk) 20:51, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

    Oops, yes, reliability. And the current version already notes bias concerns, but I suppose I'd say 'option 1 in terms of expanding that note, since clearly this makes the bias concerns more significant; it just needs a few additional words per [40] mentioning that they have potential bias stemming from a controversial statement of guiding principles that requires support for a united Europe, Israel’s right to exist and a free-market economy. It's important to note that the ideological requirements to work at Politico under the new management go beyond just stuff about Israel. I'd also note that while some people say we should wait and see to even note the bias, we do have coverage indicating that the policy changes introduce bias - we need to wait and see for more information about their reliability, definitely, but when a source openly declares their bias and says that people who don't share those views shouldn't work there, there isn't really anything left to debate or to wait and see on. --Aquillion (talk) 21:02, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

• Bad RfC As per others. Also "Israel right to exist" is shared by every respectable newspaper on the right and on the left so I don't see any real bias issues --Shrike (talk) 17:19, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
• Bad RfC. Provide a statement that describes the situation in as neutral tone as is possible. This isn't optional, it's part of the RfC process. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:56, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
• Comment: @Shrike: @Shibbolethink: Can you explain how the updated proposal is not neutral? This is easy to change without dismissing the proposals entirely. How else would you make a proposal more neutral when you have to raise an issue like this? Shrike, no one is arguing about Israel's "right to exist", this is about reliable sources discussing a possible pro-Israel bias, with one RS writing that "New Politico Owner Says Will Enforce pro-Israel Policy". So let's not move the goalposts on this. Notes of bias are present throughout the WP:RSP listings; an example of this would be the the WP:RSP listing for the Anti-Defamation League ("Some editors consider the ADL a biased source for Israel/Palestine related topics that should be used with caution, if at all").--WMrapids (talk) 20:40, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

  I would want to see an overall landscape of how different sources view Politico, not just the negative criticism. That is one way I think it could be improved if it were reopened. At this point, I agree it is A) likely premature and B) not likely to achieve a lasting consensus on this issue. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:56, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

  The point is the premise of "Israel right to exist" is not sign of any bias as it supported by almost by everyone Shrike (talk) 05:37, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

• This RFC is premature at this point and I believe it should be closed. If actual problems arise in the future we can revisit the issue then. Calidum 20:47, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Just to be clear, while I can understand waiting and seeing in terms of reliability (which is more about their long-term reputation), when it comes to WP:BIAS, we already have several pieces (like the WSJ) describing the statement of principles requiring support for a united Europe, Israel’s right to exist and a free-market economy. If that isn't sufficient to consider a source biased, what sort of coverage are you waiting on? (ie. what would convince you, in terms of what we should wait for before running a second RFC?) Because AFAIK we have normally taken overt statements of intent from a company to cover particular topics in particular ways, coupled with secondary sourcing covering those statements, as sufficient to describe them as WP:BIASED in those areas. --Aquillion (talk) 21:10, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
    • I suppose it will come down to the question of whether these positions are "extraordinary" and indicate bias. Their full "Principles and Values" as of October 2021 are as follows:
      1. We stand up for freedom, the rule of law, democracy and a united Europe.
      2. We support the Jewish people and the right of existence of the State of Israel.
      3. We advocate the transatlantic alliance between the United States of America and Europe.
      4. We uphold the principles of a free market economy and its social responsibility.
      5. We reject political and religious extremism and all forms of racism and sexual discrimination.

    To me, none of these come across as "extraordinary", and many of them align with editorial guidelines issued by other organizations, such as the BBC on racism; it comes close in a few areas ("united Europe" and "transatlantic alliance"), but even there I don't feel the principles themselves cross the line, and so I would want to see the implications of that in practice before we rule on whether it is biased in such areas. BilledMammal (talk) 22:22, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

    While it seems unusual to me to have an explicit editorial line like that at the level of the parent company, it is not really all that much different from a newspaper stating its editorial line outright. The Guardian describes its parent as a safeguard to its “liberal values”, for example, while the opinion pages of the WSJ are run under the banner of support for “democratic self-government and the freedom of individuals to make their own economic choices.” If Politico’s news content is shifted in after its acquisition by Axel Springer; then there might be ample concerns about WP:BIASED. But, such bias does not appear to be showing up thus far. — Mhawk10 (talk) 14:26, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment Yes, we usually want RfC's to have more specific bullet points than this, but stepping back from the procedural nitty-gritty, I'd say it's pretty clear that we should note the owner's stated intent to push an ideological line. XOR'easter (talk) 17:05, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

  Do they plan to do this mainly through opinion pieces, or will this affect news coverage? If it is the former, then is it really unlike the British quality press? — Mhawk10 (talk) 23:15, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose This is a misunderstanding of the policy in question and the discussion it has triggered: Axel Springer, as a German publisher founded in the immediate aftermath of the war, adopted these principles and values to signal a clear break with Nazi ideology and to align itself with center-right politics during the cold war, supporting NATO and transatlanticism in contrast to ideas of the time to triangulate between the US and the Soviet Union.

The actual statements (see above) are vague, and you won't find a single mainstream US journalist who would disagree with them. "Democracy dies in Darkness", the Washington Post prints in its masthead every weekday. Should we note that the paper has an obvious pro-democracy (or anti-darkness) bias? That the issue has come up is mostly due to Springer's inability to find a good way of denying claims that they are abandoning those principles. When they say they "expect" staff follow these principles, it is meant as a descriptive argument supporting the decision not to make them sign the document in writing. And they want to avoid the latter because the whole act is a pompous anachronism that only barely works for their German employees, where they can point at tradition to legitimize it. --K. Oblique 12:12, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I have the same concern about South China Morning Post, because it belongs to Alibaba Group, which is increasingly coming under to state control. But it's too early to call the reliability of its reporting into question. LondonIP (talk) 03:42, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. Politico is major media source with a track record as a responsible reputable Reliable Source. Absent evidence of any actual problem, the fact that a reputable reliable major media source does not espouse the destruction of a country hardly renders its factual-reporting or opinion outside the ordinary expected range of Reliable Source coverage. I suspect that exactly no one at Politico opposes the existence of Canada. If some reporter actively opposed the existence of Canada, and that actively manifested in their work product, I would not consider it particularly shocking if that employer were to reevaluate whether their work-product was suitable for continued employment. Alsee (talk) 07:36, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. I don't know how I missed this discussion earlier, but there are at least a couple of things that I need to point out, since I haven't seen someone mention them above.
  1. FAIR is itself biased.
  2. Haaretz can be biased in the PIA area, per WP:RSN.
  3. Even if Haaretz were to be interpreted as completely unbiased, WP:HEADLINE applies. The article linked above does not allege "pro-Israel" policy outside of the clickbait headline. What they allege is a policy affirming Israel's right to exist, which is different from a policy mandating biased reporting.
  4. ∴ We shouldn't accept mud-slinging, sensationalism, and scaremongering on behalf of various media outlets as an excuse to effectively delegitimize a useful source. AlexEng^(TALK) 07:56, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
• Comment It won't take long to figure out if there is a bias. "Right to exist" is a leading indicator. Selfstudier (talk) 18:30, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Comment: Well, it may be a good idea to keep an eye on Politico, especially with the recent "Sotomayor sighting" that they published. The Guardian reports that there were possibly failures on multiple levels of their reporting regarding the story (the tipster, those who verified, those who made contact and those who issued the correction). Though it is admirable that Politico did issue corrections, it was reported that three different corrections were released in total. In summary, I agree with those who say we should wait and see and thank you to everyone who was involved in this RfC.--WMrapids (talk) 04:34, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Museum exhibit catalogs

While these questions has arisen with regard to a couple of particular articles, they might be of general interest.

• Is an art museum "exhibit catalog" a reliable source?
• Is it a publication which can be listed as an accomplishment in an article about the author, particularly in a BLP?

Art museums exhibit catalogs range from books containing little more than reproductions of the works in the show, perhaps with an introductory essay; to books with substantial text comparable to academic publications in art history. However, they are basically self-published works, since they are really part of the promotional package for the exhibit. Often they are entirely the product of the museum director or the curator of the exhibit, which may be the same person in a small museum. The publishers for these catalogs specialize in this market, producing whatever the client wants. They may end up in libraries, but the majority are coffee table books.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 20:12, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I would say this has to be considered on a case-by-case basis. In general I would treat them as high-quality WP:ABOUTSELF things (possibly written by experts) for the reasons you mention - they have an incentive to be promotional, so we should be cautious about exceptional or glaringly self-serving claims, and shouldn't cite them for puffery or the like. But they're otherwise high-quality and can be cited for uncontroversial details about exhibits or for dry summaries of what the museum has on display. I would say that they are sufficient for the bare statement of "artist had a work in museum X" (in the same way that we accept citations to unreliable or even depreciated sources to establish the bare fact that a particular writer was published there), but not for anything more exceptional or "puffery"-style, ie. you can't use it to say that the piece is extremely important and significant, only the bare fact that it was in the museum. WP:DUE weight might also be a concern depending on the museum's significance - an artist's work being shown off in the Met is obviously noteworthy; a small-town local cultural museum might not be. --Aquillion (talk) 21:35, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I disagree that they should be treated as ABOUTSELF for the more well established museums, because they are not covering themselves they are covering the works they host. You can probably find other sources for what it says, like there are surely other published works about Portrait of a Cardinal (Raphael) than the Prado's guide, but is the Prado's guide reliable and secondary about that work? Yes. nableezy - 22:58, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, with regard to my question #1, the status of what is published in an exhibit catalog would not be as reliable as anything written by a professor of art history with no connection to the show, and for major artists or works the latter would likely be available to cite. However, occasionally an exhibit at a major museum will have a theme or be a retrospective bringing together a unique collection of works; in which case the written text may also be unique. It is very much case-by-case, but the commercial incentive to be less academically detached is there, even if the curator is a PhD art historian. Perhaps the test would be to locate the catalog in a library collection, which indicates it was published as a scholarly work rather than being an expensive souvenir.

With regard to my second question, I am referring to a particular BLP which had a long list of books published by the subject of the article, but the majority were exhibit catalogs with him as author or editor because he was the curator/director, which is not ABOUTSELF but is likely puffery.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 03:42, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I would assume that the majority of all art catalogs are in at least one library due to legal deposit. RoseCherry64 (talk) 08:39, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

• The reliability of a museum catalog would have a LOT to do with the general reputation of the museum itself; I would be more likely to trust something from say the National Gallery of Art or the Victoria and Albert Museum than I would from Billy Bob's Backyard Art Jamboree. --Jayron32 00:37, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

It's hard to consider a blanket reliability of art catalogs for living artists. Some catalogs contain independent essays written by experts, some might be like quoting the official website of the artist. I would not use them for opinion on living artists work, unless it's an essay or some other piece not written by the curator but someone who would be reasonably independent. RoseCherry64 (talk) 08:39, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I still think that depends. For example, works of the Metropolitan Museum of Art are professional and scholarly, and would be totally fine in a BLP. World-class museums can have the same level of scholarship as world class universities (eg this from the Met is written by Vassos Karageorghis, Gloria Merker, and Joan Mertens. It is a work of scholarship, as are pretty much all of the Met's publications, including its guidebook). And some of them should be treated essentially as university presses. nableezy - 16:12, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

That is an excellent source and certainly one that should not be doubted due to it being published by a museum.

Don't get me wrong, I think museum publications are often of great quality and reliability, but not all of them might be sufficiently independent from the subject itself, if the subject was heavily involved in the exhibition (example: a solo exhibit of a living artists' own work), I think it should be treated as a non-independent promotional source, fine to cite for general background information but with some considerations about its neutrality. RoseCherry64 (talk) 23:55, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah I dont think we really disagree, I think as with most things on this board the answer is it depends. WriterArtistDC, what are the specifics here? What source and what article? nableezy - 00:41, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

The general RS issue is citing text published in an exhibit catalog compared to the same sort of content citing an independently published book. I think the "it depends" answer has been sufficiently fleshed out above: if the museum is academically solid, then its ok. However there are museums with significant collections that are the pet projects of billionaires. Are the catalogs likely to say anything negative or controversial? With regard to the second question, the specific article is the BLP for Tobias G. Natter, which in addition to a lack of reliable sources the article has a long list of exhibit catalogs (many from the same museum) where he is credited as the author/editor. --WriterArtistDC (talk) 01:44, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

With regard to Tobias G. Natter, his exhibition catalogues aren't being used as reliable sources, so the question isn't really relevant. It is common practice for wikipedia articles to list the books that a writer and academics have authored or edited, and what exactly should be included in these publication lists is a matter of editorial judgement and not a question of whether or not they are reliable sources for wikipedia's purposes – so for instance we list Michael Baigent's publications because that's what he is known for, even though they are generally considered to be nonsense. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 10:27, 14 January 2022 (UTC)