Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 408

Archive 405

Archive 406

Archive 407

Archive 408

Archive 409

Archive 410

→

Archive 415

RfC: Is the Guardian generally reliable?

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.

---

Which of the following best describes the reliability of the Guardian?

• 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 as in the 2017 RfC of the Daily Mail

81.214.107.198 (talk) 12:11, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3 In this news report, it claims that Donald Trump called a TV presenter "nasty woman", when she was asking him a question. But actual footage shows that the woman was repeatedly interrupting Donald Trump and not letting him answer the question. Furthermore, Trump didn't call her "nasty woman" but "nasty person"; The Guardian intentionally changed his words to make it sound misogynistic. --81.214.107.198 (talk) 12:16, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1 Like any source, it's not 100% infallible, and in that one specific case it mis-transcribed "person" for "woman", but to suggest the Guardian did this in bad faith is pure speculation. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:19, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
• Note I just blocked this IP for a week for edit warring, personal attacks, and generally disruptive editing. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:19, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

We need more than one mistake. Slatersteven (talk) 12:20, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

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

whynow.co.uk

This article by whynow.co.uk is being used in the article Fishtank (web series). There is currently a deletion discussion for the page and the reliability of whynow will be useful for determining how significant the coverage of the series has been in RSes. Thanks. Alduin2000 (talk) 15:54, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

I say this publication is marginally reliable. Its about page contained no info about its editorial team and I saw only one use by others. But it seems like a decently large media organization with many staffs. Carpimaps ^{talk to me!} 00:42, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Who's Who in Ghana

Used as a biographical reference in Samuel Amo Tobbin, but the article's nominator at AfD says Who's Who in Ghana isn't a reliable source. I would treat Who's Who in Ghana like other national biographical directories. This reference (the only hit on Google Scholar) appears to be to an unrelated and much earlier Who's Who in Ghana: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&q="Who's Who in Ghana"&btnG= Two websites, and I don't quite see why: https://whoswhoghana.app/ and https://whoswhoghana.com If it's a reliable source, editors could use it to create more articles about notable Ghana people, who are probably underrepresented in Wikipedia. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 23:55, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I spent sometime looking into it, and editors should be weary of any "Who's who" as many are pay for inclusion. However this does seem to be legitimate. Inclusion wouldn't be enough for notability on its own and I'm not making comment on the other references, but this does look like a reliable source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:36, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

In theory, such publication should have some editorial controls, even if most of the entries are submitted by the subjects. So yes, I'd call them reliable (except for REDFLAG statements), but not sufficient for notability due to "pay us to include you" business mentality pervasive for such publiciations. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:11, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Sources on Holocaust death toll

Sources on the Holocaust give varying estimates for the total number of non-combatants killed by the Nazis.

An argument is made at Talk:Holocaust that the following sources are not sufficiently reliable to illustrate the upper end of that range of estimates in The_Holocaust#Death toll.

The sources, all of which indicate a figure of around 17 million, are:

1. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Documenting numbers of victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution
   • This provides a table of estimates for different groups, summing to a total in excess of 17 million.
   • For citations and mentions of this USHMM page in Google Scholar you can paste https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=0&q="Documenting numbers of victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution" ushmm&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5 into your browser
   • For citations and mentions of this USHMM page in Google Books you can paste https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&hs=oBf&q="Documenting numbers of victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution" ushmm&tbm=bks&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjmyPOlvLj_AhUOWcAKHRz0CqwQ0pQJegQIJxAB&biw=1547&bih=1592&dpr=1.2 into your browser
2. Donald Niewyk, Francis R. Nicosia: The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust (Columbia University Press, 2000, republished 2012)
   • This states that a Holocaust death toll including Gypsies, the disabled, Soviet prisoners of war, Polish and Soviet civilians, political prisoners, religious dissenters and homosexuals would require acknowledging as many as 17,000,000 victims.
   • Cited e.g. by Amos N. Guiora: Tolerating Intolerance (Oxford University Press, 2014).
3. Martin Gilbert: The Holocaust: The Human Tragedy (Collins 1986, Rosetta 2014)
   • This states that As well as six million Jews who were murdered, more than ten million other non-combatants were killed by the Nazis.

Are these sources reliable enough to give a figure of around 17 million to illustrate the upper range of death toll estimates in The Holocaust? Andreas JN466 10:46, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

No one there has disputed that these are potentially RS, the dispute is about choosing among various RS. I don’t see any advantage in splitting the discussion, it should continue on the talk page. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 11:47, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

• Comment In addition to what 100.36 said above, we also need to be careful that whatever sources for the toll we cite have a definition of the Holocaust consistent with what we are using in The Holocaust article. Picking the scope of the article based upon one set of sources and a toll based upon another set that uses a wider/narrower definition will lead to factual errors and be a form of source misrepresentation. Abecedare (talk) 13:33, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

  For reference, we currently say in The Holocaust#Death toll that in addition to the six million Jews murdered, A similar or larger number of non-Jewish civilians and POWs—estimated by Gerlach at 6 to 8 million—were killed by Germany and its allies.

  The question is about the range of estimates for non-Jewish civilians and POWs killed by the Nazis. Gerlach's estimate of 6 to 8 million (for an overall total of 12 to 14 million) is lower than

  • the 6 million Jewish over 11 million non-Jewish non-combatants listed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,
  • the 17 million total given by Niewyk & Nicosia in the Columbia Guide to the Holocaust, and
  • the over 16 million given by Martin Gilbert.

  The definitions used by these three sources are as follows:

  • The USHMM page specifically lists Jewish and non-Jewish "civilians and captured soldiers" (exactly the same as Gerlach).
  • The Columbia Guide refers to Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, Soviet POWs, Polish and Soviet civilians, political/religious dissenters and homosexuals (i.e. various groups of civilians and POWs).
  • Gilbert refers to Jews and "other non-combatants" ("civilians" plus "prisonders-of-war").

  So the definitions match. It is the figures that don't. The question is whether the higher figures given by these three sources are sufficiently reliable to be quoted in the section. Andreas JN466 15:56, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

• This is a pointless and unhelpful post. No one is saying that the sources are not at all usable on Wikipedia, only that there are better sources for this particular information. (t · c) buidhe 16:21, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

  I am asking specifically whether these sources are reliable enough to use as an illustration of the upper end of the range of estimates. Buidhe has argued[1], for each of them, that they are not reliable enough to be used for that purpose in the article, and suggested no alternative source naming these or similar figures. What we currently have in the article is a single estimate that is over 3 to 5 million lower than the figure given by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Andreas JN466 16:26, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

  Note that the argument you described and the argument in the linked diffs are substantially different... I know you didn't mean to misrepresent them but saying that its not good enough for FA is not the same as saying "that they are not reliable enough to be used for that purpose in the article" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:14, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

  Buidhe keeps removing the higher estimate from the article (which, by the way, is not an FA) to leave Gerlach as the only estimate given. I can give a practical demonstration, if you like. Andreas JN466 17:19, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

  Maybe instead of treating it like a battleground you take a second to try and understand where Buidhe is coming from. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:21, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

  I assure you I have thought about it – this discussion has gone on for a while – but I am simply not convinced that I should pay Buidhe's viewpoints more attention than whatever Gilbert, Niewyk and Nicosia, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have written about this topic. They are all known quantities in the field, with an international academic reputation. Buidhe is not. Moreover, Buidhe has not presented a single source arguing that any of these sources are unreasonable, or gravely mistaken.

  If Buidhe would like to get the USHMM, Niewyk and Nicosia to change their figures, then all well and good. Until such time, they are reliable sources, entitled according to our policies to have their views represented in our article on The Holocaust, and Buidhe is not. Doing what Buidhe wants would be to accept that a widely cited page on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website, The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust and Gilbert's book are WP:Fringe publications. That is just one bridge too far for me. Regards, Andreas JN466 17:44, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

  They do not at all appear to be saying that these sources are fringe publications (per their comments here and there they don't even appear to be disputing their reliability at all). Also note that if your beef is with editor behavior and not actually a reliability dispute then this was the wrong forum to bring your issue to. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:01, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

  Maybe instead of treating it like a battleground you take a second to try and understand where Buidhe is coming from. Maybe you could take a look at the discussion, which I just read in its entirety. I have enough else to do and don't intend to participate in this discussion, but yeah, it's a battleground and IMHO it isn't because of Jayen466. Buidhe has unilaterally redefined the Holocaust to include only Jews for a start. I've suggested that it's a WP: COMMON issue, to no particular avail, but maybe I just haven't been far enough back in the archives to see where the ngrams got pulled out. I am somewhat neutral on that subject, but the question needs to be resolved, say I, as someone who's been rehabbing Collaboration with the Axis powers for a few months now and is at the moment *not* using the Jews-only definition.

If we're going to make The Holocaust only about Jews in concentration camps, then we are going to need several new articles, though, and would do well to establish the topic architecture now. And until these articles are created, I see no reason why cited material about atrocities against the Roma or the Poles or anyone else should be wholesale deleted. There is no question that these numbers, whatever they might be, amount to notability.

Getting back to the numbers. All of my experience at this board says that if author A says x and author B says y then we teach the controversy and say that author A says x and author B says y. What we don't do is wave a hand at some unspecified archive and say it proves...whatever. Buidhe however believes she is right and is fighting hard to disallow the numbers at the higher end, citing various reasons. Possibly so they don't become fodder for a DUE argument? Hard to tell, since Buidhe is not exactly communicative.

Oh and sorry to dump all this as a reply to you, as some of it you probably haven't noticed, but Jayen is not the one with the battle ground mentality. I also invite interested editors to examine the carnage at Holocaust in Poland.

As for "wrong forum", hehe, AE thinks these are content disputes she is having. So let us talk content then. Without regard to who is causing the dispute, does it have any merit? That is what I would like to know. Elinruby (talk) 18:10, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Those sources seem reliable to me. Regarding "there are better sources", well, that's debatable. Those sources are reliable and new. Who says that, for example, USHMM estimate is "not good enough" to be cited? The page cited above ([2]) is good enough for numerous books to cite it, for example, and while the quality of those books vary, some look relevant and reliable... _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:26, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Google searches to establish common name - one book shows up about 5080 times

I hope this is the right place. At Talk:Genesis creation narrative#Requested move 7 June 2023 we are discussing using Google sources. A Google scholar search for "Genesis story"[3] gives about 14,000 hits. Besides the fact that I'm not sure that at times it isn't picking up the two words separately, not as a phrase,[4] the book Noah's Flood: The Genesis Story in Western Thought shows up about 5080 times.[5] And of course Google scholar picks up unpublished works, self-published works and fringe. Doug Weller talk 14:29, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Should I bring this up somewhere else? Doug Weller talk 07:03, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

User:Doug Weller: Google Books Ngrams Viewer -- GreenC 06:29, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

@GreenC Yes, but how does that meeet my concerns? I see criticisms of it on various grounds not including my comments about self-published and fringe sources. Our article on it says "it is risky to use this corpus to study language or test theories". Doug Weller talk 07:01, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Rediff for politics?

I wish to understand what is the general consensus about use of Rediff.com as a source here. I recently started a discussion about MSN which educated me that MSN is just a web portal and not highly reliable and I tend to see Rediff in the same way and wished to understand if that is really so. Particularly, is Rediff reliable to be used in political reporting and opinionated pieces?

I came across Bhartiya Gau Raksha Dal using this rediff source which was written by one Syed Firdaus Ashraf who doesn't appear to be any journalist or expert on the topics being covered these are all extremely opinionated pieces. Do these qualify as fit for encyclopedic usage? >>> Extorc.talk 19:39, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Radio New Zealand (RNZ)

A journalist employed by Radio New Zealand dishonestly edited wire stories (mostly from Reuters) to fit a Russian propaganda angle. Employee in question is placed on leave and RNZ is investigating. They say this may have gone on for as long as about five years. They've corrected at least 22 articles so far; the altered versions may have been captured in web archives however and it's plausible someone might use them as a citation. I'm not proposing any changes to the reliability status of RNZ, but just making this board aware. Sources: RNZ, CNN, AP. VintageVernacular (talk) 06:59, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Forbes Councils

I suspect that the answer to this is obvious, but since it's another weird term from Forbes I thought I'd double-check here in case anyone can spot anything I missed. Forbes now has articles like this, which look similar to their Contributor ones, but which, instead of having a byline of "contributor", describe the author as a "Forbes Councils Member" and, perhaps most amusingly, "Forbes Technology Council - COUNCIL POST - Membership (fee-based)". The description of Forbes councils says that Forbes Councils is an invitation-only, professional organization where top CEOs and entrepreneurs like you build professional skills and gain connections and visibility on Forbes.com., but, as noted, these are also fee-based, eg. from here (Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only, fee-based organization comprised of leading CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. I assume that these are just like Contributor pieces in that they have no actual editorial controls or fact-checking, and are therefore not WP:RSes. Should a note to this effect be added to WP:FORBESCON? I wouldn't usually ask when there's no active disputes over it, but this seems specifically intended to cause confusion between these pieces and actual news reporting by Forbes, and is subtle enough that it's likely to be missed. --Aquillion (talk) 18:12, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Am I mistaken in thinking this looks like pay to publish? Springee (talk) 18:16, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

I think adding this to WP:FORBESCON is a good idea. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 18:25, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

yeah, Forbes Councils is pay-to-publish. Here's how it works. We've discussed it a couple of times before: [6] [7] At best contributor, at worst paid advertising. We should definitely be noting it on RSN, this is the third discussion - David Gerard (talk) 13:46, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

The Bulwark

According to its own wikipedia article, The Bulwark is an American neoconservative anti-trump news website. I have never heard of them before, but in the 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive, specifically the Analysis section, the Bulwark is mentioned as:

According to The Bulwark, Ukrainian victory in the war "hinged" on victory in the offensive.

I have never heard of the Bulwark before, nor are they present on WP:RSP, so I am wondering if such a grandiose claim should be included in the article, especially since its from a less than major source. Scu ba (talk) 16:21, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken they had a recent reorganization and attracted some new writers. Generally reliable though may be biased. I think in terms of RS this is probably fine with attribution but a different concern is WP:NOTNEWS - will this still be relevant in a couple months or even weeks? Volunteer Marek 23:14, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

That sounds like an opinion statement. Seems WP:UNDUE in any case. As for The Bulwark generally, every piece of theirs I looked at appears to be an opinion piece:

[8] -- repeatedly talks about "dysfunction".

[9] -- "Here on earth, a**h****s are rewarded constantly with no sign of karmic abatement."

[10] -- Talking about Pence's campaign launch and accusing him of hypocrisy for backing the rule of law but not the Trump indictment.

[11]

"I do not love Chris Christie". Adoring nanny (talk) 23:42, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

If we use it, I'd attribute it to the author rather than the publication. The author is William Nattrass, a freelance journalist. See his output here for consideration of whether he is an authoritative voice: https://authory.com/williamnattrass Bylines on international relations and geopolitics in RSs such as Politico, Telegraph, New York Times - but also in less reliable Spectator, UnHerd. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:36, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Did we consider Weekly Standard RS? Seems to have same editorial team and stable of writers. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:37, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Pretty familiar with them, pre-Weekly Standard hires. I'd classify them either as an advocacy group (for what could be called "establishment Republicanism" or "neoconservatism", meant non-pejoratively), or as an opinion site. Neither would make this claim due: it's an opinion piece, outside their domain (domestic American politics, not military strategy). I also can't find the quote in the citation. DFlhb (talk) 02:42, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

YI will confess I like and read The Bulwark, but yes, it is basically entirely opinion. Fine to use attributed, but I also agree that not due in this particular case. Might be worth using on intraparty Republican dynamics, but we shall see if it ever comes up. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 02:50, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Rambler (portal) and 5TV (Russian TV channel)

These two sources - 5TV (Russian TV channel), controlled by Russian propaganda network RT and Rambler (portal), a web portal owned byRussian government bank Sberbank - are being used in the article on the Graham Phillips article to make "heroic" claims about the subject, whom other, actually reliable, sources describe as simply a pro-Putin propagandist who helps to spread pro-Kremlin conspiracy theories.

IMO it's pretty obvious neither of these are reliable but wanted to check in here first. Volunteer Marek 23:13, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, anything owned by Russia is not reliable. For that matter, I wish we would make a rule that nothing owned by any totalitarian gov't is reliable, ever. Adoring nanny (talk) 01:38, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

I'd support that. Why not start an RfC :) _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:43, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

I started writing an essay to this effect a few months ago, but I never got far enough to actually publish it. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:53, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Anyone wanna remove the relevant text based on these sources? Volunteer Marek 23:23, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Acceptable use of primary sources on non-independent websites

Is it acceptable to include in articles references to primary sources (newspaper photostats, photocopies of signed eye-witness testimony, or photocopies of signed/sealed letters, etc.) that are hosted on websites that are not independent? For example, a personal website of a member of the clergy that hosts many articles in support of a specific point of view regarding a topic (non-independent), in addition to hosting many primary source documents concerning that topic/event. Arkenstrone (talk) 00:40, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

No. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:52, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm no wiki-lawyer, but I think a blanket "No" is too simple. It depends on context, but copies of newspaper articles should be OK whether you find them in an archive at your university library or uploaded on a website. Assuming the newspaper is otherwise reliable, and there is no reason to suspect tampering with the copy. You may have issues with WP:NPOV, however, if you try to use too much from such a website, because the available newspaper copies will be biased. As for testimony or letters, WP:PRIMARY says "Historical documents such as diaries are primary sources." and this may apply to letters. You may run afoul of issues with "reputably published", however. I think there are likely more issues with "testimony". Good luck. -- Yae4 (talk) 02:58, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

The newspapers should be reliable, you are citing the newspaper where a copy is hosted doesn't change that. Eye-witness testimonies and letters would be primary documents, and as Yae4 said they need to have been published by a reputable publisher. If this is the only place they are published they may not be usable. Given this appears to be a religious matter I would also point you towards WP:EXCEPTIONAL. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 12:17, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks @Yae4 and @ActivelyDisinterested for your helpful comments. Your explanations clarify things quite a bit. Arkenstrone (talk) 06:34, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

3 sources

Hello. I'd like to get feedback whether the following sources are reliable scholarly sources (whether they're in line with WP:SCHOLARSHIP): Živić, T., & Vranješ, A. (2017). Josip Juraj Strossmayer: A Statesman of Culture. Култура/Culture, 6(14), 136-144 ISSN 1857-7725; Volarić, K. (2014). Between the Ottoman and Serbian States: Carigradski Glasnik, an Istanbul-based Paper of Ottoman Serbs, 1895-1909. The Hungarian Historical Review, 3(3), 560–586. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43264423; Lazarević, D. (2015). The politics of heritage in the West Balkans: the evolution of nation-building and the invention of national narratives as a consequence of political changes. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. StephenMacky1 (talk) 17:53, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Reliability depends on the context. What statements do you want to base on these sources? Alaexis_¿question? 18:07, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

They're already cited in articles. The first and third source are cited to support a specific case of historical negationism in wikivoice (as can be seen in Historiography in North Macedonia and Bulgarian Folk Songs), while the second source is used to support biographical and historical information (as can be seen in Temko Popov), but it's attributed. The first and third source especially do not appear to be sufficiently reliable to me, considering the seriousness of the case. I'm not sure about the second source. StephenMacky1 (talk) 19:19, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for providing context. For the benefit of everyone else, the claim being sourced to Lazarević is that the Macedonian state archive at some point published a scan of the Bulgarian Folk Songs book cutting off the word "Bulgarian." Do you have specific concerns about this assertion or the author? Has anyone said that it didn't happen? Have her other works been criticised? Alaexis_¿question? 11:44, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Also, what is the problem with the article by Živić and Vranješ? Unlike Lazarević's work it's not a thesis but a published article. Alaexis_¿question? 11:47, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your interest in resolving the matter. I'd like to point out that I was the one who cited the article by Živić and Vranješ a while ago, so my only concern with that source is that it's not cited in the literature at all. Otherwise it directly supports the statement about the Macedonian State Archive, unlike Lazarević's source. The answer to all of your questions about Lazarević's source is no. StephenMacky1 (talk) 12:06, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

The PhD thesis has been cited once according to Google scholar, and was apparently supervised by Dr Peter Guest who appears to be an archaeologist/numismatist with no particular expertise in the Balkans. Given the contentiousness of Balkan politics, I would generally be very cautious about using it – though as Alaexis says, it's always easier to assess reliability if you give more specific details. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:54, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi everybody. I will allow myself to intervene in the discussion, since I am the editor who used the sources in question. They concerns a rather very delicate and complex context, namely the Macedonian question and more specifically Macedonian historiography, Macedonian nationalism and Bulgaria–North Macedonia relations. My modest opinion is that the sources mentioned above may be used in this complex matter, but with care and by an editor who knows the subject well. Regards. Jingiby (talk) 03:19, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

ChatGPT

I don't think ChatGPT is a reliable source. The website itself claims that it may produce inaccurate or misleading content, and the WP article about it states that it has been accused of having left-leaning biases despite it claiming to be neutral, and the accusations were confirmed on a paper written about it in which the writer conducted 15 different political orientation tests on it (see ChatGPT article for more details). Also, when you ask it to cite sources in MLA, APA, etc. it might make up sources. It also makes up stuff *very* often. Should ChatGPT be listed as "generally unreliable" at the Perennial Sources? Félix An (talk) 09:32, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

ChatGPT output isn't 'published', it is an unverifiable one-off non repeatable response to user input, and thus can't legitimately be cited as a source in the first place. AndyTheGrump (talk) 09:40, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Perennial sources are only for sources that have been discussed multiple times. ChatGPT is an obviously unreliable source so it does not need to be listed. Carpimaps ^{talk to me!} 09:55, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Some people might not know that though, especially newer editors, so it would be wise to put that before an influx of ChatGPT citations start coming in. I stand firmly by WP:ETN, and by making the citation policies clearer for newcomers, it is easier for them to make constructive edits. Félix An (talk) 13:38, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

The Wikipedia opinion is pretty much to kill anything AI-generated with fire. So perhaps a more general note on ChatGPT and similar tools might be appropriate.

There's been discussion on wikimedia-l about use of ChatGPT in writing. I personally would like to discourage it, but a lot of people do find spicy-autocomplete useful as an assistive writing tool if they're mindful of their responsibility for every word in the output ... but that's probably not an RSN issue - David Gerard (talk) 11:39, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this is the essence of the draft WP:LLM policy. ~UN6892 ^t_c 13:41, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

ChatGPT usually lets out nonsense, jokes and hoaxes, who will think that is a reliable source? List these to blacklist if being repeatedly added. -Lemonaka‎ 02:29, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

The perplexity.ai chatbot shows the sources it used in generating a response. -- GreenC 14:18, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Not impressed: by this attempt. Brought there by RfC at Talk:Fifth_Industrial_Revolution. Burn it down? -- Yae4 (talk) 01:07, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Was that article AI-generated? Félix An (talk) 02:04, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Supposedly, the starting stub. The edit summary when article stub was started says,

"as edited by Jean.julius... at 01:07, April 14, 2023 (Stub created using references and ChatGPT - an example of how human - machine co-learning is possible in a forthcoming 5IR. You may also help in expanding the article.)."

Aquillion just cleaned up some of the poor sourcing and BS (Thanks).

-- Yae4 (talk) 06:12, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

For more extended discussion on this issue, see WP:Large language models. In general, language models should never, under any circumstance, be cited as the source of a claim. The idea of doing this is gobsmackingly ignorant (would you write something on a piece of paper, and then cite the pen as the author of the claims you made?)

Apart from that, there are some very obvious and severe problems for asking them for sources and not double-checking them output before blindly pasting it into the edit box. Multiple real incidents have occurred in which somebody did this and published a shite article where all of the references were 100% fake -- people should not do this. Apart from that, though, I think it is quite useful for assistance in formatting, phrasing, et cetera (check out the tables!) jp×g 07:08, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

RFC Ethnic designation of Imamate of Aussa

Looking for input on the RFC about the dominant ethnic background of the Imamate of Aussa see talk [12] Magherbin (talk) 02:39, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

filmcompanion.in

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.

---

• filmcompanion.in: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

This site had been blacklisted for a significant time. Editors at Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard#Set 1252 to disallow have mentioned that unequivocal consensus at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Indian cinema task force#Film Companion has allowed them to remove the site from our blacklist and are now requesting that an edit filter be made to support the site's inclusion. I could not see consensus clearly at the discussions they referenced, therefore, I am placing this to the community:

Is www.filmcompanion.in to be considered a reliable source from hereon?

Thank you, Lourdes 07:19, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Discussion (filmcompanion.in)

• No, as per my assessment. It's a movie news/review site run by the wife of a famous Indian film producer, seems to have a few journalists, and seems to also have op-ed contributors apart from reviews by this lady who runs the site. Lourdes 07:19, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
• Yes: The site in question (FC, here onwards) was blacklisted for spamming; not for concerns of reliability.
  FC has been a Rotten Tomato-approved publication since years. Anupama Chopra, who helms the site, has impeccable credentials having written multiple highly-cited works on aspects of Bollywod (consult GScholar) and even winning the National Film Award for Best Book on Cinema (2000). The Film Critics Guild of India, as of today, consists fourty-seven film critics including resident-critics from MSM like The Hindu, The Wire (India), Scroll.in, Deccan Chronicle, and The Indian Express; notably, Chopra is the incumbent Chairwoman and beside her, there are four reviewers who are exclusively associated with FC!
  Additionally, Lourdes might not be able to see the clear consensus but six editors were in support — Krimuk2.0, Shshshsh, Kailash29792, DaxServer, Ravensfire, and me — and none against. Of them, the first three, who were most vocal, has (cumulatively) accumulated 20 FAs, 28 FLs, and 20 GAs, almost exclusively on topics concerning Indian films. I hope that my implications are clear. TrangaBellam (talk) 21:37, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
• Comment Filmcompanion.in was added to the spam blacklist because spammers were adding links to it indiscriminately. Recent discussion at WP:ICTF, among experienced editors working in the relevant topic area (Indian cinema), suggests that there may be legitimate uses of the website as a source. Therefore, it has been proposed that we replace the spam blacklist entry, which disallows all links to the website, with an edit-filter that disallows (say) only non-ECP editors from adding links to the website. This would hopefully prevent the spamming, while enabling citing of articles on the website on a case-by-case basis. So IMO, we don't really need to decide whether filmcompanion.in is generally considered reliable but only whether there are any legitimate uses of the website as a source. Abecedare (talk) 21:44, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
• Yes: Per TrangaBellam. And Anupama Chopra is more than just "the wife of a famous Indian film producer". Another of its long-time writers, Baradwaj Rangan, is a National Film Award winning critic. Kailash29792 (talk) 02:13, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
• Yes: "wife of a famous Indian film producer" is such a vile and sexist trope, that I'm shocked people even say such things in 2023. As stated above, Chopra has incredible credentials and is a foremost film journalist in India, and her website Film Companion is miles above the cookie-cutter PR circus of mainstream media. As for the spamming, why should the majority of readers suffer due to the deeds of some misguided spammer? Krimuk2.0 (talk) 06:04, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Notes

• Query: Does Anupama Chopra's position as the wife of a film producer, as the Chairperson of the Mumbai Film Festival, and as the Editor/contributor to her own media youtube / entertainment channel filmcompanion put the channel's output in a conflict of interest? If Anupama were to write in New York Times, I would expect a good amount of peer review. But if she is curating her own media output through an entertainment journalism platform, then would the independent peer review process still be the same? I would look forward to comments from the editors who utilise the channel for referencing (or wish to utilise). Journalists such as Baradwaj Rangan, while no longer associated with the channel, have written for her though. Good to get your thoughts. Thanks, Lourdes 06:25, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

She has said that she does not review her husband's films due to conflict of interest. Also, she is not the chairperson of the Mumbai Film Festival, it is Priyanka Chopra Jonas. Before that, it was Deepika Padukone. Krimuk2.0 (talk) 06:29, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Noted. She is the Festival Director of the Mumbai Film Festival as per their own website. Semantics. Also, her acceptance that their exists a conflict of interest is good. While she is only narrowly adjudging it to her husband's movies, her reviews of her husband's competitors/or rather industry players, could raise the same questions. How does she ensure partiality? Lourdes 06:40, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

• Selective messaging comment: I also note that after this RSN section was started, Trangabellam has gone and selectively messaged the supporters from the past discussion, some of who have come here and expressed their support post his messaging.[13][14][15][16][17] More will follow. I am disappointed at their canvassing attempts and realise that in such a case that support is being sought for exclusively and so aggressively, this exercise may become moot, as they seem to be wanting to muster support any which way. Lourdes 06:34, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  I do not see this as canvassing. I only asked Trangabellam whether they were still pushing to whitelist FC, and they told me about this discussion soon after, apparently as response. Kailash29792 (talk) 07:11, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  That's definitely canvassing. Leaving a {{subst:Please see|Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#filmcompanion.in}} at a talk page or WikiProject talk page would be the proper way to do this without violating WP:CANVASS. The user talk messages literally say please do !vote. Quite a bad look. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:17, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  I messaged every single individual who commented at the film-project discussion. Including Ravensfire who would (later) not be very supportive of de-blacklisting. Please open an ANI thread if you feel that I breached CANVASSING in letter or spirit. TrangaBellam (talk) 07:18, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you Kailash, TrangaBellam. Your responses are not supported by the timeline. Kailash, you asked Trangabellam on 16 June on their talk page, to which they responded many days after, after my RSN post. Crucially, they notified you separately on your talk page to !vote right after I started this RSN section.[18] So your justification comes off illogical. TrangaBellam, you also selectively notified all supporters to !vote, including Ravensfire, who clearly is also a support for you, per the diff from the very discussion you are alluding to.[19] Your past linked discussion strangely with only supporters and no naysayers also seemed very off -- one reason I said earlier that consensus is not evident. VOTESTACKING is not preferable. This is deeply disappointing. Thanks, Lourdes 07:29, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  So, you accept that the linked discussion had "only supporters and no naysayers" yet go on to charge me for violation of CANVAS? When you say the discussion seem to be "very off" what do you imply? TrangaBellam (talk) 07:55, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

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

EconStor

Is econstor.eu a reliable source? I want to know if this sauce can be used to describe tourism at Sol de Mañana. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 13:10, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

EconStor is a place to freely publish work, so on its own is has no reliability. Instead you need to look at the authors of the work, in this case the two authors appear to be reliable. One thing is that the work is not peer reviewed, in another setting it would be called pre-print, so you shouldn't use it for any exceptional cliams but run of the mill details should be fine. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:09, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Mapping Prejudice

Hello. Is Mapping Prejudice a reliable source in the Minneapolis article? We have one editor who objects and termed them unreliable. I understand that debate on this topic can be difficult. Mapping Prejudice did not appear in my search of the archives and your list of perennial sources.

Mapping Prejudice is used maybe five times (and is cited by other sources) to say (this first one is what the editor finds to be contentious):

• "The effects of racial covenants remain today in residential segregation, property value, homeownership, wealth, housing security, access to green spaces, trees and parks, and health equity."
• "Minneapolis has a history of structural racism" and has racial disparities in nearly every aspect of society.
• "Kirsten Delegard of Mapping Prejudice explains that today's disparities evolved from control of the land"
• the city was relatively unsegregated before 1910, when a developer wrote the first restrictive covenant based on race and ethnicity into a Minneapolis deed. But then realtors adopted the practice, thousands of times preventing non-Whites from owning or leasing properties, and they continued for four decades until the city became more and more racially divided. Though such language was prohibited by state law in 1953 and by the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968,

We have had Mapping Prejudice as a source in Minneapolis for years, since somebody added their co-founders' 2017 publication.

The project is an influential, widely-cited group of academics at the University of Minnesota who've had 6,000 local volunteers reading real estate deeds in the Twin Cities under the supervision of a historian who is a property records specialist. The group inspired PBS, who won a local Emmy for Jim Crow of the North. (Citations include AP News, Bloomberg CityLab and probably number hundreds by now.) Their research is the "backbone" of the YIMBY Minneapolis 2040 plan.

Since their founding in 2016 they won a Mellon Foundation grant won a catalyst award from the National States Geographic Information Council and a John R. Finnegan Freedom of Information Award from the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information. They also won an Outstanding Public History Project Award from the National Council on Public History.

This one editor doesn't want to research this, and so far says what we're citing is "stupid." Must I remove this source and content to satisfy one person? Thank you in advance for your opinions.

References

Works cited

• Delegard, Kirsten; Ehrman-Solberg, Kevin (Spring 2017). "'Playground of the People'? Mapping Racial Covenants in Twentieth-Century Minneapolis". Open Rivers: Rethinking the Mississippi (6). University of Minnesota: 72–79. doi:10.24926/2471190X.2820.
• Walker, Rebecca H.; Ramer, Hannah; Derickson, Kate D.; Keeler, Bonnie L. (2023). "Making the City of Lakes: Whiteness, Nature, and Urban Development in Minneapolis". Annals of the American Association of Geographers: 1–15. doi:10.1080/24694452.2022.2155606. S2CID 256754104.

-SusanLesch (talk) 20:40, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Discussion (Mapping Prejudice)

Comment - To clarify, the only source being challenged is the one used in the article. In that source, it asserts an almost impossible to prove narrative--that racist policies ended over 70 years ago are still responsible for health inequities--and then attempts to "prove" this with an example so wildly stupid, that it calls into question the reliability of the rest of that article being cited. Magnolia677 (talk) 22:51, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

The "narrative" doesn't seem particularly WP:EXCEPTIONAL to me, and it seems to me the only alternative to citing what is effectively a tertiary source here would be to individually cite each and every one of the words in that sentence to a different secondary source, unless there are any that are scoped to cover more than one of those. Which is, uh, somewhat excessive. I guess it could be bundled. I don't see the NatGeo article linked as really any better than the group's website or their actual papers though. Just as a quick glance, there are plenty of papers on this subject and some of these, e.g. "Racial Residential Segregation: A Fundamental Cause of Racial Disparities in Health", are quite well cited, so it's not as if they're just making this up, it's quite mainstream. Alpha3031 (t • c) 04:32, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Based on Magnolia's arguments on the talk page (e.g. absurd conclusions about the effects of convents 70 years after they were repealed), I get the sense that they're rejecting the idea that systemic racism has effects that extend beyond the moment when the laws are changed. That view gets no real traction in the literature on the subject, of course, because it, well, runs contrary to everything we know about history, sociology, urban design, the law, and basically how anything works. Susan provided a number of citations to high quality sources showing that the particular claim the source makes is in no way absurd, which Magnolia did not engage with. Given the context in which it appears on the Mapping page, it's really just more of an overview of something that's well documented, and the Mapping project looks like exactly the sort of place which would have experts on how this well documented phenomenon would apply to a particular location. The Mapping page is not as good as a peer reviewed journal/book, but appears to be a well-regarded academic project with subject-matter experts on board, and as such I don't see why it wouldn't be a reliable source, especially when its claims can be supported by additional sourcing. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:43, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

In this instance, the source in question makes a conclusion--and offers "proof" of their conclusion--with an example we on Wikipedia would describe as a WP:SYNTH. I'm not sure if the authors were trying to mislead readers, or if they're just really naive researchers. In particular, the source in question states that racist housing policies that ended during the Eisenhower administration continue to impact health, and to support their conclusion, they cite a study showing that rich neighborhoods in Minneapolis have more trees than poor ones, which makes them warmer. And... because thousands of Americans die from the heat each year, then the effects of these racist policies continue. I scoured the Minnesota Department of Health website for details about this, and was surprised to find that "go to a rich white neighborhood" was not listed as a way to prevent heat-related illness, though "air conditioning" was. I also called a friend who lives in Washburn Lofts, the most expensive condo in Minneapolis, and said, "hey, you don't have a tree for miles around. Any heat related illness in your condo?". Whenever I see a particular publication writing content that defies logic, I just assume the whole publication is tainted. Whatever. Magnolia677 (talk) 18:18, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, and easily could be, the Washburn Lofts are around the corner from the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area. -SusanLesch (talk) 19:33, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Oh my gosh. I looked at a map of Minneapolis, and noticed that the richer areas (aside from having more trees) also have more driveways than the poor parts of town...another vestige of the racist housing policies ended 70 years ago. This means rich white people have driveways...lots of them!...and this study shows the devastating cost to life and health caused by shoveling snow (and Minneapolis gets lots of it). Therefore, the health of white people also continues to be negatively effected by these long-ended policies. Let's see how many of these stupid, unscientific conclusions we can come up with, and then add a bunch of them to an article trying to retain it's featured article status. Magnolia677 (talk) 22:48, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

You are welcome to write this up and publish it in a peer reviewed journal, or NatGeo. Alpha3031 (t • c) 14:11, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

This reply (unfortunately typical for discourse at Talk:Minneapolis) does nothing to advance the discussion.

Re: In this instance, the source in question makes a conclusion--and offers "proof" of their conclusion--with an example we on Wikipedia would describe as a WP:SYNTH, that's what all/most secondary sources do, and applying the Wiki-concept of SYNTH to secondary sources is off. A secondary medical review, for example, will take numerous facts and findings from primary sources and "synthesize" them into a conclusion. That we can't do that on Wikipedia doesn't mean other sources cannot or should not. Multiple others (including on talk) have explained this is not an unusual conclusion; it's mainstream, so for a source to advance it does not imply they are not reliable.

It would be wonderful if we could proceed with the Minneapolis review without so much constant snark. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:09, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Sandy is correct, you can't discard an RS for producing "synth" - "synth", among other analyses, are what RS do and what RS exist for. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:25, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Authors who combine facts from various sources, and then use them to propose ridiculous conclusions, have their work discredited and deemed unreliable. That's pretty much why we have this noticeboard. Magnolia677 (talk) 10:24, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

And authors that combine facts from various sources and use them to propose logical conclusions -- conclusions that line up with the conclusions published in multiple other sources -- get cited in Wikipedia. That's true even if a lone editor repeatedly, loudly, and insultingly asserts, without evidence, that it's "stupid" or "ridiculous" that differences in the ways neighborhoods were constructed/designed (like the amount of trees) leads to health disparities in the populations living in those neighborhoods. Perhaps we can move on. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:16, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

This may be true, but the example used to "prove" this has absolutely no relation to Minneapolis or to proving this. The source cited relies on two different sources to prove its point. The first source states that black neighborhoods in Minneapolis are 10 degrees warmer than white neighborhoods. The second source states that excessive heat can be deadly. However, the second source doesn't mention anything about Minneapolis, so there is no "proof" that excessive heat in Minneapolis is affecting anyone based on race. Remember in grade nine science when your teacher taught you that correlation does not imply causation? This logical fallacy is a slight-of-hand often employed by writers to mislead readers. Again, this source is of dubious reliability. Magnolia677 (talk) 15:33, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

But you don't notice that your original research, snow shoveling example suffers from similar methodological issues? (Hint: wealthy people are unlikely to shovel snow at all.)

Minneapolis has advanced to a point that, technically, a Featured article review is no longer warranted, but if/when we do get these remaining niggles worked out, and it is brought for final review to Wikipedia:Featured article review/Minneapolis/archive1 (add to watchlist), more eyes would be appreciated, as we've had these kinds of discussions now on every matter for about two years. I've seen nothing like this on any other URFA or FA review in 15 years. It would be helpful if we could get a wider variety of opinions on this one matter for now, and move on. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:29, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

That was a silly example I used to show how unscientific it is to equate correlation with causation. I didn't think anyone would take it seriously. Magnolia677 (talk) 11:05, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

In other words, you're on a WP:RGW-style crusade. Hopefully you can deduce from the responses you've received here where the consensus is? --JBL (talk) 00:58, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

I would absolutely consider them reliable for these claims. The claims aren't exceptional, the org has won awards, and they're mentioned positively by news media (both local and national). Plenty of sources reference them, which points toward a a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Woodroar (talk) 15:02, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Saved text added when not wanted

I keep trying to make this stop happening, but every single time I go to this noticeboard it will "helpfully" take me all the way to the bottom and "helpfully" put "saved text" in the empty box. I even tried posting it with nonsense and then self-reverting, but that didn't work either, because it still paged me down to the bottom of the goddamn page. Does anyone know how to make it stop obsessively doing this? jp×g 06:58, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

I think this might be better at WP:VPT, but that sounds like the behaviour of the "add topic" tab thing. From what I can see all the state information for that gets stored in local storage under keys starting with "reply/new|Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard", so maybe deleting that would help? Not sure if it would regenerate though, given that you're seeing it recur. Alpha3031 (t • c) 14:44, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

I guess also make sure you don't have multiple (browser) tabs open, especially multiple tabs on RSN as, it may regenerate the local storage if you have it open in another tab. Alpha3031 (t • c) 14:48, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

It stopped happening after I posted this one. I don't know what the hell I did, but I guess it worked. jp×g 05:04, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

@JPxG: Now you better not do it again! Or else! Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:01, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Trans Safety Network

Website: https://transsafety.network

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13739860

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13739860/officers

The website in question is operated by a Community Interest Company (CIC), which is managed by four officers, as per the provided link.

The central concern surrounding this source is its lack of independence and neutrality, which are crucial attributes for reputable journalistic or blog media. It is essential to note that this website is a commercial venture based in the UK and is actively managed by LGBTQ activists. These circumstances potentially render it unfit to be classified as an "independent source" for contentious claims in the LGBTQ sphere, given its inability to maintain impartiality and objectivity on the topics it discusses. A pertinent example can be observed in its critique of other organizations, such as SEGM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Evidence-Based_Gender_Medicine

The article in question has been cited six times on the page: https://transsafety.network/posts/segm-uncovered/

In the aforementioned instance, an activist from the organization makes contentious remarks about members of a different organization. This doesn't align with journalistic norms or the standards of an expert-authored article. Rather, it appears as a form of activism and personal opinion from an actively involved organization, devoid of neutrality on the discussed subject matter. Consequently, the reliability of this organization as a source of contentious opinions or statements on LGBTQ topics is highly questionable, which leads me to advocate for its revaluation as an appropriate source on Wikipedia for contentious topics in the domain of the LGBTQ. ParisDakarPeräjärvi (talk) 19:13, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

As an activist group, they're definitely not a neutral source but that's different from not being an independent source. See WP:BIASED (vs WP:INDY). A source isn't independent if they have a direct conflict of interest: so for instance, SEGM isn't independent of itself, but other activist groups both for and against are independent of it. This is regardless of whether they have strong opinions on the topic. As WP:INDY says Independence does not imply even-handedness. An independent source may hold a strongly positive or negative view of a topic or an idea.

I can't tell from a glance whether they're reliable for facts but my instinct from skimming is "yes, more-or-less". I don't think we should source them without attribution, though. Loki (talk) 19:27, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

TSN is a WP:SPS with no corrections policy and IMO should be treated on par with any highly opinionated blogpost. For just one example of factual issues, in one article it is claimed that it was "misinformation" (and in the conclusions, "transphobic disinformation") to suggest a case in which a trans woman was hired was possibly unlawful, since "the job advertisement merely specified “women”". However as this post by employment and discrimination expert Naomi Cunningham makes clear (with screenshot of the ad), it went beyond that and explicitly invoked Schedule 9 of the EqA, which is the single-sex exception. I don't consider them reliable for factual matters or legal opinions. Void if removed (talk) 15:24, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Looking at its usage in the article, there are times when it may be mis-cited (such as the claim that ROGD by "the majority of the worlds' major psychological bodies" when the source only refers to it as a "broad coalition"), but for most uses it looks like it could be appropriate source under WP:BIASED. Note that I am not saying it is reliable, just that the reasons you point to, that it has a POV and that it is "commercial" (as most of our sources are) do not disqualify it. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 19:32, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

As others have said it's WP:BIASED but that doesn't mean it's not independent. I note in it's about us it doesn't claim to be a journalist endeavour. It's fine as long as it's attributed. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:24, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Hello, Loki, Nat Gertler, ActivelyDisinterested.

This is precisely the point I've been making - given that the Trans Safety Network is an activist organization, I maintain that it shouldn't be cited for contentious subjects that are heavily disputed, or employed as a reference on Wikipedia pages of organizations whose views conflict with those of the Trans Safety Network's activists. For instance, the Trans Safety Network has been used to make several claims on SEGM's page (presently, reference #9: Moore, Mallory. "SEGM uncovered: large anonymous payments funding dodgy science"):

1. Aviva Stahl stated they were "pushing flawed science"[8] and Mallory Moore stated they have "ties to evangelical activists".[9]

Comment. However, it's not verified that the entire organization is linked to evangelical activists (we require at least two independent sources for this). I discovered that one member of the SEGM was cited by a newspaper associated with evangelists - that's all. Whether being connected to them is positive or negative is not for me to judge, but I've made my point.

2. In it, they advanced the controversial idea of rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD), which suggests a subtype of gender dysphoria caused by peer influence and social contagion. ROGD has been condemned as unevidenced and nonscientific by the majority of the worlds' major psychological bodies.[9][13]

Comment: Once again, for some unknown reason, we have a statement about ROGD (not SEGM itself) bolstered by another activist organization. This is unrelated, but the second source also refers to the concept of ROGD, not directly to SEGM, leaving us wondering how this information ended up on SEGM's page while it should most probably be on the ROGD Wikipedia page: 2nd source used (it seems for ROGD only): Coalition for the Advancement & Application of Psychological Science.

3. SEGM is closely affiliated with the non-profit organization Genspect: Julia Mason, Marcus Evans, Roberto D’Angelo, Sasha Ayad, Stella O'Malley, Lisa Marchiano, and Avi Ring are advisors for SEGM and are on Genspect's team or advisors; O'Malley is the founder of Genspect.[10][25][9]

Comment. While I don't dispute this, I assert that it's very usual for scientists and academics to be part of multiple organizations simultaneously. The question is, "Does it count as affiliation between two organizations" if some individuals are members of both organizations at the same time? This is something I'm curious about.

4. Trans Safety Network (TSN) reported that NHS pediatrician Julie Maxwell has been an advisor for SEGM since its inception; that Maxwell also works for the Christian anti-LGBT and anti-abortion sex education charity LoveWise UK and has offered to help push abstinence-based and anti-LGBT sex education in schools; and that since 2012, Maxwell has been a member of the Family Education Trust, a campaigning charity that promotes anti-LGBT views. TSN also reported that in 2019, SEGM Secretary William Malone co-authored a letter challenging the Endocrine Society's clinical practice guidelines on transgender healthcare with Michael K Laidlaw, Quentin Van Meter, Paul W Hruz, and Andre Van Mol, who are all members of the SPLC-designated anti-LGBT hate group the American College of Pediatricians. In addition, Van Meter is a board member of the International Federation for Therapeutic and Counseling Choice (IFTCC), an organization that openly supports conversion therapy for LGBT people. TSN reported that these authors frequently cite and collaborate with each other.[9]

Comment: This claim is the most contentious as it's highly disputed and solely based on one source - the same LGBT activist organization. Does the WP:BIAS policy not apply here?

5. In August, Trans Safety Network described SEGM as "an anti-trans psychiatric and sociological think tank" and fringe group and reported that most of SEGM's funding came in donations greater than $10,000.[25][9]

Comment: The situation is the same here. If I were to use SEGM (another activist organization or "research institution" as they claim) as a source for the Trans Safety Network, would it be accepted as an unbiased source? I believe the same principle should apply here.

In general, given that SEGM's Wikipedia page carries a "neutrality disputed" tag, and there's an ongoing active dispute regarding sources, should we be employing an active LGBTQ organization for contentious statements on SEGM or other organization's pages?

ParisDakarPeräjärvi (talk) 16:09, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

We use well-resourced groups with a reliable history as sources on things they oppose all the time. The Southern Poverty Law Center is expert on the hate groups they oppose. The Centers for Disease Control opposes diseases, but are considered a reliable source on them. "Biased" does not mean "inaccurate." The idea that we should discriminate against a group for being LGBTQ is a rather sad one. Which statement in 4 do you claim to be highly disputed, and what reliable sources dispute it? -- Nat Gertler (talk) 17:18, 8 June 2023 (UTC) Oh, and as for "ongoing active dispute", all of the Talk page posts of the past week were focused on whether someone should be described as "the" founder or merely "a" founder... and that discussion has been closed. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 19:21, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

This website has been previously discussed on this board here, where many editors (correctly) noted that it's essentially a self-published source. I don't see why this should be used for contentious claims/labels or for facts about living people. Moreover, if it doesn't claim to be a journalistic endeavor, as has been noted by one editor above, then why is it any more reliable than XYZ substack blog? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 22:13, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Can you clarify on the SPS point? It struck me more as an advocacy group than say a group blog or SPS. It should definitely be used with attribution, so it's problematic in points 2 and 3 above as it's unattributed. Also 4 is overlong and strays towards BLP territory, which should possibly be tone down. However 1 and 5 aren't an issue, it's attributed and it's not BLP. If there's arguments about whether some of the content is due, then that's not an RS issue and should be handled on the articles talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 23:06, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

This looks like a group blog more than anything else; I don't see any evidence of editorial policies, fact-checking policies, editorial policies, et cetera. We still need to evaluate editorial control, and looking through the website I can't find any evidence of there being any semblance of editorial oversight. Their values page doesn't mention anything related fact-checking or editorial independence, nor does their about page. Absent some sort of editorial review process, we're left with something that's essentially a self-published group blog. And it's not one that is run by University professors or other sorts of people with the sterling credentials of subject-matter experts; the director seems to have written very little outside of TSN, and Mallory Moore (another frequent contributor) seems to tout only previous publications on TruthOut in her TSN bio, but there doesn't appear to be all that much on her TruthOut author page. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 00:56, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

You may have a point, but even then WP:SPS would only exclude them from BLPs not article about organisations. I can see their use in other sources that are considered reliable (PinkNews, Huffington Post, Independent, etc), so reliable sources consider them reliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:38, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

It would exclude them from statements about living people, whether the article is a BLP or not. As such, they could not be used here for the so-and-so-is-also-on-the-board-of-the-Meanie-Group statements. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 15:24, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

No matter what Moore touts, she has written elsewhere. Here she is writing on relevant material for i (newspaper), and here for Freedom (that later one cited in a The Sociological Review monograph.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 17:53, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Having written an opinion piece in the i doesn't make one an SME, though the post published her Medium blog that was later republished as analysis by Freedom News is a bit more interesting. (I'm a bit disappointed that both Moore and The Sociological Review didn't find easily searchable uses of the term "gender ideology" in radfem contexts that predate the March 2016 comment section Moore highlights in the analysis, and which seems to refute the exact claim for which Moore is cited in that piece from The Sociological Review, but I digress.) — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 18:54, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

The last time this came up, I did post an array of links that I felt established Moore as a SME. See my comment on 18:44, 28 June 2022 for those links, but she has been cited in other scholarly sources than The Sociological Review.

As for Moore and The Sociological Review missing the Trouble and Strife blog entry, there's a few plausible reasons for that. The simple one is that the site itself might have not been indexed by Google at the time. Also the term gender ideology doesn't actually show up in that article's text verbatim, though it does in one comment. Transgender ideology does appear in the article text, but Google's verbatim search isn't always perfect at that sort of expansion, though it is better now. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:59, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Where is the policy on subject matter experts? Your post from above linked to an essay on the "Super-Mario Effect". Adoring nanny (talk) 04:26, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware it's part of WP:SPS, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 09:05, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Considering WP:USEBYOTHERS, PinkNews seems to use TSN as a source quite consistently: [20], and they have an article about the organization, which mostly consists of quotes but does treat them quite favourably.

The perennial claim that queer sources are non-independent concerning the anti-queer movement is just as patently unfounded now as it was before, as Nat Gertler has outlined above. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 19:49, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Difficult one. It's probably going to need attribution for anything but the simplest of facts, and it is an exceptionally partisan source, so will need to be included with context from other sources most of the time. Factual data regarding medical matters and anything social that might have been studied by academics will have better sources out there. However, I can see a lot of cases where its opinion might be useful, when presented in context. Reliable for its own opinions and uncontroversial facts, WP:DUE decides whether it gets in a particular article? Boynamedsue (talk) 07:13, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Reliability of a 1901 and 1931 census

See chat here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dagamerzat#Draft:Arthur_H._Shore

Can we use census data for biographical information? CT55555(talk) 12:28, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

I would argue not, as we do not know if it is this Arthur H Shore or another. Slatersteven (talk) 12:31, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

I had not considered that. The likelihood that there are two Arthur Herbert Shores in the same place and time seems so low as to be close to statistically impossible. Having searched extensively about him, I've never found anyone in the world, at any time, with the same unusual name. CT55555(talk) 12:35, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Is this the same bloke [[21]]? Slatersteven (talk) 12:45, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

No it is not. Arthur Herbert Shore never went to the USA. only a few places he lived all in Ontario. Stirling (Near Campbellford), Belleville in the early 40's and in Bancroft for a while. Dagamerzat (talk) 13:03, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Source? Slatersteven (talk) 13:10, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

WP:USEPRIMARY says Many other primary sources, including birth certificates, the Social Security Death Index, and court documents, are usually not acceptable primary sources, because it is impossible for the viewer to know whether the person listed on the document is the notable subject rather than another person who happens to have the same name. Censuses are also not perfectly accurate records, as much as we would like them to be. If no reliable secondary source has reported a fact which is only derivable from census data, it's worth considering if it's important enough that we need to include it in Wikipedia's article at all Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:10, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't find the name-confusion argument very convincing in this particular context, but I think there are plenty of other reasons to be wary of using census records for biographical information. IMO it's more of a original research problem than a reliability one. But it's also a scope issue: if the only source for a biographical fact is a census return, that fact is likely to be unsuitable for inclusion. To the extent those concerns don't apply, I'd say census returns might be adequately reliable for limited WP:ABOUTSELF purposes. But in my off-wiki (and US-based) experience, census records are often surprisingly unreliable and might e.g. have the ages or relationships among family members wildly misstated as a result of the census taker getting the information from a neighbor. There's a reason for the traditional genealogical practice of requiring three sources for every biographical fact -- a practice that is criticized these days for not being rigorous enough. It's one thing to occasionally rely on a primary source of the same kind that experts in the field would ordinarily rely on, but it's considerably more problematic to rely on a source that experts would not rely on. So I guess on balance I'm pretty skeptical of this. It seems like the valid use cases for census records, if any, would be even more limited than those for birth and death records. -- Visviva (talk) 16:00, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Not for biographical details. That would just have been what an enumerator recorded on the day and there is plenty of possibility of error - never mind that we aren't even certain it's the same Arthur H. Shore. Censuses are valid for the number of people living in a community and other broad demographic data but not individuals' details. But I'm more concerned about the scanned newspaper clipping at Arthur H. Shore. Any obituary published in 1958 would still be in copyright per Copyright law of Canada as it is neither 70 years after the death of its writer, nor 75 years after anonymous publication. Daveosaurus (talk) 18:43, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree that census records are primary sources and should not be used. I also agree with Daveosaurus about the copyvio. But not just the newspaper clipping but all the other photos too. I will be deleting them from the article, and if the uploader doesn't do it themselves, will request deletion from Commons. Slp1 (talk) 16:27, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

I also encouraged the uploader to tag the photos correctly. They are new, seem to be young (source: User:Dagamerzat), and still learning Wikipedia. I'd encourage others to provide supportive advice here:

User_talk:Dagamerzat#Draft:Arthur_H._Shore CT55555(talk) 17:19, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

How to search for a URL or phrase in refs

Sorry, this is a stupid thing to make a thread for (feel free to just remove it after answering). I seem to remember there being some way to search (like insource: or intitle:) that would return if something was specifically in a reference in an article, i.e. you would be able to search and see what articles had billys-discount-buttscratchers.com or whatever in ref tags. Is this true, or am I misremembering? jp×g 05:06, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

billys-discount-buttscratchers.com   Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:14, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Help:Searching seems to have your answer. Heart ^(talk) 05:14, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Also insource:/billys-discount-buttscratchers\.com/ would also yield many useful results. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:03, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you all. I seem to have been mistaken (I thought there was a specific ref-tag search separate from insource:), but this works fine for what I want to do anyway. jp×g 18:42, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

AllMusic

I was attempting to cite AllMusic as a source for a Japanese rerelease when a notice popped up declaring that it was a deprecated source. I don't believe it's unreliable, I just wanted to get consensus. Sincerely, Key of G Minor. ^Tools: (talk, contribs) 17:57, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

AllMusic is not deprecated, but WP:ALLMUSIC says There is consensus that RhythmOne websites are usable for entertainment reviews with in-text attribution. Some editors question the accuracy of these websites for biographical details and recommend more reliable sources when available. Editors also advise against using AllMusic's genre classifications from the website's sidebar. Probably for the simple existence of a Japanese re-release it would be fine. I'm not sure what the deprecated source notice you encountered was... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:10, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Your problem is not Allmusic but the last.fm link, which is deprecated. Black Kite (talk) 18:37, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Then what about the last.fm link? Can I use that? Sincerely, Key of G Minor. ^Tools: (talk, contribs) 19:18, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

According to WP:LASTFM, last.fm is deprecated on Wikipedia; the discussion to add it to the deprecated sources edit filter was this one from 2019. What do you want to use last.fm for? It is apparently a user-generated source, and therefore absolutely not reliable. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 19:24, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

To confirm the existence of a Japanese rerelease Sincerely, Key of G Minor. ^Tools: (talk, contribs) 19:55, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

No, you can't use it (silly as it may sound, as it clearly exists). If you can't find another English source, it may be worth trying to find a Japanese speaker who can find a Japanese source. Category:Japanese_Wikipedians or WikiProject Japan may help. Black Kite (talk) 20:24, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

news.com.au

Is news.com.au reliable? It is owned by the same large corporation which publishes the Herald Sun and has some good articles, but I've noticed that it also publishes a lot of clickbait articles and stuff which might not be considered due weight. — VORTEX³⁴²⁷ (Talk!) 10:35, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

It's an umbrella site for the Australian Murdoch tabloids. Treat with caution as a tabloid site, I wouldn't cite claims about living people or science to it - David Gerard (talk) 21:02, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

onnik-krikorian.com

On the WP:BLP Garnik Asatrian, a source from website Groong was removed due to WP:RS, whilst debatable, the reliability comes from the website being unreliable versus the source itself, which is found here at the interviewers own site. Due to the rv of source due to Groong being unreliable, especially that O.Krikorian has no said bias, can the rv be reversed? Many thanks. Volkish Kurden (talk) 01:21, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

MyNorthwest.com

I wish to use it for some information about rural Washington. Is it a reliable source? QuicoleJR (talk) 20:16, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Hey QuicoleJR,

I've only seen the site used as a source a handful of times in my rabbit-hole travels here. While it is a repository of Seattle radio news, the site does have a good deal of talk radio/opinion "articles", too. So beware of that. Also, I've noticed that the articles aren't that deep, on average, so using it as a backup or supplemental choice could be a good route, but that's just my two cents, not adjusted for inflation.

Good luck!

Shortiefourten (talk) 17:16, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Generally fine for non-political articles, especially those written by KIRO Radio staff, but avoid those written by KTTH staff. They usually cover news items that have already been reported by more reliable regional sources anyway. SounderBruce 19:14, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

It seems like an established local/statewide WP:NEWSORG. The opinion pieces seem to be well-labeled (see one from KIRO and one from KTTH), and the news reporting's quality is generally consistent with that of the typical local/regional newsradios and television news broadcasts. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 02:45, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree with most of the other assessments; most articles under KIRO Radio are fine, but you will need to heed caution on opinion articles, especially from talk shows hosted on it and KTTH. For what it's worth, I consider articles written by Feliks Banel reliable for history-related topics or retrospectives since he is significantly involved with MOHAI and the Washington State Historical Society. CascadeUrbanite (talk) 02:48, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

filmcompanion.in

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.

---

• filmcompanion.in: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

This site had been blacklisted for a significant time. Editors at Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard#Set 1252 to disallow have mentioned that unequivocal consensus at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Indian cinema task force#Film Companion has allowed them to remove the site from our blacklist and are now requesting that an edit filter be made to support the site's inclusion. I could not see consensus clearly at the discussions they referenced, therefore, I am placing this to the community:

Is www.filmcompanion.in to be considered a reliable source from hereon?

Thank you, Lourdes 07:19, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Discussion (filmcompanion.in)

• No, as per my assessment. It's a movie news/review site run by the wife of a famous Indian film producer, seems to have a few journalists, and seems to also have op-ed contributors apart from reviews by this lady who runs the site. Lourdes 07:19, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
• Yes: The site in question (FC, here onwards) was blacklisted for spamming; not for concerns of reliability.
  FC has been a Rotten Tomato-approved publication since years. Anupama Chopra, who helms the site, has impeccable credentials having written multiple highly-cited works on aspects of Bollywod (consult GScholar) and even winning the National Film Award for Best Book on Cinema (2000). The Film Critics Guild of India, as of today, consists fourty-seven film critics including resident-critics from MSM like The Hindu, The Wire (India), Scroll.in, Deccan Chronicle, and The Indian Express; notably, Chopra is the incumbent Chairwoman and beside her, there are four reviewers who are exclusively associated with FC!
  Additionally, Lourdes might not be able to see the clear consensus but six editors were in support — Krimuk2.0, Shshshsh, Kailash29792, DaxServer, Ravensfire, and me — and none against. Of them, the first three, who were most vocal, has (cumulatively) accumulated 20 FAs, 28 FLs, and 20 GAs, almost exclusively on topics concerning Indian films. I hope that my implications are clear. TrangaBellam (talk) 21:37, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
• Comment Filmcompanion.in was added to the spam blacklist because spammers were adding links to it indiscriminately. Recent discussion at WP:ICTF, among experienced editors working in the relevant topic area (Indian cinema), suggests that there may be legitimate uses of the website as a source. Therefore, it has been proposed that we replace the spam blacklist entry, which disallows all links to the website, with an edit-filter that disallows (say) only non-ECP editors from adding links to the website. This would hopefully prevent the spamming, while enabling citing of articles on the website on a case-by-case basis. So IMO, we don't really need to decide whether filmcompanion.in is generally considered reliable but only whether there are any legitimate uses of the website as a source. Abecedare (talk) 21:44, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
• Yes: Per TrangaBellam. And Anupama Chopra is more than just "the wife of a famous Indian film producer". Another of its long-time writers, Baradwaj Rangan, is a National Film Award winning critic. Kailash29792 (talk) 02:13, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
• Yes: "wife of a famous Indian film producer" is such a vile and sexist trope, that I'm shocked people even say such things in 2023. As stated above, Chopra has incredible credentials and is a foremost film journalist in India, and her website Film Companion is miles above the cookie-cutter PR circus of mainstream media. As for the spamming, why should the majority of readers suffer due to the deeds of some misguided spammer? Krimuk2.0 (talk) 06:04, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Notes

• Query: Does Anupama Chopra's position as the wife of a film producer, as the Chairperson of the Mumbai Film Festival, and as the Editor/contributor to her own media youtube / entertainment channel filmcompanion put the channel's output in a conflict of interest? If Anupama were to write in New York Times, I would expect a good amount of peer review. But if she is curating her own media output through an entertainment journalism platform, then would the independent peer review process still be the same? I would look forward to comments from the editors who utilise the channel for referencing (or wish to utilise). Journalists such as Baradwaj Rangan, while no longer associated with the channel, have written for her though. Good to get your thoughts. Thanks, Lourdes 06:25, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

She has said that she does not review her husband's films due to conflict of interest. Also, she is not the chairperson of the Mumbai Film Festival, it is Priyanka Chopra Jonas. Before that, it was Deepika Padukone. Krimuk2.0 (talk) 06:29, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Noted. She is the Festival Director of the Mumbai Film Festival as per their own website. Semantics. Also, her acceptance that their exists a conflict of interest is good. While she is only narrowly adjudging it to her husband's movies, her reviews of her husband's competitors/or rather industry players, could raise the same questions. How does she ensure partiality? Lourdes 06:40, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

• Selective messaging comment: I also note that after this RSN section was started, Trangabellam has gone and selectively messaged the supporters from the past discussion, some of who have come here and expressed their support post his messaging.[22][23][24][25][26] More will follow. I am disappointed at their canvassing attempts and realise that in such a case that support is being sought for exclusively and so aggressively, this exercise may become moot, as they seem to be wanting to muster support any which way. Lourdes 06:34, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  I do not see this as canvassing. I only asked Trangabellam whether they were still pushing to whitelist FC, and they told me about this discussion soon after, apparently as response. Kailash29792 (talk) 07:11, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  That's definitely canvassing. Leaving a {{subst:Please see|Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#filmcompanion.in}} at a talk page or WikiProject talk page would be the proper way to do this without violating WP:CANVASS. The user talk messages literally say please do !vote. Quite a bad look. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:17, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  I messaged every single individual who commented at the film-project discussion. Including Ravensfire who would (later) not be very supportive of de-blacklisting. Please open an ANI thread if you feel that I breached CANVASSING in letter or spirit. TrangaBellam (talk) 07:18, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you Kailash, TrangaBellam. Your responses are not supported by the timeline. Kailash, you asked Trangabellam on 16 June on their talk page, to which they responded many days after, after my RSN post. Crucially, they notified you separately on your talk page to !vote right after I started this RSN section.[27] So your justification comes off illogical. TrangaBellam, you also selectively notified all supporters to !vote, including Ravensfire, who clearly is also a support for you, per the diff from the very discussion you are alluding to.[28] Your past linked discussion strangely with only supporters and no naysayers also seemed very off -- one reason I said earlier that consensus is not evident. VOTESTACKING is not preferable. This is deeply disappointing. Thanks, Lourdes 07:29, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  So, you accept that the linked discussion had "only supporters and no naysayers" yet go on to charge me for violation of CANVAS? When you say the discussion seem to be "very off" what do you imply? TrangaBellam (talk) 07:55, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

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

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Indian cinema task force#Pinkvilla is unreliable for box office figures

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Indian cinema task force#Pinkvilla is unreliable for box office figures regarding whether Pinkvilla is reliable or not for box office figures (Indian cinema). Some box office figures from Pinkvilla have been removed from the associated articles ot the Pinkvilla website. The primary concern and the argument is that removal of box office figures from articles on the Pinkvilla websites means that citations of those articles can no longer be trusted and therefore Pinkvilla cannot be trusted for any reports of box office figures.  — Archer1234 (t·c) 12:45, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

National Bridge Inventory

I've seen people cite the National Bridge Inventory for the year of construction of bridges, including on some current featured articles, but I have determined from personal research that this source often gets the years of construction wrong. For example, NBI claims this bridge was built in 1977, but multiple first-hand sources (1, 2, 3) confirm it opened to traffic in 1974. Another example, NBI claims nearly all of the bridges on I-24 between Nashville, TN, and the Kentucky state line were built between 1970 and 1973, but aerial imagery shows them under construction in 1974. These are just a few examples I have observed. Bneu2013 (talk) 18:47, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

chemicalbook.com

Very many articles related to Chemistry have references from chemicalbook.com. The site is a commercial marketplace for chemicals and reagents but show no evidence of any editorial oversight. The purpose for any editor using this site is to allow chemicalbook.com to sell its produts. The site contains easily found copy-vios as for example at Photographic film, this reference is a direct copy vio from this 1977 paper by Meredith and from a 1968 book by Meredith here. Any source that itself contains copyright violations cannot, in my view, be an acceptable source for Wikipedia.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   16:36, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a bad source that should not be used on WP. JoelleJay (talk) 23:34, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

RfC on reliability of pinkvilla

Editors may be interested in this RfC on reliability of pinkvilla  — Archer1234 (t·c) 13:19, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Is Physics Essays a reliable source.

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.

---

Wiki says that Physics Essays is a reliable source. Physics Essays - Wikipedia

ScooterMcGruff (talk) 00:20, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

No. They publish utter nonsense. In just the most recent issue they published an article that claims to refute Einstein's relativity. As explained elsewhere, you have misinterpreted. That we have an article about the journal does not mean it is a reliable source. We have an article about Fox News, too. MrOllie (talk) 00:24, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Will you read the Dr. Hansson's paper and discuss any errors in the physics you find? It's only 3 pages long. Here's the article:FULLTEXT01.pdf (diva-portal.org) ScooterMcGruff (talk) 00:44, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

If you persist in spamming this comment like a BASIC program with an extra GOTO 10 line [29][30][31][32], you will probably be blocked from Wikipedia for disruptive editing. XOR'easter (talk) 00:48, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

A casual skim of their home page finds not just one, but at least eight articles claiming to refute relativity in one way or another. XOR'easter (talk) 00:59, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Dr. Hansson's article uses Special Relativity. He certainly makes no attempt to refute it. ScooterMcGruff (talk) 01:05, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

The point is that a "journal" which merrily publishes one supposed refutation of relativity after another is thoroughly untrustworthy. The fact that it has no standards is empirically proven. And that's before we get to the guy claiming that biological beings consist of a physical body in the physical universe plus entangled bodies in the three nonphysical universes [33]. Or the paper claiming that bodiless consciousness perceives the physical world as nonlocal 4D as revealed by a special kind of perception that takes place in near-death-experiences [34]. Or the paper asserting that the conservation of energy and the hydrogen spectrum can be derived from an equation that says "The universe equals the sum of all things" [35]. XOR'easter (talk) 01:22, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

No. It's garbage. XOR'easter (talk) 00:43, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

No, Physics Essays is a crank journal for relativity deniers and similar. It used to have better standards in the past, but it's utterly unreliable these days. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:48, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

The OP has been blocked as a sockpuppet of an LTA. Canterbury Tail talk 13:29, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

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

Airline fleets- Planespotters.net

The reliability of this source has been called into question on almost every airline article at some point since at least 2018, yet it is continually used. Almost every article on an airline lists Planespotters.net as a source regardless. Recently, some editors have questioned it on Qatar Airways, Air Zaire, British Airways fleet, BA EuroFlyer, Air Canada fleet, Emirates fleet, Etihad Airways fleet, among several others. These editors claim that it is unreliable, yet continue to link to previous discussions that have no consensus on the issue. Pinging @Jetstreamer: as relevant editor. SurferSquall (talk) 02:53, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

It was discussed here in February and nearly every experienced editor said it's not reliable. Woodroar (talk) 03:47, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Again, that discussion doesn’t seem well-completed. Someone suggested it could be WP:EXPERTSPS but this was ignored completely by everyone else SurferSquall (talk) 15:14, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

That would appear to be a misrepresentation. See for example "I concur. I think it might be possible to demonstrate planespotter is WP:EXPERTSPS, but it hasn't been demonstrated yet." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:24, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Well, it would appear that it might be, so what gives SurferSquall (talk) 15:33, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Presumably you missed that part of the discussion, hence the misrepresentation of consensus. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:56, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

What gives is that no-one has shown that it is an EXPERTSPS. I found some uses of it in that discussion, but not enough for me to think is passes, and no-one else found anything better. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:01, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Did anybody try to find anything better, though? SurferSquall (talk) 03:38, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Since you seem to believe that it is an EXPERTSPS, why don't you provide some evidence in this discussion, rather than worrying about how thoroughly people did or did not look in the previous one? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 06:50, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Are we even sure it’s an SPS? Is it physically possible for one guy to update all of that every day? SurferSquall (talk) 04:44, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

The About page lists only one person. If it's not an SPS, that's up to you to prove. Woodroar (talk) 12:35, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

I’m going to email that guy, maybe he himself will provide some form of an answer SurferSquall (talk) 21:44, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

I cannot know the minds of other editors, I assume they made their own assessments of the source and weren't convinced by what they found. If you want it to be treated as an expert source you will need to convince others of that. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:28, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

My reading of that discussion is that a number of folks thought it was unreliable, and no one really provided evidence to the contrary. There are ways to assert WP:SPS and no one did so. Mackensen (talk) 03:59, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

RfC at List of fastest production cars by acceleration

Please join the RfC at List of fastest production cars by acceleration about if there's enough evidence to consider it sourced that 25 Rimac Nevera have been sold. Drachentötbär (talk) 23:30, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Use of words of high-ranking clergy on personal website

A question regarding the use of experts, in this case a high-ranking Bishop of the Catholic Church, to reference their own words in an unpublished article they wrote that appeared on their personal website. For example, can I say, "According to Bishop Roman Danylak, ..." and reference the article on his website?

I know that generally personal websites are not RS, however this is the personal website of a high-ranking member of the clergy explicitly specifying it is the personal website of Bishop Roman Danylak and the content is written by him. This archived article for example: [36] Arkenstrone (talk) 18:35, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

SPS by an acknowledged expert (on the subject) are acceptable, as long as they are attributed. Slatersteven (talk) 18:37, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

It's not clear to me that Roman Danylak is an acknowledged expert on any relevant subject in the way Wikipedia understands it, though. Being a bishop is not evidence of expertise. The fact that Danylak believed that Maria Valtorta's poetry was dictated to her by Jesus rather disqualifies him from being considered a reliable source, I would suggest! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:02, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Well, he was Bishop of Toronto, and appointed titular bishop of Nyssa by Pope John Paul II, and also canon of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, a very high-ranking position in the Church, which few attain. Not to mention receiving a doctorate of canon and civil law. Looks to be someone of high qualifications and expertise. Surely he would be considered an expert on Church doctrine and matters of canon law?

Another way to look at it is, the fact that he was an expert on Church doctrine and matters of canon law, and became a supporter of Maria Valtorta's works, suggests that there is nothing contrary to Church doctrine, faith and morals in those works. In other words, instead of de-legitimizing him, it legitimizes the works in question. Arkenstrone (talk) 20:00, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia has guidelines on what makes someone an expert: 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. If he has a PhD in canon law and has published articles on canon law in reliable sources, he may be an expert SPS when it comes to canon law. I can't find any evidence that he does have such a record of publication, but he at least has relevant training so it's conceivable.

If he has a record of reliable-source publications on Maria Valtorta's poetry, then maybe he's a reliable source re. Maria Valtorta. I can find absolutely no evidence that this is the case. Nor can I find any reason to think that he has such a record that I have missed. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 16:12, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Are you trying to prove that "there is nothing contrary to Church doctrine, faith and morals in those works."? See WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:28, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

No, I'm not actually trying to prove anything, those are his own words. Just making the point that, given his qualifications, it is highly unlikely that he is not an expert in matters pertaining to canon law (doctoral thesis) and Church doctrine (Bishop of Toronto/Nyssa). Therefore, he is well-suited to weigh in on matters including works that may or may not be in accordance with Church doctrine, faith and morals. Arkenstrone (talk) 05:40, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

There is a catch-22 in situations like this. If the whatever is only found in WP:SPS, it's often easy to argue it fails WP:DUE/WP:PROPORTION. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:14, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

I would suggest to avoid the old website of a no longer living bishop on a subject that is highly controversial. It will add nothing to Wikipedia, except contention, edit wars and negative feelings. It is better to get solid WP:RS sources than to go grave digging on old websites on controversial matters. It is best to avoid these types of outdated, questionable websites on controversial issues. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 21:27, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Key question: why is there a quest to dig up and add the old Danylak items to Wikipedia? They are exaggerated statements anyway, compared to the mainstream. This reminds me of an episode of David Letterman 15-20 years ago when some political party could not find a presidential candidate. The top 10 Letterman list ended with "We will just dig up Grover Cleveland and run him again". There is no point in digging up old Danylak items of questionable quality and adding them to Wikipedia. There have been multiple attempts at doing so, and they need to stop. We should use WP:RS sources, not old personal websites. Let the Danylak nightmare end here, please. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 13:24, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Presumably for the same reason that the rest of the article The Poem of the Man-God looks as it does. I can only assume that it's due to the influence of editors who are more concerned with presenting Valtorta's poetry as truly divinely inspired than ensuring the use of high-quality reliable sources for contentious claims. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 16:53, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Caeciliusinhorto, you can not guess the exaggerations that are to come next month, if that extreme fascination with Danylak does not end. That article is a very controversial topic and using "inuendo" to suggest that the Catholic Church approves it as orthodox and all scientists agree that it is supernatural is of course daydreaming. I have started a new section on this noticeboard on "yet another path" being used to get Danylak into that article via a book by J.F. Lavere. I would not use the word "fetish" about this fascination with getting Danylak into Wikipedia, but the interest is extreme, for sure. Danylak's old website quotes can not be declared reliable. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 17:06, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

choicely.com

• Miss Universe Iceland 2020 [37]
• Elísabet Hulda Snorradóttir [38]
• Miss Supranational 2023 [39]

choicely.com looks like some kind of crowdsourced vote-tally system, I'm not sure exactly what it's doing. Homepage says "Powerful apps, built without coding" suggesting it's a Weebly-style self-publishing host.

The site is used at the articles noted above, all are beauty pageant-related. ☆ Bri (talk) 20:44, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Doesn't look like an RS to me. Moreover, the dead links above are not in the Wayback Machine, so Wikipedia is better off without them. It looks like there is little to no content that is exclusively cited to this website anyway. Andreas JN466 12:58, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

CamerounWeb

Would this source be reliable for a BLP article? [40] Ca ^{talk to me!} 14:09, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Apparently a news site which has partnered with BBC world service. They also publish their editorial policy which includes a corrections policy. I've no experience with them, but based on that I would expect that it's broadly reliable. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 19:47, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Net Worth Post

User:Filmssssssssssss pointed me to this page after I removed an apparently unsourced DOB addition to a BLP and they restored the DOB without a citation. I am wondering if this is a RS source? Their about us page leaves me uncertain. I also clicked on the author page which is ascribed to a Tom Ford although the bio on that page keeps referring to him as "Frank" for some reason. I'm concerned about adding this as a citation. Filmssssssssssss replied that "Based on the information from other sources in addition to this one, I still believe that this is most likely a reputable source". I would like to see what others think of this source before I add a citation. Thank you. 2601:240:E200:3B60:9592:2091:C98F:C348 (talk) 13:45, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Definitely not reliable. Used to be celebritynetworth.wiki. Any of the networth/celeb bio sites are normally trash as a source. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:49, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Hey, I saw the reply and I saw that it has not been deemed reliable, many apologies to that, and I have restored your edit. 𝑭𝒊𝒍𝒎𝒔𝒔𝒔𝒔𝒔𝒔𝒔𝒔𝒔𝒔𝒔𝒔 (talk) 14:06, 26 June 2023 (UTC) 𝑭𝒊𝒍𝒎𝒔𝒔𝒔𝒔𝒔𝒔𝒔𝒔𝒔𝒔𝒔𝒔 (talk) 14:12, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you for working this out! 2601:240:E200:3B60:9592:2091:C98F:C348 (talk) 12:08, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Trains (magazine)

Trains is a monthly trade publication published in the U.S. about railroads primarily in the U.S. and Canada. It also maintains trains.com, where news and articles are posted. I was reading through Wikipedia:New page patrol source guide and noticed it had never come up here before after doing a search. I'd like to establish some record of the reliability of Trains for future reference.

Personally I consider Trains to be generally reliable for coverage of, well, trains. It is a long-standing publication with an editorial team and in the decade I've been reading the magazine I've never encountered any major issues with reliability. I used two articles from Trains heavily in improving Providence and Worcester Railroad to featured article status and it's an occasional sight across our train articles. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:26, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Why does this need debating in the first place? Are there concerns with this source? If there are no concerns, why are we here? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:52, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I thought this was the place where we ascertained if sources were reliable? Am I mistaken? Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:58, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

It is indeed. There's no particular need to come here if a source hasn't been challenged, but I think advisory opinions are okay too. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 02:00, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

I would consider Trains and its sister publications from Kalmbach Publishing (Classic Trains, Model Railroader) to be thoroughly reliable. The editorial board is independent, they do fact-checking, they correct errors. More of a trade publication than a rail enthusiast publication, though there's some of that of course. Many of the writers they publish have published elsewhere. Has someone objected to its use? Mackensen (talk) 01:03, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

My father has a near complete collection of Trains magazine from (I think?) 1949 onward. That's neither here nor there, but I felt like bragging for a moment. Agree with everyone, perfectly reliable within its sphere. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 01:52, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

That's definitely worth some bragging rights! Mackensen (talk) 12:45, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Across the pond, we use rail magazines to cite anything (most magazines - and pretty much all rail-related magazines - being perfectly reliable); for example, when updating fleet lists and so on... Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 06:40, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Google Maps

Hello! I'm not sure if this has been asked before, but is it okay to use Google Maps as a citation? I was using it quite a bit when I was adding to the A508 road page, but I wasn't certain if it's permissible. Looking forward to hearing your response, Roads4117 (talk) 15:29, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

WP:GOOGLEMAPS ;) DonIago (talk) 15:33, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, Doniago!! Roads4117 (talk) 15:38, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Also see the consensus at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Using maps as sources Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:44, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Academic book reviews

At Talk:Alessandro_Orsini_(sociologist), User:TrangaBellam expresses the view that the authors of the following book reviews may not be sufficiently knowledgeable to have their reviews cited and quoted in the Wikipedia article about Alessandro Orsini (sociologist). Views on each?

Jeffrey Herf

• Jeffrey Herf, "Reviewed Work: Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind-Set of Modern Terrorists by Alessandro Orsini, Sarah J. Nodes", Journal of Cold War Studies, MIT Press.

Lawrence D. Freedman

• Lawrence D. Freedman: "Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind-set of Modern Terrorists; Mastermind: The Many Faces of the 9/11 Architect, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed", Foreign Affairs, Council on Foreign Relations.

Paul J. Smith

• Paul J. Smith: "Reviewed Work: Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind-Set of Modern Terrorists by Alessandro Orsini", Perspectives on Politics, Cambridge University Press.

Others

I would also be interested in editors' views on the following reviews that similar objections might be raised against:

• John R. Hall: "Reviewed Work: Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind-Set of Modern Terrorists by Alessandro Orsini", Contemporary Sociology, American Sociological Association.
• Tobias Hof: "Alessandro Orsini, Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind-Set of Modern Terrorists (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2011), 317 pp.", Cold War History, Routledge.

I would also be grateful if interested editors could review the paraphrases presented in this section and compare them to the underlying quotes. Thanks, Andreas JN466 16:27, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

• Comment - We have ten reviews by specialist scholars, who have some kind of expertise in the topics covered by the book. So, we need not scrape the barrel by adding capsule-reviews from Foreign Policy. Additionally, neither Lawrence D. Freedman nor Paul J. Smith has any subject expertise to make their reviews worth DUE. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:41, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  Nobody has questioned Tobias Hof's or Jeffrey Herf's creds or suggested that their reviews be kept out; so, I don't know why their reviews have been selected by Andreas. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:42, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  I thought from this edit yesterday that you intended to question Herf's credentials as well.

  As for Hof, you're right; he's cited in the article. Though I don't agree with the summary I found in the article. It seemed to take considerable liberties with what Hof actually wrote (Wikipedia library link for reference). Andreas JN466 18:56, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  Last I checked, RSN is not the place to dispute or even discuss whether content has been fairly summarized or passes WP:INTEGRITY. TrangaBellam (talk) 20:23, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  • Lawrence Freedman: "Terrorism as a Strategy", Government and Opposition, Cambridge University Press.
  • Paul J. Smith contributed a chapter on the precise same topic Orsini's book is about to Armed groups : studies in national security, counterterrorism, and counterinsurgency, published by the U.S. government (U.S. Naval War College). (H/T to WO member eppur si muove.)

  Andreas JN466 18:49, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  You appear to believe that anybody who works on terrorism — from al-Qaeda to revolutionary terrorists of colonial Bengal to the Italian far-left — is adept to review each other's works? Wow. TrangaBellam (talk) 19:53, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  If a peer-reviewed journal like Perspectives on Politics, or a journal like Foreign Affairs, decides to publish their review, then why should Wikipedia ask TrangaBellam's opinion about the author's qualifications before including a summary of the review?

  What makes TrangaBellam more qualified than these publications' editorial boards and reviewers, who decided to publish the reviews for their readership?

  The journals, their publishers, and their authors are known quantities, with international reputations. TrangaBellam is not. Andreas JN466 21:25, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  For precedence, see the protracted discussions at this t/p thread. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:30, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Another useful source might be 'Comments on Marc Sageman's Polemic "The Stagnation in Terrorism Research"' by Alex P. Schmid. Not a review as such, but he mentions that "More researchers, and more good researchers, have joined the field in the last decade and the results begin to show in excellent works like Alessandro Orsini's Anatomy of the Red Brigades (2011). Andreas JN466 19:17, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

This is not the article t/p, where you suggest sources for generic improvement. TrangaBellam (talk) 20:24, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

As I said on the t/p, given his subject expertise, the Paul J. Smith review should be included as it is the best expository (i.e. non-polemical) review of what is contained in each chapter. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 21:00, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Okay, I do not oppose inclusion of Paul Smith. TrangaBellam (talk) 06:33, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

• This is a strange thread. All these reviews were published in scholarly journals, several of them being among the leading journals in the field. The journals' editors considered that the authors of the reviews had relevant expertise when they commissioned or accepted the reviews, and it would be bizarre for Wikipedia editors to seek to dismiss this. They are all excellent sources. Nick-D (talk) 00:25, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Foreign Affairs is a trade magazine (though of renown); not a journal. As our article makes clear, they have resident-reviewers for regions; reviews are never commissioned. Besides, the review in question is a one-paragraph-long "capsule-review". When we have 10 detailed reviews — some of which run for five to six pages — in the article from high quality peer reviewed journals by academics with specific expertise in the topic area, why scrape the barrel? DUE etc.TrangaBellam (talk) 06:33, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Reviews in Foreign Affairs are definetly not scraping the barrel. Nick-D (talk) 09:00, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Nick for your comment. Everyone else who has commented so far (including me) has come here from the article. It would be good to have more comments from people who are new to the and situation can comment on the reliability of the sources without the possibility of their comments being influenced by the content of the reviews. Dronkle (talk) 13:51, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Book reviews typically are citable as opinion, unless information from the review is being used for factual statements. It is not clear, therefore, that the question really is one for this noticeboard. It sounds like the dispute is over whether citation to these sources is due, and we cannot help you there. John M Baker (talk) 00:10, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

KidScreen

KidScreen is a trade magazine owned by Brunico Communications. Is this source reliable? 2708 urls/articles are listed here [41]. Timur9008 (talk) 19:17, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Passionfruit / Passionfru.it

This site was founded by the Daily Dot so a good starting point for now seems to be to treat is as similar in terms of reliability. (Passionfruit began as a Daily Dot newsletter in August 2021...). They're still under the same parent brand (Fragment). Should we fold Passionfruit into the Daily Dot entry? —siroχo 11:30, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Reliability of "Dirt.com"?

While looking up more information about Rebecca Sugar, I came across an article about her reported purchase of a home in L.A.. This publication was brought up before on this noticeboard in October 2022, but there was no reply back then. I will say the SAME story was even retracted by Cartoon Brew, which is rare for them to have do a retraction, from all my reading of that publication. Is dirt.com too tabloidish (i.e. going against WP:BLPGOSSIP or similar rules) to be added? Is it reliable, at all? Your views on this would be appreciated. Historyday01 (talk) 14:38, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Dirt.com is owned by Penske Media Corporation, which also owns Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline Hollywood, Rolling Stone etc. It started off as the real estate news section of Variety in 2014 (though based on a gossip column) before becoming its own site in 2019.[42] It has an editorial team[43] and has published corrections in the past.[44] It doesn't seem especially unreliable for its type of news, I guess. DoubleCross (‡) 17:14, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

And now reading the Cartoon Brew article, it seems they retracted it not because of unreliability, but because of angry pushback from readers over fears of Sugar getting doxxed. - DoubleCross (‡) 19:44, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

If the article was withdrawn as a possible invasion of privacy, that really sounds to me like something we should not be citing. I also note that the gossip-ish nature of the source makes it sound questionable at best for a biography of a living person. John M Baker (talk) 20:26, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not seeing anything particularly gossipy about the site. Celebrity-focused, yes, but out here in the Los Angeles area, celebrity real estate is fairly mainstream coverage, to be found in the Los Angeles Times and the like. It neither focuses on the lurid nor on rumors; the name "Dirt" appears to be a joking reference to land. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 14:28, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Also want to clarify something here: It's Cartoon Brew who retracted their own article about this, not Dirt.com. Personally I think the content (of the Dirt article at least) is innocuous and mainstream. DoubleCross (‡) 16:48, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Reliability Check

Does this book by Rabindranath Chakraborty falls under WP:HISTRS? KemuzouKemumaki (talk) 12:42, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

It is obviously an academic book. The foreword was written by a history professor. On the back cover there are endorsements from a historian from Prague and a historian from Calcutta. Unfortunately the foreword is not in the preview and the acknowledgements are cut off after the first page, but my guess is that it is a PhD thesis in history. So, prima facie it is a perfectly respectable academic history book. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 16:50, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Justice for Myanmar

Is Justice for Myanmar can be considered as reliable source? how about confirmed RS (such as BBC or Reuters) that uses Justice for Myanmar as their source, are they still reliable? Ckfasdf (talk) 10:57, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

I am skeptical about using the page itself. There is just no information about editorial background or even about the background of the authors (e.g. are they journalists, academics, ...). I would treat it like a group blog (possibly an expert blog). So I see limited usefulness for non-controversial statements, possibly opinions. If RS use it as a source we have to assume that they did their homework and verified as much of the information as possible. It is also quite possible that a source like BBC or Reuters has some kind of insight into who is behind the page. So I would be careful stating things in wikivoice, but with attribution it should be fine when it is reported by RS. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 16:58, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Military Journals as a source

Hello, Back in the late 1960s I was the Public Information Officer for a combat unit in Vietnam that is currently listed on Wikipedia. At that time we published yearbooks for the combat unit that were made available to the soldiers and the chain of command. Those publications carry pertinent information about activities of the combat unit that are not mentioned in the current Wikipedia page and are both informational and useful for those who might research the combat unit in Wikipedia. If I want to use those sources, how can it be done? Thank you. Lowcountrywriter (talk) 23:40, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Those being WP:PRIMARY sources makes them tricky to use. But as far as using them, I would suggest using a {{cite book}} to do so. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:49, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Those sound like they're primary sources, so you'd want to see our policy on such at WP:PRIMARY. Jahaza (talk) 23:50, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Today News Africa

Could Today News Africa be considered a reliable source for African affairs? A quick glance through some of its articles shows that it's reliability on USA issues is definitely very, very questionable, but what about in African affairs? Presidentofyes12 (talk) 13:25, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Generally unreliable. The website seems to be little more than a blog run by Simon Ateba, as he's the website's owner and only contributor, and there doesn't seem to be any WP:USEBYOTHERS or corrections policy as far as I can tell. Isi96 (talk) 23:59, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

CaptainSparklez

For CaptainSparklez: is this Best Life source and this Fanbyte source reliable? While Fanbyte is listed as reliable on WP:VG/RS, the actual discussion seems to lean more situational and it got basic facts such as dates wrong, so I'm skeptical about using it. — VORTEX³⁴²⁷ (Talk!) 07:17, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

I think you forgot to link the Fanbyte source.

For the Best Life source, it seems fine to me. Their about-us page mentions an editorial team, a place to raise corrections, and have been established for almost two decades. Ca ^{talk to me!} 09:13, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

@Ca: Sorry, here's the Fanbyte source. — VORTEX³⁴²⁷ (Talk!) 12:49, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Probably not reliable. Questionable sources shouldn't be used in BLP articles. Also, the person who created the article only wrote on the site once? Contributing writers can often be suspect. Ca ^{talk to me!} 12:52, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. — VORTEX³⁴²⁷ (Talk!) 13:06, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Winsipedia (American college football website)

The source, Winsipedia, is located at [45]

Because its scope is all teams in NCAA Division I FBS, it has seen use as a source in many Wikipedia articles that fall in the scope of WP:CFB. I have found it being used on, for example, List of most-played college football series in NCAA Division I, Nebraska Cornhuskers football, Mississippi State Bulldogs football, etc.

The content usually being cited is historic stats, records etc. For example its use at the "most played series" list article is as a source for the number of games each team has won in a historic series, as well as when the two teams first played each other, etc.

The issue is that, while Winsipedia does not appear to be incorrect, it also does not show which sources/references were used for their information. Other sources for the same information do not have this issue, such as Sports Reference ( https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/ ), or ESPN (which would be considered a reliable reference for sports stats/records), or the official records of the member universities themselves, which are often available in their media guides, or the official records as kept by the NCAA, also available online ( http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/2020/FBS.pdf ).

As far as I can tell, the best option for Wikipedia is to avoid using Winsipedia as a reference. (u t c m l ) 🔒 ALL IN 🧿 18:54, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Looks like the link should be http://www.winsipedia.com/. John M Baker (talk) 13:35, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

First, let me correct your link -- they're at [46] (this is one of those sites that actually requires the www.)

We do not generally require our sources to list their sources. Checking out one of the other sources you you try to hold up as an example, I don't see any reference for their source of information on, say, the 1910 Penn State Nittany Lions -- and surely, the site was not around in 1910 to generate that information themselves. That's not to say that Winsipedia is therefor accurate, but one can claim sources and still be wrong, or one can lack stated sources and still be right. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 13:36, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Reliability of social media in context of album article

I am currently conducting a GA review for Love or Loved Part.1. Currently, there are two cites to social media, which I believe to be fine, but I wanted to get some second opinions here.

1. On November 23, 2022, 131 announced the upcoming release of live clips for each track, a dance practice video for the title track, "Keep Me Up", and a documentary film for Love or Loved Part.1.: cites the record label's official Twitter, which made the announcement (here: [47]).
2. The chart in the "Release history" section cites the record label's official Facebook for the different release versions (here: [48]).

Thanks! voorts (talk/contributions) 13:39, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Neither of these are controversial, they seem fine for the details they are supporting. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:58, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

High Range book of World Records

I see climbing BLPs using "High Range book of World Records" as the RS. I think this is some kind of money-making site that UPEs use to generate climbing BLPs that use non-notable climbing records. Is there a way of confirming this (and getting it blacklisted).

For example, the BLP a non-notable (in the WP:NCLIMBER sense) climber Anil Vasave, whose only claim to fame is climbing Mount Kilimanjaro (thousands do it each year), and Mount Elbrus (quite a straightforward climb). Same with this equally non-notable climber Sharad Kulkarni, whose only real RS was from the unfortunate death of his wife while descending (a BLP1E), but again there are obscure records from "High Range book of World Records" being quoted to try and give wider notability? Aszx5000 (talk) 20:30, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

The application process requires sending photos, video, audio or paper cuttings and money, and they send a certificate back. I wouldn't count it towards notability -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:52, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Do you think I could have this listed at the WP:spam-blacklist. There are quite a few mountaineering BLPs now using this RS, and it is promoting records that have zero notability in the wider climbing world. Aszx5000 (talk) 20:07, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Under the Radar (magazine)

I was making a citation for The Grants, and I was wondering if Under The Radar was a reliable source? Joejazzy (talk) 12:54, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Probably depends on what you want to use it for. Volunteer Marek 21:58, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

I was gonna use it as a source for the song's genre. Joejazzy (talk) 02:03, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Digital.com

Is Digital.com a reliable source for reviews? The authors seem to be experts, but I am not sure how independent the reviews are. Ca ^{talk to me!} 13:06, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Digital.com is a web hosting service, you'll need to supply a full link. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 13:14, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

This one Ca ^{talk to me!} 14:53, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Sorry my original statement was wrong, the website just has the typical look of a web host but is in fact a review site. I can't see any reason it wouldn't be reliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 11:06, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

WebOfScience

Hey, noticeboard frequenters,

I just saw a reference for a scientist to WebOfScience most cited scientists and wondered what current thought was about this website. I did a search for RSN archives and no earlier discussions on this source popped out for me. I know in AFD discussions about scholars, their citation record is often brought up but I don't know whether or not it is taken from sites like this one. Thanks for any insight you can provide. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:33, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Web of Science is one of the premier bibliographic indices. It doesn't get more reliable than that. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:46, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

With the caveat that WoS has very low coverage of some fields (I'm mostly familiar with computer science, where peer-reviewed conference proceedings rather than journals are the standard publication venue), I'd view it as generally reliable. As an example of what I mean with "very low coverage", I took a look at a profile of someone whose work I'm very familiar with: WoS only acknowledges less than half of their publications and 10 % of their citations, and calculated their H-index as a third of what Google Scholar shows. Ljleppan (talk) 06:59, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

WoS has transparent guidelines for their metrics and is fairly comprehensive so I would say reliable. However, there may be WP:DUE concerns since they tend to index peer-reviewed papers, meeting abstracts/proceedings, and book series, which are more relevant to some fields than others. For example, in biomedical sciences, peer-reviewed articles are the be-all, end-all of one's career output, so WoS would be highly reliable for researchers in that area. But other disciplines, like computer science and some other engineering fields, rely less on this type of publication so WoS citation counts might be less relevant in those cases. Context is key. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 21:40, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Filmcompanion.in (2)

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.

---

Filmcompanion.in was added to the spam blacklist in Nov 2021 because IP spammers were adding links to it indiscriminately. Discussions at WP:ICTF (Apr 2023, Oct 2021, Nov 2020, Aug 2019) and elsewhere (Nov 2022), among experienced editors working in the relevant topic area (Indian cinema), suggest that the spamming campaign aside, the site may be a good-quality resource. Therefore, it has been proposed that the spam blacklist entry, which disallows all links to the website, be replaced by an edit-filter that disallows (say) only non-extended confirmed editors from adding links to it. This would hopefully prevent the spamming, while enabling citing of articles on the website on a case-by-case basis.

The question for this board, arising from discussion at EFN, is whether there are indeed any legitimate uses of Filmcompanion articles as a source that would justify such an approach? Abecedare (talk) 18:38, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Super quick reply. As noted, there was a spam campaign for FC in 2021. The links included parameters like "utm_source=Wikipedia&utm_medium=ReviewSeeding". This wasn't just IP's adding links. This was an organized and orchestrated spam campaign from FC (or from a company hired by FC). This was a pure attempt to use Wikipedia to promote the site. That's a negative and a big one. FilmCompanion was started by Anupama Chopra. Just going by her article here, she's a respected film critic, having reviewed films for several newspapers in the past, has several books on Indian films and had a weekly television show reviewing films. The website doesn't have any information about editorial staff, but Chopra's page on FC(www.filmcompanion. in/author/anupama-chopra) lists her as editor. So positives there. There is at least one section of FC that should never have anything on Wikipedia - Readers Write. Pretty self-explanatory there. I think there absolutely is some good content on the site, especially film reviews. You do see their reviews mentioned by other sources, also a plus. This may be a site where some parts of the site should be permitted, but not everything? Ravensfire (talk) 17:20, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

What appears to be the case here is that there is a reliable source that also has a spam problem. The proposed solution (removing it from the spam blacklist and implementing an abuse filter to restrict this source to autoconfirmed editors only) seems to be a more narrowly tailored way to deal with this problem than an outright blacklist. If this does not work, then we can always return to the spam blacklist (or implement a 30/500 restriction through abuse filter), but I don't think we'll come to that point. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:20, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

The abuse filter option may be ideal. Preventing IPs and unconfirmed users from adding FC, but letting long-time and honest editors add it. Kailash29792 (talk) 15:58, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Seeing that in the past the spam-blacklist has been used to prevent citing even when there's no current spam, and worrying that in the future the no-whitelist New special page to fight spam might be used, I'm hoping that anything rather than a spam-blacklist would become normal for anything brought to WP:RSN. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:32, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Consensus here seems to be tending towards raising an edit filter and to remove the site from the blacklist. I would request clarity on two points:

1. Should Anupama Chopra's reviews and articles in her own owned movie media channel (filmcompanion) be considered reliable, given that there expectably would be no peer review -- and given that she is the Director of the Mumbai Film Festival, as well as her having a evident conflict of interest (being married to a leading film producer, whose films she has admitted to not reviewing, due to a self-accepted conflict of interest)? (Reiterating -- her articles in other media channels presumably undergo peer review, therefore are acceptable, given her long-standing status as a film journalist).
2. Which parts of filmcompanion should be generally trusted as reliable and which not?

A consensus on these points will allow future article talk page discussions to have direction on the scope of acceptance of this source. Thank you, Lourdes 11:53, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

By policy, filmcompanion does not review her husband's productions, last I checked. 2001:8F8:172B:41ED:2D5E:DC11:DD06:64BE (talk) 12:52, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Yep, proven here. And Lourdes, the entire FC should be trusted as reliable, except for articles written by guests or unnotables like this. Kailash29792 (talk) 13:17, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks both. How will we know which writer is notable and who is non-notable? I feel this is important to clarify in order to avoid future disputes on article talk pages. We could also leave this to the discretion of article contributors. Lourdes 09:57, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

TrangaBellam, your guidance here will be valuable. Once you give some guidance on my queries, we can close this discussion and I will remove the title from the blacklist. Let me know. Thanks, Lourdes 10:21, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

TrangaBellam has not been active for the past week following this discussion. But seeing how persistently they have been fighting for FC's whitelisting, I would like to see FC removed from the blacklist whether they comment here or not. Kailash29792 (talk) 12:47, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

I took a break. As a rough yardstick, anything that belongs to the "Readers Write" section or is not written by an individual critic can be discarded. More to the point, as and when disputes arise, I have faith in the collective wisdom of ICTF editors in guiding the community. TrangaBellam (talk) 15:04, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Sounds pragmatic. If all are in agreement, we may close this discussion. Thanks, Lourdes 03:49, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

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

General question on if sources authored by someone with a master's degree are considered reliable for Wikipedia in-regards to history

Hello, are sources written by authors who have a master's degree (Master of Arts; MA) reliable for history-related articles? Or can only sources written by authors at a PhD level be accepted on Wikipedia? Not sure if this is the right place to ask this. ThethPunjabi (talk) 02:16, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

You're approaching it from the wrong direction. Sources are expected to be authored by recognized experts in their field, no matter their level of academic attainment. A PhD may be part of that qualification, but is never all of it. Similarly, no degree at all is necessary when someone is broadly regarded as an expert in the subject being discussed. Mere academic attainment is never a sole criterion for reliability. See WP:RS for more. Acroterion (talk) 02:34, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

@Acroterion Thank you for your response. ThethPunjabi (talk) 03:18, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

As a general rule I would not view a degree as a reason to accept or reject a particular author/source. For example, I would be more willing to accept a journal article written by an undergrad (thus technically no degree) and published in a respectable journal vs something written by a post doc but self published or published in a low quality journal. In the case of the journal paper, unless the author is well known, we generally have to rely on the reputation/quality of the journal.

This can also extend to historical books published outside of traditional academia. While a lot of history is going to be written by people who are within academia, some specialized areas (say history of an industry or technology) might be written by people without degrees in that area (perhaps a journalism degree or something else). In those cases we would have to look at both what is being claimed (is it an extraordinary claim that requires greater evidence or is it an uncontroversial claim) and the reputation of the source. Occasionally a book by a non-history will be viewed as a reference quality work for it's specific subject. Springee (talk) 02:38, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

@Springee Thank you for your reply. ThethPunjabi (talk) 03:18, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

• @ThethPunjabi: I don't think the educational attainment of an author is the crux of the actual dispute this RSN query appears to relate to. IMO the problem is that a newspaper column is being used to contradict scholarly writings published by I B Tauris, Anthem press, and Oxford University Press. (There are also secondary issues of the the newspaper column being misinterpreted, and the article in the OUP edited volume, which is a republication of this journal article not being cited properly. But those are not the primary concern of this board and can be easily addressed on the article talkpage.)

Pinging @Acroterion and Springee: to check whether they believe their generic advice, which I agree with, is being appropriately cited in this case. Abecedare (talk) 04:23, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

@Abecedare I did post this question for an entirely unrelated issue. I simply found the response relevant regarding another discussion I recently had regarding educational qualifications of an author and its impact on the reliability of said authors on WP. Stating this before anyone gets any ideas on my intentions. Also, the other editor I was discussing with had qualms over the academic credentials of the writer of the newspaper article – and their opposition to inclusion of the source was centred on educational qualifications (see the talk page discussion). And may you expand on how the newspaper article is being "misinterpreted"? I am aware the majority of sources' views on the matter (which I state explicitly in my edits to the article), however this minority view has a place in the article as well. ThethPunjabi (talk) 04:26, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification.

As Acroterion and Springee indicated, assessment of a source's reliability should take into account a multitude of factors. For example, the Nalwa book is likely an unacceptable source because of its age (1935), publisher, and lack of academic reviews and peer-reviewed articles written by its author (at least I didn't find any on a quick search). The author holding "only" an MA would be the least of the concerns because during the 1930s the PhD degree was not as well-established as it is now and many recognized experts and academics lacked it.

And again, IMO the advice offered in this section is being misapplied to the Dawn article case though I'll let Acroterion and Springee speak for themselves. By the way, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there is indeed scholarly uncertainty/dispute over Damodar Gulati's religious identity but per WP:DUE, if you want to include the argument that he was a Sikh you would need to find sources at par with the ones that say otherwise. Abecedare (talk) 04:48, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

@Abecedare I agree with you that the Nalwa book source is outdated. I originally posted this question here to basically see where WP policy applies regarding author educational credentials so I could have basically get a better understanding. In retrospect, a separate post should have been made for the Damodar Gulati issue but the user I was discussing the issue with on the t/p did post on here a few weeks ago seeking advice but received no response. Btw thanks for your reply. ThethPunjabi (talk) 04:53, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

WP:SCHOLARSHIP says that Masters dissertations and theses are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence. This is because of the relative lack of review for such theses, but it does indicate that merely having a Master's degree doesn't make one an expert source for purposes of WP:SPS. That being said, merely having a Master's degree (or a Bachelor's, or no degree at all) does not disqualify an author from writing reliable works; what matters is the extent to which there is some sort of editorial review structure with a reputation for fact-checking/accuracy. This is why WP:NEWSORG allows journalism to be cited, and why WP:NEWSORG also notes that opinion pieces are not presumed to be RS. I don't think merely having a Master's degree transforms an opinion piece from being unreliable to being reliable. In any case, we should be trying to use the most respected and authoritative sources in writing articles; unless the journalism is presenting facts that were not known at the time of the scholarly work's publication, it's generally better to use scholarly works for these sorts of historical claims. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:47, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree with the thrust of the debate that it is not the nature of the degree that is important, it is reputation of the person. For example Antonia Fraser has only (!) a batchelor's degree, yet her reputation as a popular historian is unsurpassed. Xxanthippe (talk) 06:25, 1 July 2023 (UTC).

Or Nina Totenberg, who has no degree, but is an authoritative source on the US Supreme Court. Banks Irk (talk) 23:26, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

True, but for our purposes she is surpassed by nearly every academic historian... So there are levels to this. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:42, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

It depends on what you mean. A master's degree alone would not, generally, be sufficient to pass the threshold for WP:SPS (though they could pass it if they became an established expert in the field regardless); however, if they are published in an WP:RS, then reliability can be derived from that RS and at that point their degree no longer really matters. That is to say, we wouldn't generally cite a blog post by someone with only a master's degree in the field; but if they wrote a book published by a high-quality academic publisher, or a piece in a major periodical, or otherwise published something in a WP:RS who we can trust performed their usual controls for fact-checking and accuracy, then that could be cited because it gains reliability from that. --Aquillion (talk) 00:06, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

National Geographic

I thought it was worth discussing National Geographic again, given that they have made the choice to fire all staff writers in favour of solely relying on freelance work. While I've definitely seem some good science reporting in National Geographic, where they actually bother to go and actually interview experts who were not part of studies, there's definitely some fringey stuff also, like their article about crystal skulls, which seems to give undue weight to the idea that these objects are actual mesoamerican artifacts. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:43, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

• Is there perhaps a need to set a time period of reliability for the source? Since I don't think throwing out everything with it is appropriate. But clearly they've lost their reliability in recent months and years. We may need to say that only articles prior to a certain date remain reliable. Silverseren^C 01:48, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Wow, that's a terrible loss to the journalistic community. NatGeo was always the gold standard for cultural reporting. Never thought it would go digital only. Not that using free-lancers is bad, but they'll hire whomever now to get the job done. Certainly anything after the layoffs should be looked at with caution notability-wise, but the crystal skull article is much older... Oaktree b (talk) 04:38, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

militantwire.com

A couple users keep restoring text sourced to militantwire.com, a substack which is being used in 10 other entries on en.wp, to Nahel Merzouk protests. It is being used to support the following text:

Furthermore, there were multiple confirmed cases of rioters firing in the air using Kalashnikov assault rifles.[58] A video was also filmed showing a rioter with PPS-43 style submachine-gun. Numerous cases of rioters firing at CCTV cameras with pump action shotguns were also filmed and verified.

Does anyone have experience with this substack? Do they have a corrections policy? Have they been reviewed anywhere? A search for "militantwire" "Nahel" shows this substack article has not been reported upon by any traditional media outlets, so at least for the moment, the information seems to be undue. Nevertheless, I am curious if people consider it a reliable source or not, given its use on 10 other pages. (It has been cited on other matters by Newsweek and SudOuest (a Bordeaux-based newspaper)...) Thanks for your help. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 17:17, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

They list staff on the about section. I don't recognize the first two authors and it's a little concerning the third contributor uses a pseudonym. Not much on writer Tom Lord. Not much on Lucas Webber, but he seems to be the most published of the three [49]. Webber may be an expert self-publishing, but I'm still pretty skeptical. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 17:27, 7 July 2023 (UTC):

Thanks. Indeed, the author of the article cited in the entry being "War Noir" along with the obsessive detail concerning types of weapon is what caught my attention at first. My thought is that what can be verified via other sources is likely due, and what cannot should go, including the source. But I brought it here in case anyone had inside information on War Noir's reliability. :) -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 18:44, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Could you link the other sources that cite them you mentioned? TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 19:17, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Nope, sorry... because reasons (good ones, actually). But here's how you can find them yourself: type site:"newsweek.com" militantwire.com somalia into google and you'll find a ref where newsweek cites the site. (If you remove "Somalia" you'll see that they seem to rely on them a fair bit actually, though not for War Noir's article.) -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 20:31, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Just a quick note that, per WP:NEWSWEEK, the modern Newsweek is a shaky source itself, so its use of the site cannot confer much reliability. (It doesn't confer non-reliability either, mind you.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 00:35, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Is Ji Hong Tai Chi reliable?

I am using this source for the article Tai Chi. I am not sure if it's reliable. The website claims their instructors are certified. SVcode(Talk) 23:50, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Even if certification were sufficient to be considered reliable (questionable in itself), we cannot accept the website's word that their instructors are certified, as that is something that would have incentive to claim even if not true. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 00:39, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Vents Magazine

I have been removing this as a reference from pages due to it being unreliable (IMO). An editor raised the question about the reliability on my talk page since then so bringing it here for discussion on reliability and potential blacklisting based on paid posts. There is this at RSN and a more recent one here at RSN. The website does not list any type of editorial oversight, has writers openly seeking pay for posts, and have spammy blog content such as this. A Google search also found (fiverr dot com / gigs / ventsmagazine) showing that freelancers are offering to post on the website for pay. CNMall41 (talk) 19:05, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any reason to consider it reliable. Articles like this look like unflagged advertising. I would absolutely not consider this reliable. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 09:29, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

That's exactly what I have been seeing on the website. More like paid spam which is evidence of the Fiverr information posted above. --CNMall41 (talk) 02:40, 8 July 2023 (UTC)