Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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

RfC: Bloody Elbow

What is the reliability of Bloody Elbow pre-2024?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate Brucemyboy1212 (talk) 19:02, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Survey (Bloody Elbow)

• Option 3 See previous discussions at RSN:[1] [2] Three of the four editors who weighed in, not counting me, considered it a blog that was generally unreliable. One editor pointed out it had been cited more than 500 times, but did not otherwise weigh in. Please note that I have a conflict of interest as a consultant for WhiteHatWiki.com, hired by ONE Championship which has been covered in Bloody Elbow,

While Bloody Elbow currently seems to be a reliable source under the new ownership, (See their editorial policy, prior to this, Bloody Elbow was a small blog. When GRV bought Bloody Elbow in 2024, [3] it laid off the existing staff and deleted most of its archival content, indicating a lack of confidence in the site’s past work.

Most of the citations to Bloody Elbow on Wikipedia no longer work and can’t be rescued. On the Ultimate Fighting Championship page, for example, of the 35 citations to Bloody Elbow, only five links work - three go to the Ghost Archives, one to the Internet Archive, and only one to Bloody Elbow. I tried to find the 29 sources on the Internet Archives and the Ghost Archives and I could not locate them.

When deciding whether a source is reliable WP:USEBYOTHERS says: “How accepted and high-quality reliable sources use a given source provides evidence, positive or negative, for its reliability and reputation.” The media rarely cited to Bloody Elbow over its 16 year history. I found only three reliable sources pre-March 2024 that cite to it, two of which described it as a blog. A story written by a contributor on a site called “Fannation” uses Bloody Elbow as a news source. The two other reliable sources that refer to it as a blog are a small Florida publication and Washington Post sports blog. The Post seems to have used it exclusively to reprint quotes from fighters attributed to the Bloody Elbow blog E.g. [4], [5], [6].

My suggestion is that Bloody Elbow pre-March 2024 be treated as unreliable for statements of fact, but can be used for statements of opinion, if attributed. Regardless, editors are going to need to replace the hundreds of dead links with new citations. Brucemyboy1212 (talk) 19:02, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

What is the purpose of this RFC? The consensus from previous discussions is that it isn't reliable. That is also the case with previous discussions on SBNation blogs in general. Has there been any disagreement with that assessment? If not this seems a waste of editors time. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:19, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

I see there was a discussion of SBNation, in which you participated, but there was no consensus. You argued that these blogs were sometimes reliable, and sometimes not,[7] which would be Option 2 if applied to Bloody Elbow. But there is recent precedent for examining the SBNation blogs individually here at RSN. Here is an extensive discussion from July 2023 of team SBNation team blogs, in which you also participated and argued they should not be used for BLP.[8] Brucemyboy1212 (talk) 15:56, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

The issue is still unsettled under WP:RSPCRITERIA. The first discussion had three participants and two agreed that it was unreliable. [9] The most recent one, had three participants, two of whom agreed it was unreliable, but my vote likely shouldn’t count since I am a paid consultant to a company written about by Bloody Elbow. [10]. WP:RSPCRITERIA says that to declare a source unreliable you need significant discussions between at least two qualifying editors about the source's reliability or an uninterrupted RfC. @ActivelyDisinterested: Brucemyboy1212 (talk) 18:40, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

This doesn't need to be listed, and starting discussion and RFC just to get it listed on RSP is non-productive. This board is for advice for disupted sources, not a place to fulfil thr requirements setout to get listed at RSP. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:49, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

• Option 3: Generally unreliable, as its just a blog. Slatersteven (talk) 18:42, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
• Bad RFC As the RFC was only started to get the source listed at RSP. Blogs are covered by WP:BLOG, and strongly oppose listing this at RSP. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:53, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Whether it was a blog or news source pre-March 2024 is the issue. It was not self-published - it had different owners and employees. Wikipedia editors frequently misuse it as a news source, in my opinion. It has been cited more than 500 times on Wikipedia, such as on the page for Ultimate Fighting Championship more than 35 times, and on ONE Championship. I think most of these uses are incorrect even though they are widespread. A formal decision on an RfC will help prevent further misuse, and also clarify that this does not affect Bloody Elbow post March-2024. This decision will directly impact how I treat the source when making proposals for edits I am planing. That's all I care about, not whether it gets list at RSP. @ActivelyDisinterested:, would you like a few examples of where it is treated like a news source on Wikipedia so you can see what I mean - to establish that there is widespread misuse on Wikipedia, which makes this RfC meaningful. Brucemyboy1212 (talk) 23:42, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

How it is used on Wikipedia isn't how reliable sources are judged, many unreliable sources are used extensively on Wikipedia. If it wasn't a blog at some point could you provide details? As far as I could see it was always a SBNation source and they are all blogs.
You should make the edit requests and then see if anyone objects. The first part of WP:CONSENSUS is through editing, if someone objects discuss it with them, if you can't come to agreement with them see WP:Dispute resolution (which may include looking for third party input on a noticeboard like this one). You are circumventing the normal editing process. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:58, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

I think it was always a blog, which is why I chose Option 3. Also, RSN is commonly used outside of disputes that went though Dispute Resolution, apparently contrary to your claim. On this page alone, RSN is used to determine the reliability of a source outside the context of a specific edit dispute on WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Is NPR a reliable source?, Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Reliability of NewsReports, Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#profootballarchives.com. As to bringing up the 500 edits, I only investigated the angle of how widespread usage has been on Wikipedia because User: Schazjmd brought it up during the previous Bloody Elbow discussion,[11]. When you participated in Profootballarchives.com, you did not object to User:Fourthords starting the discussion stating it has been used in 1500 articles, nor did you object when the same editor stated that they could find no other discussion about the reliability of the source (therefore no previous dispute about the source, which you say is necessary before coming to RSN). Brucemyboy1212 (talk) 17:04, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Option 3. (Former) SB Nation subpages are basically fan blogs with undetermined (or no) oversight by actual editors with actual degrees in journalism. If the only source for some material comes from pre-2024 Bloody Elbow etc. then that material shouldn't be cited. JoelleJay (talk) 01:58, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

The Economist, as an acceptable resource.

I was advised to take it here to seek clarification with regard to the use of The Economist as a source. This is not a discussion about the reliability of The Economist as a source, as the community has already decided on that a number of times, the last time at an RFC: [12] My question rather concerns interpretation of the community consensus. According to WP:RSP, The Economist is considered generally reliable. However during our discussion at WP:NPOVN some editors argued that this Economist article is an opinion piece, because WP:RSP also states that "The Economist publishes exclusively articles in editorial voice with no byline". Referring to this statement some editors consider every Economist article to be an opinion piece, and therefore not suitable for use in Wikipedia. In my opinion, that certainly contradicts the strong community consensus that The Economist is generally reliable, which was reached at the last RFC. I don't see that The Economist article in question is identified as an opinion piece on The Economist website, and blanket dismissal of all Economist articles is in my view against Wikipedia policies and general consensus. Also, in that RFC, I don't see any consensus for the wording about The Economist publishing articles "exclusively" in editorial voice. Checking through history, I see that this wording was introduced by User:SamuelRiv: [13], who presented his rationale here: [14] Previous wording appeared to suggest that The Economist published both regular articles and editorial pieces. The aforementioned edit was made before the RFC, but the RSP text was not updated afterwards to reflect the latest consensus. I have no doubts that this edit was made in good faith, but with due respect to every user's opinion, I tend to think that the RSP wording should be based on a wider community consensus. In particular, the present wording appears to suggest that the Economist is a reliable source, but because it publishes only the opinion pieces, it is not per WP:RSOPINION. That is self-contradictory, and certainly is not what the RFC decided. I tag SamuelRiv and Compassionate727, who closed the last RFC, to discuss possible improvements to RCP wording, and I would appreciate comments from anyone wishing to do so. Sean Waltz O'Connell (talk) 08:27, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

• The Economist, while generally reliable, isn't likely to be the best source for material about trans people.—S Marshall T/C 10:24, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

  That is not the subject of this thread & query. The consensus at the RFC was that the Economist is reliable, including the aforementioned topic, as well as those related to the Transgender community. To change that, we would need another RFC, which is not necessary considering it was already covered multiple times in detail. My query is regarding the ambiguous wording of the RCP that needs fixing in accordance with the community consensus - to remove such ambiguity. Sean Waltz O'Connell (talk) 12:58, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

  Welcome to the Reliable Sources Noticeboard, where we discuss the reliability of sources in context. The Economist is the source; trans people is the context. If that isn't the subject of this thread and query, then you've likely posted in the wrong place. What's the outcome you want from this thread?—S Marshall T/C 19:02, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

  Perhaps it was brought up in not the most suitable Noticeboard. The main reason for my post on this noticeboard is my query, which concerns the ambiguous wording of the RSP entry, as it has become a matter of contestation and ambiguity due to its wording affording divergent interpretations. Sean Waltz O'Connell (talk) 20:42, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

  If your only issue is wanting to discuss the wording on the entry at RSP I suggest using WT:RSP, as that's not an issue of reliability.

  Generally just because a source is considered 'generally reliable' doesn't mean that the reliability of specific articles in context can't be questioned, and opinion isn't unreliable - it's opinion and is usually fine with attribution if it's due. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:10, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you for the contribution and opinion. I have absolutely no issues with attribution, we can do that when referring to the Economist article in question. Of course I could take it to another board, if that is a more appropriate venue. Indeed, my only issue or query here is the wording of the RCP entry. Question is, how can it be presumed that every Economist article is an opinion piece? As far as I can see, the latest RFC closing statement makes no mention of that. And RCP entries must contain information that is based on community consensus. Sean Waltz O'Connell (talk) 17:52, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

  The RFC linked is about trans people specifically, and an overwhelming majority of users voted that it's generally reliable on trans topics. Hi! (talk) 02:07, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Asserting all Economist articles to be opinion pieces seems an odd take, possibly based on a misunderstanding of what “editorial voice” means. It means the tone and style is that of the collective publication, not that they are publishing editorials. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 17:56, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that was probably the intended meaning of the wording, but "The Economist publishes exclusively articles in editorial voice" part links "editorial voice" to WP:RSOPINION, which implies that all the articles are opinion pieces. Which is why I think better wording is needed to fix the ambiguity. Sean Waltz O'Connell (talk) 20:33, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Possibly that part needs to come out of the RSP summary as the presence or absence of bylines has little bearing on reliability. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 14:43, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

• There's some missing context here. The discussion at NPOVN also brought up (that's to say that I brought up) that the claim seems like it would fall under the requirements of WP:MEDRS. Sean Waltz O'Connell thinks it doesn't and argues it's purely about medical ethics, but Loi in the NPOV thread was of the view that the claim does require MEDRS because it falls under information which (if true) would affect or imply conclusions about biomedical information is typically itself treated like biomedical information. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 19:07, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think it's MEDRS, exactly. The biomedical information isn't in dispute. What's disputed is whether there was an effort to suppress the biomedical information. But I can't believe a newspaper is the best source for that.—S Marshall T/C 19:37, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

  Especially only 1 newspaper. LunaHasArrived (talk) 09:06, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

  What medium would you prefer as a source? Hi! (talk) 02:08, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

  That is a different part of the dispute, concerning not just The Economist, but also the New York Times. The Economist article was initially contested on the grounds that all The Economists publications are opinion pieces based on RSP wording. That is the matter I want to discuss here, to prevent further misunderstanding. Regardless of the outcome of NPOVN discussion, I think the fact that there is such ambiguity warrants a fix to the RSP wording to dispel of any divergent interpretations, and for the sake of any future disagreements. Sean Waltz O'Connell (talk) 20:54, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

• This is where the "within their area of expertise" in GREL comes into play, The Economist is reliable for its areas of expertise (business, finance, trade, economics, international relations, maybe a bit more) but they aren't in general experts in entertainment, social, medical, and scientific areas except as they overlap with the above. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:04, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

  They are no more or less reliable on economics than they are on science. They have staff science writers who are trained as scientists and science writers, and they have staff international affairs writers and staff econ and finance writers and book writers who are trained similarly. They have high editorial standards, a strong reputation, and strong fact checking, across the board. SamuelRiv (talk) 11:37, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

  I pay an exhorbitant fee to subscribe to The Economist... I don't pay that fee for the bloviating polemics on the trans menace or DEI meaning DIE WESTERN MAN DIE. There is no source which does absolutely everything well and MEDRS essentially means that almost all generally reliable have already been ruled as not having a series of topics within their area of expertise. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:35, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Their articles all have editorial voice. (Arguably so do those of most newspapers these days, once articles go beyond 400 words or so, but The Economist is very explicit about its voice and position.) Editorial voice in a news article is not the same as being a straight opinion piece, even if we do link to WP:RSOPINION in the description. Nobody in RSP wanted a clarification.

(Fwiw, per this discussion, their stated editorial position makes no prejudicial stance on an issue like transgender politics -- indeed, listening to their podcasts daily for the past 5 years, their stance on the issue actually pretty much flipped after the Cass Review.)

Regarding medical ethics, that's an academic field -- lay reviews are useful, and The Economist can give a lay review of the academic debate (along with the accompanying academic source it cites), or an overview of the political debate surrounding the academic debate, or to some extent the philosophy/discourse debate that's going on among magazine writers (to which The Economist's contribution is questionable without bylines, but is probably still taken quite seriously because of its readership), but it is not the academic debate itself. SamuelRiv (talk) 11:43, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but this is not about an academic discussion on medical ethics in the abstract; the disputed content, reported first by the Economist and subsequently by several RS, that WPATH tried to (or did?) stop the publication of systematic reviews they commissioned because they didn't get the desired findings. And also that they removed the minimum ages for gender reassignment surgeries at the last minute after being pressured by the US executive administration to do so, for stated (by the DHHS) political purposes. This context is specific, and is neither academic in nature nor biomedical information. 73.2.106.248 (talk) 00:29, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Oh. Then that's called news. It's a newspaper.

Although for WP purposes it may be premature, regardless of reliability. In two months there's been no follow-up by any other publication. Maybe that's an ongoing investigation, or the story is dormant because nobody is commenting, but personally I think we all need to have higher standards for things like WP:NOTNEWS. (On the other hand, it technically meets all standards -- its primary sources are completely verifiable by us, even, and competent editors would have vetted it, so there's not much else to say -- it warrants inclusion far more than a lot of other stuff in the article.) SamuelRiv (talk) 01:03, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi SamuelRiv , and thank you for joining the discussion and sharing your opinion. The dispute concerns this Economist article. It is paywalled, but the full version was reproduced here: [15] The Economist reported that WPATH leaders interfered with the production of systematic reviews they had commissioned from Johns Hopkins University. Additionally, and both The Economist and The New York Times report that WPATH removed minimum age requirements for the treatment of minors under pressure from a high-ranking official, who apparently acted on their own initiative, as the US administration denied having anything to do with it. These are the NYT reports: [16] [17] If anyone cannot access them, I can provide quotes. This is not about a medical treatment, but about the decision making process within this organization, which was reported by 2 major, highly respected publications. There were objections to inclusion of this material on several grounds, one of them being that all Economist articles are editorials (which is not correct), as well as WP:DUE, WP:NOTNEWS and WP:MEDRS. As you can see, this is not biomedical information, but rather an ethical issue, and reliable news outlets could be used to report such information, as WP:MEDPOP states that 'the high-quality popular press can be a good source for social, biographical, current-affairs, financial, and historical information in a medical article.' The Economist article led to substantial discussion in other mainstream news orgs, as the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Guardian published op-eds discussing the information shared by the Economist.

For example, an op-ed in The Washington Post directly cites the Economist article:

"Last week, The Economist reported that other documents unsealed in the Alabama case suggest something has gone wrong at WPATH itself, which reportedly commissioned evidence reviews from Johns Hopkins University, then tried to meddle with the result. Internal communications suggest that research should be 'thoroughly scrutinized to ensure that publication does not negatively affect the provision of transgender health care in the broadest sense.' Now, assuming this is true, I’m sure WPATH sincerely believed it was doing its best for gender-dysphoric kids. But such meddling makes it harder to find out whether the group is right about that." [18]

Similarly, an op-ed from The New York Times notes:

"The World Professional Association for Transgender Health... blocked publication of a Johns Hopkins systematic review it had commissioned that also found scant evidence in favor of the gender-affirming approach. Recently released emails show that WPATH leaders told researchers that their work should 'not negatively affect the provision of transgender health care in the broadest sense.'"

[19]

Another op-ed in The Guardian states:

"Evidence has since emerged suggesting that WPATH actually tried to suppress the systematic reviews that it commissioned from Johns Hopkins University because the results undermined its preferred approach... WPATH was pressured by the Biden administration to remove minimum ages for treatment from its 2022 standards of care." [20]

While these op-eds cannot be used for statements of facts, they can be used for statements of opinions, if we choose so, and show that the information from the Economist made an impact. In my opinion, the information reported by The Economist got substantial attention from the mainstream media to warrant the inclusion, and it is not WP:UNDUE. Same is true for the 2 reports (which are not op-eds) by the NYT.. Sean Waltz O'Connell (talk) 08:06, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Sean -- I didn't see (in my few minutes of searching initially) that the NYT re-reported, which means that they independently verified The Economist​'s facts. That plus the major op-ed coverage alleviates probably all of my concerns about lack of traction. (As for NOTNEWS, the cat's long been out of the bag on all these political articles.) SamuelRiv (talk) 05:19, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Self-edit: Sean, your NYT news articles only support the Levine influence, not The Economist​'s reporting of documents indicating WPATH's influence on clinical trials, which is the absolute meat of what's being discussed (as it would be WPATH's wrongdoing). Also, the contributed opinion articles, even in the NYT, are not significant with respect to the notion of independent fact-checking (with notable cases in which the NYT op-ed editor has made exceptions on this). So we are back to my original comment: no independent verification of The Economist​'s reporting, and no significant traction. SamuelRiv (talk) 05:57, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

SamuelRiv Thank you for your considerations. Indeed, there are 2 pieces of information that are being discussed. One is Levine interference, and the other suppression of the Hopkins Uni reviews. As you noted, the information about Levine's influence has also been reported by the New York Times. Moreover, the US administration also reacted to the NYT report denying its involvement, so at the moment it appears to be Levine's personal initiative. In addition, the U.S. Congress Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services initiated an investigation and requested documents and information about health officials' interactions with WPATH based on the NYT reports. [21] So this is quite a significant coverage and growing controversy reported by 2 major mainstream sources that is getting reactions from the top political circles. As you mentioned, the cat's long been out of the bag, so it is not NOTNEWS. I believe that all the above coverage warrants the inclusion of this information. Do you agree with that?

Regarding the WPATH's meddling with John Hopkins University reviews, The Economist was the biggest news outlet reporting on this, but other mainstream sources published op-eds discussing this information. While I agree that these are not enough for fact checking, I believe this shows that this information got the attention of those outlets, and they have no reason to question its reliability. The WaPo op-ed even mentions The Economist by name. The Hopkins Uni controversy was reported in a smaller media too, for example The New York Sun also covered the story and linked to The Economist article in its report:

"WPATH wielded a heavy hand after it in 2018 commissioned from evidence-based medicine experts at Johns Hopkins University a series of systematic literature reviews... After some of the Hopkins teams’ findings raised concerns among WPATH leadership that they might 'negatively affect the provision of transgender health care,' WPATH compromised the independence of the Hopkins researchers." [22]

The author is a contributor to many mainstream media outlets.

The Levine story was also reported by The Hill, which is generally reliable according to its RSP entry. So that would be 3 reliable sources reporting on the issue, i.e. The New York Times, The Economist and The Hill [23]

Sean Waltz O'Connell (talk) 08:00, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

The Economist is certainly not reliable in its China coverage. MingScribe1368 (talk) 04:43, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

In hard copy, The Economist publishes opinion pieces in the front, and news pieces in the rest of the magazine. Online, the opinion pieces carry the heading "Leaders" (or less commonly, "By invitation"); the remaining content is published as news. The magazine's news pages are not perfect but they are surely at least as reliable as other newspapers and magazines that we commonly cite. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:16, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Some articles are as mentioned mixed news and opinion/analysis. In that case, only the news is reliable.

It would have been helpful if you explained what passage in the article was being used to support what source. As a rule, a conclusion based on stories that have already been published is not news, hence not reliable.

In this case, it's preferable to use news reporting to report what Dr. Cass found, and the reaction to it, provided it is clear what weight is placed on various reactions.

TFD (talk) 02:09, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I think this is about WPATH/SOC8, not the Cass Review (relevant NPOV discussion) CambrianCrab (talk) 02:16, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Suggested alternative wording:

Most editors consider The Economist generally reliable. Distinctively, its news articles appear without bylines and are written in editorial voice. Within these articles, Wikipedia editors should use their judgement to discern factual content – which can be generally relied upon – from analytical content, which should be used in accordance with the guideline on opinion in reliable sources. Its pseudonymous commentary columns and other opinion pieces should also be handled according to this guideline.

For brevity, I dropped the part about WP:NEWSBLOG because I couldn't see any content this would apply to at a glance across their homepage and it doesn't appear to have been raised in any previous RSN discussions, but obviously it still applies. I dropped the part about podcasts because we don't actually appear to have a specific guideline for podcasts and no other RSP entries mention their sources' podcasts. I hope this wording is clarifying and mutually agreeable. – Teratix ₵ 04:09, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Seems good to me. Loki (talk) 04:16, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

This is very good, thank you. My only concern is about this part: "Within these articles, Wikipedia editors should use their judgement to discern factual content – which can be generally relied upon – from analytical content, which should be used in accordance with the guideline on opinion in reliable sources". I can foresee some arguments about what is what. Maybe we can make it a bit more straightforward? Per Newyorkbrad, maybe we can mention distinction between the news reports and opinion pieces? Sean Waltz O'Connell (talk) 08:08, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

The Economist will often have news and opinion in the same article. Luckily, it's well-written enough that it's usually quite clear which is which. CMD (talk) 19:27, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I can foresee some arguments about what is what. I see this as a feature, not a bug: the whole point is, when it comes to The Economist, because of its style, we do need to put in a little more thinking than we might with other RS with regards to what is straightforward fact and what is attributable editorial perspective.

maybe we can mention distinction between the news reports and opinion pieces Well, that's the effect I've tried to go for with the separate line about "pseudonymous commentary columns and other opinion pieces". – Teratix ₵ 03:39, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Teratix ₵, if being more specific is not advisable, I think we can proceed to implement your proposed version. Thank you for your efforts. Sean Waltz O'Connell (talk) 14:05, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Could you elaborate please on how you see the distinction between factual content and analytical content? I don't think this is something that we normally call out at RSN? What is The Economist doing differently from other newspapers to warrant part of their news content being carved out as something different to factual? Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 17:32, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Right now, when I go to the Economist's website, their front page story is Why Sudan’s catastrophic war is the world’s problem, an article which both has significant factual content but also does a great deal of predicting of the future (Beyond Africa, expect a new refugee shock in Europe) and policy argumentation (The other priority is to put pressure on the cynical outside actors fuelling the conflict). Needless to say, this is much more analysis than is typical of a news site.

Other articles on their front page are similar: compare Donald Trump’s dream of mass deportations is a fantasy and The plasma trade is becoming ever-more hypocritical, which both combine significant factual content with analysis and policy argumentation. Loki (talk) 18:52, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

IMO, the only articles in the print edition that don't try to analyze the future are the obituaries (but that doesn't stop the editor from speculating about what the person was thinking about at some undetermined moment). It should be a given, somewhere within existing guidelines, that editors can determine within a reliable source, those statements which are analytical, those statements which are empirical, and those which are objectively verifiable fact.

For a newspaper to be reliable, we put some credibility in both the fact-checking process for the verifiable facts, and also the trust in field reporters who claim empirical facts (like "he said x" or "I saw x"). SamuelRiv (talk) 05:27, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

The part of the Economist article concerning the interference by an official was originally reported by the New York Times, another highly authoritative source. Quotes:

Biden Officials Pushed to Remove Age Limits for Trans Surgery, Documents Show

Health officials in the Biden administration pressed an international group of medical experts to remove age limits for adolescent surgeries from guidelines for care of transgender minors, according to newly unsealed court documents. Age minimums, officials feared, could fuel growing political opposition to such treatments. Email excerpts from members of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health recount how staff for Adm. Rachel Levine, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services and herself a transgender woman, urged them to drop the proposed limits from the group’s guidelines and apparently succeeded. [24]

Biden Administration Opposes Surgery for Transgender Minors

The statement followed a report in The Times that a federal health official had urged the removal of age minimums from treatment guidelines for transgender minors. The Biden administration said this week that it opposed gender-affirming surgery for minors, the most explicit statement to date on the subject from a president who has been a staunch supporter of transgender rights. The White House announcement was sent to The New York Times on Wednesday in response to an article reporting that staff in the office of Adm. Rachel Levine, an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, had urged an influential international transgender health organization to remove age minimums for surgery from its treatment guidelines for minors. The draft guidelines would have lowered the age minimums to 14 for hormonal treatments, 15 for mastectomies, 16 for breast augmentation or facial surgeries, and 17 for genital surgeries or hysterectomies. The final guidelines, released in 2022, removed the age-based recommendations altogether. “Adm. Levine shared her view with her staff that publishing the proposed lower ages for gender transition surgeries was not supported by science or research, and could lead to an onslaught of attacks on the transgender community,” an H.H.S. spokesman said in a statement on Friday evening. Federal officials did not elaborate further on the administration’s position regarding the scientific research or on Adm.Levine’s role in having the age minimums removed. The administration, which has been supportive of gender-affirming care for transgender youth, expressed opposition only to surgeries for minors, not other treatments. The procedures are usually irreversible, critics have said. [25]

Sean Waltz O'Connell (talk) 14:44, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Since our discussion has extended beyond my original concern, I would like to ask the involved editors for their guidance on whether the information reported by The Economist and The New York Times should be included in the article about the WPATH. As I mentioned earlier, there were objections to its inclusion on various grounds, but the discussion here demonstrates that many of these objections do not hold up under scrutiny. There is a general consensus that The Economist is a reliable source when it reports facts, so the argument that all Economist articles are opinion pieces cannot be maintained.

Additionally, WP:MEDRS is not applicable in this case, as WP:MEDPOP states that high-quality popular press is a suitable source for social, current-affairs, financial, and historical information within a medical article. The key issue now is determining whether the information reported by these sources meets the criteria of WP:DUE .

The discussion essentially revolves around two pieces of information:

• The Economist reported that WPATH leaders interfered with the production of systematic reviews they had commissioned from Johns Hopkins University. When the findings from these reviews did not support WPATH's preferred approach, they blocked their publication.

• Both The Economist and The New York Times reported that WPATH removed minimum age requirements for the treatment of minors due to pressure from a high-ranking official.

As demonstrated by the quotes I provided earlier, the information from The Economist regarding the Johns Hopkins University reviews sparked substantial discussion in mainstream media, such as the Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Guardian, who published op-eds debating the issue. This indicates that the information did not go unnoticed and had a significant impact. Furthermore, the second piece of information, reported by both the NYT and The Economist—two highly reliable news outlets—prompted a response from the U.S. administration, underscoring its notability. There is also evidence that the U.S. Congress Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services initiated an investigation and requested documents and information about health officials' interactions with WPATH based on the NYT reports. [26]

I would appreciate hearing your opinions on this matter. Sean Waltz O'Connell (talk) 14:15, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

I think it is time for you to WP:DROPTHESTICK and walk away from the dead horse.

You asked this question at the article talk page, were told no based on policy (the economist story on WP:NOTNEWS, the NYT on age changes of the SOC8 on the basis that it belongs on the SOC8 article where it already is), then you went to the NPOV Noticeboard where again, you were told no and then decided to continue on your WP:FORUMSHOP trip to come here with the same question, which this noticeboard here is not concerned, it deals with reliability.

And again, the same reasons still apply. Raladic (talk) 14:46, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

I was advised to take it here by an admin. As such, I followed their due advice. That's not forum shopping. Sean Waltz O'Connell (talk) 19:24, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Opinion piece in The Sun, used solely as evidence of its author's views

While still in opposition, John Healey wrote an opinion piece for The Sun outlining some of Labour's policy positions on defence and indicating his support for them: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/28262648/labours-triple-lock-keep-britain-safe-john-healey/

Is citing this piece as evidence of Healey's stated views permissible, or does the deprecation of The Sun forbid this?

My own take is that this seems fine as a matter of common sense (the reliability of The Sun's reporting on matters of fact has no direct relevance to this usage, and there's no reason to suspect that they fabricate or modify the substance of opinion pieces by politicians) and also fine as a matter of current guidance - WP:RSOPINION specifically permits this kind of usage. David_Gerard apparently disagrees, though. What do others think? Is there a good reason not to use this source in this way that I am missing? ExplodingCabbage (talk) 17:28, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

I certainly don't think the Sun is less reliable than, say, a random social media post by this person, and, attributed, using a social media post like that seems like a reasonable WP:ABOUTSELF. Raises due weight concerns, though, looking at that diff I'm not entirely convinced this is a reasonable amount of detail to try to hand off of one opinion piece, but I'd think that regardless of where it was published. Rusalkii (talk) 21:02, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

But is it significant enough to mention if no independent sources have taken note of it? Schazjmd (talk) 21:04, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

I would want to see a better argument than 'no one else has reported on it' if we are not going to include the secretary of state for defence's views on his own party's policy positions on defence, sourced to himself. In his own biography. Its pretty much as far into ABOUTSELF as you can get before we even start discussing if its relevent *given the job he is currently doing*. Likewise the 'dont use depreciated sources' argument is asinine. If we would use it if he wrote an opinion piece in another paper, we can use it from the sun. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:22, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

If all that's needed is a primary ABOUTSELF statement then why not us the government statement instead[27], it covers everything apart from specifically mentioning the Dreadnought-class submarines but they are not mentioned in the Sun article either. This seems a better idea than wasting time arguing over using a deprecated source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:40, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

The statement you link isn't by John Healey, but more importantly it is from after he gained power, not before. Sources by or quoting Healey after he became a minister are inherently less reliable as evidence of his personal views than sources from when he was a shadow minister, because ministers do not have freedom of speech to express their own views once in power; instead they are constitutionally obligated to publicly maintain the appearance of supporting all government policy regardless of their personal beliefs. If we want to use a source to indicate to the reader what Healey personally stands for, it either needs to be from before he was in government or be based on a leak of a private conversation in which he was permitted to speak his own views; any official government source is inherently unreliable for this purpose. ExplodingCabbage (talk) 11:30, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

No it doesn't, we can take that he supports something by his statement while in office. If he says "I support ..." then we can use that to say he supports it, collective responsibility or not. The issue would only be in statements such as "The government / cabinets position is ..." The idea that we couldn't would also mean that any MP's statement while in office couldn't be used, as they are also meant to support the parties policies.

Also no ministers have freedom of speech, in fact their freedom of speech is greater than when not an MP. Statements to parliament are protected by parliamentary privilege, the government could be upset with their statements, force them to resign from their position, or even remove the whip, but it couldn't censor them or force them to speak. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:29, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

I didn't say that statements from after he became a minister "couldn't be used". I said they are inherently less reliable as evidence of his personal views than statements made while in opposition.

"any MP's statement while in office couldn't be used, as they are also meant to support the parties policies" - huh? MPs rebelling against their own party is completely ordinary and not generally seen as any kind of constitutional violation or breach of duty. Obviously there are personal career incentives not to do this but it's not the same as the duty of collective responsibility borne by ministers.

Also no ministers have freedom of speech, in fact their freedom of speech is greater than when not an MP. Statements to parliament are protected by parliamentary privilege - which means only that they cannot personally be subjected to criminal or civil punishment for their speech while in Parliament. The lack of those enforcement mechanisms doesn't change the fact that they are traditionally considered to have a duty to speak in a particular way, which ministers generally honour; I cannot remember a case in my lifetime of a minister criticising the policies of their own government without resigning first. If you want to quibble over whether this is properly construed as a restriction on "freedom of speech", feel free, but it doesn't really matter to the assessment of what level of candor we can expect from ministers; what matters is that they do in fact honour this obligation, whether they are in some sense "free" to violate it or not. ExplodingCabbage (talk) 13:16, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

If they are free to violate it then they have freedom of speech. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:54, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

While I know very little about UK politics, NZ politics shares some similarities. And so I think there is an important point you've missed. While technically there may not be cabinet collective responsibility for shadow ministers and secretaries, in reality the same principle holds. Shadow ministers and secretaries aren't supposed to be going around opposing party policy. They especially aren't supposed to be doing it during an election campaign. If they do it, there's a good chance this won't end well for them. And if anything, it's arguably riskier. In this particular case, the Sun piece seems to have been published before [28] the nomination deadline. I'm fairly sure this means if they wanted to Labour could have nominated someone else to represent them in his electorate. Perhaps Healey has enough personal support that he could still expect to win, and/or felt this was unlikely and/or could have joined some other party and that combined with his existing support in the electorate would be enough. (Noting also while the furore of such a thing might have wider implications that could be risky for Labour, not doing so could likewise have such implications. And if you want to look at the particulars, the evidence AFAIR even at that stage was that losing that seat itself wouldn't have been a dealbreaker for Labour. And indeed losing it to someone else who wasn't Healey might have been preferred.) But still, the idea that shadow secretaries doesn't have the same expectations that they need to publicly support party policy whatever they personally feel unless they can get permission to publicly oppose it (which is incredibly unlikely if it's something that is part of their responsibilities) or get that policy changed or resign is very likely flawed. Again I don't know much about the UK but I'm fairly sure it's not how things work at least for the major parties. Nil Einne (talk) 23:32, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm reminded of what I said at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#JD Vance Couch Hoax reintroduced without consensus Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive362#J.D. Vance Service Medals. While the situation isn't quite so extreme as here and that case also concerned a primary but not ABOUTSELF case, it's still similar. This was an extremely important shadow secretary from the party widely expected to win the election, and who now has won the election and the person concerned is now the secretary. Further it's even about an extreme momentous issue, nuclear weapons. It concerns the UK, which is a fairly large country and has a fairly robust media ecosystem, yes with a bunch of tabloids we exclude, but still several major sources with quite a few reporters. The idea that there's some important policy position of Labour, or some important view of Healey that that no reliable secondary source has thought worth discussing, but we need to is IMO fairly laughable. For those who are going to complain about this being off-topic despite it responding to the points raised, I'll bring it back to the Sun. Perhaps there might be some very rare cases when there is a genuine question of whether we should use Sun for ABOUTSELF or whatever. I suspect one reason why this has never been resolved is because it's so rare it comes up because ABOUTSELF is already very rare. Even in NZ where we're a lot smaller and our media therefore sometimes has problems that arise from that, it's likewise very rare. We could talk hypotheticals, but we need to be clear that the base case is not one where the issue arises. Nil Einne (talk) 00:31, 4 September 2024 (UTC) 01:17, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Besides weight concerns, I'm also not sure everything in that diff is even supported by the cited article. The Wikipedia article says Healey committed specifically to building four new Dreadnought-class nuclear subs, but the article merely says four new nuclear subs and doesn't contain the word "Dreadnought". Given those doubts, I'd like to scrutinise and see if everything in that diff is actually supported by the Sun article in conjunction with other cited sources - but that, like the due weight issue, is orthogonal to whether the sources is usable as evidence of Healey's views in the first place. ExplodingCabbage (talk) 11:35, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't. As I stated earlier it doesn't mention the Dreadnought or Vanguard submarines specifically, and the statement about the triple lock is With increasing threats and growing Russian aggression, Labour has announced a new "triple lock" commitment for the UK’s nuclear deterrent. So it's not his personal opinion but a statement of Labour policy. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:34, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

The sentence you quote comes at the end of this passage:

It is time for change.

Time to restore Britain’s strength and reputation.

It is only Labour that has the plan for stability, to make Britain secure at home and strong abroad.

With increasing threats and growing Russian aggression, Labour has announced a new “triple lock” commitment for the UK’s nuclear deterrent, providing protection for both the UK and NATO allies.

This is clearly an endorsement of the policy presented as Healey's own opinion. Yes, the sentence you quote could, in a completely different context, simply be a neutral "statement of Labour policy" along with an argument for it given by Labour, and not indicate any endorsement by the sentence's author. But in the context it actually appears, interpreting it in that way is absurd. ExplodingCabbage (talk) 13:28, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

As much of a personal opinion as as any MP stating what their parties policies are, they support the party and so support the policy. The whole statement is "Party slogan", "party slogan", "statement of policy", "statement of policy". You're taking way more from the statement than it actually contains. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:54, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Deprecation, as opposed to generally unreliable, means that we cannot even know if Healey wrote the piece or if it was tampered with.

Also, people's views should never be taken from what they write. First, if that's the only place a particular view is published, it lacks significance. It's not important to writers of reliable sources, therefore too much information for the article. Second, interpreting people's views based on their writing requires expertise. Fascists support free speech, racists support racial equality and war-mongers support peace in their rhetoric.

Also, articles should not present evidence of anything, bur should report where sources have provided evidence. For example, if an article says that someone likes strawberry jam amd provides a quote in support of it, we can quote what the person said so long as it is attributed to the secondary source and it is clear they are using it as evidence.

TFD (talk) 02:18, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

The description of deprecation doesn't in fact say that anywhere, and paras 2 and 3 here seem to just be a wholesale and general rejection of WP:ABOUTSELF and WP:RSOPINION with implications well beyond The Sun. ExplodingCabbage (talk) 08:38, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Any ABOUTSELF claim still has to meet WP:DUE. Not every verifiable fact belongs in Wikipedia. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 16:10, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Nobody's disputing this. ExplodingCabbage (talk) 22:21, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

If you're going the ABOUTSELF route, we can pretty much put everything else aside. You can pretty much assume anything said during an election campaign or that is part of party or government policy fails the "unduly self-serving" test very badly. Nil Einne (talk) 15:56, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

An "unduly self-serving" policy position? I'm not sure how that works, but even if it did, it wouldn't be relevant to whether the Sun can be considered reliable for ABOUTSELF claims. Samuelshraga (talk) 07:10, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

There's no point discussing whether it can be used in this instance, if it can't be used point blank. This wasn't as a hypothetical but whether it can be used for this particular instance. Also it wasn't about "policy position" but instead about personal views. (For clarity the original disputes text was about policy positions, but the question which I responded to was about personal views. Although either way, yes they clearly are unduly self serving. ABOUTSELF isn't intended to allow people to grandstand politically. If no secondary source cared about their grandstanding then neither did we. As a regular at BLPN, I find people often misunderstand ABOUTSELF, there are very, very few cases when it can be used.) Nil Einne (talk) 23:02, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:THESUN specifically says that the RfC leading to deprecation "does not override WP:ABOUTSELF, which allows the use of The Sun for uncontroversial self-descriptions". People have made comments here about whether the content is Wikipedia:DUE, or whether more is being read into the source than actually appears there. These are relevant questions for the underlying content dispute, but not for our discussion here at this noticeboard. The question is whether the Sun's status means you can't use it to cite Healey's description of his own positions/opinions - Is citing this piece as evidence of Healey's stated views permissible, or does the deprecation of The Sun forbid this?

The listing at RSN means that it is permissible - unequivocally. Other questions bearing on the content dispute should appear at the relevant talk page. Samuelshraga (talk) 16:12, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Totally agree that it's permissible, although I prefer to look at what the RfC closer actually said: "... consensus in favor of the proposal. Accordingly, the Sun is designated as a generally-unreliable publication." -- but the proposal contained "deprecated as a source in the same manner as the Daily Mail (RfC)" (which looks muddled because the closers of that RfC didn't say "deprecated" they said "generally unreliable"). So it looks uncertain whether the Sun closer meant generally-unreliable or meant deprecated. What's certain is (a) WP:RSP's summary is worthless (b) regardless what was meant, opinions are allowed. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:09, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Being an unreliable source along with shall be actively discouraged from being used in any article and An edit filter should be put in place to warn editors attempting to use the Sun as a reference is deprecation. The Sun RFC was one of the first to consider deprecation after the Daily Mail RFC, which is why the language isn't as formulaic as later discussions.

The start of the close says that there is consensus in favor of the proposal, and the proposal was Should The Sun be deprecated as a source in the same manner as the Daily Mail (RfC)... -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:38, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

You're quoting what I'd already quoted, except you skipped the fact that the closer said "generally-unreliable". Then you're claiming a request for a warn filter must imply deprecate not generally-unreliable, but it ain't necessarily so since I notice that Edit Filter 1088 is for a generally-unreliable not deprecate item. As for your initial words "Being an unreliable source ..." another editor already suggested that the reliability in this case is irrelevant, and I'll suggest it's reliable in this case, so your premise hasn't been accepted. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 01:47, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

You've completely skipped over the point that the closer says that there is consensus in favor of the proposal, and the proposal was Should The Sun be deprecated as a source in the same manner as the Daily Mail (RfC)... So The Sun is clearly deprecated by the close.

It might be usable in this case for ABOUTSELF statements (although unnecessarily so as other sources can be used), but in context it's not reliable as it's electioneering not statements of personal opinion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:02, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

You've made the 100% false assertion that I "completely skipped over the point", I in fact quoted those items before you came along. I don't believe that you can read the RfC closer's mind to determine what was meant by the contradictory remarks, and further I don't believe you can read Mr Healey's mind to determine he wasn't stating his own opinion. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:38, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

But we can read his words where he didn't say his own opinion anywhere. Well um except that he thought that people should vote for Labour, and Labour was the best party etc. But I'm not sure why we're mentioning that, or why we need some random Sun column for it. Nil Einne (talk) 15:47, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Per ActivelyDisinterested, I don't understand why on earth we'd assume what the shadow defence secretary said in the middle of an election campaign represents his views. In fact, I'd go so far as to say what he says now arguably has a greater chance of representing his views since while he got be fired could easily be fired, on the whole it matters less when the election is potentially nearly 5 years away. However we should still be wary that any of it represents his views. But also where did Healey even write about his views? I read [29] and it's written like a typical "this is what Labour will do and why etc and why the current government is so bad etc etc etc". While politicians sometimes thrown in some personal flavour of this is what I believe, I didn't actually see any of that in the Sun piece. It just seems to focus on Labour rather that Healey's personal views. (Discounting the obvious stuff Labour is the best party etc.) One would hope that given his position, Healey enthusiastically supports Labour's plans in the area etc, but frankly IMO even that can be questionable depending on the specifics (both due to the nature of politics and collective responsibility) and is still fairly separate from Healey's personal views. That's why we need reliable secondary sources who've analysed his statements from just before the election, after the election and most importantly, from long ago before we start talking about Healey's personal views. Nil Einne (talk) 15:46, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Am I the only one laughing at the notion that anyone, much less a politician, would have some kind of intrinsic deeply-held sancrosanct personal views on British Defense policy vis-a-vis Labour's "triple-lock"?

And even if he'd been in office since The (Great) War, and we could trace his public policy statements every single day since 1900, how would those indicate some view more "personal" on a rather specific political topic than what he says now, this year? (And on something like defense, don't you think a lot has changed in the past one, two, three, or four years, that might cause a minister's policy position, "personal" or no, to completely reverse on some key issues?)

And on the notion of back-analyzing politician's "personal views" in general, am I the only one getting eerie reminders of, for example, attempts to discern Barack Obama's 'actual' religion (the most egregious case of this kind of thing being done endlessly forever)? SamuelRiv (talk) 06:19, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

You're right on the first point which is why it's even more ridiculous that the OP asked the question which was part of my point. The source clearly doesn't say anything about his personal views, and the idea that the OP and others like Peter Gulutzan have represented that it did is just silly and I have no idea why we're discussing it. Nil Einne (talk) 22:54, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

The column says "Opinion". I did not say "personal" views as I see no relevance or surprise if Mr Healey shared Labour opinions. WP:CIVIL says "Avoid appearing to ridicule another editor's comment." Peter Gulutzan (talk) 00:39, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I should point out that the actual text in question [30] doesn't even talk about the subject's personal views, so I'm even more confused why people are talking about it. I mean the wording isn't the best, but in the context of the paragraph, it seems clear it's much more about Labour's policy rather than about whether Healey is making a personal commitment to it. (Politicans can and do make personal commitments at times of course e.g. I will resign if this policy is abandoned etc. Of course even personal commitment is sort of different from personal views anyway although it's often assumed people make a personal commitment because of personal views. That said, at least in NZ, personal commitments are sometimes made as a sort of redline because the politician feels that it's a very important position for the public, and it can be unclear or sometimes even in doubt whether the politician personally feels that way or would much rather something else but recognises it's not yet the time.) Nil Einne (talk) 23:16, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

This is totally irrelevant to the question. The question is whether the source could be used in this way - whether the Sun is reliable for Wikipedia:ABOUTSELF claims. Your point could be validly made on the article talk page, it doesn't have bearing on the question here. Samuelshraga (talk) 07:08, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Actually it does, because the OP asked about using this particular source for using a particular person's views. If the OP, had wanted to ask about a hypothetical about some Sun source that could theoretically exist, but for which they weren't aware of an example of, they were free to do so, but that's not what they did. Nil Einne (talk) 23:44, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Preserved British Steam Locomotives

I have a strong suspicion that Preserved British Steam Locomotives would fall into the category of a self published source - going by the homepage, it would appear to be information compiled by a single person, with no attribution of sources. The site is primarily being used to source the current status and history of steam locomotives, including their current active status and what colour the locomotives are painted. Danners430 (talk) 05:50, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

I'd expect that you're correct. It's a Wordpress blog without much customization if any and the wording of the about and contact pages both seems to suggest it's a single person (named David), not to mention they're using a gmail email address. Looks very much like someone's person project. DarkeruTomoe (talk) 07:52, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

A brief peruse suggests that the information contained there is accurate but I can't see that it contains anything that couldn't be cited from a more reliable source anyway. Black Kite (talk) 11:33, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Given the lack of input since yesterday, I wonder if it would be worth tagging any such sources with {{better source}} for the time being, instead of removing them? I personally would be inclined to start removing this source altogether, given it really does appear to be a personal blog - although accurate, we've no way of verifying the info presented on the site, and it clearly falls under WP:SPS. Danners430 (talk) 14:34, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I would love to know where all these other sources are. I cited PBSL on the Mangapps Railway Museum page, because it was the only place I could find anything about overhaul of a particular loco. Mangapps own webpage does not even mention the loco in their stocklist, and has no information about the overhaul status of any of their vehicles. There is a video of stills from the overhaul on Youtube, but is Youtube a reliable source? Most of it seems to be self-published, if PBSL is. Just saying. Bob1960evens (talk) 15:47, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

YouTube is WP:UGC, generally… perhaps we need to review what is on Wikipedia if most of not can only be sourced with unreliable sources. But we’ll wait and see what others have to say about the reliability of PBSL. Danners430 (talk) 15:54, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

YouTube can be a reliable source, but it's self published so the author needs to be an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. So if it's just a random person on YouTube then it won't be reliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:34, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

In the case of the field of cataloguing locomotives, there may be no establishment to grant expertise, and no independent publishers for a book (as is the case with examples I've seen of other cataloguers of esoteric recent history -- books and blogs that go in-depth on all the hat designs of the Soviet armed forces, or how to identify 1890s German-area rifle models, are self-published by what one might call amateurs). (This happens in the reverse in history too -- some independently published expert sources are deemed unreliable for wide swaths of subject matter.) Whether or not such a source (or author) is reliable enough for the articles it is used in is generally left up to the editors who manage those articles, such as the very active WP:TRAINS. SamuelRiv (talk) 06:05, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Nope, doesn't look RS and we have no evidence the author is an expert exempt from SPS. If it's the only source for something then that something isn't due in the article. We're supposed to be a summary, not an exhaustively-detailed treatise on every topic. JoelleJay (talk) 02:24, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Allocine

In terms of French media, should Allocine be considered a reliable source? It is essentially “the French equivalent to IMDB”. 2600:100C:A20C:6C0F:440C:5169:5AAC:E774 (talk) 19:49, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

IMDb is not considered a reliable source because it is user-generated. I'm not familiar with Allociné, but at a quick glance it doesn't seem to be user-generated in the same way. It does seem to be relatively widely cited on Wikipedia ([31]), which doesn't necessarily mean that it's definitely reliable, but certainly suggests that there hasn't previously been much concern that it isn't reliable.

Why is this coming up? What is the case for/against reliability? Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 13:53, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Agree with @Caeciliusinhorto-public's assessment. Looking at the site I see no way to edit it, and while it does offer accounts, the benefits listed are all "comment on the pages" and "make a list of your favorites", etc.. Nothing is mentioned about editing content. Probably it should not be used for exceptional claims (see the exceptional claims policy), but it seems reliable to me. Though if there are complaints that are causing this question they should be mentioned. Mrfoogles (talk) 05:55, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I remember asking about this site last summer. I don't think I ever got a concrete answer and while the cite isn't user-generated, I'm dubious about it's reliability as it doesn't look like it provides any information on how the material is obtained or verified. Which is a huge red flag when it comes to using such pages as a reliable source for BLPs. Another reason I'm hesitant to trust it is that it has Laverne Cox's birth year listed as 1984[32] when her actual birth year(1972) was revealed years ago. So it looks like this site was just web scraping info from other sites. Kcj5062 (talk) 14:55, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

EDIT: Here's another one. The voice actress Rachael Lillis who recently passed away and prior to this many sites had 1978 listed as her birth year and it turned out that she was born in 1969. Allocine put her DOD, but didn't put in the correct birth year.[33] Kcj5062 (talk) 15:16, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

RFC: twitchy.com

Am I Racist? is likely to be a... let's call it... frequently-edited article over the next few weeks. As of right now, its only two citations are from twitchy.com. I've seen a few mentions of it in the archives, but mostly in the context of other media properties its parent company owns. Its page Twitchy calls it a "Twitter aggregator and commentary website". That doesn't sound super reliable to me.

Is using Twitchy justified in this case? Snowman304|talk 06:59, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Twitchy does at least have Editors, but the description ('Twitchy is a ground-breaking social media curation site powered by a kinetic staff of social media junkies. We mine Twitter to bring you “who said what” in U.S. & global news, sports, entertainment, media, and breaking news 24/7.') doesn't make it sound particularly reliable. It's also 'founded by conservative pundit Michelle Malkin' then 'sold to Salem Media Group, a conservative Christian broadcasting corporation' so bias may be a concern too.

With that said, it makes me wonder why the page has been approved at all with only two citations and from a potentially iffy source at that. It doesn't sound like it's evidenced a great deal of notability at this time. DarkeruTomoe (talk) 09:41, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

There was no approval of the page. It was a redirect, and converted into an article. Doing so skips NPP and AfC. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:42, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

The use in that article is just 'he said, she said'. It could be reliable in a primary attributed way (if the opinion is even due), but for that use you could just use the original social media post. It doesn't appear to add anything beyond the original social media posts, so using it in the way it's used in that article wouldn't be appropriate in WP:RSCONTEXT. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:47, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

That was basically my feeling too. I'm hoping this sparks a conversation that (eventually) leads to it being put on the WP:RSP list. Snowman304|talk 21:44, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Sounds like it just scrapes content from Twitter with minimal filtering by humans. Not RS. JoelleJay (talk) 02:26, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Fashion Blogs on the Frutiger Aero Page

A number of internet fashion blogs and so on have been listed as sources on the Frutiger Aero page and are in dispute. Sorry, I'm new to editing, and I'm having trouble reposting the sources. The sources include:

Fear, Natalie (January 4, 2024). "Why Gen Z is infatuated with the Frutiger Aero design aesthetic". Creative Bloq. Archived from the original on May 13, 2024. Retrieved July 19, 2024.
"Unveiling the Mystery: Exploring the Fascinating World of Frutiger Aero". www.reeditionmagazine.com. Archived from the original on July 19, 2024. Retrieved July 19, 2024.
Holliday, Laura (February 3, 2023). "What is frutiger aero, the aesthetic taking over from Y2K?". Dazed. Archived from the original on July 19, 2024. Retrieved July 19, 2024.
Peñalosa, Gelene (June 7, 2023). "Let's all welcome back the Frutiger Aero aesthetic, to give us a whiplash of good nostalgia in these trying times". POP!. Archived from the original on July 19, 2024. Retrieved July 19, 2024.

These sources are really just fashion blogs. People on the internet devising names for fads is not a reliable source. Moreover, the premise of these articles is patently counterfactual. The term Frutiger Aero was coined in 2017. It is retroactively being applied by the bloggers in question to designs from around 2004-2013, conjuring an aesthetic movement via anachronistic fiat, where better and more accurate in-period terms should be used used instead: Windows Aero or Aqua_(user_interface) etc., to accurately reflect design history.

Moreover, the maintainers of the page are systematically reverting the inclusion of any edits or sources which disagree with their misinformation. Princess Boy Laura (talk) 15:24, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Re-edition and Dazed are both print magazines with editors and so on. Creative Bloq is a technology/design site that is a sister publication of net (magazine). POP! is the popular culture section of Philippine Daily Inquirer. None of these things are 'fashion blogs'. MrOllie (talk) 16:57, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Plenty of blogs are print magazines. There's really no barrier to entry to simply printing a magazine when you run a blog, and no standard of quality is implied simply by listing an editor. Plenty of things are published online (and in print) about trends, fads, memes and so forth without them being reputable sources. I would be shocked to learn such publications are considered acceptable for an encyclopedia in the absence of anything on, for instance, Google Scholar. Princess Boy Laura (talk) 21:18, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I reiterate: none of these things are the self published 'blogs' Wikipedia has problems with. They are reliable sources. If that shocks you, so be it. - MrOllie (talk) 21:33, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

The barrier to entry to publishing a printed-and-distributed magazine is that it costs a lot of money, so you need people to buy it and/or advertisers to fund it. Arguably, for something like pop culture (including things such as popular art/music/fashion), the fact that such a publication supports itself becomes evidence of its relevance to culture. And I really wouldn't put all that much stock into something like academic publications about pop culture, unless you're asking specifically academic questions. A question like "Why is Gen Z infatuated with trend x" is definitely not an academic question, because none of those terms are usually defined in academic literature. And "trend x" may never be interesting enough for anybody writing a paper to ask any questions about (such that what they write about "trend x" will be critically reviewed). In which case, the best source for "trend x" may very well be some cheesy (but self-evidently well-researched) column on a popular fashion zine. SamuelRiv (talk) 06:16, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Why does Fox News talk shows have it's own section in the list?

On this list Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, why is Fox News talk shows have it's own spot on the list, which talk shows for NBC or CNN or whatev I did ctrl F are mentioned only in the description of the overall site?

NamelessLameless (talk) 21:31, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Because entries on that list are determined by the discussions that have been had here. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:35, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

oh Alexysun (talk) 17:07, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

• In the past, people frequently tried to use Fox News talk shows as sources for statements of fact. While Wikipedia makes a clear distinction between news and opinion / entertainment, with Fox in particular there's an issue (which there's a fair amount of academic literature discussing) where many of its viewers don't realize the talk shows are entertainment rather than reporting, which leads to people coming here after and trying to use them as sources. Additionally, many people who rely on those talk shows for their news rely on only them and trust nothing else, which can make them feel Wikipedia is biased by excluding them and leads to conversations that drag on or repeat; this required a dedicated RSP section that can be pointed to rather than having to repeat the same discussion about news vs. opinion every time. Other talk shows don't have those problems to the same degree, so it's never come up enough to require a dedicated WP:RSP section of that nature. Also, as I recall, a secondary reason why it's separated out is because it took a long time for Fox as a whole to be labeled as unreliable for politics and science; in the earlier discussions about that, it was observed that many of the sources that were presented to support its unreliability focused primarily or exclusively on talk shows. The carve-out for talk was therefore a way to accommodate that coverage (which does treat Fox's talk shows as having clear problems even by the standards of talk shows) without labeling Fox as a whole unreliable. In that respect the three entries for Fox News aren't us picking on Fox or anything; they're the result of attempts to avoid declaring Fox as a whole unreliable by trying to carve off the worst parts so the rest can remain usable. --Aquillion (talk) 18:59, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Request to Consider News18 and CNN-News18 as Reliable Sources

Hello,

I’d like to propose that **News18** and **CNN-News18** be evaluated for inclusion as reliable sources on Wikipedia. These news channels are widely known in India and cover a broad range of topics.

About News18

• • News18** is a major news network in India that reports on both national and international issues. It’s part of the Network18 Group. You can find more information on its [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News18).

- **Owner**: Network18 - **Sister Channels**:

 - CNN-News18
 - News18 Bangla
 - News18 Lokmat
 - News18 Gujarati
 - News18 Kannada
 - News18 Tamil Nadu
 - News18 Kerala
 - News18 J&K-Ladakh-Himachal
 - News18 Assam North East
 - News18 Odia
 - News18 Uttar Pradesh Uttarakhand
 - News18 Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh
 - News18 Bihar-Jharkhand
 - News18 Punjab-Haryana
 - News18 Rajasthan

About CNN-News18

• • CNN-News18** is an English-language news channel in India, originally launched as CNN-IBN. It’s also owned by Network18 and primarily focuses on English news coverage. More details are available on its [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN-News18).

Reasons for Consideration

1. **Reputation**:

  - **News18** and **CNN-News18** are recognized as established news outlets in India. They cover a variety of topics and are available across TV, digital platforms, and social media.

2. **Editorial Standards**:

  - Both channels maintain editorial standards that include thorough fact-checking and balanced reporting.

3. **Audience Reach**:

  - **News18** caters to a diverse audience through its regional channels in various Indian languages, while **CNN-News18** offers news in English, making both channels relevant to different demographics.

Request for Feedback

I think **News18** and **CNN-News18** could be considered reliable sources under Wikipedia’s guidelines due to their recognition, editorial standards, and broad audience reach. I’d appreciate any feedback from the community on whether these channels should be included as reliable sources. If there’s a need for further information, I’m happy to provide it.

Thank you for your consideration.

Best regards, Ballal2003 Ballal2003 (talk) 21:27, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

You should read WP:Reliable Sources the guideline that help define what a reliable source is, and in particular the News organisations section. Note that headlines are generally not considered reliable, even if the text of an articles is reliable. If it published opinions pieces as well as news, that would be covered by WP:RSOPINION and will usually require attribution.

If it has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy then as a news organisation it will be generally reliable, but to be clear that doesn't mean always reliable. The full reliability of a source depends on context, see WP:RSCONTEXT, so without the specific content that you want to verify with a specific it's not possible to give a clearer reply.

For news media in India WP:NEWSORGINDIA is also relevant as sponsored content is very common. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:25, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughtful feedback. I appreciate the guidance on evaluating reliable sources and have reviewed the relevant guidelines, including WP:Reliable Sources, WP:NEWSORG, and WP:NEWSORGINDIA. I understand the importance of context in assessing reliability and acknowledge that while News18 and CNN-News18 generally emphasize fact-checking and balanced reporting, their content must be scrutinized, especially concerning sponsored material. My intention is to propose these channels as generally reliable for factual reporting, with careful consideration given to the specific content being cited. I’m open to further discussion and would welcome any additional feedback to refine this proposal. Thank you again for your insights.

Ballal2003 Ballal2003 (talk) 22:37, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Are you using large language models to generate your posts? voorts (talk/contributions) 22:40, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi Voorts,Thank you for your message. I want to clarify that I’m not using any large language models to generate my posts. Everything I write comes from my own understanding of Wikipedia’s guidelines and my discussions with other editors. If you have any more questions or need further explanation, please feel free to ask.

Best regards,Ballal2003 (talk) Ballal2003 (talk) 22:47, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Declaring sources as being 'reliable' before that are used is a bad idea. Other editor may disagree and they won't know to disagree until the source has been used. You are expected to use you own good judgement and discuss any disagreements with editor who may object to specific uses of the source as they come up. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:49, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

ActivelyDisinterested Thanks for the feedback. I understand that labeling sources as 'reliable' in advance can be tricky and it’s better to use them contextually and discuss their relevance as needed. I’ll keep your advice in mind and address any disagreements as they arise.If you have more suggestions or advice, please let me know. Thanks again!Ballal2003 Ballal2003 (talk) 22:56, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

My advice is to stop using ChatGPT or similar to draft your comments; it’s very annoying. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 19:04, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Assume good faith and don't behave as if people online learned English in the same manner as you -- while formal written English has some standardized styles, a person certainly will not write in talk sections with the same conversational diction as you.

Also, my advice is to think critically: how exactly would an editor be using a llm to draft a comment here? What inputs would they use, and for what purpose? How would you compare it to the editor's other writing (such as edit summaries)? SamuelRiv (talk) 21:25, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

how exactly would an editor be using an llm to draft a comment here? What inputs would the use ... I asked ChatGPT to respond to ActivelyDisinterested's post (with links added since ChatGPT tripped up there and just wrote "WP Sources"):

Thanks for your insights, ActivelyDisinterested. Your points about Wikipedia:Reliable sources, WP:NEWSORG, and WP:RSOPINION are well taken.

I agree that news organizations with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy generally meet the reliability criteria, but the context is crucial. It's also true that the reliability of specific articles can vary, so looking at the content in question is essential.

For News18 and CNN-News18, while they are established and have a broad reach, the potential for sponsored content and the presence of opinion pieces are valid concerns. It might be helpful to examine individual articles or reports from these sources to assess their adherence to editorial standards and accuracy on a case-by-case basis.

If anyone has specific examples or experiences with these outlets, sharing them could provide further clarity on their reliability.

for what purpose: who knows? voorts (talk/contributions) 21:33, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate your suggestion to review specific examples, and I'll definitely keep that in mind. For reference, I'm sharing some recent articles from CNN-News18 and News18. If anyone else has experiences or examples they'd like to share, it would be really helpful. Thank you again for your valuable suggesstioj.Here are a few of the articles used on a well-known person's page: [5 Years of Dabangg: 10 Epic Lines from the Film That We Still Use](https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/5-years-of-dabangg-10-epic-lines-from-the-film-that-we-still-use-1090942.html), [Priyanka Chopra’s Song ‘Baba’ for the Film Ventilator Is a Beautiful Tribute to Fathers](https://www.news18.com/news/movies/priyanka-chopras-song-baba-for-the-film-ventilator-is-a-beautiful-tribute-to-fathers-1307831.html), [Mumbai: Mukesh Ambani Receives Death Threat Via Email, Probe On](https://www.news18.com/india/mumbai-mukesh-ambani-receives-death-threat-via-email-probe-on-8637264.html), and [Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh Expecting Twins? Maternity Photos Leave Netizens Wondering](https://www.news18.com/movies/deepika-padukone-ranveer-singh-expecting-twins-maternity-photos-leaves-netizens-wondering-9037491.html). Additionally, here's a mention on BBC about the Indian media guide: [BBC's Guide on Indian Media](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-12557390), and a list of Hindi channels in IndiaBallal2003 Ballal2003 (talk) 19:37, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

@Ballal2003, the point is that we only evaluate sources in the context of articles. Which articles do you want to use these sources in or remove them from and for what facts? voorts (talk/contributions) 21:21, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

@Ballal2003 I think what the other people here are trying to say is that this noticeboard is good for resolving disputes by people saying sources are unreliable, and figuring out if particular sources are reliable for particular claims. News organization are essentially by default considered reliable: discussions are mostly held to declare them unreliable (if that attempt fails, they are declared as definitively reliable instead). I think asking whether a news source is reliable in general will just get you a "Yeah, probably" answer and a link to some relevant info (i.e. WP:NEWSORGINDIA). I'd say if you think that they're reliable, just use them (obviously trying to avoid paid reporting) unless someone argues that they're not, at which it is a good time to move the discussion onto WP:RSP if necessary. Mrfoogles (talk) 15:07, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Ballotpedia

WP:BALLOTPEDIA lists Ballotpedia as "no consensus", but it hasn't really been discussed in years as far as I have found. It's used in various high-profile articles like Hillary Clinton, California, Gavin Newsom, etc.
It seems generally trusted in the journalism world; should it be considered generally reliable at this point?
ShortTimeNoSee (talk) 01:54, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Can you provide more info on if there is a need to change the status from RSP or discuss this again? The previous discussions reached no consensus. Ramos1990 (talk) 07:28, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I mean, is someone contesting an edit? is there a lot of arguments about it?

Otherwise, its probably best saved for whatever the topic talk page is if there is no consensus. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 21:28, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Is this volume reliable

Is New History Of The Marathas Vol.3 (1946) by Govind Sakharam Sardesai a WP:RS/NON-WP:RAJ source ?? GroovyGrinster ^{Talk With Me} 10:10, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Well as it was poublished before independence, its a raj era source. Slatersteven (talk) 10:21, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I would call it “outdated” rather than “unreliable”. Blueboar (talk) 15:00, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

• Reliable for what? The big problem is that it is very old, and that in particular is contextual. It'd probably be reliable for uncontroversial stuff where the scholarship hasn't changed much over time, but probably not reliable for things that have shifted or areas where it contradicts more recent sources. --Aquillion (talk) 16:39, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
• Aquillion is right to ask about the context; without context, it's much harder to assess the source. As far as what I can glean, I wasn't able to find information about the press, Phoenix Publications. The author is Govind Sakharam Sardesai (1865–1959), who was evidently recognized as a historian in his lifetime and received some awards for civic service.
  But as Blueboar brings up, I'd be worried about the book being outdated. It was published 78 years ago, and the reliable source guideline encourages us to cite current scholarly consensus when available (italics added). As Aquillion says, there might be some uncontroversial information that hasn't changed in the scholarship over time that could be depended on in New History of the Marathas. But without context, my initial reaction is to encourage finding more recent sources that cover the topic about which you want information. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 20:09, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
• In addition to the above points, it would seem to be reliable for the state of scholarship at the time it was published (e.g. "in the 1940s it was generally believed that...", "Prior to the discovery of X, the leading theory was Y"), but whether that is relevant and DUE will depend on context we don't have here. Thryduulf (talk) 04:01, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Old rather than unreliable. In MilHist we often employ even older sources. The author was an eminent Indian historian. Problem with Indian sources in general is that we cannot assume that more recent scholarship is more reliable. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:46, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Why can't we be sure that more recent sources in Indian history are more reliable? I'd be surprised to find out that a book published in 1946 better captures current scholarship than, say, The New Cambridge History of India's The Marathas 1600–1818 (1993). Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 05:00, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I think the big problem is separating legit history publications from junk for editors who are not reasonably familiar with the area. There's not as much readily available lists of publishers, authors, and book reviews (especially in English, or addressed to a lay-educated US/UK audience) for those sources which can be rejected as junk at face value, as one can safely say for sources on well-trod popular topics in the US and UK. A similar issue appears in a couple threads below on Balkans history, or any area with contentious politicized local history. SamuelRiv (talk) 21:16, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Universe Guide

The reliability of Universe Guide is:

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate

–LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 23:13, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

• universeguide.com: 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

Background

Universe Guide is an amateur blog about astronomy that is cited on many pages about astronomical objects. This website has been discussed at this WT:ASTRO discussion, this WP:RSN discussion, and this WT:AST discussion, and there is general consensus that it is unreliable, and due to persistent usage, it has been suggested to be deprecated or blacklisted. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 23:13, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Survey

• Deprecate per the discussions linked in the background section. I can see this is regularly being added to articles, so deprecation seems warranted here. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:25, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 4: Deprecate That blog is a self-published site which is not peer-reviewed. Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 12:09, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 4 I've nothing to add from the last time this came up, it's a blog written from what one person researched on the Internet[34]. It doesn't have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracyreputation for, if anything it's the opposite as per the discussions at WP:ASTRO. It's self published but not by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications, rather I am an amateur space enthusiast of many years as opposed to someone who is academically qualified.[35] Nothing about the source makes it reliable for verification purposes, and if it is still being regularly added to articles for that purpose then deprecation is appropriate. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:20, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 4 too: Very clearly an unreliable source, even if it's a nice website.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrfoogles (talk • contribs) 05:29, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

AntWiki reliability

@YoungForever has mentioned that AntWiki is not a reliable source and should not be used to cite Wikipedia articles due to it being user-generated. However, I believe that it can be used because contrary to Wikipedia which can be edited by everyone, it can only be edited by ant experts confirmed by administrators as stated on its website. See full discussion on User talk:YoungForever. Should it be considered reliable or not? 2003 LN6 16:00, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

All AntWiki says about editors is that they "are ant experts", without explaining what that means. Assuming that expert is synonymous with established ant scholars, then the wiki still suffers from the issue of not having peer review. If you can cite from a reliable secondary source, there's no need to be citing from here. If this wiki has something that you can't find in a reliable secondary source, then that probably means it hasn't been published in a peer reviewed setting and leads to further questions about what kind of content can be added to this wiki. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:08, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Not every known fact is published in a peer-reviewed paper or book (or certainly not one that is easily accessible or findable in the Library of Babel). And not every published book of facts is subject to rigorous peer review, per economics of science publication. That is why even experts find it incumbent upon themselves to make and maintain (multiple) wikis.

From AntWiki:Governance: "Antwiki is currently managed by David Lubertazzi, Gary Alpert and Steve Shattuck. ... Anyone that can provide bona fide evidence of their professional expertise in ant biology will be considered for an editing account."

Given this and citations described below, if you trust the statements of the editors, then AntWiki would be somewhere in an as-yet-un-policy-specified position between WP:EXPERTSPS, WP:TERTIARYUSE, and a very minor professional publication with minimal-but-present peer review (as experts are apparently reviewing and using it). It may be worthwhile to draft an essay on these types of sources that have legit provenance, quality control, and significant citation and use from academics, but would at face value seem to not be acceptable. SamuelRiv (talk) 21:04, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Not every known fact is published in a peer-reviewed paper or book (or certainly not one that is easily accessible or findable in the Library of Babel). And not every random factoid that someone on the Internet claims is true needs to be in Wikipedia. We're an encyclopedia; our job is to summarize the highest-quality sources, not to try and indiscriminately collect every bit of information that anyone anywhere claims is a "known fact." A random undergraduate student could reasonably pass their "verification"; random nonsense they spew on a wiki still does not belong here and such a wiki cannot be cited here. Also, to clarify, there is no "peer review" and no editorial controls or fact-checking - they say that they perform vaguely-defined verification for new users, but individual edits or versions are not reviewed before publication. This makes it totally unusable as a source outside of WP:EXPERTSPS, which obviously cannot apply to anonymous editors because we have no way of verifying that it was ...produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. Note that even Antwiki's vague, handwavy claims of verification do not come anywhere close to even asserting that they reach this standard. tl;dr: It is, by our standards, unusable trash. --Aquillion (talk) 21:36, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Agree with voorts. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:20, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

If we could show that these are all generally recognizable experts in the field, then it would be usable under WP:SPS... except for biographies of living ants. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 18:22, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

"The queens can live for up to 30 years, and workers live from 1 to 3 years." That's longer than I thought. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:39, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I can assure you that my forthcoming site AuntWiki will have no BLP concerns whatsoever. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 18:44, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

The issue is showing that the editors are actually experts, deception does happen - on the internet no-one knows your a dog. It could be reliable, but I'm always sceptical of such sites. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:45, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I think if we could show appropriate reliable sources relying on Antwiki (and not, as I first read it, Antiwiki, which would be a very different site), it would show that the editor base is expert as a group. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 18:54, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Yup. We need evidence that Antwiki is being cited in peer-reviewed articles, or similar. Otherwise we are just taking their word for the 'ant expert' thing. We don't do that. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:02, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I can find articles on ScienceDirect that cite AntWiki as a source. Examples: [36], [37], [38], [39]. 2003 LN6 20:20, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Searching on Google books gives results from Springer, Cambridge University Press, Wiley, and many more. It gives a strong case for WP:USEBYOTHERS. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:09, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

its a wiki. Slatersteven (talk) 15:27, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

This wiki cannot be edited by everyone, registered users have to be ant experts verified by an administrator. 2003 LN6 18:42, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

• I don't think requiring verification for user accounts is enough to escape WP:USERGENERATED, especially since they give no explanation of how this "verification" works. Beyond that, a wiki (even one with a super-special double-secret elite verificaiton process for new editors) doesn't provide any sort of fact-checking or editorial controls; this means that it regardless of everything else, it will never, ever qualify as "published" for Wikipedia purposes, which in turn means that it could only be cited as a self-published source - even the highest-quality verified editor on a highly exclusive wiki would still only be at best an WP:EXPERTSPS. But it can't even reach that low bar, because we don't know the identity of these supposed "experts"; instead, we're being asked to accept the anonymous verification performed by the wiki's editors. And note that EXPERTSPS is a higher bar than the wiki implies they use - 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. In short, every indication is that these could be random undergraduates with no publications to their name spewing anonymous nonsense with no editorial controls. No. This is a remove-on-sight level of source; it's completely unusable on Wikipedia, and should not be cited under any circumstances. --Aquillion (talk) 21:36, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

  As mentioned before, it is used by several peer-reviewed and Wikipedia-accepted scientific publications and journals. WP:UBO applies here. In addition, the primary author of the pages, Steven O. Shattuck, has written books featured in the Smithonian Library and Google Books. 2003 LN6 21:59, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

  I don't have super strong feelings about this source, but I don't think your assessment of their verification process is entirely fair. On this page they explain that editor accounts are requested by emailing David Lubertazzi or Steve Shattuck, both of which are published and well established experts in ants. The verification is from them, not just other editors. They say on that page and on the governance page that they deny editor accounts to anyone that offers qualifications that do not show clear support for ant-expert status.

  You said every indication is that these could be random undergraduates with no publications to their name spewing anonymous nonsense with no editorial controls but they do explicitly say Undergraduate students working in the laboratory of an ant biologist or a graduate student studying ants under the guidance of a non-ant biologist, for example, could be considered for a contributor account. (emphasis added). Contributor accounts cannot edit anything other than talk pages.

  It's not entirely anonymous either as All account names are created using the first initial and the surname of the account holder.

  If your argument is that they might not follow all of that, that's fair, though I think WP:UBO lends some credence to their policies being respected. I don't think it's a best source, and I certainly wouldn't use it for anything controversial, but remove-on-sight seems excessive CambrianCrab (talk) 00:24, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Multiple historical sources

These are the sources i wish to be added into Kuči (tribe), these articles and books go against the current POV of four active editors there, so naturally they claim that none of these are RS or usable in the article (claiming that even if they are RS, it's goes against "scholarly consensus" which is real only in the talk pages with them afaik). In my opinion, these articles state that origin of the tribe we are discussing is mixed, and i wanted to check whether they are valid and reliable sources or not, and whether claims i got from those articles and books are ok:

1. Bojka Đukanović - Historical Dictionary of Montenegro, page 190: According to their ethnic origins, the Kuči tribe is a mixture of Slavic and Albanian population. [40](screenshot of a page section)

2. Stanoje Stanojević - Narodna enciklopedija srpsko-hrvatsko-slovenac̆ka - Page 554: K. are an old Serb tribe. It was formed by Serb brotherhoods that moved from Zeta valley, where it was first living, and then spread to territory of K. They found two Vlach tribes Bukumiri and Mataguži, who were pushed away and then partly assimilated. In record from 1455. when Kuči are first mentioned as a tribe, it's said that they are of orthodox faith. Kuči celebrate Nikoljdan. Only the name Kuči is not of Serb origin. It's either obtained from population that here before, or they got it from Albanian label, which in their language means great, unsurpassed. From 15. century, running away from the Turks, many families from surrounding countries arrive, first Serbs and Albanians, and later only Serbs who were running away from Albanians. Out of 22 families who moved between 15th and 17th century to Kuči, only 4 are known to be of Albanian origin.[41](screenshot of a page section)

3. Predrag Petrovic - Vojvoda Radonja Petrović, Guvernadur Brda, page 30: Kuči, as one of key tribal societies in Brda region, have their own specific traits in comparison to other tribes from the ethnic standpoint. Core of the tribe which is formed around middle of XV century, or maybe even few decades before, are native brotherhoods who are not connected, but are of Slavic-Serb origin, and populate region of castle Medun and a couple of Vlach lineages in mountainous and region around it, who were mixing with each other before arrival of Mrnjavčevići. Later, after Turkish occupation and formation of Kuči nahia, in territorial and administrative region, was included a couple of Albanian, catholic brotherhoods in Trieshi, who joined tribal community of Kuči, and so that created a heterogeneous ethnic composition of Kuči, which was also religiously heterogeneous. [42](screenshot of a page section)

4. Andrey N. Sobolev - Southeastern European Languages and Cultures in Contact: Between Separation and Symbiosis (Language Contact and Bilingualism) - Page 96: Compare with the Kuči who had been an Orthodox Serbian tribe until the 15th century. Through the 15th to 17th century several Albanian (Catholic) and Serbian (Orthodox and Catolic) groups from other areas settled in their tribal territory. The population in the region had been a long time bilingual, but shifted to monolingualism due to the gradual Slavicization of Albanians. A bilingual situation now exists only in the small area of Koći/Koje, which is inhabited by Albanians and Albanized Serbs.[43](screenshot of a page section)

5. Rašović Marko - Kuči Tribe: Ethnographic-Historical Overview - describing period before 15th century and formation of a tribal society, page 30 And so the Serbs somewhere started living among Vlachs, and in other places pushed them further into the mountains. In todays region of Kuči, we can find proof that it was the second case.[44](screenshot of a page section)

describing period of tribe formation, 15th century, page 35 By the end of XV and during the XVI century begins big change in the composition of the population of Kuči. New brotherhoods and families are moving into Kuči, many of noble blood, running away from Turks. Poem from Petar Petrović Njegoš These newcomers were Serbs and Albanians, brave and energetic people, champions of uncompromised battle against the Turks. Almost all of them came here as well established brotherhoods, who forcibly take their place amongst the old Kuči, and then later, they spread and forced older families to move. Many of those who left Kuči later accepted Islam out of spite or as a revenge to those who exiled them from Kuči. As it was the case with most Serb tribes, the newcomers showed much more life than the old population and they grew bigger and spread even beyond the border of old Kuči territory. They pushed old Kuči into the shade, and pushed themselves as "real Kuči", carrying and defending that name with the same pride as their predecessors, old Kuči. By the mid XVIII century they already spread the territory of Kuči to their current borders, as it can be seen under the title "borders" Image on the other page. That's how new age of Kuči history had two events: New arrivals and spread.

From the first half of XV century to the end of XVII century, 23 brotherhoods moved to Kuči, out of which only one brotherhood, Čigomani, moved out. Out of other 22 brotherhoods, 4 are of Albanian origin: Geg, Koći, Boneći, Nuculovići.[45](screenshot of a page section)

6. Karl Kaser, Hirten, Kämpfer, Stammeshelden - Bei der Aufspaltung seines umfangreichen Katuns grenzten sich zuerst wahrscheinlich die Sommersiedlungen ab. Es scheint, als ob im Jahr 1455 der Territorialisierungsprozeß der abgespalteten Gemeinschaften abgeschlossen gewesen wäre. Die Gemeinschaft der Mataguži, die zu Beginn des 15. Jahrhunderts noch existiert hatte, ging später unter. Die Hoti-Gemeinschaft hatte zu Beginn des 15. Jahrhunderts bereits einige Katune vereinigt. Im Jahr 1485 wurden in den vereinigten Katunen 8 Dörfer und 134 Häuser gezählt. Der unmittelbare Urahne der Kuči sollte ein Grča Nenadin gewesen sein. Der ursprünglich nicht sehr umfangreiche Katun expandierte durch serbische Zusiedler im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert rasch. Die Zusiedler (unter ihnen die Dobroäani, tigomani, Deljani, Bulatoviei, Miloviei usw.) intergrierten sich rasch und nahmen auch den Namen der Kuči an. Im Jahr 1485 waren die Kuči 8 Dörfer mit 253 Häuser; 1497 waren es bereits um 150 Häuser mehr, und aus den 8 Dörfern waren 9 Katune und 2 Dörferentstanden.

Karl actually confirms same thing, that the tribe is formed in the later part of 15th century, and that not very big katun expended rapidly due to Serbian settlers. He also claims, like some other scholars, that the supposed ancestor of Kuci is Grca Nenadin, who is not written down as part of Nenads family in 1416. and there are no written records of him.

Setxkbmap (talk) 19:26, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

It would have been far easier for others, if you included full bibliographical informations about these sources. Eg. source 2 (Stanoje Stanojević - Narodna enciklopedija srpsko-hrvatsko-slovenac̆ka) seems to be 100 years old, which makes it next to useless for an article concerning ethno/history of the Balkans. If there is a disagreement among reliable sources, both views should be presented in the article (weighting due weight of both views - fringe opinion should not be on the same level as a mainstream scholarly opinion). Pavlor (talk) 06:03, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

It would have been far easier for others, if you included full bibliographical informations about these sources. Eg. source 2 (Stanoje Stanojević - Narodna enciklopedija srpsko-hrvatsko-slovenac̆ka) seems to be 100 years old, which makes it next to useless for an article concerning ethno/history of the Balkans.

Sorry, this is basically copy paste from the RfC that is being held on Talk:Kuči (tribe).

Bojka Djukanovic - Historical Dictionary of Montenegro, is from 2023.

Predrag Petrovic - Vojvoda Radonja Petrović, is from 2019.

Andrey N. Sobolev - Southeastern European Languages and Cultures in Contact: Between Separation and Symbiosis - is from 2021. or 2022.

Rašović Marko - Kuči Tribe: Ethnographic-Historical Overview - is from 1963.

Karl Kaser, Hirten, Kämpfer, Stammeshelden - is from 1992.

This is my first time looking for validity of sources, so sorry. Out of all of these autors.

If there is a disagreement among reliable sources, both views should be presented in the article (weighting due weight of both views - fringe opinion should not be on the same level as a mainstream scholarly opinion)

You can check what is currently being there and what is cited, and you are free to weigh in the RfC that is on the [Talk:Kuči (tribe)]].

Even the 100 years old source is used only because there are other 100 years old sources still in the article, or secondary sources that quote those same 100 year old documents incorrectly. So my bad. Feel free to join the discussion :) Setxkbmap (talk) 07:15, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Seems this is a redirect to the RFC that is already there in the Talk:Kuči (tribe). It is confusing to start and RFC there and then to come to this noticeboard to create another discussion. Ramos1990 (talk) 07:21, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Editors there didn't agree on the validity of the sources based on the fact that it's not confirming their POV. I asked whether i should ask here, and while they told me that i can ask if the sources are valid, that they would never change opinions and approve changes to the article.

So at least i am doing my best to provide reliable sources, and do what is in my power to not spew misinformation. Setxkbmap (talk) 07:23, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

It may help if you provide some context like publisher information. Usually this helps evaluate if a source is a RS per wikipedia's guidelines. Ramos1990 (talk) 06:52, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

1. Bojka Đukanović - Historical Dictionary of Montenegro (Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, 2023)

2. Stanoje Stanojević - Narodna enciklopedija srpsko-hrvatsko-slovenac̆ka (1925) - too old,

3. Predrag Petrovic - Vojvoda Radonja Petrović, Guvernadur Brda (Publisher: Fond za razvoj Kuc̆a, 2019)

4. Andrey N. Sobolev - Southeastern European Languages and Cultures in Contact (Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton, 2021)

5. Rašović Marko - Kuči Tribe: Ethnographic-Historical Overview (Publisher: Stamp. zavod za izradu novcanica NB, 1963)

6. Karl Kaser, Hirten, Kämpfer, Stammeshelden (Böhlau Wien, 1992) Setxkbmap (talk) 07:37, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Each source should be looked at and analysed separately. In regard to Predrag Petrović (2019), I cannot see how this source can be considered RS by any stretch. Firstly Petrović has no specialisation or qualification in history or related humanities, he is an engineer. Secondly, a number of ahistorical claims are made in his book, such as references to the Mrnjavčevići which cannot be taken seriously. Thirdly, other books published by Petrović are rife with nationalistic claims such as the Albanian national hero, Skanderbeg, being a Serb. Lezhjani1444 (talk) 19:47, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Each source should be looked at and analysed separately. In regard to Predrag Petrović (2019), I cannot see how this source can be considered RS by any stretch. Firstly Petrović has no specialisation or qualification in history or related humanities, he is an engineer.

While i see what you are basing your opinion on, you must say that he is an author of 6 books about the tribe, and he worked on plans for reconstruction of the Medun fortress. Some of his works was published by the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts. The book that is in question here, has been written in collaboration with 4 professors.

Secondly, a number of ahistorical claims are made in his book, such as references to the Mrnjavčevići which cannot be taken seriously.

Name "Mrnjavčević" has no meaning in the tribe itself, only in oral tradition. Editors use that to make a distinction between old populations of the tribe and the ones that arrived in 15th century. Most of the times, both of these groups are called "Old Kuči", but when talking about 15th century arrivals some editors may use "Mrnjavčevići" as a name.

Thirdly, other books published by Petrović are rife with nationalistic claims such as the Albanian national hero, Skanderbeg, being a Serb.

Sorry, we are discussing books that are not self-published and edited by univeristy professors. Setxkbmap (talk) 20:01, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

The point stands that Petrović has no specialisation in the field, he can write over 100 books on the matter but that is of little consequence if he is not qualified to write on the matter (see WP:SCHOLARSHIP).

Regarding the Mrnjavčevići, the quote is as follows:

This provides much stronger arguments that the origin of the name Kuči comes from a Vlach regional name or from toponymy, which was brought over by the settlement of the Mrnjavčević family.

It is clear that Petrović considers a part of the Kuči as descendants of the Mrnjavčevići, an ahistorical position based on fabricated oral traditions.

Can you provide evidence that the book ВОЈВОДА РАДОЊА ПЕТРОВИЋ — ГУВЕРАДУРСТВО БРДА has been co-published and edited by academics (as well as the qualifications of said academics)? Per his own website, Petrović appears as the sole author: https://predragrpetrovic.com/knjige/vojvoda-radonja-petrovic-guveradurstvo-brda/. In regard to Skanderbeg, this simply reflects the fact that the author has nationalistic biases and has published books in contradiction with mainstream academia and history. Lezhjani1444 (talk) 20:12, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

The point stands that Petrović has no specialisation in the field, he can write over 100 books on the matter but that is of little consequence if he is not qualified to write on the matter (see WP:SCHOLARSHIP).

I don's see anything that stops Petrović from being an expert in the field, i've seen WP:SCHOLARSHIP

It is clear that Petrović considers a part of the Kuči as descendants of the Mrnjavčevići, an ahistorical position based on fabricated oral traditions.

While i can see what you are saying, saying that oral tradition is fabricated is a bit too far. Even the quote itself has nothing to do with the origin of anything, the author is supporting the claim that name Kuči is of Vlach origin. In his other books, he even states in other books that the Gojko Mrnjavčević is a made up person, from epic poems and stories, which is also the consensus of every single writer and historian, and is not denied by anyone.

So, again, "Mrnjavčevići" is always used to describe brotherhoods that moved to region of Kuči in 15th century.

Can you provide evidence that the book ВОЈВОДА РАДОЊА ПЕТРОВИЋ — ГУВЕРАДУРСТВО БРДА has been co-published and edited by academics (as well as the qualifications of said academics)?

He is the main editor, but, Radomir Prelevic PhD was also editing and prepared book for publishing.

Proofreading and editing was done by Dušanka Lučić, translations from Latin and old Italian by Olga Kapetanić and interpretations of old Slavic archaic texts were provided by Milutin Savković. Setxkbmap (talk) 20:56, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:SCHOLARSHIP mentions:

Reliable scholarship – Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses.

In this case, the book itself does not appear to have been published in an academic context. It is published in a local publishing house. The author, as mentioned prior, does not have an academic background in the subject either. As for the editors, can you please share a link or extract mentioning them? From what I can see, the book was solely authored by Petrović and no editors are mentioned. Consulting individuals for translation purposes do not count. As such, the book does not appear to be a co-authored and co-edited academic source.

Radomir Prelević from what I can see had a background as a lawyer. Lezhjani1444 (talk) 23:01, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

the book itself does not appear to have been published in an academic context.

Of course not, it was never published in any peer-reviewed journals, books, conference proceedings, or other scholarly media, just like majority of the sources used in the article we discussed are not.

Book is a part of 6 books, published by some major Montenegrin publishers, and NGO that finance the tribe and tribesmen (financing research, books, art galleries, museums etc)

Radomir Prelević from what I can see had a background as a lawyer.

Yes, he was. He was also a historian, and is known for that, as well as being the president of "Foundation for growth of Kuči tribe". His PhD is in law tho.

He died 3 years ago, summary of him can be found here (Vijesti.me link) Setxkbmap (talk) 23:29, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Of course not, it was never published in any peer-reviewed journals, books, conference proceedings, or other scholarly media... - doesn't seem very reliable at all in that case. Botushali (talk) 06:27, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Too bad it's like one of 6 authors that wrote about Kuči extensively.

The topic is not really interesting to other writers, except for ones that come from the tribe itself. While we have snippets and opinions about the tribe from different books, sometimes even paragraphs, there are no books written about the tribe, except for a few written by people from the tribe.

But, if you think that citing Predrag is problematic, i can look for the sources he cites and use them, if they are of academic origin. Setxkbmap (talk) 07:07, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Academic sources are the only thing that should be used on articles such as this. Anything that is self-published or non-academic shouldn’t be used. Botushali (talk) 11:21, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Study reported on in The Guardian

For the Carbon capture and storage (CCS) article, I've been looking for sources on how much governments have spent on CCS in the past. The Guardian recently reported recently reported that this figure is nearly $30 billion, "according to a new report by Oil Change International (OCI), a non-profit tracking the cost of fossil fuels." What is the best way to use this figure in the CCS article?

1. "Between 1984 and 2024, governments spent almost $30 billion on CCS and fossil hydrogen research and grants."
2. "Between 1984 and 2024, governments spent almost $30 billion on CCS and fossil hydrogen research and grants."
3. "According to Oil Change International, between 1984 and 2024, governments spent almost $30 billion on CCS and fossil hydrogen research and grants.
4. "According The Guardian, between 1984 and 2024, governments spent almost $30 billion on CCS and fossil hydrogen research and grants."
5. Don't use (why not?)
6. Other?

And is it better to cite The Guardian or the Oil Change International report? Or both? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 21:13, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

In isolation, the number is meaningless. "Big numbers are only big if you understand the context." $30bn sounds like lot of money! But over 40 years? That's less than $1bn per year, for every single government on Earth??? I'd say that's far too little to spend on R&D on a technology that could be environmental game-changer, given what America alone spends on R&D. But obviously it's not constant every year, or some other premise is wrong or changed.

The story is not in the number. The story is something else, which The Guardian article spends a decent time trying to explain. Figure out an actual nugget that can summarize it, then cite the Guardian if that's the best article that explains it (with a second internal citation to whatever the main source they use is: "The Guardian, citing X"). SamuelRiv (talk) 21:39, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. It might be clearest to omit the dates as the spending was nearly all after 2005, it was just in a handful of countries, and it has indeed been uneven. As for summarizing The Guardian's nugget, I'm trying to get the article to explain that some people look at the spending to date and the results and say "We need to do more" and some people look at the same numbers and say, "It's time to give up on this technology and stop throwing good money after bad." The Guardian leans to the latter view. I'm hoping to convey what the numbers are and let the reader decide. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 22:13, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

What do numbers mean to a reader? If you had $30bn right now, what would you spend it on? That's the point of the article I link. There's no "let the reader decide" -- I'm trying to convey that simply printing a number is meaningless, by showing that simply adding (or subtracting) dates makes it even more meaningless. That's why you have to look at the entire Guardian piece and figure out what is it that actually matters, and how they are able to convey it, and how you can re-express it to the reader concisely (so that they know to click the citation link to read more thoroughly). One, two, or ten numbers won't solve the problem. SamuelRiv (talk) 22:21, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

DK's "Complete Flags of The World"

I'm currently creating a revised list of national flags which makes use of a diverse set of sources. For the sake of consistency, I've been trying to add at least these four sources to every entry on the list: Alfred Znamierowski's The World Encyclopedia of Flags (2020 edition), Whitney Smith's flag articles for Britannica, The World Factbook, and DK Publishing's Complete Flags of the World (2021 edition). As of now, the list is still incomplete and I haven't added all four sources to each entry, but I do intend on doing so when I am complete. However, of the four sources, DK's flag book is the most suspect since it was produced "in association" with the Flag Institute, a respectable vexillological organization, but not written directly by them. The book says they consulted one Graham Bartram, who is the chief vexillologist of the institute, in the making of the book, but is that enough? @Yue, who is an editor on flag articles and has brought many to GA-status, has raised concerns regarding its reliability. Therefore, I humbly request this book be looked into to verify its usefulness before I reference it in every entry in my list. ―Howard • 🌽³³ 13:20, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Just to clarify, do you mean this book (link to an Amazon page)? (Based off the of the linked edit summary) Calling Burkina Faso "Burkina" is strange, but mislabeling colors does seem like a problem, though maybe examples would be helpful (that's what people usually say in discussions, anyway). I think there's no real way to know exactly how they made the book, but since mostly reliability is a sort of "innocent until proven guilty" on these boards for sanity reasons I don't think this will be very productive if there aren't any specific things to talk about. Googled to try to find some book reviews, but couldn't find any. Mrfoogles (talk) 05:29, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I have used DK books before and they seem to be a pretty decent popular book reference. It is part of Penguin Random House. I see no problem in citing this. Of course if you need more reinforcement it does not hurt to cross reference with other sources. Ramos1990 (talk) 06:58, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Identifying reliable sources

Hi. i wanna know does Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (history) is mandatory? I mean that can i delete Primary source and text that cited on primary source? does we assume WP:HISTRS as policy of wikipedia? because i wanna know difference between policy and essay in wikipedia? does essay is mandatory? in WP:HISTRS written any primary source isn't Historical scholarship . please explain to me if primary sources is contradictory academic sources, can i delete primary source ? Hulu2024 (talk) 14:07, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

No, you should NOT delete primary sources simply because they are primary. As both the essay you point to, and our WP:PSTS policy note - primary sources are allowed - they just need to be used correctly and in the right context. Using them correctly can be difficult but, when done well, can definitely improve an article. Blueboar (talk) 17:44, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

@Blueboar So if Primary source tell us an event is happened but academic source tells that event is myth, i shall keep both text and sources ? Hulu2024 (talk) 08:08, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Without knowing the details (what article and statement you are talking about) I can’t answer that… but, in general, an appropriate usage in such a situation would be to use attribution: “According to X… blah blah event occurred. However, academic sources, such as Y, say this is a myth” (where X is the primary source and Y is the academic source). You would then cite both to verify that we are presenting what they say accurately. Blueboar (talk) 12:28, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

@Blueboar For example, Mahmud al-Kashgari in his book Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk, wrote that some saka names and words had turkish root, But most of lexicographer and Philologist wrote in 19-21 century that words of saka has iraian root, and the researchers ignored Kashgari's book, or tell that he was wrong. The book of Kashgari is pretext for panturk users in english and persian wikipedia to distort all pages of wikipedia to be related of saka (and another tribes of iranian like scythian languages). nevertheless i shall keep both sources ? Hulu2024 (talk) 13:18, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

An essay is not mandatory. As it says at the top of the essay, it is the thoughts of some subsection of the Wikipedia community, but is not a policy or even a guideline. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 17:51, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Essays are not mandatory, but they provide some considerations to take into account. Secondary sources are preferred, but primary sources can be used in particualr contexts. Of course when primary sources are used, one should be careful of interpretation and avoid WP:OR and WP:SYN. I think interpretation in the issue from Hulu2024's comment. Secondary sources can make interpretations and debate interpretations. Ramos1990 (talk) 07:03, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Are any of those reliable for life/career facts for an actress?

1. https://www.castforward.de/members/profile/stephanie-buddenbrock (general/background)

1. https://pro.imdb.com/name/nm6369771/ (for the names)

1. https://newsv2.orf.at/stories/2237157/2236406/ (for participations)

FortunateSons (talk) 15:23, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

IMDB? Slatersteven (talk) 15:26, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I thought so too. Unfortunately, per WP:IMDB, while not strictly prohibited, it’s Gunrel. I would therefore prefer having a secondary or alternative source. FortunateSons (talk) 15:29, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

It looks like the first one (CastForward) may be usable as a self-published source on herself (WP:ABOUTSELF policy may be relevant); the website appears to be a nonprofit jobs platform for actors (see https://www.castforward.de/non-profit/) that you pay to use (see https://www.castforward.de/schauspieler/#pricing-actors). That said, it depends on the platform's verification policies. Mrfoogles (talk) 05:43, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Update: just did a test profile, it let me do it with a dummy email with whatever name I wanted, but it marks my profile as hidden with the message "new member, not yet validated". So they appear to have decent verification. Doesn't seem unlikely the first can be used as a self-published source on oneself. Mrfoogles (talk) 05:45, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Wow, you went through quite a bit of effort there, thanks you! I’ll use it with the usual ABOUTSELF restrictions then. FortunateSons (talk) 09:13, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

As for the rest: agree IMDB can't be used. ORF.at seems to have a website here describing it as a normal news website-ish? Don't see any problems with it at first glance, so I'd say it could be assumed to be reliable. It's the best of the three: self-published or non-independent sources cannot be the base of an article per policy. Mrfoogles (talk) 05:48, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

You’re right, ORF is a normal source, I totally missed that because it made its way into my “maybe” list of sources, thank you. I really don’t know how that happened. FortunateSons (talk) 09:11, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Rajiv Dixit noted for spreading disinformation (FirstPost, LallanTop)

• Rajiv Dixit (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

What do editors think of these two references as used below? They are the only references in the last areas of dispute from cleanup work started in June to address long-running edit wars.

In the lede:

He was also noted for spreading disinformation.

In "Ideology and rhetoric":

Noted for pioneering the trend of disinformation in India, Dixit often made claims that were false, including several about Jawaharlal Nehru.

• Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_424#Unreliable_sources?_FirstPost_/TimeNow
• WP:NEWSORGINDIA applies to these sources.

I'm using auto-translate to review these references, but from what I see the FirstPost piece is written by an independent journalist, Avinash Dwivedi, and so should be treated as an opinion piece. The presentation and language in the reference supports treating it as an opinion piece. I'd say it's either unreliable for the content, or should be treated as the author's opinions. I'd lean to unreliable, especially given the linked RSN discussion.

The LallanTop piece verifies little of the disputed content. I agree with Abecedare [46], "There is no indication reading either the About us section of the author's profile that .thelallantop.com would qualify as a reliable source for wikipedia's purposes." I'd say it's unreliable for what little content it verifies. (I don't know why the ref is repeated.) - Hipal (talk) 19:31, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

References

• Comment: These sources are only stating the facts. Rajiv Dixit was mainly noted for spreading disinformation, and was a conspiracy theorist.

Abecedare himself included Lallantop in his edit[47], while Capitals00 had confirmed that LallanTop is an IFCN verified fact-checker[48] which makes more than a reliable source. The article mentions many false claims by Rajiv Dixit including that "9/11" was an "inside job" and concludes, "ये दावे राजीव दीक्षित के किए बहुत सारे दावों में से हैं. इनमें से कई दावे विवादास्पद हैं और जवाहरलाल नेहरू से जुड़े दावों समेत कई गलत भी साबित हो चुके हैं. (Transation: "These claims are among the many made by Rajiv dixit. Many of these are controversial and many, including the ones related to Jawaharlal Nehru, have been proven wrong.)"

The article from FirstPost is simply mentioning more false claims from Rajiv Dixit and describing how he pioneered the trend of disinformation. It cannot be deemed "unreliable" unless you have evidence that the information is wrong.

These are not the only sources that gave him coverage because of the disinformation he spread. There are many others.[49][50] Ratnahastin (talk) 03:48, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Lets not relitigate then talk page discussion, and just concentrate on are these RS. Slatersteven (talk) 09:53, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Xhufi Pëllumb

Article Kuči (tribe)

Context: Author is used as translation for a sentence in italian

Claim: It's not a claim issue, but wording issue. Citation is "nulla di meno essegno quasi tutti del rito serviano, e di lingua Illrica ponno piu presto dirsi Schiavoni, ch' Albanesi" and the author translates last part like this: "soon they should be called Slavs, rather than Albanians", literally translating it.

After checking with Italian speakers, the last part is more "they rather call themselves Slavs, than Albanians"

Opinions? Setxkbmap (talk) 21:29, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Which italian speaker told you this? perhaps he did not read the words "piu" or "presto". also there have been several notices on Xhufi here, all concluded with him being RS. Durraz0 (talk) 21:49, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

He is RS, and i think quote will stay, we just disagree on the time. Setxkbmap (talk) 23:46, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Google translation gives "and of the Illyrian language they can sooner be called Slavs, than Albanians"[51], which isn't helpful as it's a third version. I've left a notice at WT:ITALY#Discussion at RSN that could use the input of Italian speakers asking for the help of Italian speakers. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:36, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you very much! I agree that translated versions "suck". I mean, they are correct by they translate it literally. I talked to Italian speakers and students online, but those can't be used as a valid source of translation. Setxkbmap (talk) 00:11, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I would not use "call themselves" in the translation. This strikes me as the si-impersonale or si-passivante (there's considerable overlap between the two) rather than a literal use of the reflexive. --Trovatore (talk) 00:27, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

What would your translation of ponno piu presto dirsi Schiavoni, ch' Albanesi be?

Part that talk about religion and language is pretty understandable and there is no room for mistranslation. Setxkbmap (talk) 00:35, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Something like "they can more easily be called Slavs than Albanians", I guess. Or you could say "they can sooner be called"; that works in English as well. --Trovatore (talk) 00:40, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

First one seems more in a spirit of English language. Second one just sounds weird, and gives it a "time element" which can be misunderstood, hence the mistranslation (in my opinion).

But, let's wait for more Italian speakers. Thanks for helping! Setxkbmap (talk) 00:42, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, it might be a slightly dated idiom in English (though not as old as ponno instead of possono :-) ) but I think it's still recognizable. Related discussion in Cambridge Dictionary. --Trovatore (talk) 00:49, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I updated my reply to include my opinion on the "time element". That's what sounds weird, and that is what in my opinion formed mistranslated quote. Setxkbmap (talk) 00:51, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

'Sooner' isn't really a time element here, it's more a idiom meaning something like 'rather'. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:31, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree with you, i just think that because of that "sooner" original author may misinterpreted and mistranslated the sentence.

But, the difference between word that has meaning of "rather" and "soon" is very different.

What's your opinion on translation? Setxkbmap (talk) 17:18, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I doubt I qualify for en-1 let alone anything in Italian, so I would defer to Trovatore's replies. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:06, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Ok, but you can give an opinion whether article itself should have the correct translation, or the wrong one that is being quoted from the author?

Because editors there disagree that this is wrong translation (even though neutral editors seem to think that there is something wrong with it), and even if translation was incorrect they say that it would be cherry picking if we only took original quote from the source provided. Setxkbmap (talk) 18:19, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

should have the correct translation, or the wrong one, again I'll defer to someone who speaks Italian on which translation is correct. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:14, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

No worries. It was updated with a new source by a different editor. This can be closed, i will look how to do it. Setxkbmap (talk) 11:29, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

The issue ignored here by the original poster is that the academic who published the Italian excerpt had actually provided an Albanian translation of the Italian, in which, taking into account the context and surrounding factors, he specifically gives the translation as megjithatë, duke qenë se thuajse që të gjithë ata ndjekin ritin serbian (ortodoks) dhe përdorin gjuhën ilirike (sllave), shumë shpejt do mund të quhen më shumë Sllavë, se sa Shqiptarë

which translated is:

since almost all of them use the Serbian rite and the Illyric language, soon they should be called Slavs, rather than Albanians.

We should use the translation given directly by the author, who took into account the context of it, instead of making our own guesses. This is not even a valid RSN as there are no question regarding reliability , only regarding a supposed unclear translation, which when actually looking into the Albanian translation, clears up any doubt regarding context.Alltan (talk) 01:16, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, the context is: Author is citing an italian sentence, and mistranslating it.

We can use Xhufi for the citation, but let's see what community thinks translation should be.

If the translation is not correct, we can use correct one, and then you modify the article and mention that Xhufi mistranslates the sentence. Setxkbmap (talk) 01:21, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

You are misunderstanding. The author is translating Italian into Albanian, as has already been confirmed by native speakers of Italian the version provided is also correct. Thing is that the specific historic context of the quote is interpreted by the author, which is why he uses one of the two correct translations over the other. And in order not to falsify the meaning which the author conveyed, we stick with the one given by Xhufi. Alltan (talk) 01:25, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

as has already been confirmed by native speakers of Italian the version provided is also correct.

Sorry, but some of them might disagree here, as it can be seen.

Thing is that the specific historic context of the quote is interpreted by the author, which is why he uses one of the two correct translations over the other. And in order not to falsify the meaning which the author conveyed, we stick with the one given by Xhufi.

We can keep Xhufi, we can always use his book as a source for the original quote, and use translation provided by a wider community, as Xhufi has clearly not translated it well enough.

We've had discussions on this, and you even stated: Xhufi's translation matches up with GTranslate too in one of the edits, so your claim is that Xhufi's translation is correct based on Google Translate.

Please refrain from discussing here, i am not asking editors whether or not something should be implemented into the article itself, i am simply asking for confirmation of the translation. Setxkbmap (talk) 01:35, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

The issue with this RSN is that the author who you agree is reliable enough already gives a translation of the text in question, from Italian to Albanian. We can not simply override the version the author gave (which is correct as confirmed here) and edit the translation to be another one because we would be ignoring any historical context the author has in mind when translating into Albanian, which we can’t do when Xhufi is RS. Alltan (talk) 01:42, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, apparently he is not, as his translation is not good.

Doesn't seem very reliable.

We can discuss what we can and can do in the article talk page, not here. Please refrain from discussing further. You, just like me, have no knowledge of Italian and that is why i posted this here.

Thank you. Setxkbmap (talk) 01:45, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I actually do speak Italian well enough to understand the quote. Xhufi is RS, as stated by 3 RSN on him, and also yourself 2 hours ago. But issue is that Xhufis translated version is translated already into Albanian, bearing in mind the historical background of what was happeneing in Brda at the time. Failing to mention it is already translated and given context by Xhufi, gives the impression this is a direct translation into English from an untranslated Italian source, which is not the case. Alltan (talk) 01:56, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Xhufi is great source for the original quote. Very bad translation tho.

Your knowledge of Italian has been confirmed by this: ((tquote| Xhufi's translation matches up with GTranslate too))

Please don't spam here. I gave a correct context.

Xhufi is being used as a correct translation, but the translated part is wrong. We should use Xhufi for source of the original quote, not his translation. Setxkbmap (talk) 02:00, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Mind WP:CIVIL. I ask you to not make personal aspersions against me, I referred you to Google Translate as a neutral source where you could yourself see how it all ties up. Xhufi is RS, his translation of the document has so far not being criticized by academia or scholars, you can not WP:CHERRYPICK from a source, without even any RS backing to do so. Alltan (talk) 02:08, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Maybe I have missed it, which author and wherein did he publish this translation? Slatersteven (talk) 09:55, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

This is what's being cited in the article page:

Xhufi, Pëllumb (2013). "Përkime shqiptaro-malazeze në mesjetë". In Ramaj, Albert (ed.). Poeta nascitur, historicus fit - Ad honorem Zef Mirdita (in Albanian). St. Gallen: Albanisches Institut. p. 132. "Në mënyrë domethënëse, një tekst françeskan i shek. XVII, pasi pohon se fi set e Piperve, Bratonishëve, Bjelopavliqëve e Kuçëve ishin shqiptare, shton se: "megjithatë, duke qenë se thuajse që të gjithë ata ndjekin ritin serbian (ortodoks) dhe përdorin gjuhën ilirike (sllave), shumë shpejt do mund të quhen më shumë Sllavë, se sa Shqiptarë"" Setxkbmap (talk) 10:00, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Radio X

Would Radio X (United Kingdom) be a reliable source regarding release dates? 2600:100C:A21F:3548:24BF:D868:2056:8CB6 (talk) 18:11, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

What is the specific source you want to use from Radio X and in what article? voorts (talk/contributions) 19:54, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

RfC Maeil Business Newspaper

What is the reliability of this newspaper? WikiFili1898 https://www.mk.co.kr/en/world/11099653 (talk) 21:09, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

As a major news organisation in South Korea it would be considered generally reliable. Whether this particular article is reliable depends on what content you want to support with it, as context is import when judging reliability. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:26, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Is adding a citation of a Daily Mail column by Richard Littlejohn as evidence permissible?

Private Eye has reported on his £50 fine for "bloody affray" and includes an admission quote from Littlejohn (Private Eye, August 30, No. 1631, p.10). It is relevant to the Eye story because Littlejohn is writing about the "milksop" modern teenagers in contrast to his own early years and how they should not expect "safe spaces" and does not mention his conviction for violence as a young man.

I think his Daily Mail article should be cited for reference of his words and can be said to reliable in this context, but the citation tool has lots of warnings on it about this. I am an inexperienced editor and I am not sure how to verify best practice here, so I am asking for guidance.

It would also help more generally to know if this has been answered somewhere, or whether it is simple a case-by-case justification for inclusion of unreliable sources. I can see there are several discussions where the view of some is that either unreliable and deprecated sources cannot be said to represent the views of the apparent author and can see the reasoning for that.

ITellComputerYes (talk) 12:19, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Per WP:DAILYMAIL it's deprecated. WP will probably physically stop you if you try and add it is a reference. Even if you are able to edit it into an article you shouldn't because they literally publish fake news. TarnishedPath^talk 12:23, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, I think I maybe didn't make myself clear enough. I am publishing something included in an article in Private Eye that refers to Littlejohn's article. What he says and doesn't say in his articles is the story. ITellComputerYes (talk) 14:46, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

• The Mail is deprecated and Littlejohn is well known for being economical with the truth, even by Mail standards, anyway. But regardless, if you are trying to make a point that Littlejohn didn't mention something in a column, you are approaching original research if you are trying to make a point that he left it out deliberately. Black Kite (talk) 12:27, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

  It's not original research, it's in the Private Eye article. Apologies if this wasn't clear enough. ITellComputerYes (talk) 14:47, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

  Then just cite the Private Eye article. Cortador (talk) 19:54, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

  The Private Eye article lacks some of the information from the Daily Mail column. If the context is carefully given, surely Wikipedia is improved by having the source material? ITellComputerYes (talk) 20:05, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

• We report what RS say. Slatersteven (talk) 12:47, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

  I don't know what RS is. ITellComputerYes (talk) 14:48, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

FYI - The discussion you're looking at on Talk:Richard Littlejohn is eleven years old, it should have been archived years ago. As well as what others have said about the Daily Mail the Private Eye is a gossip/satire magazine, and is best avoided in articles for living people. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:19, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I know, but that Talk is eleven years old, that is why I asked the question here as well.

Is it Wikipedia's view that Private Eye is gossip/satire magazine? Is it considered an unreliable source? I haven't seen that, is there is list somewhere, I have looked. I would argue Private Eye is one of the most serious, independent and rigorous news sources in the UK. But don't take my word for it, it's work on the British Post Office scandal, to name of hundreds of its long-running investigations, is well-documented here and elsewhere. ITellComputerYes (talk) 14:44, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

As I have a subscription to Private Eye I wouldn't need to take your word for it. Part of my point was that if other editors felt it was necessary it might have been acted on sometimes in the last decade. The fact they didn't points towards it not being important enough to include. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:52, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Argument of Silence? Richard Littlejohn gets barely 25 edits per year (which admittedly is unfortunately better than some tier-1 history articles) -- maybe the article itself is not important enough that editors have thoroughly included all information (and unlike tier-1 history, nobody is gonna be a motivated biographer)?

And whether or not Private Eye is largely gossip/satire, that does not preclude it being a green-listed RS. To give another argument of silence, the fact that it's not had an RSP RfC suggests it's only been used appropriately here so far. SamuelRiv (talk) 17:06, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

If it's used with attribution maybe. Where is it listed?

My point about inclusion is that the Private Eye using a decade old column to wag it's finger at someone is very Private Eye, but that doesn't mean it needs inclusion in the article. Content requires verification, but that it can be verified isn't always a reason for inclusion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:33, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

The column is from a couple of weeks ago.

Great that you have a Private Eye subscription. ITellComputerYes (talk) 20:08, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, good to know that, although I couldn't see it on the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. I might be missing it, or is there another list? ITellComputerYes (talk) 20:19, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Are you referring to Mr LittleJohn's 2014 column in the DailyMail? As you can see it's possible to cite it here and what he does say about himself is permissible. But you want to cite for what he does not say, eh? That sounds odd. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:55, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm referring to a recent column. So, you can cite a column as a link in the text? But not as a reference? What someone doesn't say in a narrative about their lives to make a social/political point, can be more revealing than what they do say, which is the essential point of the Private Eye article. ITellComputerYes (talk) 14:38, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

If the Private Eye article references the Daily Mail piece, then you can make a dual internal-external citation of the format: "Private Eye, citing Daily Mail" (using two separate citation templates in a single footnote). That is always permissible and preferred. However, Private Eye must be referencing the Mail in the manner you describe, in the manner you wish to use it in your article text, which is that what they don't say matters. (In that case your main citation, the one you need to worry about, is to Private Eye; if someone gets completely anal about the internal citation to the Mail then whatever.) SamuelRiv (talk) 15:49, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Is there past discussion (or better yet, some guidance) that establishes this is permissible?

I've never seen this done, but it would be a perfect solution to situations I've come across in the past where an officially "reliable" source reports on something but makes clear that it is simply trusting and regurgitating the reporting of the (officially unreliable/deprecated) Daily Mail. It seems wrong and harmful to the reader not to cite the original source, but creates a policy dispute to cite it directly; if what you describe is indeed agreed to be allowed, then it solves the problem. ExplodingCabbage (talk) 16:59, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

This is how you cite things, and how they teach it in universities. (APA blog on indirect secondary citations.) I don't know where I added it in the mountainscape of P&G and how-to essays on citing sources, but it was noncontroversial -- that's how to properly cite sources which internally cite sources. (And in turn, it's also how you can give a more detailed citation of primary sources, when information is at its root coming from one or two documents, interpreted through an expert.)

Also, to not do an internal citation in this manner, when you are actually intent on citing the information quoted or interpreted from the cited internal source, is considered plagiarism by most interpretations I've seen. SamuelRiv (talk) 17:13, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

This is covered under WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT, which gives the same advice. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:45, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks @SamuelRiv that seems like an elegant solution for this and other occasions. Much appreciated. ITellComputerYes (talk) 20:11, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

A very similar situation came up recently at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_Kingdom#Another_Daily_Mail_dilemma. There, The Times (reliable, per the perennial sources list) rereported things published by the Mail (deprecated) as fact, citing the Mail, and presumably without any additional investigation of its own. The question of whether to trust those claims, and if so which source(s) to cite for them, wasn't resolved on the Talk page.

I suspect similar situations - where a source that RSN has deemed reliable openly trusts and republishes the claims of a source that RSN has deemed unreliable - must occur often! It would be good to know what has been decided in the past about such situations. ExplodingCabbage (talk) 17:08, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

It depends on how the source handles it. Aggregators such as MSN or Yahoo that just republish articles from other sources don't change how the source is handled, so if they repost a Daily Mail story it's still deprecated.
A reliable source citing an unreliable source is fine as it's expected that the reliable source is validating what they publish, so if the Times cites the Daily Mail as the source for it's article then it's taken on trust that the Times has double checked the details before publishing. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:30, 5 September 2024 (UTC)