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Is this book by Paul J. Murphy a reliable source?

A book by a certain Paul J. Murphy titled The Wolves of Islam: Russia and the Faces of Chechen Terror (2004) is currently under discussion at Russian apartment bombings. Murphy is reportedly "a former U.S. government senior counterterrorism official" and "a U.S. congressional special adviser on Russia in 2002" who "dealt with issues related to counterterrorism cooperation between the United States and Russia" (I have not been able to verify this biography). There's not much reviews about the book, and while some positive ones can be found, there are also at least two negative ones which described it as very biased and void of sources [1][2]. The book is filled with rather controversial statements about a subject that is already heavily politicized. For example, Murphy has alleged early ties between Al-Qaeda and Chechen insurgents in the early phase of the 2nd Chechen War (while other authors have always pointed out that there was no real evidence for this), and also that "Chechens supplied Bin Laden with suitcase nukes in the mid-90s", amongst other unverified claims of nuclear terrorism. More importantly, the book has no footnotes or bibliography (you can see this in the Amazon preview too[3]), which in my opinion is already a reason not to consider it a reliable source. What do others think? And how should Wikipedia deal with such source? Cite it with care, or not at all? Machinarium (talk) 14:04, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

He may well claim that, that does not mean its true. I would say not an RS for facts, it is an RS for his opinion, but then undue comes into it. Not really usable.Slatersteven (talk) 14:12, 13 April 2020 (UTC)


Paul J. Murphy is an American counterterrorism expert, and the article Russian apartment bombings provides precisely the context where one might want to use his 2004 book as a source.
So far, four reviews of the book by Murphy have been discussed at the talk page of the Russian apartment bombings article.
1) Beyond the Myth: A review of the Wolves of Islam by Andrew McGregor, published by an NGO Jamestown Foundation. A negative review.
2) THE WOLVES OF ISLAM, Paul Murphy, Potomac Books, Washington, DC, 2006, 268 pages, $18.95 by Robert M. Cassidy, published by a peer-reviewed magazine Military Review. A positive review.
3) The Wolves of Islam: Russia and the Faces of Chechen Terror by Paul J. Murphy. by Mark J. Conversino, PhD, published by Strategic Studies Quarterly. A positive review.
4) A Pandora's Box Opened”: Al Q'aeda, Fundamentalist Islam, and the Global War on Terror—A Review Essay by Leo J. Daugherty III, Ph. D., published by The Journal of Slavic Military Studies. A positive review.
The attitude of the reviews shows that the book is vetted by the scholarly community. The only negative review has been published by an NGO, and doesn't contain any specific criticism which concerns claims currently made on the page Russian apartment bombings and supported by the book by Murphy as a reference.
Beyond that, review (2) has noted that the book's biggest shortcoming is the absense of footnotes, which "points to potential shortcomings in research". Review (3) has also noted the absense of footnotes and that "the accuracy and veracity of many of the author’s assertions or accounts must be accepted at face value".
That's valid criticism, but that's the criticism made within the scholarly community. That criticism might be mentioned within the article on the Russian apartment bombings.
Other criticism made within the review (3) is that a reader might find "more balanced and intellectually rigorous accounts of the Russo-Chechen War". However, the author of the review doesn't criticise the point essential to the article "Russian apartment bombings", that is, the complicity of international terrorists in perpetrating the apartment bombings of 1999. Contrary to that, the author of the review believes that the weakness of the book is its weak coverage of "historical roots of Chechen resistance to Russian and Soviet rule".
Lastly, indeed, the book by Murphy concerns the claim that Chechens purchased nuclear weapons for bin Laden. However, the said claim appears as a direct quotation of Yossef Bodansky's 1999 book (Murphy, p. 155), and it is indeed a longstanding opinion by Bodansky. For example, at page 102 of his 2008 book "Chechen Jihad: Al Qaeda's Training Ground and the Next Wave of Terror" Bodansky writes:


Moreover, the topic of the suitcases nukes doesn't even appear within the article Russian apartment bombings.
My opinion is that the book by Murphy is a RS and should be kept, at least for the uses within the said article.
--Document hippo (talk) 15:19, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Murphy also wrote about a "Chechen terrorist carrying out the first-ever act of nuclear terrorism". It shouldn't really matter that you want to use the source for another topic though. Apart from the dubious claims, his book has no footnotes. There's many books like that about conflicts, all very opinionated, but there's nothing "scholary" about it, and Wikipedia would do better by not regarding them as WP:RS. Machinarium (talk) 16:06, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
P.S. You are wrong in calling reviews 2 and 3 "positive" when they point out some obvious shortcomings. Machinarium (talk) 16:21, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
You are very well-knowleadgeable about the Russo-Chechen conflic! However, Murphy is indeed correct with that claim.
See "Inferno in Chechnya" by Williams, p. 148:
Or "Chechnya's Terrorist Network" by Pokalova, p. 50:
p.s. Of course, reviews are supposed to provide some criticism. To point out a deficiency with the author's sourcing is also a polite way to say that you've actually studied his work.
--Document hippo (talk) 16:25, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Alright, didn't know about such a move (sounds like something Basaev could do), so Murphy probably did refer to that, but the selling of nuclear weapons to Bin Laden is too much. The problem with a book like this is, again, that it has no footnotes, so we often don't know what he bases his conclusions on. Hence all my other arguments still stand, - this book shouldn't qualify as a WP:RS — it's better to cite other sources.Machinarium (talk) 17:02, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Bodansky (who Murphy quotes, with a proper attribution) claims to have used sensitive sources which he doesn't disclose. I concur with you that that information, taken as a fact, would be inappropriate for an encyclopedia. However, Fawaz Gerges cites diaries by Abu al-Walid al-Masri, according to which a part of bin Laden's interest in Khattab was trying to secure nuclear weapons from Russia's arsenals. Gerges wrote so about Khattab and bin Laden (p. 59 of "The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global"):
May be Bodansky is not off the mark, after all.
Meanwhile, Murphy is cited only in a few places in the article on the Russian apartment bombings. His lack of sourcing could be accounted for by seeking an independent verification of his claims (for example, in the media). --Document hippo (talk) 17:25, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
The source actually indicates that Chechens didn't provide WMD's to Al-Qaeda, so the opposite of what Bodansky claims. Also, as a side-note, WMDs can also be non-nuclear. Machinarium (talk) 18:22, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
You may believe in all kinds of sinister plots, but repeating unverified claims and presenting them as facts is not what a scholar should be doing. WP:RS states that a reliable source has "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy", and there is no indication that this applies to Murphy's book. To the contrary, the book has hardly any sources and no footnotes, exactly the opposite of a reliable source. But I'll let others give an opinion now, since this should become a discussion forum between the two of us. Machinarium (talk) 18:08, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for a fairly insightful discussion! You are welcome to continue it at my talk page, if you please. --Document hippo (talk) 18:14, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Okay.Machinarium (talk) 18:22, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Agree entirely with Machinarium here.--Calthinus (talk) 15:36, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, it was published by Brassey's, which is an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press. That doesn't necessarily mean that the conclusions reached by the authors are correct or that there are no errors. TFD (talk) 04:49, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Global Terrorism Database

My question concerns the Global Terrorism Database.

Recently I've added a mention of its entries regarding the September 1999 terrorist attacks in Russia to the article Russian apartment bombings. Here is the diff.

I would like to know how reliable the Global Terrorism Database is as a source.

Thanks in advance! --Document hippo (talk) 23:02, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

It should have limited use as a tertiary publication. In this case, they said in 1999 that Chechen terrorists were considered to be responsible for the bombings. They provide sources that say this. They did not conduct any investigation or provide any statement about whether those claims were credible, they merely reported what reliable sources were saying at the time. Sure what they said was reliable, sources did say that, but it has no relevance to the article. Bear in mind that their objective is to collate information in reliable sources, not to analyze events. TFD (talk) 03:15, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks! --Document hippo (talk) 05:37, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Sources for Rachel Scott

Some additional input on guidance regarding the appropriate sources for Rachel Scott would be helpful. This is a sensitive topic, as Scott was a young student killed in the Columbine Massacre and was subsequently given a Christian martyr treatment in the USA, some of which seems to have crept into the article. I'm particularly concerned about the many books written about Rachel after her death under the supervision of her family, which has done a fair share to promote the martyrdom message. The one most prominently used in the article is Rachel's Tears. Sociologist Ralph Larkin has termed these books "hagiographies". There's also a myriad of articles from reliable news sources that quote extensively from interviews with her family. The books and interviews are used to support numerous claims mostly related either to Rachel's personality, her religious views and piety, or the effects of her interactions with other people (her family says she was kind to a bullied kid thus he chose not to kill himself, for example). The sources are obviously not independent, and in many ways would seem to be WP:Primary. So, should these sources be used at all, or should they (and the text they supposedly support) be removed? If they are to be used, for what details? -Indy beetle (talk) 01:22, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

The books are published by Thomas Nelson, which meets rs. IIRC Scott was the young woman who spoke up when one of the killers asked if anyone was a Christian and was killed. Since that is why she is notable, I think the emphasis of the article should be on that incident and it's development into a myth. Is that what actually happened, was she a martyr and what influence has her story had? Those are the issues that should be the focus of the article, per weight, rather than biographical information. TFD (talk) 02:43, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Columbine in general is a mass of conflicting third-hand accounts. I don't think there's any solution other than noting inconsistencies between sources when they appear and pruning back peacock terms. --RaiderAspect (talk) 08:10, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

n5ti.com fake coronavirus news

The site https://n5ti.com/ doesn't appear to have cropped up on Wikipedia yet, but a lot of the heavily trending fake news stories about coronavirus are coming from this site, for example, https://n5ti.com/health/1233/ and https://n5ti.com/italy-07099/. Is there any way that we can take preventative action against this site, or do we have to wait until people are actually citing it? Kaldari (talk) 19:09, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

That you opened this thread is already a good thing, as it'll be in searchable RSN archives. I agree it's not usable as a source for anything. It'd also be possible to request that it be blacklisted but I doubt it'd be accepted without prior use. Maybe easier at XLinkBot's revertlist though... And probably a good idea to keep this link ({{sl|insource:"n5ti.com"}}) and occasionally check. —PaleoNeonate – 08:53, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Is Hindi 2News a reliable source?

Is hindi2news.com a reliable source? For reference, see:

Editorial policy: [4]
About: [5]

Samp4ngeles (talk) 17:41, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Jo Ferguson chose to turn off life support machine instead of going sober for six months to qualify for a liver transplant before her death at 46

By Joshua Fox For Daily Mail Australia
Published: 02:25 EDT, 12 April 2020 | Updated: 16:22 EDT, 13 April 2020

Jo Ferguson reportedly made the decision to turn off the machines filtering her blood and keeping her alive last week, leading to her death from liver and kidney failure days later.

to this excerpt from Hindi2News:

Jo Ferguson ‘selected to show life assist machine off as a substitute of going sober for six months to qualify for lifesaving liver transplant’ amid well being battle earlier than her tragic dying aged 46

By Joshua Fox For Day by day Mail Australia
Printed: 07:25 BST, 12 April 2020 | Up to date: 10:02 BST, 12 April 2020

Jo Ferguson reportedly made the choice to show off the machines filtering her blood and holding her alive final week, resulting in her dying from liver and kidney failure days later.

This is a case of article spinning, a spamdexing strategy in which an article is taken without permission from another source, lightly modified by having a computer program swap out synonyms for random words and phrases, and then republished as a new article. The Hindi2News article is full of grammatical errors, as is typical of spun articles. Hindi2News took every paragraph, and even the byline and the image captions, from the Daily Mail and spun them through this process. Every article on Hindi2News is a copyright violation just like this one. — Newslinger talk 08:03, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

I think they are saying it should not be used AT ALL. Blueboar (talk) 15:46, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that's right. There are two factors here, each of which are enough to disqualify a source from use (on any article, not just BLPs):

  • Copyright violation: WP:COPYLINK states, "if you know or reasonably suspect that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work." Hindi2News is clearly violating the copyrights of other websites by taking their articles and republishing mangled versions of them without permission. Copyright violations are unacceptable as sources regardless of whether the underlying sources are reliable.
  • Inaccuracy: WP:V requires us to "Base articles on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Article spinning frequently changes the meaning of the text or makes it incomprehensible. For example, the Hindi2News article claims that Ferguson died from liver and kidney failure because she "made the choice to show off the machines", which is incorrect. Poorly spun articles are not reliable even if they do not violate copyright.

If you want to cite something from Hindi2News, try to find where the article was originally published. If it's a reliable source (which the Daily Mail is not), then the original source can be cited instead. — Newslinger talk 03:10, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

The Logical Indian for Jai Shri Ram

Is The Logical Indian (thelogicalindian.com) article a reliable source for the Jai Shri Ram article? Two articles from the website are being used to cite the following text:

Fake cases alleging usage of Jai Shri Ram

Multiple cases have been reported where people have alleged the usage of Jai Shri Ram during an altercation or a fight which have turned out to be fake.[1]

In Karimnagar, Telangana, a man alleged that he was beaten by BJP and RSS mob for not chanting Jai Shree Ram. However, the Commissioner of Police after investigation clarified that the incident was not communal and that the man was trashed for harassing a teenage girl. [2]

References

  1. ^ Sen, Sumanti (2019-07-29). "False Cases Of Harassment In The Name Of 'Jai Shri Ram' Multiply". thelogicalindian.com. Retrieved 2020-03-04.
  2. ^ https://thelogicalindian.com/news/muslim-youth-attack/

— Newslinger talk 07:40, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics. — Newslinger talk 07:45, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
personally I doubt it as they are not forthcoming about their editorial policy (or even who actually works for them) and they accept paid content.Slatersteven (talk) 10:24, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm having a hard time determining whether this site's articles are written by staff members or from non-staff contributors in the same vein as Forbes.com contributors (RSP entry), which are considered self-published sources. The About Us page lists two founders and claims to have "a crew of 25 and a pool of volunteers", but the site does not indicate which authors are staff members and which are "volunteers".

In 2015, The Logical Indian apologized to Mid Day for copying one of their articles verbatim without permission or attribution. This kind of incident generally only happens when the website publishes content from non-staff contributors without review, as it only takes a minute to check for plagiarism on a search engine. — Newslinger talk 10:38, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

It does not say what these staff do (or come to that any of the volunteers) they could just trawl the internet for any old rubbish that takes their fancy and just publish it (and that does seem to be the implication form the about page).Slatersteven (talk) 10:42, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
For the record, I agree that The Logical Indian is a questionable source. — Newslinger talk 03:21, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Not reliable This is just another news-aggregator rewriting stories reported by mainstream press and commingling it with user-submitted and sponsored content. Better, if due, to cite the media-sources they are citing, directly. The Logical Indian seems to be better in (usually) attributing the content to the original source, which puts them ahead of most of the similar quick-to-set-up aggregators in the Indian marketplace but there is no indication of actual original reporting and/or of additional fact-checking, which would make them useful or usable as a source on wikipedia. Abecedare (talk) 15:23, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

bitcoin.it

This is a wiki, I assume it's considered unreliable, as wikis generally are, and specifically unreliable as an in-universe crypto website. David Gerard, is that correct? Anyone else have a view? Guy (help!) 10:35, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

It's a wiki, worse than that it's an advocacy wiki - completely unusable for Wikipedia purposes. (Though for e.g. my own purposes, it can be surprisingly helpful and is not always wrong as such! FWIW.) - David Gerard (talk) 10:57, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Post-apartheid South African sources

Are there any sources coming from South Africa that we can consider to be reliable? I see one coming from the University of Cape Town, specifically this one, which documents important events in modern South African history. I know that the government South Africa during apartheid had not been kind to its dissidents, and I have no doubt that it would push its pro-apartheid propaganda in the press. Since the end of apartheid, however, the nation seems to have a relatively free press, as evidenced here. If the sources do not meet any opposition for being state-owned media, then I think there are credible sources there. FreeMediaKid! 05:02, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

FreeMediaKid!, I think the thesis is usable because PhD theses are typically reliable sources and UCT is rated as one of the top 200 universities worldwide: [7] Outside the top 200 or 300 univerisities however there starts to be concerns with plaigiarism, bribery, and fraud that make it difficult for theses to qualify as RS. buidhe 19:21, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, PhD theses should always be considered reliable unless there is very good evidence to suggest otherwise, and I have no problem with this one. PhD theses go through peer review, and Wikipedians should always respect this, unless we have specific evidence to prove "plagiarism, bribery, and fraud". Ahiroy (talk) 13:58, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
While I would generally agree with you, there's certain countries (such as Ukraine)[8][9][10][11] and probably others, where systemic problems may mean that there isn't effective peer review or other editorial oversight as required by WP:RS. buidhe 06:09, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Twitter as a source in a BLP

Article:Joe Biden sexual assault allegation

Edits in question:[12][13]

Source:[14]

Discussion:Talk:Joe Biden sexual assault allegation#Twitter as a source

Should I restore the source? --Guy Macon (talk) 20:34, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't personally think you need to restore the source, as long as the content remains. I simply objected to your edit summary as I think it mischaracterizes policy. Thank you for bringing it here for greater clarity. petrarchan47คุก 21:05, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Here is our policy:
"Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources. Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person... Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source, subject to the restrictions of this policy, no original research, and the other sourcing policies." --WP:BLPPRIMARY
This is right above WP:BLPSPS, which says
"Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article."
This establishes that there is no blanket prohibition on Tweets (One could ague that the "subject of the article" is Biden, not Reade, but I am not about to open that can of worms). The question to me is whether the twitter citation in any way "augments the secondary source" or whether it simply leads the reader to a whole series of reply tweets that are not allowed per BLP. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:02, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Regardless of reliability, there is no need for the tweet as American news organizations have covered this episode with great detail.--Hippeus (talk) 10:48, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

2014 Isla Vista killings

I am disturbed by the obsessive use of the word "manifesto" to describe Rodger's diatribe, but rather more disturbed to see ten separate statements sourced to it within the article. This appears to me not to be a valid use of a primary source, gioven its content?

Another inclusion - the external link ""My Twisted World manifesto" (HTML) (unscrubbed, free-copy ed.). with link to word processor format" - I removed. Guy (help!) 11:47, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

What do RS say?Slatersteven (talk) 11:48, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Slatersteven, sufficient that we don't need to source directly from the primary, even if it was a good idea, which it is not. Or do you mean re "manifesto"? They vary. We obnessively use manifesto, sources use manifesto, story, email, diatribe and other characterisations. Incels always use manifesto, though. Guy (help!) 11:53, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
I mean your question, I assumed you were asking if we can call this a manifesto. If RS do so do we.Slatersteven (talk) 11:55, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Slatersteven, I agree we can call it that once, but not every time. That makes the aarticle read as a polemic for incels. Guy (help!) 15:36, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
This is not an RS issue then. So cannot be answered here, maybe take it to...this is awkward as I am about to tell a very experienced user how to suck forums.Slatersteven (talk) 15:39, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Slatersteven, LOL! s/very experienced user/serial idiot/ Guy (help!) 12:21, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Isn't the text reliable only in a WP:ABOUTSELF fashion? I note that the Ted Kaczynski article also refers to the Industrial Society and Its Future text as a manifesto. And both Elliot Rodger and Ted Kaczynski's texts are listed as "Notable Manifestos" in the Manifesto article, alongside those of Anders Behring Breivik, David Duke, Dylann Roof, and the Christchurch shooter. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:15, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Statistical data from Forebears.io

Is statistical data taken from forebears.io reliable? I'm not referring to user-generated content about surname etymologies, but the numerical data that is listed about surname use in each municipality of a given country.--Maleschreiber (talk) 15:16, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

How is it generated?Slatersteven (talk) 15:18, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
They seem to have access to census data and other population metrics tools. They claim that Forebears Names data has been used by publicly traded companies, banks, national security contractors, marketers, The Federal Reserve and has been cited in over 60 academic studies. In the case of US surnames, I have verified that their data has been mined directly by the 2000/2010 US census database and is accurate.--Maleschreiber (talk) 16:35, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Altered source and academia.edu

I was trying to verify a statement in Habesha peoples. I looked up the source at Google Scholar. It pointed me to the original publication at Springer's website, but also to a PDF at Academia.edu. The original is behind a paywall while the Academia PDF is readily available. The citation didn't specify either website; I found these on my own. However, the Academia PDF contained a credit, "Edited By: Habesha Gaaffaa-Geeska Yäafrika, PhD," and has yellow highlighting throughout the document (presumably added there by Yäafrika). But for all I know, this version has had its text modified, as well. (I've previously brought up another problematic source attributed to Yäafrika at Talk:Habesha peoples/Archives/2020/June#Synthesis, POV, and also at Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard/Archive 43#Habesha peoples). I've gone into more detail about this particular instance at Talk:Habesha peoples/Archives/2020/May#Source redux. The larger issue for Wikipedia, though, is that (apparently) anyone can take a journal source, modify it at will, upload it to Academia.edu and (intentionally or not) pass it off as the original source. Presumably this has come up before. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 00:31, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

@Gyrofrog: If the source cited is the Academia reprint, the person originally citing the source should have linked the reprint. Otherwise, it's assumed to be the original source. To verify the information, make a request for the original publication at WP:RX; someone probably has access to a pdf. buidhe 04:20, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
@Buidhe: Thanks, I was able to get it via ProQuest. No, no one was specifically citing the Academia.edu version (nor any online version) but, again, I recognized the name therein from a different cited reference (made to appear as though it appeared in an academic journal, when, as far as I can tell, it did not). That this happens at all is, I guess, outside (or bigger than) the scope of this noticeboard. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 16:59, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Edwin E. Jacques

The Albanians: An Ethnic History from Prehistoric Times to the Present is a book that was published by a nonagenarian Protestant missionary named Edwin E. Jacques in 1995. Although revered in the Albanian diaspora, the book has been by dismissed by Western academics as pseudo-history, which isn't much of a surprise given that Jacques was not a historian.

Its use as a source on Wikipedia has led to criticism in the academic community, given some of the fringe views that Jacques espouses, notably that the likes of "Alexander the Great, Diocletian, Constantine the Great, Homer, Aristotle, Hippocrates" were ethnically Albanian. Jacques also claims that Troy was built by the Albanians. For the academic critique of the book that I mentioned earlier, see here . Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 16:45, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Not RS. I believe this has been discussed before. Jacques' commentary occasionally has notability not as a source but as a topic. Aside from that, he is, very much as AB has already demonstrated, not reliable. Even if it weren't for his hilarious claim about Troy, which is news to me, he very much represents the partial view of a missionary who sought to return Albanians to their supposed exalted Western Christian origins. (There is a Saudi publication by Muslim missionaries on Albanians too to watch out for, which is nearly the Islamized mirror image of Jacques, similarly exaggerating the significance of Albanians in Islamic and Mediterranean history etc etc) --Calthinus (talk) 15:34, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
That pretty much sums up my view on Jacques, Calthinus. The fact that scholars have explicitly criticized his use as a source on Wikipedia is quite telling. BTW, you wouldn't happen to know the title of that Saudi missionary book? Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 14:08, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Amanuensis Balkanicus have looked. Cannot find it at the moment. If I do and I remember I'll let you know.--Calthinus (talk) 00:28, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Stop the Church

This is an article on a protest at New York's Catholic cathedral organised by ACT UP during the AIDS crisis, primarily against the Catholic position on condoms and teaching safe sex as personified by Cardinal O'Connor.

It contains a substantial number of cites to a podcast, "Plague: Untold Stories of AIDS & the Catholic Church ", by Michael O'Loughlin. We have no article on the podcast or the presenter. I think this is an impermissible WP:SPS, albeit an interesting one, since he is a gay Catholic. The link is here: https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/12/01/surviving-aids-crisis-gay-catholic. It is apparently related to America (magazine) so is very pro-Catholic, and probably not an acceptable source for claims like O'Connor "ministering" to AIDS patients; the consensus view seems to be that he was - to put it charitably - not well-disposed towards gay people. The word homophobe is commonly used (as indeed is bigot). I propose to replace such references regardless - we have better ones. But is this podcast an appropriate source?

I also note several references to an article on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. I have always thought of that as a propaganda outlet and not reliable. Is it valid here? Guy (help!) 15:35, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Seems to fall foul of SPS, so then the question become who is he. As it seems he is no one of significance I would say its fails RS.Slatersteven (talk) 15:37, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
I am not sure why Radio Free Europe wouldn't be counted differently than other nonproblematic state media, such as the BBC for instance. I would consider it generally reliable for its own reporting. It does rely on TASS (RSP entry) [15] and other suspect sources for some reporting, but these are clearly marked on articles. If so, additional considerations may apply. buidhe 04:29, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Buidhe, there's quite a difference between RFE/RL and the BBC (which is much closer to PBS, as an analogy). It's not even analogous to the BBC World Service. It's really a cold war hangover. Guy (help!) 12:20, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
What makes you think so? buidhe 01:59, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
The podcast is obviously not an SPS: it was produced by America Media, the parent of America magazine. It also seems notable: see coverage in the New York Times, NPR, NewNowNext, POZ, Digital Trends, Crux, Catholic Health World, etc. In addition to his work for America, O'Loughlin has written on the subject for the Daily Beast and the Washington Post, and been quoted in the Guardian. Cheers, gnu57 09:10, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Overall, I'd say that there is no consensus on the reliability of this source. To sum up the results of the RFC: On the one hand, most supporters cite the source's versatility in calculating its election results, with Danish Expert in particular pointing out that the site also discloses its methodologies. On the other hand, most opponents point out the source's self-published status and lack of editorial oversight, and that the grandfather clause is no excuse. I'm also not seeing much evidence that the source is regularly cited by established RSes, placing its dubiosity somewhat on par with that of VGChartz. At this point, though the opposition's arguments are slightly stronger, I think there is still enough room for doubt to consider the source marginally reliable. ToThAc (talk) 21:17, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Is The Green Papers [16] a generally reliable source for election-related information? - MrX 🖋 20:53, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

  • Should not be used in preference to established RS like the New York Times and other newspapers which cover this topic in sufficient detail. buidhe 21:00, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes. The days and weeks after a primary/caucus is over, there can still be updates to votes totals and delegates from official sources until the final results are certified. The Green Papers always keeps up with these updates, while other reliable sources like the New York Times, USA Today, and CNN often do not. --Spiffy sperry (talk) 21:51, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes, but...: The site provides high quality information, but it's essentially a self-published website by two politics geeks, with no editorial oversight (nor any web designer to speak of). It can be used, but if The Green Papers say one thing and mainstream media outlets say another, report what the mainstream outlets say, even if you believe the Green Papers are "more accurate". MaxBrowne2 (talk) 01:42, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes. per above. --Enos733 (talk) 04:28, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes. Based on a read of their 2020 Iowa results article, the source is reliable (display official election result data imported both from the primary official result website in each state and from the New York Times) and it is also of a unique high quality (as it transparently outline how national pledged delegates have been calculated while explaining the underlying math, so that the reader himself can check and verify that the calculated results indeed are correct).
    • When used along with a primary official result website source (i.e the IDP website), then The Green Papers source add quality to wikipedia. Newspaper sources and even the offical website result websites, tend to skip publication of the calculations behind the allocation of national pledged delegates, and instead just jump on to display only the final results.
    • Another quality of The Green Papers source is that it continue to track subsequent developments for the calculated final result of allocated won "national pledged delegates", both when "certified final results" are published by the official result website roughly one month after the election, and in those cases where the initial won "national pledged delegates" subseqently transfers to other candidates (i.e. check how the source was used to keep track of the final results in this 2008 Iowa Democratic cacucuses wikipedia article, where it should be noted that most newspapers at the time in comparison failed to update their several month old result articles to keep track of the subsequent developments happening months later for the Iowa national pledged delegates). Danish Expert (talk) 15:14, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes and no. Yes in that its data is probably accurate; no in that it doesn't really qualify as RS in the usual Wikipedia sense, though IAR may apply. I largely agree with what Buidhe and MaxBrowne2 said above. This site reminds me of Kworb for music data. feminist (talk) 16:59, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No - It is a self published website with unknown editorial oversight. It may be usable in some contexts, but when major news organizations routinely report election results, there is no real value in citing a self published source. - MrX 🖋 13:50, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No - I agree with feminist that the data might be accurate, but it is a self published Blog so its reliability is questionable. I don't think it should be used as a main reliable reference, maybe a secondary in some cases. ContentEditman (talk) 19:08, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No SPS blog by people who do not seem to be recognised experts.Slatersteven (talk) 10:22, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No - Self-published blog. They probably get it right most of the time but I see no reason to rely on them when there are ample better sources (official reports, AP, NYTimes) to cite. Neutralitytalk 20:26, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No I notice a disclaimer on the Nevada Democrats caucus page: "These pages contain a combination of official, unofficial, and estimated data. The information posted here is subject to change."[19] If something is an estimate, that must be mentioned in the text. But there is no reason in reporting their estimates since they have no claim to expertise. However, journalists are supposed to have the expertise to weigh sources, so we can use their info if it is reported in news articles. TFD (talk) 20:54, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No Where more reliable sources agree with their data, use the more reliable sources. Where more reliable sources disagree with it, then we can't trust this one. There's no good reason to use it. --Jayron32 15:14, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
    • Comment: I suspect that all those who replied "No" from 23-26 February most likely lack some experience on what this source is really about and how Wikipedia article's previously chose to use it (as a supplementing secondary source along with the primary source being the "official election result webpage") for most US presidential elections (including primaries and caucuses) over the past 20 years.
      The Green Papers is not a traditional source, but more of a factual election result database, which collected and documented all official election results (with its primary data-input being identical to the imported results from the primary official website result webpages, and adding several important additional calculation details - plus some sourced comments on all potential subsequent changes to the count of pledged national convention delegates happening after the election date itself) for all Democratic/Republican presidential races from 2000-2020 in their database. It can simply not just be replaced by any other reliable source.
      Besides of being the most complete and accurate historic database for final results (i.e the created wikipedia article about the source features this line: "During the 2016 presidential election, many journalists started paying attention to the site's delegate counts, and Quoctrung Bui of the New York Times noted that the site "...does something very few media organizations are willing to do: accurately and independently tabulate delegates in real time."[1]), it also like CNN AP trade in the business of calculating a projected preliminary count of won pledged national convention delegates based on the ongoing preliminary partial count before 100% of the voting places reported their result (hence they also added their "data disclaimer" on the top of the page, warning readers that their page features preliminary data subject to change). Whether or not these preliminary calculated data for pledged national convention delegates (based on partial less than 100% counted results) should be added to Wikipedia articles by AP/CNN/TGP or none of them at all, is a second very seperate ongoing debate, where my own position is, that infoboxes should completely refrain from displaying these calculated preliminary data figures delivered by any source, meaning that we should instead just opt to display a "TBD" - at least until 100% of the vote has been counted.
      Contrary to AP/CNN, the The Green Papers however nevertheless is the only source that transparently display how this calculation of pledged national convention delegates is performed (first based on preliminary unofficial results and later based on final official certified results being imported by the source-linked primary official result webpage), and The Green Papers is the only available source that provides a full explanation of how this calculation math is working, and moreover it has a historic track record of doing these calculations both faster and more accurate compared to AP/CNN. We have no source to replace it, because as you can see this alternative AP source do not deliver the same amount of data details compared to The Green Papers. Finally, it is similar to all alternative newspaper sources being updated very frequently several times per day, so it never features outdated data. Danish Expert (talk) 17:15, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Bui, Quoctrung (2016-05-08). "The Secretive Duo Guiding the Delegate Count". The New York Times. Retrieved 2018-09-10.
  • Where the source collates information from electoral officials, we can follow Say where you read it. For example in a 1948 congressional race in Idaho, we could cite that electoral board and mention in the footnote that we got the info from The Green Papers. But there is no reason to report their calculated results if they have been ignored by mainstream sources. Bear in mind too that we are not preventing readers from going to The Green Paper if they wish to do so. It is not the role of Wikipedia to incorporate everything available on other sites on the internet. TFD (talk) 17:58, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
  • You accidently missed the point of my stated comment above. MrX started this "reliable source RFC" because he want to use AP/CNN instead of TGP as a reliable source for the preliminary calculated number of "pledged national convention delegates" election results. My position is, that neither AP/CNN/TGP should be used as sources for a display of this preliminary data (based on less than 100% of the votes being counted), as per WP:NOTNEWS. However, there is absolutely no reason to change how Wikipedia has previously used TGP as a reliable supplementing secondary database source for US election articles in the past 20 years, as it provides this important valuable additional info not reported by ordinary newspaper sources:
    1. Number of pledged national convention delegates based on the election result itself (while providing all verifiable math and explanation for this calculation, which competing sources tend to skip).
    2. Subsequent changes to the number of allocated pledged national convention delegates due to events from candidates pulling out of the race - or subsequent changes due to subsequent election system developments at the state's district convention or state convention.
    3. Display exactly how many pledged delegates each candidate won within respectively each of the 6 election races that form part of a states overall election event (i.e. congressional district 1 2 3 4 delegates, plus the PLEO delegates per statewide total and at-large delegates per statewide total).
    4. Finally TGP also keep track on how each states unpledged delegates finally vote on the floor of the Democratic Partys' National Convention.
All of the above 4 additional data points are not provided by alternative newspaper sources. Once certified results are published by the primary official election source (which TGP link to), they then finally also remove their data disclaimer about "preliminary data subject to change" (i.e. see the 2016 Iowa election result article). This is why Wikipedia shall continue to use TGP as a supplementing data source (along with a primary official election webpage source), without enforcing any changes to how Wikipedia previously up until today has opted to use this TGP source. Danish Expert (talk) 18:51, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
There are reasons. We are an encyclopedia whose credibility is based on adherence to referencing to sources with reputations for fact checking, editorial oversight, and making corrections when necessary. Your argument is based largely on the mechanics of the information that TGP publishes and your own assessment of its value and quality. We should not use questionable sources simply because they publish information that reliable sources don't. We have always done it that way is a poor argument for elevating this source. I would be careful about making declarations like "Wikipedia shall continue to use TGP as a supplementing data source" that may run contrary to consensus. - MrX 🖋 13:03, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
We are however experience editors who (generality) understand policy, an SPS is an SPS accuracy is irrelevant. If this was produced by A recognised (BY other RS) it might be usable, no evidence has been produced it is. can tell you (exactly) what the weather is like outside my house, that does not make me an RS on it (no matter how accurate I am).Slatersteven (talk) 13:17, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Hi MrX, would you mind adding an {{rfc}} tag to this discussion to make this a formal request for comment, or removing "RfC:" from the section heading? — Newslinger talk 12:45, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Wait, I see that Legobot removed the {{rfc}} tag in Special:Diff/940712018 after this RfC was prematurely archived. I restored the tag. — Newslinger talk 13:01, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, I should have caught that. - MrX 🖋 13:06, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Ad Fontes Media and AllSides

These two sources are being discussed at Talk:One America News Network § No clear consensus on 'far-right' descriptor. Please note that they are being used in article space. — Newslinger talk 13:23, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Ad Fontes Media for One America News Network

Is Ad Fontes Media a reliable source for the bias or the reliability of a publication (in article space)? The organization's Media Bias Chart is being used for the claim that One America News Network is not "far-right". — Newslinger talk 13:18, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

IIRC, this was discussed. It is an interesting tool. But, not to be used a as source. O3000 (talk) 14:53, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Absolutely not. There's nothing to indicate that they are reliable. Editors really need to stop citing random-ass "media bias" websites. The chart from this website is ludicrous and conflates opinion and news reporting. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 13:23, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Users Snooganssnoogans, and O3000 do not appear impartial to this discussion. Both users appear to want to discredit Ad Fontes Media without any justification or evidence. Their motive appears to be to progress the definition of One America News Network as far-right. It's important to mention this here, because it is not clear to other editors that this is the case. To me the concern about it not being a reliable source stems from it being effectively a self-published source. I personally think it is reliable for providing a general assessment of media bias (far more so than a competitor news agency which is currently deemed de-facto "reliable"). Aeonx (talk) 16:48, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
u wot m8? OANN is deprecated - the only lower regard it could be held in here would be to actually be on the spam blacklist - David Gerard (talk) 17:29, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
@Aeonx: in the last couple days you have called me a fool and an idiot. Now, I have a "design to discredit". I suggest you take more care when posting on a noticeboard. Behavior will catch up to you. O3000 (talk) 17:34, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
David, being deprecated doesn't mean left or right. The real question here is should we give credence to the ratings of these sites when trying to decide if a source is far-left, left, centrist, right, far-right. Springee (talk) 18:02, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
It certainly can't be cited in the article but when it comes to helping editors judge how a site should be labeled when RS's can be found for the labels should we still ignore it? If we are willing to use such information to help exclude sources from being RS's [[20]],[[21]],[[22]],[[23]] why shouldn't we also use it to help decide which label found in various RS's is most appropriate? Springee (talk) 03:18, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Springee, I am a big fan, and the site definitely informs my view of the bias and reliability of a source, but we cannot use it to drive content. Partly because it's self-published, partly because it doesn't have a peer-reviewed methodology, and partly because it is time sensitive and lags events (successive versions have moved Fox steadily down and right, for example). MBFC are somewhat more up to date. Sources are pretty clear on OAN having lurched to the right recently, and become less reliable as a result. They are in fact "doing a Fox": as Benkler noted in Network Propaganda, when Breitbart started eating Fox's lunch, Fox became markedly more partisan and markedly less factual. Fox have basically taken OAN's space, and OAN is responding in the same weay. This is fully consistent witht he positive feedback loop effect documented by Benkler, which means that partisan right wing media will tend to become more right wingh and less accurate, because their system of incentives penalises rather than rewarding factual content that contradicts the right-wing narrative. Guy (help!) 09:42, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree with Guy. Not usable as a source (it's self-published and does not have the usual requirements for a source to be considered RS. Neutralitytalk 20:32, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Usable if quoted in a third-party source. So, hypothetically, if the New York Times cites the Ad Fontes Chart's "skews right" rating of One America News in a news article about OANN, we can use the NYT article as a source to support a statement which reads 'The source is rated "skews right" by Ad Fontes Media'. feminist Wear a mask to protect everyone 09:55, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

AllSides for One America News Network

Is AllSides (allsides.com) a reliable source for the bias or reliability of a publication (in article space)? The site's rating of One America News Network is being used for the claim that One America News Network is not "far-right". — Newslinger talk 13:18, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

  • I think they (edit: I'm referring to both bias check sources) are widely accepted and used around here. I would never give their ratings weight by themselves. However, when deciding how to label an organization I do think they offer a reasonable, method based way to decide. Springee (talk) 14:37, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Absolutely not. There's nothing to indicate that they are reliable. Editors really need to stop citing random-ass "media bias" websites. Their ratings are ridiculous. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 13:23, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
This reply will apply to both of your posts since they are the same for both. Do you have any evidence that they are not? What should we use in their absence? Do we just use editor opinion? You are proposing the OAN be labeled "far-right" but the bias reporting sites don't agree with that. Why is your opinion more reliable than theirs? Springee (talk) 14:15, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
My opinion is equally reliable as theirs: completely unreliable. That's why the far-right description is sourced to actual RS, and not to myself. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:17, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Where is the published method behind your opinion? Is your opinion cited by others? "sourced to others" but not the majority of others who use "conservative" and not "far-right". Springee (talk) 14:27, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Nope. A handy guide but there's nothing there that would pass our bar for reliability. Exactly as per Ad Fontes. Helpful in assessing other sources, but not in and of itself reliable. Guy (help!) 20:27, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree with Guy. Not usable as a source (it's self-published and does not have the usual requirements for a source to be considered RS. Neutralitytalk 20:32, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Usable if quoted in a third-party source, as I explained above for Ad Fontes Media. feminist Wear a mask to protect everyone 09:55, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I was today years old when I found out that the original source for the grotesque caricature of the Ad Fontes chart, used by Trump as the basis of his 2018 rant against Google, was actually not from PJ Media, but from Sharyl Atkisson, the well-known totally-not-an-antivaxer. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-wrote-the-article-about-media-bias-in-google-searches-regulation-isnt-the-answer/2018/08/29/15bdaae2-abaa-11e8-8f4b-aee063e14538_story.html Guy (help!) 10:09, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

The InfoWars media bias chart is even more peculiar. — Newslinger talk 10:14, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Rich McHugh

Article:Joe Biden sexual assault allegation

Related discussion

Proposed text:

Reade filed a criminal complaint with the Washington, D.C., police on April 9, 2020.

Source: Rich McHugh writing for Business Insider

A woman who accused Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her when she worked for him in 1993 has filed a formal criminal complaint with the Washington, DC, police about the alleged incident, Business Insider has learned. Late Thursday afternoon, Reade filed a report of the incident with the sexual assault unit of the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department. Business Insider has obtained a public incident report recording the allegation.[1]
  • "Rich McHugh is an Emmy-winning investigative producer with over 20 years experience in television news. Recently, he served as executive producer for Al Gore’s 24 Hours of Reality, a global broadcast focused on climate change. Prior to that, he was a supervising producer in the NBC News Investigative Unit and spent nearly a decade at ABC News producing Good Morning America."*
  • Here is a NYT piece about his work as Ronan Farrow's producer at NBC when the two attempted to report on Weinstein.
  • Here are two of his pieces for Vanity Fair on the subject *, *

Presently, Joe Biden sexual assault allegation has

Reade filed a public incident report with the Washington, D.C., police on April 9, 2020.

Source: NYT

Ms. Reade filed a report with the Washington, D.C., police, saying she was the victim of a sexual assault in 1993; the public incident report, provided to The Times by Ms. Reade...

An attempt to correct this was overturned, saying Business Insider is an unreliable source. From Perennial Sources: "There is no consensus on the reliability of Business Insider. The site's syndicated content, which may not be clearly marked, should be evaluated by the reliability of its original publisher".

The present text is sourced to the NYT, but misquotes it. NYT doesn't say Reade filed a public incident report. It simply calls it "a report". The document about the report that was released to media is public, while the report that was filed is not. Our article has it twisted and claims she filed a public report which is simply not true. I see no reason to prefer imprecise language, nor why Rich McHugh would be unreliable. petrarchan47คุก 20:48, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Petrarchan47, I am not sure the police would take a criminal complaint - this is, by her own admission, well past the statute of limitations. Guy (help!) 20:22, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure how to respond to that. We can only follow what sources say. Have you read much of the coverage of this story? More from the BI report: Reade said she filed the complaint against Biden for "safety reasons," to establish a paper trail of the incident in case anything happened to her. The statute of limitations for the alleged incident has passed..."I also wanted to make it clear that I would be willing to go under oath or cooperate with any law enforcement regarding it" There is no dispute in RS that she filed a criminal complaint. You could probably reach out to McHugh with questions. You might be interested to hear an interview with him from earlier today for more: link. petrarchan47คุก 20:40, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Hugh, Rich. "Former staffer files criminal complaint against Joe Biden over 1993 sexual assault allegation". business Insider. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
Given the multiple questions about sourcing at Joe Biden sexual assault allegation (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) I would invite anyone who is familiar with our sourcing and BLP policies to review all the sources used on that page. In particular, I have taken a very conservative position, insisting on only high-qulaity sources, nothing marginal. Have I gone too far? --Guy Macon (talk) 22:07, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
I think you may have misunderstood consensus on Business Insider, it's really a matter of whether the reporter is reliable in this case, rather than the publisher. He clearly is, and Vanity Fair today credits him with being the source used by all other MSM:
  • "After Rich McHugh reported on the report for Business Insider on Friday, the Times, the Post, the AP, and NBC News all followed". petrarchan47คุก
...Then you should have no problem finding another source -- one that Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources lists as being "Generally reliable in its areas of expertise" instead of using a source that is "marginally reliable (i.e. neither generally reliable nor generally unreliable), and may be usable depending on context". This is [A] a BLP, [B] a person in the middle of trying to win an election, and [C] a serious accusation that has ruined many careers (many rightly and a few wrongly). We need to be super careful about the sourcing for even small details. I say we should only use the highest quality sources and not Business Insider. I don't find your argument for making an exception compelling, and so far I am not seeing a bunch of RSNB regulars telling me "you are wrong, Guy, BI is clearly reliable for the "criminal complaint" claim".
Guy Macon, that is very wise. The article itself is a self-evident end-run around failure to gain consensus for coverage elsewhere. Guy (help!) 20:22, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
You've made this false claim (that there was no consensus to include it here), and it was pointed out to you there, by several editors, that it is a false claim. Why are you repeating this false claim again here? JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 01:55, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

The New York Times does say she filed a police report. On Thursday, Ms. Reade filed a report with the Washington, D.C., police.... Filing a false police report may be punishable by a fine and imprisonment.[24] The public incident report is a public summary of the police report. Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:14, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

A "criminal complaint" is an indictment that is adjudicated by a trial court. As I pointed out at least a week ago on the article talk page, our article Criminal complaint describes an indictment. It's a gross abusee of Wikipedia policies to use a twist of language, regardless of its origin, to insinuate to our readers that Biden has been indicted. As has also been pointed out on the article talk page, it's irrelevant, encouraging SYNTH OR, to follow up with the penalty for a false police report. I certainly would not be citing Business Insider on sensitive, difficult details or to cobble some article content not that, if valid, could be cited to better mainstream sources. SPECIFICO talk 23:41, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
The NYT says "police report", not "criminal complaint". I am fine with either "incident report" or "police report". "Criminal complaint" has a specific meaning:
  • "A criminal complaint is a document that charges a defendant with a crime. Complaints serve at least a couple purposes: [1] providing some kind of showing that the government has a legitimate reason to prosecute the defendant and [2] clearly informing defendants of the allegations against them."[ www.lawyers.com/legal-info/criminal/criminal-law-basics/criminal-complaints.html ]
  • "An arrest, by itself, doesn’t begin formal criminal proceedings. Rather, the filing of a document in court is required. In most instances in state court, the document is a 'complaint.' Complaints can be either civil or criminal. Civil complaints initiate lawsuits, typically between private parties or a private party and the government. Criminal complaints, on the other hand, are almost always filed by the government. (Some states allow citizens to file criminal complaints or applications for them.)"[ www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-criminal-complaint.html ]
  • "The complaint is a written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged. Except as provided in Rule 4.1, it must be made under oath before a magistrate judge or, if none is reasonably available, before a state or local judicial officer."[25]
  • "What will happen after I file a Criminal Complaint? There is a person at the court called the "clerk-magistrate." The clerk-magistrate will schedule a hearing. The hearing is called a "show cause" hearing. The show cause hearing is to see if there are enough facts to show that what happened was a crime."[26]
  • "an 'indictment,' an 'information,' and a 'complaint' all serve the same function – they initiate a criminal case and inform the defendant of the charges against him. They also ensure that a prosecutor has sufficient evidence to establish probable cause that a crime has been committed."[27]
Biden has not been charged with a crime. There was no show cause hearing. It is unlikely that a magistrate judge or clerk-magistrate was involved. It is likely that the report was made to a cop manning the front desk at the police station. It appears that Reade simply reported what happened to the local police. You can report anything to the local police and they will file a police report on it. (Even a report that a dead squirrel told me that John Smith is an evil space alien might be good to know if John Smith gets murdered later). --Guy Macon (talk) 23:49, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Those are procedures for Federal crimes, but in the US, different jurisdictions have different rules and procedures. For example, in my home state of Massachusetts, it is quite possible and common for a regular persons to file a criminal complaint with the police , per [28]. The above is, in any case WP:OR. In any case, the "criminal" part has also been reported by other sources, including Fox News[29] (reliable per Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Fox_News), MSN, Vox and the Washington Examiner, so it could easily be sourced to one of those. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 03:04, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Please don't post false information hoping that nobody will check. Somebody always checks. The claim "in my home state of Massachusetts, it is quite possible and common for a regular persons to file a criminal complaint with the police" is directly contradicted by the link provided, which says that you fill out a Police Incident Report form, take it to the court, complete an application for criminal complaint, wait for a hearing will be scheduled, see if the clerk-magistrate finds probable cause, and if she does, she will issue a criminal complaint. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:37, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
I have not commented on the term "criminal complaint". I am opposed to "incident report". She did not file an incident report. Kolya Butternut (talk) 00:27, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
So you oppose the use of "criminal complaint" to describe the report Reade filed with the local cops? SPECIFICO talk 01:30, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
It looks like most sources refer to it as a "police report", so I would prefer that, especially since there is some question over whether the term is used improperly in the Business Insider article. However, the reporting of the details of the police report and incident report are superior in Business Insider compared to other sources. Kolya Butternut (talk) 01:43, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Given that it's a marginal RS to begin with and that it's using a term that falsely implies that Joe Biden was indicted for a crime, I don't feel real good about BI for any of this content. One reason it might be showing more detail on the report is that the report itself is insignificant and that other media, such as the extensive NY Times reporting, gives better journalistic weight to the important parts of the story. SPECIFICO talk 01:48, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
No I wouldn't go there. The Business Insider story simply is more focused on the police complaint, as the title suggests. I feel that the New York Times' reporting is very unreliable. The Intercept and Current Affairs are more professional sources. Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:29, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
You are certainly allowed to have that opinion, but when editing Wikipedia you must abide by the consensus regarding the reliability of Business Insider and New York Times' as documented at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. You are, of course, allowed to make an argument to change that consensus at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, but until you do you must follow it. There is also a strong consensus regarding Trump and Biden that we should use only high-quality sources. SPECIFICO got it exactly right. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:56, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
My opinion is that The New York Times is very unreliable compared to The Intercept and Current Affairs. So for instance, if sources rated 7-10 out of 10 are considered generally reliable, I would rate The Times a 7, which I would consider very unreliable for a story such as this. And Business Insider reports on details for which we do not have better sources. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:56, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
When there are different ways to phrase the same thing and some of them have technical meanings, we should use terms that don't. TFD (talk) 04:37, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Rich McHugh is clearly a reliable source. While he isn't credited with breaking the Reade allegation story (The Intercept did that), he is credited with breaking the criminal complaint aspect of the story, per Vanity Fair, which then led to reluctant legacy media reports:

The tides began to shift following Rich McHugh's report in Business Insider on Friday that Reade had filed a criminal complaint against Biden. The New York Times ran its first report about the allegation on Sunday morning as millions of Americans were observing Easter. The Washington Post and NBC News issued their own reports later that day.CNN (sike!)

The NYT was next to mention McHugh's reporting after Newsweek (which covered it right away and did not mince words: "Tara Reade filed a criminal complaint with the Washington Metropolitan Police Department...according to Business Insider"). The NYT made a decision to refer to the criminal complaint as "a report", but I don't think this is encyclopedic. There is no NPOV reason for us to make this change; we should be relying on the best sources and be wary of adopting language from those known to have a partisan slant. petrarchan47คุก 21:33, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

You keep calling the police report a "criminal complaint" as if that was an established fact, citing the same unreliable source and deciding to ignore reliable sources. We are not going to deliberately introduce false information from an unreliable source into a Wikipedia page. That's not going to happen, so you can stop trying to make it happen now.
  • A Police Report is a document prepared by a police officer (typically the desk sergeant) when someone shows up at the police station and reports a crime. No police department will reveal the contents of a police report, so neither Wikipedia, Business Insider, or The New York Times knows from any official police source the contents of any police report. The NYT correctly reports that Reade says she filed a police report.
  • A Public Incident Report is a document that the police department publishes showing that a police report exists and thus that someone reported a crime. Public incident reports often withhold the name of the accused and the name of the person reporting the crime. The NYT correctly reports that Reade says that a particular public incident report was the result of her filing a police report reporting a crime.
  • A Criminal Complaint (which no reliable source says exists in this case) is a document filed by a prosecutor charging a defendant with a crime. It must be made under oath before a magistrate judge. It initiates a criminal case and leads to a show cause hearing scheduled by a clerk-magistrate. If a criminal complaint existed for Biden / Reade the NYT would have reported "Joe Biden was charged with sexual assault today" and everybody would be talking about the upcoming criminal trial. No prosecutor will file a criminal complaint or schedule a show cause hearing if the statute of limitations has expired.
This has all been explained to you before. Several times by several editors, in fact. Please drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass. Beating that dead horse will not cause him to run faster. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:02, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

University of Chicago, Averroes

Editors have been trying to remove this person from List of pre-modern Arab... Saying that he is not an Arab. Here is a source from Chicago University written by a leading historian. Yet they said this source is not reliable.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 01:06, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. Using a reliable philosophical work that talks (tangentially) about his ethnicity while avoiding all the other reliable sources that talks about his life in more detail is disingenuous. In example the EI2 gives more detail about his life... without talking about his ethnicity because nothing is know about it, "Ibn Rushd belonged to an important Spanish family. His grandfather (d. 520/1126), a Maliki jurisconsult, had been qaddi and imam of the Great Mosque of Cordova.". The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, "...was born at Cordoba into a family prominent for its expert devotion to the study...", etc. -TheseusHeLl (talk) 01:45, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

We have multiple sources saying he is an Arab.

The only reason I can think of to completely remove Arab from the article is that you just don't like it.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 11:24, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Using a reliable philosophical work that talks (tangentially) about his ethnicity while avoiding all the other reliable sources that talks about his life in more detail is disingenuous. In example the EI2 gives more detail about his life... without talking about his ethnicity because nothing is know about it, "Ibn Rushd belonged to an important Spanish family. His grandfather (d. 520/1126), a Maliki jurisconsult, had been qaddi and imam of the Great Mosque of Cordova.". The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, "...was born at Cordoba into a family prominent for its expert devotion to the study...", Islamic Legal Thought: A Compendium of Muslim Jurists, "Little is known about the origins and activities of his family." and "This suggests that it was the grandfather of Ibn Rushd’s great-grandfather...who converted to Islam. Assuming that the average lifespan in al-Andalus was forty lunar years, and that twenty-five was the average age of conversion, Ibn Rushd’s ancestors would have converted to Islam about the middle of the 3rd/9th century, approximately two centuries after the Muslims arrived in the Iberian Peninsula." -TheseusHeLl (talk) 11:48, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
  • If his ethnicity is disputed, he should be omitted from the list and the disagreement discussed in the article. Philosophers are experts on philosophy, but aren't necesarily RS for someone's ethnicity. buidhe 22:35, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Use of Daily Mail

I got a warning about using this https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8231623/No-costume-ridiculous-nor-stunt-dangerous-Tim-Brooke-Taylor-says-GRAEME-GARDEN.html article as an external link at Tim Brooke-Taylor. IMHO it qualifies as a useful WP:EL because it is a tribute by one of TBT's closest collaborators, Graeme Garden. I assume the warning is because the link at the Daily Mail, which is notorious for reusing content from other sources; but in this case a quick Google appears to indicate that it was genuinely written for the Daily Mail (i.e. googling for the article title "No costume was too ridiculous nor stunt too dangerous" give no hits except Daily Mail and a handful of mirror sites). So the link has been added, and hopefully the "unreliable source" tag can be removed in this case. Adpete (talk) 04:25, 19 April 2020 (UTC), updated Adpete (talk) 07:58, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

The issue with the Daily Mail isn't that they re-use content from other sources (so do we!) but that they have a documented history of fabricating quotes out of whole cloth. The fact that a Google search doesn't bring anything other than the Mail up is a negative, not a positive; if we're going to use it, we need evidence that Graeme Garden actually wrote this, rather than a Mail staffer made up what they thought Garden would have said and published it under his name on the assumption that the extra clicks generated would make up for the cost of any legal action if he complained. It seems ridiculous that we have to take things like this into consideration with a major national newspaper, but unfortunately they've been caught in the act of doing this too many times. ‑ Iridescent 08:04, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
That is a possibility I hadn't thought of. I will self-revert (no harm waiting a few days if it is genuine) and keep an eye on https://twitter.com/GraemeGarden1 , which as far as I can tell is Garden's official Twitter account. Adpete (talk) 08:24, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Adpete, good shout. There will be no shortage of better sources: I expect a tribute programme on the Beeb in which I confidently predict we will hear the voices of messrs. Garden, Oddie, Dee, Fry and others. With luck, Colin Sell won't play the piano. Guy (help!) 10:44, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Blacklisting of source

Where can one suggest to blacklist/ban the usage of a unreliable source? --Saqib (talk) 16:39, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

here.Slatersteven (talk) 16:41, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, this noticeboard is the right place to make this kind of request. The spam blacklist noticeboard accepts blacklisting requests, but administrators there will generally require consensus on this noticeboard before blacklisting a source on reliability grounds. — Newslinger talk 13:24, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

orospakr.ca

Is http://www.orospakr.ca/blog/2013/01/22/bufferbloat-demystified/ a reliable source for use on Bufferbloat (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and CoDel (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)? Guy (help!) 12:30, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

No, as I can see no evidence they are an acknowledged expert.Slatersteven (talk) 13:04, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
This source meets neither condition, as it is written by a non-expert, and it is used for claims about something other than the author. Therefore, it is unreliable. — Newslinger talk 13:09, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
I have no opinion whatsoever about this case, but wanted to point out that "uncontroversial self-descriptions" is not a phrase that describes everything covered by ABOUTSELF, which includes both QS and SPS material. Part of the tangle of problems in this area is the lack of agreement among even experienced editors as to when SPS can be used and when they cannot: the actual ABOUTSELF carve-out includes authentic information about the person or group that has authored the source, not only "self-descriptions". One of the more common cases where these issues arise is when SPS are used to document a source's reaction to a matter of public interest, which is occasionally (though seldom) DUE. Newimpartial (talk) 15:13, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
It would be helpful to have a specific example, but I think this counts as a self-description, since a claim about a source's reaction to something is an assertion regarding the source itself. — Newslinger talk 15:37, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

WeGotThisCovered.com is unreliable

On the Rock Bottom (SpongeBob SquarePants) article, I found a "source" in a review from WeGotThisCovered.com. It describes a user's opinion on the episode and helps support the idea that the episode is well-liked by fans. I went to investigate the site, and the most concerning part is their "Want to Write for Us?" page. This seems to be a site where any average Joe can apply and get their stuff published. "Once formatted, you’ll be able to publish it directly to the site (editorial approval may or may not be necessary)" implies that they do not curate some of what is published. It describes the process of sending your writing in to gain "exposure, experience, and opportunity." Why would we source a cite for people wanting experience rather than people who actually have it? I'd vote to call this source unreliable for now. Scrooge200 (talk) 23:47, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Catholic Encyclopedia

I was browsing through some edits of Edit5001 and I came across this edit to Simon of Trent, which removed the text The exact place where the boy's body was found seems to be unclear. According to the Catholic historian Cölestin Wolfsgrüber, the body was found in a ditch., cited to  Wolfsgrüber, Cölestin (1913). "Trent". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company., as unreliably sourced. (It was then replaced in the next edit by Other sources suggest the area where the body was found served as the Jewish community's synagogue., cited to Feigenbaum, Gail (2018-03-06). Getty Research Journal, No. 10. Getty Publications. ISBN 978-1-60606-571-6.) I am a bit skeptical of this, but I was hoping someone with more relevant expertise might take a look. --JBL (talk) 13:50, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

On further inspection, there are even more problems with these two edits than I mentioned (including the misattribution and perhaps misrepresentation of the newly added source), but I would still appreciate some extra eyes. --JBL (talk) 13:54, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
I cannot see any reference to ritual bathing I can to a sewer (which I doubt was in use for ritual cleansing) and to the house being used an a synagogue.Slatersteven (talk) 14:04, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
However the source for the claim it was used for ritual bathing doers support that claim. So both the sources used seem to support that they are being sued for.Slatersteven (talk) 14:20, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
If these comments are related to my question, I can't see how. To re-emphasize: another editor removed the text The exact place where the boy's body was found seems to be unclear. According to the Catholic historian Cölestin Wolfsgrüber, the body was found in a ditch., cited to  Wolfsgrüber, Cölestin (1913). "Trent". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company., as unreliably sourced. Is this correct/appropriate? --JBL (talk) 17:04, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Sorry but at best the catholic encyclopedia would be an RS for what its authors thought in 1913. At best you could say that "according to the catholic encyclopedia", but in no way can it trump modern scholarship. Now I can see why modern scholarship was used instead.Slatersteven (talk) 17:09, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
There are now a couple of editors looking into this, but more eyes (e.g., for those who understand how WP:V interacts with difficult-to-access sources) on the talk page discussion would be helpful. --JBL (talk) 23:00, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Word Spy

I am wondering whether the website wordspy.com can be considered reliable. I ask because the entry for frontrunneritis contains useful information about its etymology, namely the fact that it was used as early as 1983, that I want to add in the front-runner article. The entry for frontrunneritis references specific reliable sources, which makes the website reliable. On the other hand, it is run by one person who has no qualifications in linguistics just like the Online Etymology Dictionary (the consensus seems to be that Online Etymology Dictionary is unreliable), which hinders its reliability. I also want to know if the definition given for frontrunneritis is reliable. FunnyMath (talk) 02:56, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

FunnyMath, I'm not seeing any information on wordspy.com about who runs the site, who writes their content, etc - it doesn't look like RS to me. They do have some quotes there from reliable sources, which if you were able to track down and check might be usable; however, they're mostly just examples of usage, only one of them actually mentions anything about the meaning of the word (and that source's definition doesn't align exactly with the definition that the wordspy.com gives for the word). GirthSummit (blether) 13:26, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
@Girth Summit Based on the wiki article for Paul McFedries and the fact that Paul McFedries authored a book called Word Spy, I highly suspect that the website is entirely written by only him. He does take suggestions from users, or rather did, since the website hasn't been updated since 2018. His only qualifications seem to be computer programming and I suspect he is an amateur etymologist. I'm leaning towards both the website and the book being unreliable except for example usages. FunnyMath (talk) 01:15, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
FunnyMath, if it's written by one person, it's self-published, and if our very short, poorly-sourced article about him is accurate, I agree with you that he's not an established expert in the field of etymology, so wordspy.com wouldn't reach the level of an expert SPS (in the same way that a blog by a heavily-cited professor of the English language from a major university might) - so no, not reliable. I wouldn't even rely on it for the quotes - you'd need to go to the original source to check that it was accurate. GirthSummit (blether) 08:48, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Alright, that cleared everything up for me. Thank you! FunnyMath (talk) 00:35, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Echos source

It is important to note and disclose any WP:COI in this thread. Let me go first, I am not a Catholic.

  • [30] This is the source
  • Transubstantiation

  • In a comment on the Pew Research Report, Greg Erlandson drew attention to the difference between the formulation in the CARA survey, in which the choice was between "Jesus Christ is really present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist" and "the bread and wine are symbols of Jesus, but Jesus is not really present", and the Pew Research choice between "during Catholic Mass, the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus" and "the bread wine are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ". He quotes an observation by Mark Gray that the word "actually" makes it sound like "something that could be analyzed under a microscope or empirically observed", while what the Church teaches is that the "substance" of the bread and wine are changed at consecration, but the "accidents" or appearances of bread and wine remain. Erlandson commented further: "Catholics may not be able to articulately define the 'Real Presence', and the phrase [sic] 'transubstantiation' may be obscure to them, but in their reverence and demeanor, they demonstrate their belief that this is not just a symbol"

  • 1 Let me quote what is in the page footer "Echoes is the opinion section of TheBostonPilot.com, the Web site of The Pilot. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and they do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors or The Pilot. Publication does not represent an endorsement by the Archdiocese of Boston."
  • 2 Users Bealtainemí and Elizizum23 appear to be obscuring the POV here and it is primarily edited by Catholics. It appears, that they disagree with the results of the CARA, unnamed, and Pew polls and provide an opinion about how we should view the poll
  • 3 The writer of the opinion piece, Greg Erlandson, is quoting the head of a (Catholic Director of CARA - Catholic polling service's personal blog)
  • 4 The article literally says "For 2,000 years, this has been the teaching of the Church." ALL non-Catholic Christians (50% of all Christians) would STRONGLY disagree with this statement. And even Catholic scholars do not say this line.
  • 5 Then the author Erlandson quotes "one theologian" who "told [him] when a similar survey came out years ago"
  • 5b not only is this "one theologian" unnamed and his quote is being used in the article, it refers to a completely DIFFERENT unnamed poll.
  • Now I ask, how is this count as "General belief and knowledge among Catholics" to which the section is titled. How is an opinion of an opinion even notable? Dr. Ryan E. (talk) 09:03, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Op-edds are allowed as long as the opinion is attributed (it is) and is form someone whose opinion might be considered expert (that is harder as Greg Erlandson appears to only be an editor of various publications, not an acknowledged expert). Also as the section is about the catholic church, that is the church it is speaking of, not the wider christian church, so it is irrelevant what other denominations think of it.Slatersteven (talk) 10:31, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Yep, I agree it's hard to establish that Erlandson is an expert (he's not). And frankly, someone quoting an unnamed theologian's opinion is somehow representative of "General belief and knowledge among Catholics" is a really large stretch. And really, the opinion isn't really Erlandson's in that case, but a person he quotes. Yep, I agree about the latter sentence, that's why there is NO non-Catholic source having opinions in that section. Dr. Ryan E. (talk) 07:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Mark Gray, from the Georgetown University CARA centre, who is the person quoted by Erlandson with regard to the Pew Research survey, is clearly an opinion\-survey expert. Erlandson's subsidiary remark, that the reverence and demeanour of Catholics in general towards the consecrated Eucharistic bread and wine demonstrates their belief that these "are not just a symbol" is unlikely to be seen as controversial. Bealtainemí (talk) 08:06, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Dr. Ryan E. feels that this mass-ping notice does not constitute canvassing because he did not use user talk pages. It's interesting that he did not deny that it was non-neutral, etc.
I am frankly tired of the stonewalling and partisanship and failure to assume good faith from this editor. We are bogged down arguing about semantics and translations rather than improving these articles. Elizium23 (talk) 01:22, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

ASCAP as a source for artist names

Hi! I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I have a question regarding ASCAP as a source for artists' real names. More specifically, this is about the band members of Dir En Grey, whose real names are (except for two first names) officially unknown. However, on ASCAP, they are listed with their (supposed) real names and their PKAs, their artist names. I'd like to know how trustable ASCAP is as a source for real names and if it would be alright to add these names to their respective articles with ASCAP as the reference. Thanks! Seelentau (talk) 12:51, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

I am not sure, I suspect not as they do not seem to have an editorial board or policy.Slatersteven (talk) 12:54, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
This feels like it straddles a line between self-published sources and legal records. ASCAP, as a performance-rights organization, would have a record who is registered as the copyright holder of a work. The names would be provided by the creator of the work. So, on the one hand, we have a record created by the artist showing their legal and performing names, which we could rely on the same as we would a statement by them about their date of birth. On the other hand, is this the kind of legal record that the privacy guidance in WP:BLP says we shouldn't be using? —C.Fred (talk) 13:06, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm unsure as well, exactly do to the reason you mentioned: If an artist can provide the name, what stops them from providing a false name, right? Seelentau (talk) 15:29, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
C.Fred has the correct analysis. The name that ASCAP shows is the one the artists provide. They will usually provide their legal name, but they don't have to, they just have to be able to cash a cheque by whatever name they provide. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:21, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
So that would be a no to adding them then? Seelentau (talk) 12:12, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) is a primary source for this information. ASCAP listings are reliable for an artist's officially credited name for a specific work (e.g. in an {{Infobox song}} template for a song), but I would avoid using ASCAP for an artist's real name. A high-profile example is "This Is What You Came For": songwriter Taylor Swift was temporarily credited in the song's ASCAP listing under the pseudonym "Nils Sjöberg" to divert unwanted attention from the song. — Newslinger talk 12:25, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
What if the artist in question is listed with both their (assumed) real name and their artist name? Would that change anything? Seelentau (talk) 13:47, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Even if the artist's stage name is listed under "Performers" and the artist's assumed real name is listed under "Writers", I don't think this would be enough to show that the artist's real name corresponds to the artist's stage name. This is because the song isn't necessarily written by the performer, and it's unclear whether the stage name and the real name belong to the same person. This is especially the case for living artists, due to the higher standard set by WP:BLPPRIMARY. However, ASCAP can still be used to say something like "[Song name] is a song by [perfomer name]. It was written by [writer name]." — Newslinger talk 11:07, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
Oh, it's not like that, actually. I'm only talking about writers' credits, which are given as "First Name (PKA: Stage/Artist Name) Last Name" on ASCAP for the band I want to add the members' real names. So something like "John (PKA: JoDo) Doe", for example. Seelentau (talk) 22:28, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
I found the ASCAP listing for Dir En Grey and I see what you're talking about. Here, it's clear that the writer names are connected to the "professionally known as" names. However, I'm not sure if this passes WP:BLPPRIVACY, which states that "many people regard their full names and dates of birth as private. Wikipedia includes full names and dates of birth that have been widely published by reliable sources, or by sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object to the details being made public". I recommend asking the biographies of living persons noticeboard, since this is no longer a reliability issue, but a BLP issue. — Newslinger talk 10:38, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Okay, I will ask there, but what I'd still like to know is: Does this connection you mention change anything in terms of credibility? Or could those names still be fake? Seelentau (talk) 11:31, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure, since I'm not familiar with ASCAP's internal procedures, and I don't have any examples or cases to draw from. Perhaps WikiProject Music, WikiProject Albums, or WikiProject Songs could help answer this question.​ — Newslinger talk 03:28, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Is this source valid for deciding whether someone is a particular nationality and isn't a particular nationality as it's not academic or peer reviewed

https://radio.hrt.hr/clanak/boris-novkovic-s-ines-ide-dalje/116178/

It says in the subheading that he was born in Sarajevo and moved to Zagreb when he was 2 years old, but it doesn't say that he isn't Bosnian. Therefore he is also Bosnian as he was born there, but he is also Croatian by heritage. Yes?

  • No And you don't need a peer-reviewed source for someone's nationality, a mention of it in a newspaper or a statement by the person is sufficient, unless there is some problem with the claim. TFD (talk) 05:00, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
  • That doesn't make sense. There is no statement in this source from Novkovic that he isn't Bosnian nor is there a mention that he is Croatian. We're going off of personal knowledge/beliefs that he was born somewhere and lives somewhere to determine nationality? So this source wouldn't determine whether someone is/isn't a particular nationality yes?
  • No A persons nationality is what they have on their passport.Slatersteven (talk) 09:45, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
    Not picking a fight Slater, just wary people might latch onto that as it's a bit that is a bit of an oversimplification and not always true; many US Citizens do not have passports (was it something like 60%?), and obviously this doesn't work when countries have split, reformed, where people may have multiple nationalities through their life etc leaving the question up in the air, and there are also many countries who confer nationality onto any child born within their territory by default. Also on wikipedia for WP:FOOTBALL the players are listed based upon their representative nationality (which differs to their passport in a significant number of cases - every English player for starters). Koncorde (talk) 10:18, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
True, but by the same token a person may not be the national of the country they were born in. Hence if someone moves (especially at a young age) the only way we have of determining nationality is either some form of official document (such as a passport) that states it, or their own statements. Not "allegations" of nationality by third parties. I will also invoke the sea is wet no matter how many sources do not say it. A source not saying something does not mean the opposite is true.Slatersteven (talk) 10:36, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
But then that also means that the source being cited to say that someone is a particular nationality, even though there is no proof, does not mean it is true either. How can that source then be cited to reaffirm another third parties beliefs?
Yes, but that is why we should use only those sources that have a high standard of fact checking.Slatersteven (talk) 09:56, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Agreed. So this source doesn't have a high standard of fact checking, so the user who cited it to reaffirm his point was wrong in using it for the basis of defining nationality. Great.
  • No But we need to be clear, the use of the term Bosnian in Boris article is probably conflating his birth in the federal state of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the idea of a "nationality" etc which is pretty common in articles covering the FRY. Boris was (as a child born in Yugoslavia) born with Yugoslavian nationality, and then following the break-up of the FRY, he would have had to take another nationality from one of the new independent countries. I am not sure how this was selected / done, or how it is independently verified without him saying what he is officially now listed as in some form (or via another reliable source). Koncorde (talk) 10:18, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
    So what then is the conclusion that we come to? That he is Croatian because it seems the most plausible outcome as he moved there when he was 2? Think about it this way, I was born in country A and moved to country B, but I still identify with country A which is where I was born. Country C is my heritage country, and I also identify with that, but nonetheless, I was born in country A. I understand Yugoslavia doesn't exist anymore, but the countries that were in it still do (even though they weren't countries then). If there is no verbal confirmation or any documents that prove nationality, how can it just be assumed that it is one and not the other, regardless of whether it seems more plausible. I'm just trying to understand.
  • No his formal national status is determined by his official documentation. His personal feelings of ethnic identity are determined mainly by how he feels about them. This source isn't reported here as quoting either. Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:01, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
    Yes that would make sense, but we have no access to his official documentation, nor is there evidence of him stating his nationality anywhere. So how does one come to the conclusion that he is this or that nationality? The assumption would be that his nationality is Croatian, but there is no proof of it, nor is there proof that he has a Bosnian nationality.
Then we leave it out, per wp:v.Slatersteven (talk) 09:57, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
So what now? Do I edit the page of Boris Novkovic to suggest he is a singer from former Yugoslavia and not a Croatian singer or do I leave the page as it is?
Why do we need to know this? we could just say "who was born in Freedonia now lives in the Duchy of Grand Fewnwick".Slatersteven (talk) 11:18, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Epistle News for Dean Schneider

Is the Epistle News piece "EXCLUSIVE: Gabo’s Founder Exposes Social Media Influencer Dean Schneider for Animal Abuse" a reliable source for the Dean Schneider article? — Newslinger talk 15:04, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Epistle news has 17 followers on twitter (this account is linked from the official website), and there seems to be no reliable coverage of the outlet, nor any bylines for any of the writers. Its about page states: "Epistle News is a reader-supported nonprofit news organization. We do independent and investigative reporting on everything from politics and climate change to education and food (plus cat blogging). You can follow us on Twitter. We are headquartered in The United Kingdom and have bureaus in Indore, India, and Moscow, Russia. We don’t answer to stockholders, a corporate parent company, or a deep-pocketed donor. Instead we’re accountable to, and funded by, you—our readers.". The website seems to be barely updated, with articles on the front page being several months old, there's no evidence of any editoral oversight, and the entire website seems like it could just be a self published blog. Including it seems like a huge BLP violation. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:18, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
I doubt it, a look at them threw up much the same as Hemiauchenia. For a BLP we want more than this (especially as its also a criminal matter).Slatersteven (talk) 15:19, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for your support. I looked at both the article and the video and immediately realized that this is clearly no proof, but just a fake, sketch, maybe even a goal of extortion. It's no secret that Dan Schneider was rich only in the beginning. Today they are extremely vulnerable in financial terms, money from savings has long run out, they are even building now manually, without any equipment at all. There aren't even any concrete mixers. And all his hope is on the Internet platforms, on the help of caring people. And then there are obvious lies, attracting nonexistent cases to Dean, and so on. In General, the authority of the link-fake no, definitely delete and do not restore.--Бутывский Дмитрий (talk) 16:25, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
I see. Thank you so much for clarifying. Yes, Epistle News does not seem to be under WP:RS based on the same. TheodoreIndiana (talk) 12:35, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Encycolorpedia

Does anyone have any thoughts about:

encycolorpedia c46210

Or, in general:

https://encycolorpedia.com/c46210 encycolorpedia]?

Background:

I'm on again off again active in researching color issues, mainly at pages like:

List_of_colors:_A–F

I specifically investigating Alloy Orange which is included here:

Shades_of_orange#Alloy_orange

The source is a dead link, so I'm considering removal but trying to do some due diligence to see if there is an acceptable source.

That led me to the encycolorpedia site. I'm concerned that it isn't a reliable source.

I don't know whether it's relevant but I know that it has an unusually large number of captures at the internet archive With multiple captures each day for many days in 2013. none of the captures included the specific color.

It appears to be managed by a company possibly called praegressus, although I have found nothing particularly interesting about them.S Philbrick(Talk) 16:04, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Well as we are ont even sure who runs them (let alone ho writes it) no not an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 16:11, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Slatersteven, Thanks. S Philbrick(Talk) 20:45, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Cleantechnica

Is Cleantechnica a generally reliable source, across all the areas it covers? It is currently used on 314 pages throughout Wikipedia.

It is generally unreliable as it is an instance of a Questionable Source:

It publishes heavily promotional and padded content. For example, an article published recently on Cleantechnica entitled "Why People Love Elon Musk So Much" is effusive in celebrating Elon Musk, a polarizing figure, and the article is openly a repost of an identical article from four years ago.

It appears to favor one "flavor" of clean energy over another. "The Allure Of A Hydrogen Economy Continues To Dazzle Some Researchers" features next to no sources but nevertheless states "Someday, in the far distant future, there may be so much renewable energy available that using it to making hydrogen will be a good idea. That day is not likely to arrive any time soon."

Every page features a disclaimer that makes me wonder if the publication takes itself seriously: "The content produced by this site is for entertainment purposes only." QRep2020 (talk) 03:31, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

This to me looks like an industry trade magazine. Very little of the content is unique to the site, most of the content appears to summaries of reports and press releases that the site editors seek out to summarize, with only a handful of wholly original materials (like the mentioned Elon Musk thing). They do link to the original reports in nearly all spot checks so editors on WP here should be using those original reports and not the summary at Cleantechnica. The fact they favor sustainable renewables over, say, a hydrogen economy should not be taken as a strike against it. But I think between the claimed "recognizition" and the disclaimer points to me that very little content on the site has use for WP, but editors should not be afraid to click through the links in their stories to get the useful meaty stuff. Eg This article on Telsa's megabattery in Australia points to an AU energy service agency directly involved in the project [31] that could be used to draw data in WP. So I would agree it is a Questionable Source and generally unreliable (in that we should not use it) but editors should feel free to consider it a reference tool to lead to usable sources. --Masem (t) 06:02, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Strong bias and possible undisclosed conflict of interest: I've read a number of people in the finance sector who have raised questions about the relationship between Cleantechnica and Tesla. It seems the site may have a relationship with the company leaking information to them that would be of interest to the company's stock price. Fiscal conflicts of interest haven't been disclosed. This again has been an issue with some of the blogish sites that report in this space [[32]]. Certainly should be used with caution and should be avoided for all but the most uncontroversial claims. Especially if related to any of the BLP/controversies related to subjects they are covering. Springee (talk) 12:19, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Campaign to remove unreliable sources

JzG is on a campaign to remove unreliable sources from articles. The edits generally remove a {{sps}}-tagged source and replace it with a {{cn}}. My position is that this replacement of one tag for another is not improving anything. JzG's position is that there is consensus at this noticeboard supporting this sort of campaign. In discussion of this on my talk page we have not been able to make progress on this disagreement. Other editors have raised concerns about these edits. It would help me if someone could explain current consensus on dealing with suboptimal sources in lower-quality articles. Is it necessary to expunge these or is it acceptable to leave them for reference to other editors who can make improvements? ~Kvng (talk) 19:48, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Speaking generally: removing unreliable sources is obviously good for Wikipedia, and should be done - all other things being equal.
I'd likely remove them entirely, as I have been doing with WP:DAILYMAIL cites - I review every single one by human eyeball and hand-click in Firefox, but the usages are so routinely terrible it's rare for me to do anything but just remove the damn things. I understand JzG uses AWB due to accessibility issues, but has said previously that each edit is properly human-reviewed. Basically, bad cites are pretty generic in their badness. I'm sure he'd be happy to do better if you point to a reasonable selection of particular edits you dispute - David Gerard (talk) 22:59, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
David's edits usually make sense, and in all the time I've seen his removals pop up in my areas of interest I've never seen a bad call. JzG's are another matter entirely, because he's nuking self-published sources from orbit even in contexts where they're explicitly allowed by policy (as in the issues I raised which Kvng cites above). David's approach for the Daily Mail does not generalise to all self-published sources. (I also dispute that he'd be happy to do better, because he certainly wasn't that time and these issues clearly haven't gone away since.) The Drover's Wife (talk) 23:24, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Unreliable sources should be removed with either replacement by a reliable source, or removal of the material that was sourced to that unreliable source removed. But this requires time and effort to evaluate, and we should not remove these sources without giving editors time to review except when they are used in BLPs or other sensitive topic areas like MEDRS. I would rather see editors that seek to remove them tag the sources first with something like {{Better source needed}}, and if the problem is not fixed in a month or two, then the source (and material sourced to it) can then be removed. Note this only applies to existing sources. New attempts to add sources after they have been listed for notice as a unreliable source can be removed without wait. --Masem (t) 23:27, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
This is not an argument about "unreliable" sources. It is an argument about self-published sources, and Wikipedia already has clear guidelines about when they're usable, which JzG is ignoring and just nuking them from orbit. A source from the National Library database that an author wrote a self-published book is not an "unreliable" source, but it's an example of the kind of thing he's removing. The Drover's Wife (talk) 23:29, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
May I please have some diffs showing several examples that demonstrate that "Wikipedia already has clear guidelines about when [self-published sources are] usable, which JzG is ignoring and just nuking them from orbit"? --Guy Macon (talk) 23:35, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
I was also concerned something like this was going to happen, and would also appreciate seeing some diffs. Another of my concerns involves the citing of sources that were once RS prior to the paradigm shift to digital internet and the irresistible lure of clickbait which has led so many of them astray. Some changed hands or were sold to questionable publishers and sank into the depths of unreliable. At least with a better source needed tag, editors have a chance to explain why the source was reliable at the time it was cited, if that happens to be the case. Atsme Talk 📧 23:49, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
See WP:SPS#Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves. People who are unaware of basic policy around a particular type of source should not be making mass edits focusing on that specific type of source. The Drover's Wife (talk) 04:51, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
According to the WP:SPS policy, self-published sources "are largely not acceptable as sources" except "when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications". Was the source in question authored by a subject-matter expert? — Newslinger talk 00:02, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
You might try reading the very next section, "Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves". JzG is regularly nuking sources that are perfectly find according to this section. Or perhaps he didn't bother to read down there either. The Drover's Wife (talk) 04:51, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
WP:ABOUTSELF is an extremely restricted exception with five conditions, and any uses of self-published sources under WP:ABOUTSELF must still constitute due weight. In most cases, content by a non-expert person that meets WP:ABOUTSELF would not be due anywhere except in the author's own biography. — Newslinger talk 07:37, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
My dispute with JzG is not about whether or not the sources are reliable. The dispute is about whether it is appropriate to systematically remove substandard sources or can they be allowed to stay awaiting improvements to the article. ~Kvng (talk) 00:33, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Pretty sure[Citation Needed] we should remove substandard sources and replace them with Citation Needed tags. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:40, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Kvng, you say can they be allowed to stay awaiting improvements to the article. The source was tagged for well over a year. You had all that time to fix it, since you were clearly monitoring the article. You didn't. When I did, you reinstated it multiple times. It is very clear to me that it's not about "awaiting improvements", you consider yourself an authoritative reviewer of content (user:Kvng/RTH) and you don't want this specific blog removed from the article. I call WP:OWN. Guy (help!) 11:07, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

{{od} } The bulk of the campaign is on this contribution page. A couple specific ones that we have had disagreements over:

  1. [33]
  2. [34]

{{Better source needed}} is a good suggestion though some of the articles I work on get improved over a timescale of years, not months. I would be surprised if {{Better source needed}} will fly with JzG who could not tolerate my idea of leaving a substandard source in as an HTML comment to help with future improvements. ~Kvng (talk) 00:28, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Personally, I would not keep "Bufferbloat Demystified" as a citation in the article, since it is a blog post from someone who is not a subject-matter expert (under the definition in WP:SPS). I am aware that many of Wikipedia's computing articles have citations of self-published sources like these (most likely because blogging is very popular among programmers), but I don't think we should lower the standards set by the verifiability policy just because the subject matter receives less attention on Wikipedia. There's no harm in placing the source on the talk page if it will help editors find better sources later. Commenting out the source makes it harder to track uses of the domain through an "insource:" search, so I think the talk page method would be best.

The Zach Heckendorf video was a problem because it looks like promotion of a non-notable artist whose biography was speedily deleted under WP:G11 (unambiguous advertising or promotion). — Newslinger talk 01:21, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

any systematic removal that is not clearly shown in policy to be something like "immediately removed" or the like (this is like for copyright violations, gross BLP violations, NFC violations, etc.), should typically not be done in a systematic approach until prior consensus is developed first, as to avoid the WP:FAIT issue that can arise if the action is actually found not to be within consensus. This seems to be the type of action that needs to be checked first. Tagging SPS as such to ask for their removal or replacement is one thing, but to remove them to replace with CNs and without first seeking consensus, given that SPS does not say they cannot be used, is not appropriate. --Masem (t) 04:32, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Masem, for what it's worth. The Drover's Wife (talk) 04:51, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I have to disagree. There is no reason Wikipedia articles should be citing content from a non-notable, non-expert person's blog in almost all cases, and making it arduous to remove these inappropriate citations would turn the original act of adding these unreliable sources into fait accompli actions. These removals are within policy because WP:BURDEN states that "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step." I would prefer to remove the information altogether if it cannot be supported by another reliable source, but removing the blog link itself is enough to address the issue of citation spam. For systematic removals, it would not hurt to start a discussion on this noticeboard first, but WP:ONUS establishes that "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is upon those seeking to include disputed content." — Newslinger talk 07:21, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Your last point only deals with edit warring on new-ish content. When content has been in articles for a while, while there is still the factor of ONUS for retaining that content, we'd also prefer to retain content and find better replacement than outright remove when that content's been there for a while. It's part of minimizing disruption to the work as a whole. --Masem (t) 14:11, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
You are bizarrely misreading sourcing policy (again), and claiming policies say things that the actual words don't. WP:ONUS says The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is upon those seeking to include disputed content. WP:BURDEN says The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution. Both of those are from the WP:V policy page, which does not include anything about your made-up notion of bad content getting grandfathered in for being there for a long time not cleaned up - David Gerard (talk) 16:12, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
The language of BURDEN is aimed to resolve immediate edit warring conflicts, despite around when an editor add poor sourcing for the first time. It also would apply if a source (and info associated with it) was removed through consensus provided reasons at some point, then someone else came along to restore/readd it without improving that sourcing to meet the BURDEN. What isn't covered - and this is something that numerous ANI/ARBCOM cases have show - mechanical actions of removals without appropriate discussion or human review is a major disruption for WP even if the actions appear to meet policies like ONUS. It is not any one of these edits alone is bad, it is the culmination of actions that is the issue here. (And again: SPS is not defined anywhere as "bad" content outside BLPSPS that requires removal). --Masem (t) 19:11, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
You keep claiming "mechanical actions" in your objections to the removal of bad sources. You need to show this specifically for your justification for not removing bad sources to hold up. I pointed out just a week or two when you tried claiming this one about me, and you failed to come through then as well.
Else, bring the arbcom case you're trying to threaten. Though I suspect your track record of failing to justify your claims about other editors will not help - David Gerard (talk) 21:42, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
The case where there was general agreement that RSOPINION may be valid for reviews from DM writers that I'm still waiting for more input on? For one, it was only one example I saw and was about the general question of DM deprecation and RSOPINION. I know you're removing nearly all DM refs and 99.99% of time they right. So there's zero reason to make it about editor behavior there. It was trying to seek clarity where there wasn't anything specific. Importantly, you have the DM RFCs behind you to justify the "mechanical action", and in this case, my point was about a limited exception, nothing against your action. Here, there just isn't that same clear consensus. SPS are not preferred sources, and there are certainly types of SPSs that we'd likely kick out, but there's no simple or easy consensus to point to like with the DM RFC to say "we don't allow SPS". One editor making that decision for themselves is going to be responsible for those edits, per FAIT, if they're found to not be within consensus. This is generally why any type of mass action an editor takes, they better be damn sure that they are right with consensus in doing it. That's the difference. --Masem (t) 14:12, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Again, you are dishonestly asserting a claim of "mechanical action" on my part. Substantiate this claim or stop making it.
The rest of your paragraph appears to be an admission you don't have a claim to make, you're just trying to vaguely threaten other editors when you know damn well neither the facts nor policy back you. You should stop doing this - David Gerard (talk) 14:23, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Agree with Newslinger. This is perfectly normal editorial cleanup. Cleaning up our extensive backlogs of terrible sourcing is good, and proposals to arbitrarily hinder dealing with it are nonsensical, as are objections to any "systemic approach" whatsoever - where the "systemic approach" is properly describe as "dealing with a backlog". The objections here are editorial issues, not a behavioural issue - David Gerard (talk) 07:37, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
It would be normal editorial cleanup if more judgment was being used, but none is here concerning any of the situations when it's acceptable to use self-published sources: it is not appropriate to act like we have a WP:DAILYMAIL approach to self-published sources when it's not and has never been the case. The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:37, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Neither of the two examples listed earlier are acceptable uses of self-published sources. WP:ABOUTSELF applies to a non-notable blogger's uncontroversial descriptions of themself (which is almost certainly undue), but not to their claims regarding other things, such as bufferbloat. A non-notable artist's video of themself playing in a studio is undue in the article on the studio, and is also likely to be spam considering the G11 deletion of the article on the artist. YouTube (RSP entry) and self-published blog platforms including Blogger (RSP entry), Medium (RSP entry), and WordPress.com (RSP entry) have been discussed ad nauseum, so these removals of self-published and user-generated content are well-grounded in policy and practice. — Newslinger talk 11:02, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Which two examples? They're not examples I cited. What are you hoping to achieve by noting that yes, there are obviously bad self-published sources which ought to be removed (and which absolutely no one is arguing) every time someone points out that Wikipedia has policies which set out the criteria in which self-published sources are allowable? We don't disagree on the literal application of the policy to specific cases, we disagree that JzG should have to follow it. The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:11, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
The two examples I'm referring to are Special:Diff/943118054 and Special:Diff/943122375. At this point, these are the only two examples of removals that have been brought up in this discussion. — Newslinger talk 11:29, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
No one needs permission to do editorial cleanup removing sps. Obviously it's always important to be careful, and just as obviously if someone is doing a lot of it they may make mistakes at times. I agree with Newslinger that neither of the examples are a problem. Doug Weller talk 12:02, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
While this is true, the point of WP:FAIT (from the Arbcom case it originated from) is that you better be 100% sure that if you are doing such mass changes that can be difficult to revert, you better be confident you have consensus to do that, or else you may have admin actions taken against you. Or a better way to phrase it is basically to make sure you have the blessing of consensus that you can point to before taking on mass actions to minimize disruption to the project and what may be admin actions later. You're free to run off and do these without that but you take responsibility if you haven't gained the proper consensus to start. This, at least to me given that SPS does not disallow the use of SPS, put the current situation as one that is not within the clear because there is no obvious concensus to mass remove from existing policy or talk page discussions.--Masem (t) 14:10, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
So far consensus is that bad sourcing should be removed, despite your resistance to, as far as I can tell, absolutely every effort so far to actually do so, and using your personal bizarre misreadings of sourcing policy to support your claims - David Gerard (talk) 16:12, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
There is no place I see in policy that SPS equates to "bad sourcing" except over at WP:BLPSPS (for good reason) SPS is sourcing that should be used with caution, but it may be used - it is not, for example, deprecated like Daily Mail. --Masem (t) 19:04, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
WP:SPS states that "self-published material [...] are largely not acceptable as sources". (Shouldn't that be "is"?) There are two exceptions, content by subject-matter experts and uses under WP:ABOUTSELF, but all other uses of self-published sources as secondary sources are unreliable because they have no "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". — Newslinger talk 14:55, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
That is my reading too, maybe the wording needs tightening up.Slatersteven (talk) 14:57, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes and no. I have no issue (and support) the removal of sources that have been found by THE COMMUNITY THROUGH DISCUSSION here. I do not support any removal based upon personal opinion.Slatersteven (talk) 13:22, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. I think my basic question has been answered. There is no clear consensus on these sorts of edits so presumably, they should be handled with normal WP:BRD. Other than the fact that it's a bit tedious, I like Newslinger's suggestion of moving things to the respective article talk page. I will continue to monitor the discussion here. ~Kvng (talk) 13:54, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
If you plan to go mass-reverting these edits, keep in mind that WP:BURDEN says The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution. So don't restore material unless you have an RS to hand - David Gerard (talk) 16:15, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I've been given the WP:BURDEN argument by JzG. It is strained in this case because there is no content dispute. It also needs to be balanced against WP:DEMOLISH. I do not plan to revert all of these. I will try to work something out with JzG. ~Kvng (talk) 17:48, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
WP:BURDEN is policy, WP:DEMOLISH is an essay. If you think an essay that contradicts policy is worth considering for sourcing issues, I think you may be incorrect - David Gerard (talk) 18:38, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
There is no good-faith dispute about the content in these situations - JzG doesn't (and can't) argue that they're not actually reliable for what's being sourced in the cases I'm concerned about (because it's not actually factually disputable), or that it's not allowable under WP:SPS (because it is), he's just making an ambit claim about the extent of what he can remove for funsies, with our articles being the worse for it. If someone actually disputes the accuracy of a source, I'll do the digging to make sure it's accurate every time. But as there is an acceptable source that directly supports the contribution (per WP:SPS), and no one is actually arguing that it's inaccurate, I'm not going to indulge misbehaviour. The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:11, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it is generally a good idea to remove a source completely and leave a {{cn}} behind. That does not improve the encyclopedia and it can actually make lives of other editors harder. Either there are reasons to think that the statement is not contentious and a better source can be found (then keep {{sps}}) or it is contentious or flagged for years, then it is better to just remove the whole text that is being referenced. --MarioGom (talk) 14:18, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

That's an editorial question that needs to be addressed case by case, which is why we aren't just removing the Daily Mail by bot - David Gerard (talk) 20:14, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
But that's not happening here: in no case is it being addressed in any other way on any case by case basis than "shoot on sight" and replace with a CN tag, even when disputed by other editors. (And once again, we don't have a list of situations where the Daily Mail is acceptable, so the attempted analogy fails.) The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:11, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
The Drover's Wife, This has its root in a single website that a single editor - Kvng - is determined to include. See my note below, check the article history. The source had been tagged as self-published since July 2018, and not fixed. So I removed it. This process has been discussed here multiple times, and nobody has seriously dissented from the view that a source marked as unreliable for a lengthy period may (and in many people's view should) be removed. The fact of it being self-published is not contested. There are no indicia of reliability about that blog. So: I removed it, because in my (long) experience {{sps}}, {{dubious}} and the like never get fixed, whereas {{cn}} does get fixed, either by removing the statement or by finding a reliable source. In this case, Kvng is not prepared to accept either.
The only part of this that is generic, rather than one editor obsessing over one source, is the perennial battle between people who are certain that the content is correct and therefore the source is justified, and people who say that all sources must meet the standard of reliable, independent and secondary - at least if challenged. Guy (help!) 23:05, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
I have no opinion on the site Kvng is concerned about, as my concerns about this purge originally stemmed from my own interaction with it. Stating "This process has been discussed here multiple times, and nobody has seriously dissented from the view that a source marked as unreliable for a lengthy period may (and in many people's view should) be removed" is simply not true in the context of your edits, because a self-published source and a "source marked as unreliable" are not the same thing. Claiming what you just did in response to multiple editors spelling out why your approach is problematic makes it pretty obvious that it's not just an issue with Kvng. Sources that are appropriate under WP:SPS don't need to be removed as "challenged" just because you're feeling argumentative that day. If you'd limit your removals to cases not covered by that, you'd be getting far less pushback - but you don't, so you are. The Drover's Wife (talk) 23:23, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
OK, so what's your preferred way of dealing with a source that's been tagged as unreliable for over a year? Bear in mind that there are tens of thousands of them and, by definition, they are being ignored. In fact I have no evidence of any widespread fixing of unreliable sources, only very occasionally does an article pop up on my watchlist where someone is fixing an unreliable source. The vast majority of these removals get no pushback at all, a few result in consensus to include the source and a more appropriate tag noting the consensus, and a few, like this, end up with a fight with someone who wants to include the source regardless. Guy (help!) 10:59, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
That depends. Has it actually been tagged as unreliable for over a year, or has it been tagged as self-published for over a year and you're just conflating the two so you can ignore WP:SPS? If it's the latter, WP:SPS (both sections) are specifically there to provide you guidance in this regard. The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:03, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
MarioGom, yes, we don't do this by bot. I use AWB to reduce errors (regex is more reliable than my fingers), but it's 100% manual. Guy (help!) 23:17, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

What this is about

This entire thing begins with an unbelievably trivial and, I think, relatively uncontentious removal: orospakr.ca, a blog, has a yerars-old article called "bufferbloat demystified". It appears to be the last entry in that blog, by Andrew Clunis, the last of fewer than 20 posts in total. A canonical example of $RANDOMBLOG, in other words. It was used as a source in Bufferbloat (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). I removed it because it's a blog with zero indication of meeting RS, and had been tagged as such cine mid 2018 (by someone else) without being fixed. Kvng restored it and I removed it. Rinse and repeat., Finally Kvng restored it in an HTML comment, for no readily explicable reason, and accused me of not wanting to "compromise" (the definition of "compromise" being, apparently, to include the source in some way even if not visible - which doesn't sound like a compromise, but whatever). I did a search to look for other uses, to see if it's genuinely widely considered reliable. I found one: an external link alongside two links to a WordPress blog. I removed. Kvng restored. And here we are. Guy (help!) 22:55, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

It's not an issue about Kvng at all (and Kvng is not the only editor to raise issues with your discretionless purge in the past). You could well be right about this individual case (which I have no opinion on), but "all self-published links are unreliable and replaced with CN tags, regardless of what context they're used in and regardless of WP:SPS" is an approach that has gotta stop. The Drover's Wife (talk) 23:23, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
The Drover's Wife, you're wrong as a matter of fact, since Kvng did not come here until after I rejected his "compromise" of keeping the blog in the article.
Yes, lots of people who disapprove of the concept of deprecation are very fond of trying to prevent any action based on it. I think everyone here is well aware. I think we're also well aware that words like "discretionless" are used with zero evidence and are in fact 100% incorrect as David and I apply a lot of discretion. The edit history does not show the roughly one in five that I skip as needing further attention later, for example, or the ones that I open in a browser and edit manually.
The bald fact is that searches routinely show tens of thousands of uses of sources that should not be in Wikipedia, and the people who try to fix that continually get pushback from the same small group of individuals who seem to think that's fine despite pretty solid consensus here that it's not. Guy (help!) 10:55, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm not talking about Kvng, I'm talking about you. I don't disapprove of the concept of deprecation at all. David does good work in that regard. I very strongly disapprove of pretending you can unilaterally "deprecate" sources which are not, in fact, deprecated, and are, in fact, fine. That you're continually equating your removals with his, despite his being grounded in actual deprecation (not a personal dislike) is basically the whole problem right there. The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:58, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
It's good thing I didn't do that then, isn't it? What I was doing with that series of edits was taking sources that had been tagged as failing our sourcing policy for a minimum of three months, and replacing the source with {{cn}} or editing the article and removing the content and the bad source. Some of them had been tagged for years (the blog Kvng wants to include, for example). The elephant in the room here is that sources tagged as failing WP:RS are rarely fixed. Very rarely. I've been doing this for more than two years, and have responded to comments over time. Thus I don't usually remove a bad source straight away, I first make sure it has been tagged for some months and editors have had an opportunity to fix it, and have not done so. Of course there are exceptions. WorldNetDaily, for example, should never be used as a source of fact. But this set of edits was taking sources that had been tagged as unreliable - self-published, mainly - and either editing the article or replacing the disputed source with {{cn}} because in the end that is the one tag that does seem to get fixed. If there was a WikiProject for fixing tagged unreliable sources, that gnomed away and fixed them, none of this would be necessary. Guy (help!) 11:28, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
But they weren't necessarily "failing our sourcing policy at all": they were just tagged as self-published, whether or not their usage was actually consistent with our guidelines. I'm sure some of them failed WP:RS, but some were fine as per WP:SPS. The rhetorical attempt to portray the entire category of self-published sources as "failing our sourcing policy", "unreliable source", "bad source" and thus able to be given the WP:DAILYMAIL treatment by ignoring us having clear guidelines on the subject is not on and needs to stop. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:34, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Can you name one example of a self-published source that JzG removed that was "fine as per WP:SPS"? — Newslinger talk 11:46, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
My dog in this fight arose when JzG persistently tried to remove any mention from an author's article that he had written a self-published book - of which the actual reference was to the National Library of Australia - on the basis that the book itself was self-published and someone had tagged it with the SPS template. My experience is that people who engage in that kind of insistent silliness with automated tools even when challenged don't tend to only do it in isolated instances. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:51, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. I've found the relevant discussion at User talk:JzG/Archive 180 § Vanity press removals, which refers to the removal in Special:Diff/943196055. I agree that the cited source is valid under WP:ABOUTSELF, as it was cited in the author's biography. Fortunately, the Bruce Elder (journalist) article currently includes that citation without a {{sps}} tag. If you identify specific removals like these in the future, simply escalate them to this noticeboard, and the editors here can sort them out. — Newslinger talk 12:03, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree SPS should not be removed if they are talking about themselves, without discussion.Slatersteven (talk) 12:08, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Then we're on the same page! The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:11, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
No, as this dispute seems to have originated with a source that did not satisfy about self. Thus (the pair of you) are using too broad a page viewer. SPS can (and should be removed) if they are not by an expert and not about themselves. But if they are about themselves (that is to say them, not what they think about something) then they may be OK, and should not be removed with out discussion. It seems to me (and if this is wrong the pair of you need to make a better case) GUy wants to remove SPS that meet this on the grounds they are SPS and you want to him to stop removing SPS that fail this because they are SPS, you are both wrong.Slatersteven (talk) 12:18, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Except that my dispute is about cases that are about themselves, hence we're on the same page (though once again, it seems that you've not read the comments you're immediately responding to, or this would've been obvious). The Drover's Wife (talk) 13:45, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
And I would point out I am not alone in thinking you were making an argument about all SPS. I in fact said "and if this is wrong the pair of you need to make a better case". AS I said I think the pair of you have been so keen of arguing (see What this is about below) that you are arguing past each other, and this is confusing a lot of other people.Slatersteven (talk) 13:50, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Newslinger, As I said at that time, sure, it's a self-published book, but if you have good sources for its significance then we can mention it without violating WP:UNDUE. What you're doing is spot on: improving the sourcing. I'm not even clear why we're having this argument. I followed up on a tag that had not been actioned in ages, you reacted by fixing the problem properly. This seems like Wikipedia working as designed to me?.
So that was a WP:UNDUE[ question more than a WP:RS one. Guy (help!) 12:12, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
You removed the SPS-tagged reference to the National Library and replaced it with a CN tag, as per your generic practice of doing this regardless of the WP:SPS guidelines. You then repeatedly tried to delete the material entirely, despite it being (as multiple editors here have agreed) a valid reference. The attempt to reframe it as an WP:UNDUE case (one sentence referencing that an author wrote a book that he did, in fact, write) was one of the most far-flung WP:UNDUE arguments I've ever seen in all my years on Wikipedia and a sad attempt to retrospectively come up with a justification for the edit rather than just admitting that you had erred. That very response is one of the major reasons I highly doubt that that was a one-off error of judgment. The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:16, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Unreliable sources do not need to be deprecated to be removed. All deprecation does is authorize an edit filter warning editors against adding the source in the future. — Newslinger talk 11:43, 19 April 2020 (UTC
The dispute, of course, is that these sources are necessarily, in fact, unreliable. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:51, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Well, there's no dispute in this acse that it is unreliable, and the presence of a tag warning editors that it's disputed, for more than 3 months, is a minimum before I willr remove it, so what we're left with is a reversal of the burden of evidence, requiring someone to prove a source is unreliable before removing it rather than requiring ediotors of an article to get their house in order. Guy (help!) 12:10, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm not talking about Kyng's blog, as you well know, so yes, there is (obviously) dispute that sources that are not tagged as unreliable but merely as self-published can be shot on sight as "unreliable". All you need to do for there to be absolutely no dispute here is to read and follow the guidance of the two sections of WP:SPS without trying to circumvent them with silly wordplay. The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:21, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
It's impossible to address a perceived problem without examples. Your comment alleges that JzG is removing self-published sources "regardless of what context they're used in", but does not provide any examples of inappropriate removals. The only two examples discussed so far are both appropriate. — Newslinger talk 11:40, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

So is that blog an RS, if so why?Slatersteven (talk) 11:06, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

No. We know of old that The Drover's Wife rejects the idea that unreliable sources should be removed, for reasons I still don't fully understand, but this thread has its specific genesis in Kvng's insistence, as documented on his talk page, on including that blog, and when I checked the site I concurred with the person who originally tagged it over a year ago that is it an unreliable source. One of fewer than 20 posts on the blog of someone who is not a specialist in the field, not notable, doesn't have an article. It's a straight-up case of WP:ILIKEIT with a side order of WP:OWN. Guy (help!) 11:20, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Lying about my clear and repeatedly restated position does not help your case. (Actually) unreliable sources should be removed. Claiming that all self-published sources are, by definition, unreliable, so you can sidestep our self-published sources guidelines and delete them all because WP:IDONTLIKEIT still needs to stop, no matter how repeatedly you deliberately misrepresent my position because you apparently can't justify your own. (I still have no position either way on Kvng's blog because the issue is much bigger than him.) The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:34, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
SPS is clear that SPS are "largely not acceptable as sources" it goes on to give one (and as far as I can see only one) reason that an SPS might be acceptable "produced by an established expert on the subject matter". Does the blog meet this requirement, if the answer is anything but yes it is acceptable to remove it as it is not an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 11:40, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
And policy is clear, SPS are "largely not acceptable as sources" and that " The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material", I take this to mean that yes removing SPS's that have not been demonstrated to be RS is perfectly acceptable.Slatersteven (talk) 11:42, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
WP:SPS has two sections (one on top of the other). A number of the commenters here (most recently Slatersteven) don't bother to read the second one ("Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves", for the lazy), which is largely where this problem lies. JzG is systematically removing material that's compliant with the second one, and WP:BURDEN is not a way of circumventing sourcing guidelines you disagree with. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:47, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Err how can a hardware action blog about itself? The article is not about a person, nor was the section this source was added to. It was not about the blogger.Slatersteven (talk) 11:52, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Slatersteven, exactly. And even if it was, his "about" does not make him an expert in this field. Guy (help!) 11:57, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Your comment that this source is "compliant with the second" is begging the question. I invite you to tread Kvng's talk page. He doesn't argue that it's reliable, only that he thinks it's useful. Guy (help!) 11:56, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
What, exactly, was confusing to either of you about "I still have no position either way on Kvng's blog because the issue is much bigger than him"? If you're going to contribute to a discussion, it would vastly assist everyone if you would read both the relevant guidelines and the posts you're apparently intending to respond to before you respond. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:59, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

The Drover's Wife, So if I understand your point correctly, you are saying that in your view the onus is on me, as the editor seeking to remove a source tagged as unreliable, to demonstrate its unreliability, rather than on the editors of the article, duly notified by tagging the source with an appropriate tag, to demonstrate that it is reliable? Is that what you are saying? I am pretty confident that is not how we have ever interpreted policy.

For the umpteenth time, you're not removing sources tagged as unreliable (or at least it's not those edits that are being disputed). You're removing sources tagged as self-published, which is not the same thing, and which has its own guidelines specifically to give people like you editorial guidance in this regard as to when and why you should remove things. This repeated wordplay to try to dodge and misrepresent the responses of everyone who has disagreed with you is getting very tiring. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:59, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
The Drover's Wife, self-published largely equates to unreliable, outside of a specific set of circumstances. Can you give any examples (ideally diffs, I'm lazy) where Guy has removed a self-published source where it was being used in a way that would be justified by either section of V? GirthSummit (blether) 12:04, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
To repeat my response to Newslinger asking the same thing above: "My dog in this fight arose when JzG persistently tried to remove any mention from an author's article that he had written a self-published book - of which the actual reference was to the National Library of Australia - on the basis that the book itself was self-published and someone had tagged it with the SPS template. My experience is that people who engage in that kind of insistent silliness with automated tools even when challenged don't tend to only do it in isolated instances." (I've just remembered that he didn't actually start with deleting it, he was instead removing the reference to the National Library and replacing it with a CN tag at first, which was even sillier.) The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:06, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

OK, can we close this sub thread as clearly whatever this is about its not the use of this blog. As such this is just a distraction.Slatersteven (talk) 12:07, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

The thread is about JzG's generalised campaign of behaviour, not about Kvng's blog, and accordingly the vast majority of replies don't concern Kvng's blog. We don't close topics just because you disagree with some of the points being made in them. The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:10, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
"sub thread" this one entitled "what this is about".Slatersteven (talk) 12:11, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Well, not by the examples given. If you want to show a campaign of behaviour, you have to actually do the bit where you actually show problematic diffs and so forth. So far it looks like you're jumping on a barely-substantiated claim to bring other complaints, without even that much substantiation.
If you have a claim about JzG: make it properly, with enough clear diffs to convince others that don't already agree with you - David Gerard (talk) 13:49, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Three examples have been provided so far in this discussion. The Drover's Wife brought up Special:Diff/943196055, which did qualify under WP:ABOUTSELF, and that citation had previously been restored to the article. Kvng's examples (Special:Diff/943118054 and Special:Diff/943122375) did not qualify under WP:ABOUTSELF, so no action is necessary. Anyone can still remove self-published sources by non-experts if they do not qualify under WP:ABOUTSELF, as that is supported by the remainder of WP:V. In the future, if any editor sees a removal of a self-published source that should have been covered by WP:ABOUTSELF, then please start a new discussion here so that other editors can evaluate it. Until then, I'm not seeing anything actionable in this discussion. — Newslinger talk 12:18, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't know how "actionable" anything is, but there is clearly a difference of emphasis and interpretation w.r.t. policy, which appears to reflect underlying presumptions. On the one hand, we have a group who regard WP:SPS as presumptively unreliable, who treat an SPS tag as morally equivalent to a CN tag, and who do not believe they are causing undue hardship for other editors if they mass-delete self-published sources or article content sourced to them.
On the other hand, we have another group who - for quite varied reasons - take a broader view of the exceptions granted in ABOUTSELF and for the self-published work of established experts, and who therefore see a fundamental difference between SPS and CN tags such that it appears entirely inappropriate and a violation of editing norms to treat them as equivalent, whether in editing or on Talk page argumentation.
I myself don't have a bone to pick with the SPS tag-based edits, but have had to put enough time and effort into reminding editors on Talk pages that the carve-out for expert SPS even exists that I have some sympathy with the second group. I would at least want it recognized that there is a policy-relevant distinction between CN and SPS tags - WP:V is actually pretty clear that information can be Verifiable without being independently sourced in specific cases. Newimpartial (talk) 12:33, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
As a cleanup tag, the {{sps}} tag does not belong in an article unless the use of the self-published source is actually inappropriate. I agree that it's important to take the two exceptions of WP:SPS (subject-matter experts and WP:ABOUTSELF) into account when considering the removal of content supported by self-published sources. If a self-published source does not qualify for these exceptions, then it is not reliable. Aside from the two exceptions, WP:V does not actually distinguish between content cited by an unreliable source and content that is uncited, as it states that "verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source". — Newslinger talk 13:37, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Problem is I am not sure that is at all clear, that the SPS tag should only be uses in that way.Slatersteven (talk) 13:43, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
@Newslinger: - I think we're basically on the same page here because I completely agree with what you've said, so it's frustrating that you've !voted in JzG's strawman RfC below that misrepresents this entire conversation. The Drover's Wife (talk) 13:47, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree with User:Slatersteven, above. The documentation around the SPS tag is written on the presumption that SPS are potentially unreliable and therefore should not be used - the documentation allows for the case where it is unclear whether a source is self-published, but not for cases where a SPS is used correctly according to policy. Because of this ambiguity, I for one have refrained from removing SPS tags from appropriate ABOUTSELF or expert self-published citations, because I did not see an appropriate procedure or documented grounds to do so (and I don't generally believe in IAR tag removal). Newimpartial (talk) 13:58, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
In my opinion, {{sps}} should be removed if it is attached to an appropriate application of WP:ABOUTSELF. WP:TC states, "Cleanup tags are meant to be temporary notices that lead to an effort to fix the problem, not a permanent badge of shame to show that you disagree with an article, or a method of warning readers about an article." I don't think an article can become a featured article with a cleanup tag, and good article reviewers would also want that tag removed. — Newslinger talk 14:16, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

My opinion in that RfC is independent of this discussion, and I gave a straightforward answer to an interesting question that applies to many source disputes on this noticeboard. But I agree that the RfC does not directly address the concerns related to WP:ABOUTSELF in this discussion. — Newslinger talk 14:11, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

The idea of self-publishing goes back to the era when vanity publishers would be paid to print books which the writer would then give away free to his friends. With the advent of the Web, it's become inexpensive to broadcast written material. The journalism industry is going through a revolution. Owning large printing presses or television networks is no longer a pre-requisite of running a news organisation. Some organisations now only have a Web presence. These include newly created ones and others which used to run in the traditional form. The newer ones may have a very small number of staff compared to what used to be the case. That means that we now have a grey area where trying to block use of sources on the grounds that they are 'self-published', as happens on the RSN, sometimes using a double-standard, is not appropriate.     ←   ZScarpia   15:32, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

There is definitely a gray area for reliability, but I think it's a bit higher on the scale than that. On this noticeboard, new or less popular sources with small editorial teams could be considered unreliable or marginally reliable depending on the available evidence (e.g. use by other reliable sources, quality of writing, etc.). However, self-published sources and user-generated content that aren't used for the allowed exceptions are generally dismissed outright, since it's clear that they have no editorial oversight. — Newslinger talk 06:18, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for poking the hornet's nest

This discussion seems to be on the same path as my talk page interactions with JzG. It's a lot of engagement for what I consider to be a minor issue. I'm guilty of taking the bait on this. I do prefer to spend my WP:VOLUNTEER time improving crappy articles. I will try to avoid further interactions with JzG and further participation in this discussion. ~Kvng (talk) 14:39, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Please don't be sorry, Kvng, since this noticeboard is for tackling any and all questions about sourcing, and you're in the right place. I do think this noticeboard is most suitable for tackling pure content disputes, and that requests in this style are most likely to generate productive discussion and bring about a speedy resolution. — Newslinger talk 15:28, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Given that it was you that brought this here, I think you may be implying the wrong person is to blame - David Gerard (talk) 21:28, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
@David Gerard: I opened this discussion because JzG claimed in a discussion on my user talk page that here was consensus for these edits at this noticeboard. It is clear now that there is no such consensus. That's all I really needed to know. I'm not trying to blame anyone. ~Kvng (talk) 15:43, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
@David Gerard: I'm not sure I've disagreed with you before in all our years on Wikipedia, but your reflexive, aggressive defences of other users engaged in semi-automated editing without engaging with anything anyone says whatsoever are getting very tiring. Your approach to your own article editing in this area is generally sensible and something other editors attempting this stuff and finding themselves in conflict could generally a few things from (things that would mean they didn't find themselves in these sorts of conflicts), which makes your instant aggro, rationale-less defence of them just because they make the same kind of edits and apparently you've got a chip on your shoulder from someone (probably incorrectly) having criticised you for yours along the way somewhere very frustrating. The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:15, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
other users engaged in semi-automated editing without engaging with anything anyone says whatsoever This claim seems literally false, given the editor you're complaining about is responding extensively. Unless you're talking about a previously unmentioned editor who isn't posting in this very thread. Just to be clear - who is this editor you are talking about, who is engaged in semi-automated editing (please define), and yet without engaging with anything anyone says whatsoever - and have you pinged them? - David Gerard (talk) 05:33, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
@David Gerard: - you've made a number of extremely aggressive replies in this thread in reflexive defense of JzG that don't actually engage with anything said by anyone in the conversation whatsoever apart from to engage in random personal attacks. It's sad and unhelpful, and makes it more likely that they continue to come up again and again despite being issues that are entirely resolvable with the slightest bit of effort towards resolution. The Drover's Wife (talk) 09:56, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
I am literally asking you to back up your claims here - David Gerard (talk) 10:11, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
@David Gerard: - I could link any one of your comments in this discussion (and if I was feeling more facetious and less tired I'd just gather each diff): for all the aggressive comments and personal attacks, at no point have you even acknowledged that you understand that this was even a conversation about self-published sources or acknowledged that WP:SPS or WP:ABOUTSELF exist - it strangely seems like you've acted like this dispute was a proxy for your own editing, which is not about self-published sources and which those policies aren't relevant to. The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:37, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Verify writing of alma mater for Samuel Barber

I currently have a copy of the music/composition of the alma mater written by Samuel Barber in 1928 for West Chester Higby School, West CHester, PA. Would you like a photo? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:246:4800:58b0:c0bb:6703:b099:6189 (talk • contribs) 00:42, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

As with five pound notes I am not sure that a photo can be used to show its by My Barber, only that it exists. It would nerd to have some form of authentication.Slatersteven (talk) 10:03, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi there, thanks for offering to upload a copy of the composition. This looks like a nice addition to the Samuel Barber article, if we are able to get it approved for copyright. It doesn't look like this material is in the public domain yet, but it might qualify for fair use. I'm unsure of the copyright status of this document, so I'm going to refer this discussion to the copyright questions noticeboard.

As for reliability, this document is a primary source, and should ideally be backed up by reliable secondary sources. However, it can probably be included as an image to help illustrate the article. — Newslinger talk 10:11, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

The copyright discussion is at WP:CQ § Copy of music/composition of alma mater written by Samuel Barber in 1928. — Newslinger talk 11:43, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

The Journal of Development Studies

Can The Journal of Development Studies be considered as WP:RS? The journal is not listed on DOAJ. But, the DOI of the published article is correct. Regards Santoshdts (talk) 18:16, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

It is published by Taylor and Francis, which is a well-known reputable publisher, so it definitely isn't a predatory journal, so I would say that it is reliable. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:21, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
It's not listed in DOAJ because it's not an open access journals. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:02, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Seems legit. Bit niche, though, which is always a problem. Guy (help!) 22:04, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Reputable publisher and not in any list of predatory journals that I found. AFAIK it is not indexed in JCR and has a relatively low impact score at SCImago Journal Rank ([35]). Looks good for topics on its niche. Consider in-text attribution for contentious claims and avoid misrepresentation (e.g. avoid saying "[claim]" if the source says "preliminary evidence suggests [claim]"). --MarioGom (talk) 12:59, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for all your inputs. Regards Santoshdts (talk) 18:16, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Is The Signpost a RS?

I am expanding Good Faith Collaboration and I wonder if Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-10-04/Book review is a RS? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:16, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost was briefly discussed on this noticeboard once in 2014. The Signpost does have an editor-in-chief, and articles in The Signpost generally remain unchanged once published (except for corrections, like any other publication), so I'm not sure if WP:WINARS applies. — Newslinger talk 10:26, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
My initial thoughts, per WP:RS, would be:
I would summarize as generally reliable but possibly biased. WP:RSOPINION and other considerations for reliable sources may apply. --MarioGom (talk) 10:33, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
  • A Wikipedia article by a pseudonymous Wikipedia editor reviewing something about Wikipedia? This seems like a truly terrible idea. Please don't use it. Guy (help!) 22:08, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
As the editor-in-chief of The Signpost I'm glad to see this question discussed and thanks to @Piotrus: for bringing it up. There are 2 parts here, 1st Piotrus's specific question and then questions around WP:WINARS. As far as the book review Piotrus asked about and acknowledging that whether a source is reliable depends on the context and the details. Yes, that book review looks very reliable for most uses. Why Piotrus needs to know whether Wikipedians consider it reliable is an open question, but the author has a Ph.D., work experience at at the WMF. Off-Signpost the author reveals his real world name. The review itself was obviously well edited. The quality in general just shines through.
I believe this is just one case where individual articles could very well be considered reliable sources. SP does have an editorial team working well together, though at times our staffing can be a bit thin. There's a 15 year history behind SP, and there have been downs as well as ups, but the general level has always been of good quality, even during the down times.
WP:WINARS says that Wikipedia itself is not a reliable source, and SP is a part of Wikipedia. How can the child overcome the limitations of the parent? e.g. anonymous editing by "anybody". Note the same questions should be asked outside Wikipedia, e.g. with UPI, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated getting taken over by new small unknown organizations, or with The Wall Street Journal being owned by Rupert Murdock. There are ways to work around the limitations of the parent, as every child knows! The SP is not an "anybody can edit" newspaper - articles must be submitted before acceptance, and then are reviewed and copyedited by others and approved by the EIC. Our writers may be pseudonymous, but they are well known within the community. Our comments sections that follow the articles are just amazing - online comment sections don't seem to work well with any other publication, but they do on The Signpost. So for the general question of "Is The Signpost generally acceptable for inclusion as a source within a Wikipedia article?". Well, ask me that question next year! Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:29, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I find this rather convincing, User:JzG. Signpost has editorial controls and is not a place where vandalisms and such are found (edited in by anyone). And many top quality newspapers have anonymous writers (think The Economist, for example). Also, for this particular source, I accept smallbones note that the author is RL reliable (but I don't want to investigate this further due to possible WP:OUTING concerns). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:32, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
    Piotrus, my problem with it is not so much that it's a book review on Wikipedia, but that it's a review of a book about Wikipedia on Wikipedia. That seems to me like WP:SELFREF. But this is not a hill on which I intend to die. Guy (help!) 14:11, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
  • It's a self-published source, so it can be used with the restrictions that apply to any WP:SPS, which would include not using it to support text about living persons. SarahSV (talk) 02:40, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
If, as you claim, The Signpost is a self-published source, why was I not allowed to self publish? Why were my words changed by a Signpost editor?
Here are my words as edited by and published in The Signpost:
And here is the actual self-published Wikipedia essay that I created so that I could self-publish my preferred version that I control the content of:
Please compare the table titled "Consider the following example of runaway spending growth" in both versions.
In my original there are citations where you can check the numbers. They were in the version I submitted as an op-ed. The Signpost editorial team and I had a disagreement about the content. The editors removed them.
I did have the option of withdrawing my submission rather than allowing the edits, but leaving those citations in was not an option. And that's fine. I would expect the exact same treatment if I wrote an op-ed that was published in The New York Times.
We also disagreed about the use of cancer as an analogy. Some people think that it is inappropriate. I am a cancer survivor myself, and showed it to several other cancer survivors, all of whom encouraged me to use the analogy. The Signpost editors disagreed, I said that I would rather withdraw the op-ed than have the analogy removed, and they decided to go with my version. If it had been a SPS that decision would have been mine to make.
Wikipedia:Identifying and using self-published works says:
"Examples of non-self-published sources... The contents of magazines and newspapers, including editorials and op-ed pieces in newspapers."
My essay in my own userspace is a self published source. The similar op-ed, edited and vetted by the Signpost editorial team and published with changes that I would not have made if I had a choice is not. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:49, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Just to clarify, I am not claiming that The Signpost is a reliable source. I am claiming that I have a valid counterexample to the claim that it is it is a self-published source or a user generated source. Editorial control? Check. A reputation for fact-checking? Check. Independence from the topic the source is covering? Maybe, and maybe not. The Signpost regularly publishes material that is critical of the WMF, Arbcom. etc. On the other hand, the WMF has made noises in the past that show that they think they can overrule any decision by the Signpost editorial team, just as (before it blew up in their face) they previously made noises that showed that they thought they could overrule any decision by Arbcom.
I do think that it is interesting that multiple editors here are claiming that the Signpost is self-published or user-generated without even trying to address my counterexample showing that it is not. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:31, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
What? You proved it's user generated: users generated The Wikipedia Signpost with your user generated article. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:58, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
By that standard everything is user generated. Someone generated today's issue of The New York Times from material that someone else generated. If a publication has an editorial team that edits and approves what gets published it isn't user generated. You might wish to review WP:UGS and Wikipedia:Identifying and using self-published works, which says "Self-published works are those in which the author and publisher are the same." --Guy Macon (talk) 19:14, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Wiki's are by every sensible standard including Wikipedia's user generated. User:Guy Macon is incontrovertibly a User. User:SignpostEditor is incontrovertibly a User. They are incontrovertibly not reporters nor editors for the New York Times. And they certainly are not published by the New York Times Company. User's on Wikipedia are not published by a separate publisher no matter what review by other User's they go through, they are always the publisher, even when it's jointly published by more than one User. None of our Users get to launder User generated Wikipedia writings to claim it's not User generated because another User also had a hand in generating it. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:58, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost does not meet the definition of WP:SOURCE let alone reliable, it's user generated by Wikipedia editors, so not reliable; it's not a professional structure, it's amateur, which is fine but not for a Wikipedia source, we want professional publishers (now, if you want a particular author to be considered an expert, than that would have to go under user generated and expertise would have to be proven, and the case for due made). Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:56, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  • Not reliable. It's a completely self-published/user-generated source, written by anonymous writers and anonymous editors, with no formal background in anything. This is a huge Pandora's box best left unopened. Could be allowed under WP:SPS, but let's not. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:35, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Not reliable per JzG and Headbomb. To continue Smallbones' metaphor, while in (say) real life a child can and probably should outgrow a parent, in case of Wikipedia/ Signpost, it is more a question of how, metaphorically, a child with developmental and behavioral issues can outgrow its parent. ——SN54129 10:49, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Not reliable. What Headbomb said. As with every Wikipedia page there are a few hypothetical very limited circumstances where it might be a legitimate primary source for articles like List of Wikipedia controversies where the exact wording of an specific Wikipedia edit is at issue, but it doesn't have any greater degree of reliability than any other Wikipedia page. ‑ Iridescent 14:32, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Shodhganga at INFLIBNET

Hello, Iam writing an article on some of the policies of Indian Government and I've found some research articles on the topic on Shodhganga Inflibnet database. Could this be considerd as reliable source? TIA Santoshdts (talk) 18:25, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics. — Newslinger talk 05:52, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Since Shodhganga is a repository of dissertations and theses, the following excerpt from WP:SCHOLARSHIP is relevant here:

Completed dissertations or theses written as part of the requirements for a doctorate, and which are publicly available (most via interlibrary loan or from Proquest), can be used but care should be exercised, as they are often, in part, primary sources. Some of them will have gone through a process of academic peer reviewing, of varying levels of rigor, but some will not. If possible, use theses that have been cited in the literature; supervised by recognized specialists in the field; or reviewed by third parties. Dissertations in progress have not been vetted and are not regarded as published and are thus not reliable sources as a rule. Some theses are later published in the form of scholarly monographs or peer reviewed articles, and, if available, these are usually preferable to the original thesis as sources. Masters dissertations and theses are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence.

— Newslinger talk 06:10, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
  • According to Times Higher Education, no Indian universities are ranked in the top 300 globally. And you can find lots of RS articles raising concerns about plagiarism and fraud in Indian academia (although the government is trying to crack down).[36][37][38] So I would be reluctant to use PhDs from Indian universities for anything. buidhe 08:20, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I have never used "Shodhganga" before. I understand it to be a repository of unpublished PhD dissertations submitted to Indian universities. I would be reluctant to cite to unpublished PhD theses of any university anywhere unless special circumstances dictated an exception. For that reason, I would not consider such a thesis reliable without an in-depth inspection and a highly reliable citation for its reliability. The site, of course, is doing a signal service by keeping records of them, for who knows what occasional gem we might find there. My vote would be generally "No, but possibly Yes if highly recommended by a scholarly source. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:52, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Regional editions of The Epoch Times

Should different regional editions of The Epoch Times be considered under the RSP listing? Should they be added to the "Uses" column? I'm looking at the Turkish edition (epochtimestr.com) and an Australian one (ausepochmedia.com). --MarioGom (talk) 18:17, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Center for Inquiry - Huffpost Article, UnDark, Skepticink, Medium

Editor @Knox490: is using this opinion piece by Sikivu Hutchinson in the Huffpost as the only citation on the Center for Inquiry Wikipedia page. Editor @Rp2006: added content from these articles ... Opinion piece from Senapathy on Undark and Medium and this person David A. Osorio writing on his blog at SkepticInk. After a bit of polite discussion with RobP we decided to remove the section. But now it has reverted to a mess as Knox490 wants to reinstate. I'm hoping this can be handled here. @Harizotoh9: Here is the discussion. Thanks in advance Sgerbic (talk) 22:24, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Need to point out that I also cited this as an official reply from CFI regarding the Senapathy affair. RobP (talk) 00:19, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
[39][40] Per WP:STATUSQUO, I just restored the last stable version from before the recent edit war (27 March 2020 version, but there are only minor differences from the 27 February 2020 version). The edit warring has to stop. Leave the status quo version up while you discuss any proposed changes on the article talk page. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:42, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Religion News and Christian Post

I am starting to go through the citations at Center for Inquiry. Are the following reliable?

Cited on Center for Inquiry page. No prior RSNB discussion. Wikipedia page at Religion News Service. Not to be confused with religionnewsblog.com
Cited on Center for Inquiry page. No prior RSNB discussion. Wikipedia page at The Christian Post.

--Guy Macon (talk) 05:08, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Also note the citation to the Oprah Winfrey Network...
Related: Talk:Center for Inquiry#Sourcing
--Guy Macon (talk) 05:27, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Religion News Services is generally reliable. They have decent editorial practices and a clear division between factual reporting and opinion. I don't know much about Chrisitian Post, but I don't find this kerfluffle concerning and we should not ban outlets just for having pro-Trump opinions if their factual reporting is good. buidhe 06:37, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
They seem reliable. But as always it depends on what they are used for. TFD (talk) 07:25, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
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