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Lab Leak Again

Background:
Our article at Wuhan Institute of Virology currently says:

"During the COVID-19 pandemic, the laboratory has been the focus of conspiracy theories and unfounded speculation about the origin of the virus"

And our article at COVID-19 misinformation currently says:

"Though the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has not been determined, unfounded speculation and conspiracy theories related to the possibility the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology have gained popularity during the pandemic... A World Health Organization team probing the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic described the lab leak theory as 'extremely unlikely' given current evidence, yet misinformation about the evidence and likelihood of this scenario has been widespread... WHO researcher Peter Daszak said 'The only evidence that people have for a lab leak is that there is a lab in Wuhan'."

Recently, multiple editors have claimed that the following source...

• Wuhan lab staff sought hospital care before COVID-19 outbreak disclosed - WSJ

...justifies changing the above articles to give more credence to the lab leak theory.

So, is the source reliable for that purpose? --Guy Macon (talk) 04:04, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

No. Credence to the lab leak hypothesis requires MEDRS and consensus in those sources. It's been known for months (if not over a year) that there were many people (not just lab employees) who presented in Wuhan with "cold-like" symptoms that are non-specific to COVID-19 in the late months of 2019. US intelligence is not a MEDRS for claiming that people were infected with COVID-19 at any point, from any source. Note that the quote in that source doesn't say "they had COVID-19", it says with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses - i.e. it provides no new information that justifies giving more credibility than MEDRS do to the "lab leak theory". Yes, China has been... less than forthcoming (to put it mildly) with information regarding early cases. However, China is less than forthcoming with lots of information in the world, and we should not let anger at China for their isolationist policies lead to us absolving our responsibility to take scientific consensus over "sensationalist news". Obviously we should all continue to watch MEDRS and concrete data on these people (and other early cases) that comes out and then we may need to discuss changes - but not based on one report that isn't more than "well there were people sick". -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 04:18, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

The origin of COVID-19, and related historical questions about who the first patients were, is not a MEDRS domain. This falls under a WP:MEDDEF: The pills were invented by Dr Archibald Foster and released onto the market in 2015. This is not biomedical information, and it only requires ordinary RS. It becomes MEDRS when you begin dealing with claims about how a disease is transmitted or could supposedly be cured, situations where quack medicine can actually harm people. There is no nexus between that and the lab leak hypothesis. Geogene (talk) 04:36, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

When you look into WP:BMI, biomedical information is i.a.: Information about clinical trials or other types of biomedical research that address the above entries or allow conclusions to be made about them, and enquiries into the origins of SARS-CoV-2 are obviously biomedical research. There is also a warning that Statements that could still have medical relevance [...] are still biomedical. Biomedical research must be cited using MEDRS.

What you say about history, in this case, concerns something for which you don't need medical knowledge - just go to the online catalogue, enter researcher's name, and find the patent for the drug. This doesn't require an M.Sc. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 05:41, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Re, enquiries into the origins of SARS-CoV-2 are obviously biomedical research That's not obvious at all, because you're trying to shoehorn your own re-definition of "biomedical research" to something more expansive than the policy dictates. The policy is not that everything of or related to biomedicine is MEDRS, if that were the case, explanatory sections like MEDDEF and WP:BMI wouldn't be necessary. As for, Statements that could still have medical relevance [...] are still biomedical the lab leak hypothesis has no medical relevance, and this is the reason why MEDRS doesn't apply to it. I already covered that point above. Geogene (talk) 06:14, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

It would depend on the claim. A claim that a flask was knocked over is not biomedical; a claim that the genetic characteristics of a virus have the telltale signs of human engineering, is. And there are grey areas between. Alexbrn (talk) 10:15, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Agree this claim does not require WP:MEDRS as it is not WP:BMI -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 13:25, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

• It looks useful for the claim that three researchers from the lab were hospitalized. But unless it states, based on solid evidence, that they were hospitalized for covid-19, it's no good for the latter claim. I mean, the headline literally gives away all the details about the hospitalizations that the article claims, and the rest of the article is just filler about the pandemic and the conspiracy theory. In my experience, articles like that aren't to be trusted, because the only thing it's demonstrating is that the author/editors are fans of the conspiracy theory. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:43, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Addendum because I didn't make it clear initially: The claim I said this article was good for (that three lab workers were hospitalized) is clearly not appropriate for our articles on Covid-19. It may be appropriate for our articles about the conspiracy theory, but the language would have to be very clear that there's no definitive link, and this is not clear evidence of the CS. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:20, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

• From my reading of the original report in WSJ, it isn't something that warrants immediate change. Evidence presented is circumstantial and inconclusive by itself, because the report says that the three became sick in autumn 2019 “with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness.”; and since this is the only piece of evidence, it still requires much of mental stretching to establish a causal link of good enough quality.

Besides, the lab leak was a focus of conspiracy theorists (lab leak -> deliberate) and there was a lot of unfounded (irrational) speculation based on the evidence they had, that is, the lab and a lot of self-determination. Even if it later appears true, it doesn't mean people argued for the lab leak in, say, June 2020 based on that evidence, and since they weren't, it was unfounded. At least at the time.

We needn't change anything for now, as there is no deadline and we aren't supposed to be a newsfeed. Wait for WP:MEDRS, WHO, CDC and other health institutes' commentary. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 04:58, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

• Independent of any details in the guidelines ruling which sources are acceptable under which circumstances, the general principle is that we should use the best sources we can find for a given subject. For the origin of SARS-CoV-2, we already have high-quality sources. They meet the MEDRS standard. We also have much-lower-quality sources about the same subject. It should be a no-brainer that we dismiss those. If we had no MEDRS sources, then it would matter whether the subject needs MEDRS. Since we do, that question is just a distraction. We use the best sources, end of story. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:53, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

• "There’s a lot of cloudiness around the origins of COVID-19 still, so I wanted to ask, are you still confident that it developed naturally?" Fauci: "No actually [...] I am not convinced about that, I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability what happened." Fox.

According to the standards enforced by the activists on wikipedia, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases throughout the entire pandemic is saying "we should continue to investigate [this conspiracy theory]". Let that sink in for a second. 2601:602:9200:1310:1C00:1701:D1FF:B995 (talk) 09:18, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

You seem to think this is contradictory. It's not. It's broadly in line with the WHO report, the WHO DG, and what we (accurately) state is the majority consensus: a lab leak is possible but unlikely, and requires further investigation. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:14, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Also, I don't think this is saying that Fauci (as well as the govt medical experts from other countries that have expressed doubt with the WHO report) are stating that that it must be a lab leak of an engineered virus (the conspiracy theory). What I read from this Reuters story is that they do think there's more involvment of WIV to the initial cases than the WHO report and China has suggested, but they do not specifically call out a lab leak as the route. I think it's important that somewhere we talk about the countries that have have expressed doubt at the WHO report, but that doesnt give any weight to the dismissal of the lab leak theory by leading MEDRS sources at this point. --Masem (t) 13:36, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Exactly. There's a big difference between possibility, and likelihood. There's pretty significant agreement between everyone that the lab leak is possible. It hasn't yet been ruled out. The problem is conflating "it hasn't been ruled out" with "is more likely than any other explanation". This is essentially the difference between the opinions of Fauci and Redfield. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:43, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

If the majority consensus is "a lab leak is possible but unlikely, and requires further investigation", then explain to me why is COVID-19_lab_leak_hypothesis redirects to a "Misinformation" page?

The fact that 3 individuals at the WIV were ill with symptoms consistent with COVID and seasonal illnesses is hardly a smoking gun, and so I don't think that the wording should change for now, per WP:NOTNEWS. That said, we shouldn't kneejerk discount the lab leak claims should more definitive evidence emerge, but that has yet to materialise. Hemiauchenia (talk) 09:27, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

• • And I guess Science now allows peer-reviewed publication of "conspiracy theories" by David Relman Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable [1] 2601:602:9200:1310:1C00:1701:D1FF:B995 (talk) 09:33, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
    • That's a letter. Alexbrn (talk) 10:12, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
      • Letter to the editor, peer reviewed scientific paper, who cares, as long as it supports my favorite conspiracy theory! The TRUTH is out there!! --Guy Macon (talk) 12:43, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
        • Guy Macon WP:NPA applies to you as well. I have no time for the conspiracy that it's intentional, nor do I personally believe it originated in a lab. I happen to think that there's enough coverage to warrant mentioning. Jeppiz (talk) 13:58, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
          • There is sero evidence that I was talking about any Wikipedia editor as opposed to making a general statement. The phrase "Letter to the editor, peer reviewed scientific paper, who cares, as long as it supports my favorite conspiracy theory!" clearly refers to those who believe in conspiracy theories. I have a lot of evidence that such people exist elsewhere on the Internet, but of course no Wikipedia editor has ever believed any conspiracy theory. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to clear that up. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:01, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
          • @Jeppiz: We seem to be mostly in agreement. It is worth mentioning. That's why I've made sure it gets reasonable mentions where it's WP:DUE. However, [this reverted edit] doesn't appear to be due. There's a reason we don't spend much time discussing the details of the zoonotic event on the already incredibly long COVID-19 article, and a reason why we have the entire Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 article. Please don't jump to conclusions about these edits, and focus instead on where particular info is DUE or UNDUE. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:26, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
            • @Bakkster Man:, thanks. You're right my edit that you link to may have been too strongly worded. It was a bit provoked by the less-than-optimal revert reason ("crappy sourcing") but I should have been a bit more nuanced myself. I agree WP:DUE is relevant when discussing this hypothesis and it shouldn't be given too much coverage, no argument there. Jeppiz (talk) 14:35, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
              • @Jeppiz: The "crappy sources" comment, while brusque, was actually probably correct. I'll point out that the original revert comment citing WP:PROFRINGE was probably more appropriate, and the revert afterward returning the content cited the politically-slanted (aka, potential crappy source) National Review.

So why so snippy? Probably because this kind of WP:PROFRINGE stuff (often, but not always, from WP:SPAs) has been so prevalent that maintainers are worn down. But it's all part of the process, we always get better. Next time, let's move it to the talk page and hash it out there civilly first, so the longer term maintainers can help newer editors understand why bits of the article are the way they are, and those with good ideas can present them in a way that can move consensus towards a better article. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:10, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

It would seem relevant to note that this hypothesis is much better sourced than just the article in WSJ. First and foremost, an article in Science makes the same claim and Science is about as reliable a source as we can get. According to Sydney Morning Hetald this hypothesis is increasingly seen as possible . In addition, Anthony Fauci stated yesterday that this is a possibility Fox. Nothing in this justifie claiming that Covid did originate in a lab, but I see no justification in keeping it out. Experts are quite clearly not sure it can be excluded - so what makes some WP editors so sure they know better than Fauci, the editors of Science and other experts? Jeppiz (talk) 09:46, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Re "an article in Science makes the same claim and Science is about as reliable a source as we can get" that's a letter to the editor, not a peer reviewed article. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:43, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Guy Macon: A Letter in Science indeed is a peer-reviewed article. See their submission guideline. --Luminoxius (talk) 00:30, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

No, a letter is not the same as a peer-reviewed article. Even the specific guidelines you've linked from this journal say that letters "may be reviewed" [emphasis added]. And a letter - an opinion piece - is not the same as an article. ElKevbo (talk) 01:22, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Wrong. The Science Peer-Reviewed Research Manuscript category includes Research Articles, Reports, and Reviews, but does not include Perspectives, Book/Media Reviews, Policy Forum posts, or letters, all of which are in the Commentary category and not in the Peer-Reviewed Research Manuscripts category.

From the page you cited:

"Commentary material [includes letters] may peer reviewed at the Editors' discretion... Letters (up to 300 words) discuss material published in Science in the last 3 months or issues of general interest. Letters may be reviewed. The author of a paper in question is usually given an opportunity to reply... Letter writers are not always consulted before publication. Letters are subject to editing for clarity and space."

So not only are Science letters not necessarily peer reviewed, they may be edited and thus are not always the exact words of the letter writer. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:30, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

You are right. I should've read more carefully! --Luminoxius (talk) 03:37, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't think any Wikipedia editor has said the idea can be "excluded", and if they did that could be safely ignored since for NPOV we follow what good sources say, not what editors think. If we just reflect what respected, on-point, peer-reviewed, scholarly, secondary sources say we will be good - while taking care not to get sidetracked by journalistic title-tattle and other lesser sources. Alexbrn (talk) 09:57, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Well, Hemiauchenia felt entitled to overrule Dr Fauci's cautious position by deleting with the claim "Not true" and referring to Science as "crappy sourcing". That's a rather problematic case of a WP user deciding they know more than the experts. A month ago I would have agreed as the lab leak hypothesis was roundly rejected by experts then. During May, that has changed and leading experts see it as a possibility (nobody is seriously claiming it's been proven). Again, multiple reliable sources reported this development, yet a handful of WP users appear to have assumed that they know better. It is rather concerning. Jeppiz (talk) 11:05, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Well, you'd have misread the sources last month and you're misreading the sources now. The situation has not swung from "excluded" to "included" but has remained at a steady position of being a remote possibility. What seems to have changed is the kind of media coverage and levels of political agitprop (there's some news guy in the USA who's been promoting this I believe?). The actual evidence has not changed; neither have the WP:BESTSOURCES. Wikipedia shouldn't be blown around by the mood in low-quality sources when serious ones are holding firm. Alexbrn (talk) 11:15, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

With all due respect, claiming that Science, Wall Street Journal and Sydney Morning Herald are "low-quality sources" is exactly the kind of problem I'm talking about here. It's really time for you to stop putting yourself up as the expert who decides on this (WP:OWN very much applies). Our task here is to report what reliable sources say. Again, nobody has suggested claiming that Covid did originate in a lab, merely that we stop censoring any mention of the hypothesis that it might have done. Jeppiz (talk) 12:02, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

The Wall Street Journal and Sydney Morning Herald are poor sources for scientific claims. The popular press has a terrible record on accurately reporting scientific topics, and in this case, there's the additional geopolitical factor to consider (American and Australian attitudes towards China in general). If ever there were a subject that cried out for only using the highest-quality sources, it's the lab leak conspiracy theory. We should be sticking to what high-quality WP:MEDRS sources say. If MEDRS sources change, then our coverage will naturally change, but citing MEDPOP sources that contradict MEDRS sources is unacceptable. -Thucydides411 (talk) 12:28, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Just as an aside, there isn't currently no consensus on whether the lab leak hypothesis constitutes a "conspiracy theory" or whether it is a "minority, but scientific viewpoint". Consensus, obviously, can change in light of new coverage of the topic in reliable sources, but I don't think that the lab leak hypothesis has become less accepted since the time of that RfC. On another note, I agree that we should evaluate this in line with WP:SCHOLARSHIP and that we should strive to use the highest-quality sources available to describe a given topic. News reports that contradict peer-reviewed journal articles should not be given undue weight relating to those facts.— Mikehawk10 (talk) 15:43, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Jeppiz, you are either not paying attention or abjectly lying. No one has said that Science is a "low-quality source," they've said that a letter to the editor is a low-quality source. The fact it was published in Science is irrelevant, it's just a letter and that makes it no more reliable than a blog post. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:28, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

About this letter in Science. It bemoans that the two theories were not given balanced consideration. Only 4 of the 313 pages of the report and its annexes addressed the possibility of a laboratory accident. Why exactly would they be given more "balanced" consideration? To my understanding, analyses over the past year such as this one have generally indicated that zoonotic origin is what the evidence is pointing to and that a lab leak or bioweapon origin is just a hypothesis without current evidence. Now, more investigation would be nice. The WHO did say this was a possible thing that happened. But I don't think they're in the business of chasing fairies, bluntly put. If previous analyses indicated it was highly unlikely, and their investigation indicated that too, they're bound to dedicate more resources to investigating the more likely. I would also like to point out that while a lab leak (as perhaps an intermediary between a zoonotic origin and an outbreak, if I worded that correctly) and a bioweapon origin (the pet conspiracy theory of some) are different, the distinction is not totally clear to much of the public and some advocates of the latter conspiracy theory seem to be promoting the former so they can get a boost for the bioweapon idea.

Anyhow, this is all to say: I think this letter in Science, aside from not being an actual scientific paper, fundamentally has misread the situation. Previous scientific analyses are to my understanding why the WHO has given one theory more weight. --Chillabit (talk) 23:18, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

• This Reuters article is unreliable for medical claims. Doesn't meet WP:MEDRS standards. It's just more circumstantial evidence. The WSJ used as their source a U.S. government intelligence report. The U.S. government has a history of lying about COVID-19 issues (Trump and Pompeo in particular, but at this point I don't trust the U.S. government at all on this issue). Interestingly, Fauci has been more open to the lab leak idea lately. But even with Fauci changing his mind, him making unofficial statements and giving his personal opinion is not MEDRS. I think that sticking to MEDRS has been great for keeping conspiracy theories out of the encyclopedia, and I would not be comfortable speaking more positively about the lab leak idea in Wikivoice until we get a review article from a MEDLINE-indexed journal that speaks about it credibly. So far, no such article exists that I am aware of. Of course, this issue is complicated because this is a case of there being a massive disagreement between what medical journals are saying, and what WP:NEWSORGS are saying. But I feel that we should stick to MEDRS to the letter here. MEDRS is our best and most accurate way to evaluate scientific consensus, and I trust scientists way more than non-scientists on this highly-politicized issue that has government manipulation fingerprints all over it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:02, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
• To mirror the above simply: it may be a reliable source that several people from a particular workplace were hospitalized at a particular time, but the source does not link this illness to COVID-19 and therefor is almost certainly inappropriate WP:SYNTH to include in the locations people want to include it. I'll also note, the WSJ is citing an intelligence report, which those most skeptical of the Joint WHO-China study's findings should take with an equally large grain of salt. Best to independently verify such an illness, as the source the WSJ reported on could itself be WP:DISINFO. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:14, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

It's not even a reliable source for that. Anonymous intelligence sources making vague claims are not reliable sources. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:44, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

• First of all: this is not a biomedical claim per WP:BMI and therefore WP:MEDRS should not be required to source such a statement (otherwise we would need a review to publish anything on this subject). In this case we just need reliable sources per WP:RS. Secondly: it is important to distinguish the conspiracy theory that the virus was created purposefully in a laboratory from the very realistic and plausible theory that the virus is of natural origin but accidentally escaped from a lab that was studying it. This second theory is a possible origin for the virus and is being investigated by the WHO as a possible origin for the virus [2] The WHO considers this a possible although "extremely unlikely" origin for the pandemic (this would also be a WP:MEDRS source by the way). Also, this estimation has been heavily criticised in this recently published letter on science which states: [3] As scientists with relevant expertise, we agree with the WHO director-general (5), the United States and 13 other countries (6), and the European Union (7) that greater clarity about the origins of this pandemic is necessary and feasible to achieve. We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data. The mentioned sources are accusing the WHO of not investigating sufficiently the accidental lab leak hypothesis and believe China is not being sufficiently transparent. Therefore: the accidental lab leak hypothesis is scientifically sound and considered possible by the WHO, the scientific community and several major world governments. There is substantial consensus that it should be thoroughly investigated further and may very well be the origin of the pandemic (which is currently unknown). Wikipedia's articles should reflect this consensus. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 13:24, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

@Gtoffoletto: I've been aiming to make sure that the relevant articles do reflect that the scientific theory gets its due credibility (particularly, that it is possible, albeit unlikely) on the pages it's WP:DUE. Where do you think this isn't done?

More to the point, you've indicated a lot of significantly better sources directly related to the topic. Why do you think this source, which comes from an intel agency and doesn't directly reference COVID, is a more WP:RS than those others? That's the questions here, not whether the lab leak happened or not, just what sources are reliable regarding the topic. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:34, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: I think it isn't clear exactly what claim that source is being attached to. It is a WP:RS however. If we want to use it to claim that Three researchers from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) sought hospital care in November 2019, a month before China reported the first cases of COVID-19, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing a U.S. intelligence report. this is appropriate. Only where such detail would be WP:DUE obviously. I think we should add the overall assessment about the virus origin to the COVID-19 consensus notice to avoid such discussions repeating forever: the virus that causes COVID-19 is believed to have zoonotic origins. How the virus was first transmitted to humans (spillover) is currently unknown. Accidental lab release is one of the possible hypotheses being investigated. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 14:32, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

@Gtoffoletto: The original post here referred specifically to whether it's a reliable source for the purposes of changing the above articles to give more credence to the lab leak theory. So far I haven't seen anyone present them accurately for this purpose either: "WSJ shared information from a US intelligence report that researchers were hospitalized in November" is reliable sourcing (questions of DUE depending on the location), but "the lab leak hypothesis is increasingly compelling" is not reliable sourcing (let alone DUE or NPOV).

I agree that consensus would be good, but where that discussion starts and whether we reach an actual consensus seems less certain to me. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:54, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: In that sense I think no, this source does not add anything as we have better sources. We can source the accidental lab leak using the better sources that exist (WHO, Science, etc.). We should use those. But this discussion has derailed at this point. I think it would be helpful to collect some consensus into the COVID-19 consensus notice to avoid repeating discussions such as this one ad nauseam. We can wait the end of this discussion or maybe table it on the COVID-19 Wikiproject talk page? -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 18:12, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

@Gtoffoletto: Agreed, this discussion isn't going to change anything. Regarding an RfC, I'd participate but don't have high hopes. The previous RfC (on the misinfo page, which prob didn't help) didn't get anywhere, and we now have the WHO report and current status quo (zoonosis is mainstream, inadvertant leak is fringe, intentional release is conspiracy) that I can't imagine would change given an RfC that hasn't already been hashed out across multiple Talk pages. Maybe worth trying, in order to hope we could point to consensus for later conversations, I just doubt it. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:43, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

• Statements about China emanating from the US government (including Fauci) that are not supported by hard evidence are completely unreliable. Someone (I forget who) said that in war the first casualty is truth. That's also true of cold wars, such as currently between the US and China, with both political parties in the US competing to establish their anti-China bona fides. China similarly circulates conspiracy theories about the US that are properly discounted on Wikipedia. Neither government is reliable for such matters. NightHeron (talk) 13:42, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
  • A bit beside the point, but I fear it would a rather strong false equivalence to claim that US officials, even non-politicale experts, should be treated as no more reliable than the Chinese government. I'm certainly not saying the US are always right, but there's a considerable difference between a democracy with a free press and a one-party dictatorship with state-censored media. Jeppiz (talk) 14:17, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

I see no historical basis for claiming that US officials are more reliable for extraordinary, politically charged accusations such as this than officials of any other country. See Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:49, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

When both major parties in the US unite in demonizing a rival government, normally the "independent" press largely falls in line, free press notwithstanding. In such cases one can often find reliable coverage in Western (such as Canadian or British) media, but rarely in the mainstream US media, no matter how reliable those US media sources are for other matters. NightHeron (talk) 16:07, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

• Unreliable for MEDRS claims, which this is. The point raised above about WP:SYNTH is also appropriate. And no, letters to the editor of Science are not the same as peer-reviewed journal articles published in Science, let alone review articles. XOR'easter (talk) 15:11, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - there's people here linking to WP:BMI as "proof" that this isn't a biomedical claim that requires MEDRS. Maybe we should quote the longstanding consensus text of that page here: Population data and epidemiology. If we include this information, we are by necessity implying that it's connected to COVID-19 - meaning we are implying a connection to the population data and epidemiology of the beginning of the pandemic. That's not allowed. If we don't make that connection, then it's not due weight to include in any of our articles about COVID-19 because it's not connected in any way (at least not that we can MEDRS). That's why this is a MEDRS issue - because if we assume it's not a MEDRS issue, then we cannot make any BMI claims with it, and then we arrive at a due weight issue that is impossible to repair, thus the only feasible way this content could be included is if it is MEDRS sourced and related to the epidemiology of the disease. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 16:13, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

"Some people caught a disease last year" isn't epidemiological data any more than the statements Based on remarks by Plutarch, Caesar is sometimes thought to have suffered from epilepsy. [4], or In October 2017 the deadliest outbreak of the plague in modern times hit Madagascar, killing 170 people and infecting thousands. [5], the latter is sourced to the Wall Street Journal. The statement On 7 July 2020, Bolsonaro said that he had tested positive for COVID-19. [6] is sourced to CNN. Geogene (talk) 16:44, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Until we have a MEDRS source that these people were actually sick with COVID-19 (let alone that they were exposed due to an escape of lab-culture viruses), then it doesn't matter how strong the source is for claims that three people went to the hospital. It doesn't belong on the COVID articles without a better source indicating the link (that would be WP:SYNTH and WP:PROFRINGE). Bakkster Man (talk) 17:04, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

There are SYNTH, WEIGHT, and overall source quality issues with it, and that's sufficient without trying to misapply MEDRS as a cudgel. Geogene (talk) 17:13, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

For the sake of playing out the hypothetical, what kind of situation would you envision where such a claim could be sourced without MEDRS while discussing the origin of the outbreak? Because on the one hand, I agree that for the purpose of identifying early cases (generally confirmed via PCR test) we have appropriately used general purpose (non-MEDRS) sources. It's the use for "see, the virus did leak from the WIV" claims that I feel should be held to the higher MEDRS standard. Because then it's no longer just a historical retelling of the pandemic (not MEDRS), it's a specific claim about the epidemiological source of the outbreak (MEDRS). But I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:29, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Agree with Geogene. This isn't BMI. The origin of the pandemic will not be discovered through "science" at this point. If it was accidentally released from a lab we would find out through a newspaper/authority investigation more likely. Not though published reviews in medical journals. This is an historical event at this point. Not a medical event. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 17:48, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Gtoffoletto, um, what? No. You have that backwards - the origin hasn't been determined through science yet, but it will be determined through science, and after it is determined through science it will then within a couple years be historical. To say that a pandemic that is still ongoing is a "historical event" is laughable, at best. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 17:51, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

It's been the PR:PROFRINGE POV-pushers gambit of late, certainly. I recall some (now banned?) editor pushing the view that COVID-19 was rampant in California in 2019 as sourcable by anything because it was "history"! Alexbrn (talk) 17:57, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

@Berchanhimez: If the spillover event happened in a lab you will need an investigation. Not peer-reviewed papers. You'll probably discover it by interrogating people and examining (obfuscated) records at this point. The history of the pandemic is not WP:BMI. How the virus originated has no impact on human health. The virus exists no matter how it originated and its impacts on human health are unchanged. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 18:05, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Gtoffoletto, BMI is not limited to things that have some "direct impact on human health". And yes, investigations into the origin of a disease (when ongoing and not cemented) do have a direct impact - if a lab leak is discovered or believed, it is going to lead to changes/re-certifications/updates in medical and laboratory practices around the world. So even that argument falls flat. But no, something that isn't fully decided yet is not "historical" by any means. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 18:07, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

@Gtoffoletto:, I have to tell you, this is a favorite gambit for the conspiracy-friendly in my experience. Push the goal posts so that even if a credible investigation is done and clears the Wuhan lab, some can continue to say "Well China just destroyed the evidence!" That's why I would tell you instead, that any useful or credibly investigation would state its goals ahead of time, and what evidence it would find convincing in either direction. And it would also include sampling in the wild, to actually find progenitor viruses. If we eventually develop a fully fleshed out parsimonious phylogeny that connects known bat viruses to SARS-CoV-2, that will be enough to settle the science and the consensus will show through. That will be published in a scientific journal. But it probably won't be enough for politicians and POV-pushers. We've seen this game before in the story of evolution v. intelligent design. For some people, there will likely never be enough evidence. Doesn't mean that the dust won't eventually settle for 99% of society, though. The truth will likely be published in an evolutionary virology journal, which details the exact path of viral evolution that led to this spillover. It's how it happened with Ebola, it's how it happened with SARS. It will likely be the same for SARS-CoV-2.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:14, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Quoting from WP:BMI: Biomedical information is information that relates to (or could reasonably be perceived as relating to) human health.. The whole point of WP:MEDRS is to raise the standard for sourcing of BMI to ensure we don't use single papers but reviews and avoid inaccurate information that might be dangerous for human health. Are you saying that if a peer reviewed article was published on Science tomorrow with conclusive evidence of the origin of the virus it would not be sufficient for inclusion on Wikipedia as it is not a systematic review? That's what WP:MEDRS says. There is no direct risk for human health here if the virus is a bioweapon as the conspiracies say or if the virus was caught by someone eating a pangolin. WP:RS and WP:BESTSOURCE are sufficient. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 18:22, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

MEDRS does not preclude the use of non-review articles for medical topics, it simply establishes a hierarchy of evidence, like we have for all other RS. Especially when primary articles are secondarily reviewing content such as in introductions and discussions. It's a lot muddier than you're making it sound. MEDRS also, by the way, includes position statements from national or international expert bodies, which almost certainly would follow any such publication, and be the best possible source to establish the consensus of scientists on scientific questions. You go with the RSes you have, until you have better. Regarding the specific nature of the viral origin (sequence similarity to a sample found in a lab, biochemical aspects of the viral spike protein, contact tracing, identifying similar viruses in an animal, etc. basically all of epidemiology and epidemiological investigations), clearly the best source would be secondary comments published in scientific journals, which occur at the same time as primary source publication. Example: New finding. Comment on that finding. Secondary commentary and follow-up reviews in scientific journals make sense for these questions, because they are questions of science. And the reviews/position statements that follow shortly thereafter would trump both. You also say There is no direct risk for human health here, and that may be true. But the direct in that sentence is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting. There are a number of studies directly linking these conspiracy theories to vaccine distrust and overall devaluation of experts, which both result in demonstrable negative health outcomes. What we say matters in things like this. Using the highest quality RS, and for questions of science, MEDRS, makes sense.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 19:12, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

@Gtoffoletto: While reasonable minds might differ, given the prevalence of conspiracy and misinformation around the topic, I think this can reasonably be perceived as relating to human health. From the American Academy of Family Physicians: Many members of the public, including HCWs, have been exposed to conspiracy theories (especially on social media) such as the claims that novel coronavirus was intentionally created by the government or that health organizations have exaggerated COVID-19’s lethality for pharmaceutical and political gain. Such misinformation calls into question authorities’ integrity and undermines efforts to increase COVID-19 vaccine uptake.[7] At least in an instance where MEDRS sources are at odds with news media sources, this seems reasonable to prefer the MEDRS. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:07, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

{re|Bakkster Man}}@Shibbolethink: I agree with both. Of course we should always strive for the WP:BESTSOURCE available. This is an example. We already have the WHO (which is WP:MEDRS) and a letter to Science (which while not peer-reviewed is a pretty good source) stating that the accidental lab leak hypothesis is possible (the WHO specifically thinks it is "possible but extremely unlikely"). We don't need lesser sources (such as this one). We already have pretty strong and solid scientific consensus. However my point is: I wouldn't stretch WP:MEDRS to cover such a topic. It is unnecessary and a bad precedent. We just need good WP:RS (as always) and should just pick the best ones available of course. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 19:21, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Geogene, "some people caught a disease last year" isn't due weight for any article on Wikipedia. Period. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 17:36, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

• This remains a simple question of truth versus WP:V. The WP:V answer is that it was not a lab leak, for reasons explained here. Logic and reason say that it was a lab leak, for reasons explained here. By adopting the policies that we have chosen to adopt, we are putting false info into our articles. That's on us. Adoring nanny (talk) 17:46, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

  We operate on scientific consensus for WP:V - which is why the answer is it was not a lab leak. Regardless of the flimsy science with many holes that you believe (and a few scientists believe), the vast majority of scientists agree that it isn't likely to be a lab leak. It's not "logic and reason" - it's "flimsy logic, and logical fallacies". But yes, it is Wikipedia's policy that Verifiability over "truth" - and it's not appropriate to use individual discussions about application of those policies to attempt to change them just because you think it's "false info" (hint: it's not). -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 17:50, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

  Indeed. We don't get to throw out bedrock policies whenever we feel like it. Invoking "logic and reason" like this is no better than "wake up sheeple!". XOR'easter (talk) 18:50, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

I have, never once, in my entire life, ever seen an argument of the form "logic and reason say X" in which the actual logic and reason to which the arguer is referring isn't just complete and total crap, hence why they insist upon making such generic pronouncements as "logic and reason say X". And yes, that includes literally every time Ben Shapiro has used the phrase. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:08, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

• I have no opinion about specific changes on the page, but the source per se (and other sources that say the same, i.e. CNN, etc.) are strong RS. Whatever they say about it should be included per WP:NPOV. This is NOT a medical claim and not a scientific claim. This is merely a question if a lab worked with the certain bats or certain zoonotic virus during certain period of time. WP:MEDRS is irrelevant. Let's not forget the spirit and the meaning of WP:MEDRS. What if someone is using our articles as a medical advice, will be misinformed and will damage his health. But whatever had happen in the lab has no any practical health implications whatsoever. People should vaccinate just the same, etc. This is merely a political controversy. My very best wishes (talk) 19:35, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

  My very best wishes, claims about the origin of a disease are considered biomedical information per the explanatory WP:BMI that has consensus. Epidemiological information for active or recent epidemics is certainly MEDRS required. MEDRS isn't about individuals necessarily reading, but it's about presenting the best possible information about medically relevant topics. It's not historical yet by any means. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 19:47, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

• According to WP:MEDRS WP:BMI (What is biomedical information?), it does include "Population data and epidemiology", i.e. (explanation) "Number of people who have a condition, mortality rates, transmission rates, rates of diagnosis (or misdiagnosis), etc." Yes, this is certainly a biomedical information, no questions. It also tells "What is not biomedical information?", and in that part it includes such things as "Beliefs", "History", "Society", etc. As it stands right now, the "lab origin hypothesis" does not belong to science (including epidemiology). This is just a claim by spies, an urban legend, personal beliefs, a hypothetical possibility, etc. This is not biomedical information, and it has no implication on epidemiology (mortality rates, transmission rates). Speaking, on the origin of disease (also a biomedical information), this is a zoonotic disease. If it was studied in a lab does not affect this conclusion at all. My very best wishes (talk) 20:05, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

  You may have meant to link to WP:BMI, as you are quoting extensively from it. It's hard to tell, but it seems you might be arguing that studying the origin and transmission of a disease is not the purview of epidemiology. It is. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 20:37, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

  Exactly. In addition, WP:BMI is an explanatory supplement that hasn't necessarily had every single turn of phrase exhaustively vetted (though its advice is generally sensible). XOR'easter (talk) 21:11, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

• No, I just said (see above): "Speaking, on the origin of disease (also a biomedical information), this is a zoonotic disease. If it was studied in a lab does not affect this conculsion at all.". So whatever was published in the scientific literature on the origin of the virus can be used for sourcing scientific aspects of this. But whatever was published in WSJ or CNN on political aspect of the contoversy (this is neither science nor medicine) can be use for covering the political aspects (and such aspects are defined as "What is not biomedical information?" in WP:BMI). My very best wishes (talk) 16:43, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

@My very best wishes: This is merely a question if a lab worked with the certain bats or certain zoonotic virus during certain period of time. This is the issue, the actual source (that is, the US Intelligence report) doesn't seem to state anything about COVID-19, making the connection WP:SYNTH. Even if the source is reliable, it can't be used if the topic is UNDUE or attempting to SYNTH a connection the source doesn't make.

What if someone is using our articles as a medical advice, will be misinformed and will damage his health. But whatever had happen in the lab has no any practical health implications whatsoever. People should vaccinate just the same, etc. Given that one of the conspiracy theories regards intentional engineering and release of the virus in order to sell vaccines (including variants where the vaccine is more nefarious than just profiteering), we should be careful not to dismiss the potential harm here. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:53, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

• I agree with My very best wishes here. If I'm not mistaken the reason why we have strict MEDRS policy is the concern that readers may decide to use medical information they read on Wikipedia to make medical choices for themselves that could result in harm. Misinformation claiming a number of harmful, mercury related, effects of thiomersal might lead some readers to decide to avoid vaccines that use thiomersal as a preservative. However, in a case like the lab leak conspiracy, I'm having trouble seeing how readers would be harmed if we said, 100% true, 100% false or anywhere in between. Certainly scholarly works and opinions of experts (with attribution) are our best sources in a case like this but I don't see how the stated (and very sound) reason for having a MEDRS standard vs our standard RS policies apply in this case. Springee (talk) 20:34, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

The potential harm that Bakkster Man outlined seems entirely plausible to me. XOR'easter (talk) 21:01, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

That people might think this was a scam to raise money? In that case should we apply the same standard to any article about finance and investing? I mean there is a possibility that someone will consult Wikipedia for the beam stiffness equation, get it wrong and over estimate the strength of a bridge they are designing for personal use. I think that example crosses out of the legitimate concern over bad medical information in our articles. That is far different than if our article on poison ivy were to suggest concentrated bleach is an effective itch relief. Springee (talk) 21:10, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

I'd say that we do, in fact, have elevated standards that come into play regarding finance and investing, like stringent notability rules that apply to financial organizations and general sanctions regarding cryptocurrencies, largely because the hazards of Wikipedia promoting a scam would be high. But, more to the point, conspiracy theories about medicine erode trust in medical expertise, which leads to people making bad health decisions. (Why get a vaccine if you think the disease is caused by 5G radio emissions?) MEDRS is about playing it safe, and I don't see a reason to be less cautious with one aspect of epidemiology than another. XOR'easter (talk) 21:22, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

• I've been following closely the information on the origin of SARS-CoV-2 on Wikipedia since March 2020, and the switch in editors' reaction on US Intelligence information is incredible. I remember vividly that last year US Intelligence was disregarded as unreliable, and many editors called out their reports as a "push to cover their own failures". It was unreliable when Trump was in power, what has changed since then? Are we, as wikipedia editors, changing our degree of confidence of sources based on whether we like the politics of the person in charge? It seems like, if Trump runs office, we don't trust US Intelligence. If Tedros is in office we trust WHO no matter what. If Biden gets in office, we suddenly trust US Intelligence again, and if tomorrow Redfield gets appointed as head of the WHO, we will begin to find them unreliable. I feel we need to be more honest about our own biases when discussing sources. For example, the abrupt closing of this discussion about WHO's credibility was a clear sign of editors judging sources by their personal compass, instead of what is an objective objection raised by reliable sources. Forich (talk) 20:42, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

  Forich, I agree - but I'll note that I've always said we should wait for scientific consensus statements, not political intelligence statements. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 21:06, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

  Who's trusting US intelligence? To quote the WSJ story: Current and former officials familiar with the intelligence about the lab researchers expressed differing views about the strength of the supporting evidence for the assessment. One person said that it was provided by an international partner and was potentially significant but still in need of further investigation and additional corroboration. With the provenance of this "intel" up in the air, questions about the relative trustworthiness or lack thereof between administrations seem beside the point. XOR'easter (talk) 21:11, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

  @XOR'easter:, let me break it down with an analogy: US Intelligence says in 2020: The sky is blue -> most WP editors dismiss the information as a push from Trump to cover his failures. Then, US Intelligence says in 2021: The sky is blue -> WP editors accept the quote as representative of what the US Intelligence believes, and proceeds to discuss whether the sky is indeed blue. This means that we discontinued our distrust on the source, without any change in the written guidelines on the RS Noticeboard, which suggest we had hidden considerations in the first place. Either admit editors were wrong in 2020 distrusting US Intelligence outright, or concede that we should continue to distrust US Intelligence, so that their new report should be invalid even for the claim that 3 people were found sick. Forich (talk) 03:32, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

• Reliable, but only for what the source is actually saying: that according to a US intelligence report some people in Wuhan had covid-like symptoms. Since the source mentions it in the context of the covid epidemic, it's not an improper synthesis and can be mentioned in the relevant articles. However it needs to be given due weight, considering that anonymous US intelligence reports turned out to be wrong more than once in the last few years. (The part in cursive has been added later to the response) Alaexis_¿question? 20:55, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

It's not reliable for that claim. It's only reliable for the claim that anonymous US officials claim that they have intelligence suggesting that WIV researchers went to the hospital. Whether those officials actually have that intelligence, what the intelligence might actually be, whether this is disinformation, etc. is completely unknown. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:07, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Exactly this. We can't even say "covid-like symptoms" - we could at most say that they had non-specific symptoms that could've been COVID but just as likely have been some other seasonal illness such as influenza. And we don't even have access to the primary source used to verify if even that's okay! -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 21:08, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

We don't know if any element of the officials' claims is true. Unsubstantiated claims by anonymous officials have a poor track record of turning out to be true. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:18, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

I think we're agreeing with each other here - the point of my last sentence is that this is source laundering at its best. We are taking what nobody would consider reliable for any reason (an anonymous report that three people were hospitalized) and treating it as potentially reliable just because reliable sources have repeated it. It shouldn't be used for anything at this point - but certainly not to suggest 3 people had COVID. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 21:20, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Thucydides411, that's a good point, I agree with it and I've edited my original response (see the cursive part). Alaexis_¿question? 05:35, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

• I think that part of the difficulty here is that it is important to understand why we have MEDRS. There is an excellent essay WP:WMEDRS and probably a few others. Biology is difficult. Medicine, especially human medicine, is at least an order of magnitude more difficult. But when you scale it up to the level of big-picture public health, which is where epidemiology belongs, the complexity increases even further. No one individual is really capable of properly synthesizing things at this level, intuition can be even worse than random guessing, even among experts. So for this sort of thing, you need to gather virologists, epidemiologists, public health administrators and policy/regulatory analysts, pulmonologists, emergency physicians, data analysts, and I know I'm leaving some people out.

  What does this mean and what is my point? Taking a few quotes from an interview, or a journalist's report, or even a letter from a few experts, is not very helpful. We need to be relying on systematic reviews and government agency reports. MEDRS says we need to do this, and I could just keep wikilawyering that point, but I'm trying to explain to non-specialist editors why this is so important, because those are the only sources that are going to be considering all of these angles together and synthesize them for us. Consider the parable of the five blind men and the elephant, that is the problem of relying on primary sources when no single source is really capable of seeing the entire elephant on its own. Hyperion35 (talk) 21:49, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

• reliable per Alaexis( somethings got to give, this should be ok...IMO)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:37, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
• Unreliable News Corp (the owners of WSJ) has continuously pushed unreliable content regarding China and COVID-19: [8] [9]. It is also important to note that in China, the hospital is used as primary care, and it is commonplace to go there for minor illnesses such as cold & flu. This fact is also mentioned in the WSJ article. Because of these two reasons, I would say the WP:SYNTH that WSJ claims that the hospitalizations have links to COVID is not reliable and should not be used. Jumpytoo Talk 23:28, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
  • The WSJ article is commenting on the report from the US [10] and not directly on the China situation. It is improper to question the WSJ on reliability in this specific area related to US politics, but we do have to recognize that the statements made by the report or the people the WSJ spoke to related to the virus outbreak should clearly not be treated as MEDRS to alter the perception of the lab leak story. --Masem (t) 23:49, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
  • The WSJ is one of the most highly-regarded newspapers in the world and has won 37 Pulitzer prizes as of 2019. Its editorial board is independent from that of other News Corp Publications, and we allow for different levels of reliability for different sources published by the same corporation. The question of general reliability (which this response points towards) is whether a source has a reputation for editorial independence, strong fact checking, and accuracy in reporting. The WSJ cearly does. The question of whether or not it has specific issues with general reliability as it pertains to COVID-19 would need to point to evidence that it lacks editorial independence, strong fact checking, or accuracy in reporting. I don't see evidence of that here. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 05:53, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable as a news source (not a MEDRS), unusable due to other issues in this specific context The real problem isn't that WSJ isn't reliable or biased in matters regarding US politics or whatever. Even if we ignore everything about MEDRS, the issue is that the only thing the WSJ has which could be usable basically boils down to "based on a US intelligence report (with many question marks about said report attached), some people in Wuhan were sick with some undetermined illness in late 2019". Placing this in any article about COVID would be misrepresenting the source (unless we spent a couple sentences explaining the many issues with the alleged intelligence report, which would be UNDUE and quite frankly NOTNEWS-level of excessive) and would lead the readers to make the improper synthesis that the sickness was COVID (a claim not supported by the source). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:59, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
• For those who might have a distaste for Science publications, here is what they have on letters: Letters (up to 300 words) discuss material published in Science in the last 3 months or issues of general interest. Letters should be submitted through our Manuscript Submission and Information Portal (https://cts.sciencemag.org). Letters may be reviewed. The author of a paper in question is usually given an opportunity to reply. Letter submissions are acknowledged upon receipt by Science’s automatic system, but letter writers are not always consulted before publication. Letters are subject to editing for clarity and space. Letters rejected for print publication may be posted as eLetters. And considering the controversial nature of the topic, I am sure the 13-author letter was not peer reviewed before publication into Science. Seems like some wikiactivists think they have more expertise than editors there. 205.175.106.86 (talk) 00:11, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

  We're not discussing the Science letter. "May be reviewed" does not mean "was reviewed" and certainly does not imply peer-review. Re. "activists": let's not even get started about the Twitter activists who've found their way over here, shall we? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:22, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

• Comment seems like a lot of the "unreliable" commenters here are ignoring the current status quo: "the laboratory has been the focus of conspiracy theories and unfounded speculation about the origin of the virus" and "unfounded speculation and conspiracy theories related to the possibility the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology". Meanwhile, US intelligence, Fauci, and a few tenured professors argue for investigations into the "unfounded speculation". The current versions do not allude at all that "mainstream" entities/individuals think that the "conspiracy theories and unfounded speculations" should be investigated further, and instead, imply a close and shut case. Very wp:NPOV. 205.175.106.86 (talk) 02:13, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

  Arguing for further investigations does not change what MEDRS say, which is that current evidence does not support the lab leak. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:30, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

  Good point. Asking a scientist whether there should be further investigations is a lot like asking a realtor whether this is a good time to buy a house. The answer is always "yes, please spend lots of money on this, preferably into my pocket". --Guy Macon (talk) 03:19, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

• Comment — I'd like to note that this incident about researchers at this lab falling ill actually isn't terribly hot-off-the-presses new information. Here is brief March 2021 report in NBC News where Marion Koopmans (part of the WHO team) alludes to such a thing, but also says evidence does not indicate a lab leak (among other things said). The main distinction I notice is that the WSJ says three researchers were ill and Koopmans says "one or two". I think this is probably pertinent to the discussion. At the very least, the amount of people fallen ill appears to be in dispute; even in this NBC report you have the State Department seemingly (?) disagreeing and their language implies they place the number a bit higher than Koopmans' estimate. --Chillabit (talk) 03:05, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable for its news reporting on this issue. The WSJ is one of the world's most reputable news publications, and while it's not a WP:MEDRS, it's certainly reliable to source the claim that U.S. intelligence reports said X. It's not clear to me that origins of a particular virus actually fall under WP:MEDRS; this would lead to an odd situation where the origin of biological species that do not cause human disease (i.e. tobacco mosaic virus) would have different reliable sourcing requirements regarding its origins as a virus species than would E. Coli regarding its origins as a species of bacteria. The motivation for WP:MEDRS is described within the guideline, which says that Wikipedia's articles are not meant to provide medical advice. Nevertheless, they are widely used among those seeking health information. For this reason, all biomedical information must be based on reliable, third-party published secondary sources, and must accurately reflect current knowledge. In this framework, it doesn't seem to me that origin is itself biomedical information; it certainly intersects with biology, but origin itself doesn't appear to be related to human health per se. The study of the origin of E. Coli as a unique species, for example, doesn't describe any information pertaining to human health, whereas the symptoms of and treatments for infections of E. Coli. The same logic should apply to SARS-CoV-2; the biomedical information is the information that pertains to human health, not the information that pertains to the virus origin per se. It's certainly better to use peer-reviewed journals and academic scholarship on the topic than secondary-source analyses published in reliable newspapers (and certainly more than primary-source pieces published in reliable newspapers), so weight should be reflected in a manner consistent with WP:SCHOLARSHIP. But, I don't think that applying WP:MEDRS here is warranted, as the origin of the disease itself doesn't appear to fall within that guideline's scope. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 05:53, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

  @Mikehawk10: I agree with you that the news report is a reliable source (for its content). The issue is that the information provided could not be included without either A) putting excessive weight on the report by also having to include all the doubts with it [along with explaining to our readers that there is absolutely no concrete evidence the illness in question was actually COVID] or B) being misleading to our readers by not explaining the doubts and leaving them with the false impression the illness was actually COVID [because the sentence would be in an article about COVID...]. Hence, as I said, "Reliable, but unusable due to other concerns". As for applying MEDRS, I'm going to shamelessly copy from myself (here) and say that the existing guidelines about using the best sources available (especially in topics where there is some controversy about a scientific topic) naturally lead to the use of WP:MEDRS (or at least, topic relevant academic literature: one wouldn't use a paper about engineering to source a random historical fact; neither should we use papers about (for ex.) cancer research to source claims about virology). Ignoring the fact that analysing a virus' genome, comparing it with existing ones, studying possible spillover events, ... is clearly something which requires scientific expertise. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:26, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

  @RandomCanadian: I'd agree that it would be odd to use the particular WSJ article as evidence in a discussion to move the lab leak hypothesis's classification, but the most recent RfC on this found no consensus on whether a lab leak was WP:FRINGE. I also don't think that WP:MEDRS are always the best potential sources here; if it were to emerge, through investigative reporting, that lab safety records had indicated a lab leak or that there were internal local government documents indicating a lab leak, I think it would be perfectly fine to use the reporting. Investigative reporting by news agencies obviously fail to meet the standards of WP:MEDRS. But, I do think that there could exist the sorts of situations where this distinction between it being a good practice to use medical journals and it being the only acceptable practice could manifest.

That being said, this WSJ piece does not provide any sort of detailed investigative reporting along those lines. I agree that we should use caution here, given that extent of the sourcing is a U.S. government report whose confidence is internally unclear. It's probably reliable for a statement that U.S. intelligence indicated that there were some hospitalizations of researchers at the lab with COVID-19-like symptoms in the month of November 2019 and for the statement that The Wuhan Institute hasn’t shared raw data, safety logs and lab records on its extensive work with coronaviruses in bats, which many consider the most likely source of the virus. I'd also note that there appears to be some recent reporting from The Washington Post on the timeline of the COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis that's different and more recent from what we have in our COVID-19 misinformation article. We probably want to review that section a little more in-depth to better reflect public reporting (especially in existing areas in the section that already rely heavily upon public reporting), though that's a topic for a different discussion altogether. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 15:33, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

• Despite the people insisting otherwise, the Wall Street Journal story does not actually grant any more credence to the "lab leak" conspiracy theory. There is not a single word in that article that does. Anyone attempting to use it as such is engaging in the sort of novel synthesis that we discourage at Wikipedia. This discussion is pointless because, while the WSJ is a perfectly reliable source, the story in question is entirely irrelevant as a source for the information people are proposing we use it for. --Jayron32 12:23, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

• This conversation is frustratingly out-of-date. First: It is far from novel synthesis to cite WSJ reporting on the lab leak theory. Consider this article, which is more recent and in-depth than the one currently under discussion. It reads, with emphasis added:

Extended quotes

"Now, unanswered questions about the miners’ illness, the viruses found at the site and the research done with them have elevated into the mainstream an idea once dismissed as a conspiracy theory: that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, might have leaked from a lab in Wuhan, the city where the first cases were found in December 2019. The lab researchers thus far haven’t provided full and prompt answers, and there have been discrepancies in some information they have released. That has led to demands by leading scientists for a deeper investigation into the Wuhan institute and whether the pandemic virus could have been in its labs and escaped. Even some senior public-health officials who consider that possibility improbable now back the idea of a fuller probe. They say a World Health Organization-led team had insufficient access in Wuhan earlier this year to reach its conclusion that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely.” Most of those calling for a fuller examination of the lab hypothesis say they aren’t backing it over the main alternative—that the virus spread from animals to humans outside a lab, in the kind of natural spillover that has become more frequent in recent decades. There isn’t yet enough evidence for either idea, they say, nor are the two incompatible. The virus could have been one of natural origin that was brought back to a laboratory in Wuhan—intentionally or accidentally—and escaped." and later: Last year, 27 scientists signed an open letter condemning “conspiracy theories” suggesting that Covid-19 didn’t have a natural origin. Now, three of them since contacted by the Journal say that on further reflection a laboratory accident is plausible enough to merit consideration. Others continue to deem it too unlikely to justify investigation.

Also note the Fauci and Gottlieb statements, as well as the letter from Science, which was signed by several leading virologists. Who, exactly, is engaged in synthesis here? Editors noting a clear, marked turn both in RS and among scientific experts, both of whom are beginning to allow that the lab-leak theory is indeed plausible enough to merit investigation? Or those clinging to the state of affairs circa Spring 2020, however unverifiable and out-of-date, and flinging every WP rule in the book at those seeking to introduce obviously relevant evidence? 67.245.37.188 (talk) 13:06, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

• This is a prime example of why we don't use WP:MEDPOP. "Elevated into the mainstream" is just plain wrong. Maybe in some newspapers and in the realm of political grandstanding. In scientific matters, quite clearly no. At least, I've done a thorough search through MEDRS sources and if anything the origin of the virus is unanimously considered to be zoonotic (with some details still requiring further investigation). See WP:NOLABLEAK for a sampling; and then you can also make a search at Pubmed to look for relevant papers (example query). Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:17, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
  • To add, keeping to even the reliable mainstream sources, all we can get out of this is not a new take on the lab leak theory, but only that some subset of scientists and politicians would like a second review of the research/study that was done to back the original WHO report that made the assessment that it was very much likely not a lab leak. Or more shortly, they're just saying these groups want a second opinion. That doesn't negate how WP should handle the WHO report per RS/MEDRS, simply how we wrap up the governmental and respect to the report. --Masem (t) 13:23, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

67.245's quotes above are evidence that the bullshit lab leak story exists. They, however, have little effect on changing the stance that it is bullshit. There is the key difference. There is an attempt to equate "a lot of people are commenting on a bullshit story" with "actually, it isn't bullshit". Nothing in any of their quotes has ANY clear conclusion on the second point. Noting that some people have been taken in by the bullshit is not, in itself, a refutation that it is bullshit. The WSJ knows this, which is why its reporting on this is not "There is evidence that the lab leak theory is true". Their reporting on this is "Some people believe that the lab leak theory is true". You can't use the second idea as proof of the first. THAT is novel synthesis. --Jayron32 14:21, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

• clinging to the state of affairs circa Spring 2020 is not what's happening. The lab leak hypothesis wasn't even mentioned on most of these pages beyond as a conspiracy theory until earlier this year. So the pages already reflect the shift in mainstream weight, these sources don't change that evaluation IMO. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:03, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

• Lends no more credence to the theory - There's actually a great deal of evidence that the WSJ story is based on rehashed and repackaged disinformation spread by third parties with no connection to Wuhan. Overall, there is very little *actual evidence* to back up the unsubstantiated claims. See this twitter thread and this surprisingly on point NY Post piece. Psaki is saying this is not a CIA report, or official intelligence. It's the inter-governmental equivalent of a rumor. I think until we have an RS quoting a primary source that has evidence of multiple covid-19-like illnesses in a reasonable proximity to the outbreak, it doesn't belong in any article except as a passing note in Investigations_into_the_origin_of_COVID-19. --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 13:24, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable per the Washington Post, the lab leak hypothesis is no longer a conspiracy theory or unfounded, it's now credible. [11] Geogene (talk) 18:09, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that article this morning. Among the highly reliable sources they cite are the Daily Mail, Mike Pompeo's Twitter feed, and random essays published on Medium. I cancelled my subscription an hour after reading it (not joking). Hyperion35 (talk) 19:19, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

None of which has any bearing on whether WaPo is a reliable source (it is). Why does the WP:MED clique even use noticeboards, when all you do here is argue and bludgeon everyone that disagrees with you? Geogene (talk) 20:04, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

• Comment media sources labeling this a conspiracy theory a year ago is adding editor's notes into those 1-year old articles Example: Editor’s note, May 24, 2021: Since this piece was originally published in March 2020, scientific consensus has shifted. Now some experts say the “lab leak” theory warrants an investigation, along with the natural origin theory. Some language in this article was updated in April 2020 to reflect scientific thinking, but it has not been updated since then. For our most up-to-date coverage, visit Vox’s coronavirus hub. Even wikiactivists' preferred biased news sources are telling said wikiactivists that it's ok to label this as something else than a "conspiracy theory". 2601:602:9200:1310:4065:8EBB:AD8:41E6 (talk) 18:15, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

• Reliable for there being a hypothesis. This isn't a medical claim, this possibility is given serious weight by news organizations. All these serious sources, however, just keep it as a possibility, and that's really all that can be said about this possibility at this time. Whether something came from a lab handling wild animals, a seafood market handling wild animals, or cave bats is not a medical claim affecting human health. Whereever this came from, it doesn't affect the medical diagnosis of those afflicted.--Hippeus (talk) 19:17, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

  Hippeus, affecting a diagnosis is not the only potential harm that can come from medical information. This is quite clearly covered under "epidemiology" of WP:BMI, an explanatory page that nobody has provided any reason for violating. As others have pointed out, vaccine uptake has been hampered by these conspiracy theories - which is clearly harmful. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 19:20, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

  User:Berchanhimez, to the contrary, read What_is_not_biomedical_information? where you link. The origin of this disease falls within histoy, legal, regulations, and ethics. It has absolutely nothing to do with the disease itself. It is not "Attributes of a disease or condition", "Attributes of a treatment or drug", "Medical decisions", "Health effects", "Population data and epidemiology", or "Biomedical research". Specifically "Population data and epidemiology" states: "Number of people who have a condition, mortality rates, transmission rates, rates of diagnosis (or misdiagnosis), etc.", it does not refer to historical data and specifically not pre-human history. The origins of COVID have nothing to do with treatment or diagnosis - treatment and prognosis are the same where ever this came from.--Hippeus (talk) 19:43, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

  Something can't be historical before it's even known. That's inane to suggest that current investigations are "historical" somehow. And again, BMI does not only cover things that affect "treatment and prognosis" directly. But even if you think it is, there are many people who have vaccine hesitancy or make other choices based on their belief as to the origin - so it clearly does affect those things. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 19:46, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

  Origin shouldn't affect the beliefs of people on treatment and vaccines, if people were rational. People aren't rational. However, What_is_not_biomedical_information? specifically excludes Beliefs, including "why people choose or reject a particular treatment". I personally would take a vaccine whether this came from Mars, a seafood market, a lab, or a bat cave. Other people maybe aren't so rational. But rationality of people isn't biomedical, beliefs aren't biomedical.--Hippeus (talk) 20:00, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

  But we aren't talking about beliefs, nor historical information. Something can't be historical when it isn't even known with certainty yet - nor when it's ongoing! You keep pointing at all of the "what it's not" things - but it's none of those. Every time I point out that you're wrong to say that it's "x" or "y" you move the goalposts to say "well it can still be z". The origin at this time is not historical information and is not exempt from MEDRS sourcing. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 20:22, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

  @Berchanhimez: "Something can't be historical when it isn't even known with certainty yet": AFAIK many unclear topics are considered historical, see en:Category:Historical controversies for instance."nor when it's ongoing!": the origin of the virus (or the origin of human infections) is clearly not an ongoing topic! Apokrif (talk) 21:38, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

• Reliable as journalistic reporting, not MEDRS two reliable sources from completely different ends of the ideological spectrum, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have reported on this (disclaimer: I subscribe to both.) The purpose of MEDRS is not to censor RS reporting on information related to medicine. The Post and Journal are not making biomedical claims. They are reporting on factual events. When two highly respected publications begin reporting on it, not reporting on it becomes a WP:NPOV violation.
  Now, that does not mean we endorse the lab leak theory. That does not mean we say that the people had COVID-19. That does not mean we report anything other than what the reliable sources say. In fact, I would personally note both sources in any text so it is clear we are not reporting as fact, but instead doing our job as a tertiary source and summarizing the reliable secondary sources.
  But lets not kid ourselves here, both WSJ and WaPo are reliable sources for the facts they report. If we really are going to say that we have to exclude major medical stories from them that are not reporting on the science behind the medicine because of MEDRS, then MEDRS is coming dangerously close to violating WP:NOTCENSORED. These aren't fringe blogs. These are two of the most respected journalistic publications in the United States. I'm not sure how Wikipedia should report on them, but when they both run a story, it does become a question of how rather than if. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:25, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

  TonyBallioni, they aren't reporting facts here - they're reporting unconfirmed, and unidentified reports from anonymous sources on an unpublished "US intelligence" reporting. This is why I wrote User:Berchanhimez/Laundering - I wrote it primarily because of times when reliable sources re-print information from sources that are otherwise not reliable in the medical field, but it applies here too. And if you read both articles, they both make very clear that they are reporting on unconfirmed, unpublished reports from anonymous sources - and we should not give those more credibility just because they're repeated by an otherwise reliable source. We shouldn't accept this sort of "laundering" where something that's unreliable as a whole is considered reliable just because a "reliable source" republishes it. Note that single articles by reliable sources can include unreliable parts - I'm not (and I don't think anyone is) trying to say that the WSJ or WaPo are reliable source for facts. But they can't be used to "launder" unreliable information to somehow make it reliable when they themselves make clear how unreliable the information is in their reporting. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 03:34, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

  The three most important newspapers in the United States are: the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. When 2 of 3 are running essentially the same story, there's really not a policy-based argument not to include it in some fashion. If you want to argue that those sources aren't reliable, you're not going to be taken seriously by anyone who is familiar with journalism in the United States. We don't take the word of anonymous contributors on the internet on the reliability of the information professionals collect. We assess the overall editorial policy and journalistic reputation among other things. WaPo and WSJ are unquestionably reliable for what they report, which in this case is not science but claims and hypothesis.

  You can argue how to present this. That's fine. You can make it extremely clear in the text exactly what they are reporting on. That's fine. You cannot, however, exclude a story run by two newspapers that for any other story would be considered the gold standard of reliable sourcing. That becomes a major WP:NPOV violation. Yes, the early reporting on the lab leak theory was run by fringe people and many who were racists. Now we have serious mainstream reporting on it specifically arguing that it is not fringe. We can't ignore that per our policies.

  For the record, I don't have an opinion on this myself and don't really care which origin theory of COVID-19 is true. I do know Wikipedia policies fairly well, however, and there is no policy that justifies completely excluding stories run by papers of record on significant geopolitical events. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:50, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

  I agree with TonyBallioni, and I find their arguments to be compelling. That much coverage cannot be simply ignored, as if it never happened. To willfully do so would be to ignore balance and NPOV. As Tony said, they are newspapers of record. Tyrone Madera (talk) 04:34, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

• "You cannot, however, exclude a story run by two newspapers that for any other story would be considered the gold standard of reliable sourcing."

Well, @TonyBallioni:, then we should be immediately be questioning them as the gold standard of anything, because these articles are trash. They don't even present any evidence, the WSJ reporting is literally trying to make a conspiracy about 3 people getting sick with seasonal illness symptoms and having nothing else to discuss, literally not a single piece of evidence beyond that. It is literally the exact sort of trash we'd expect from the Daily Mail. And the Washington Post "Timeline" article manages to be even fsrther below the line, using Medium articles, tweets from the likes of conspiracists like Tom Cotton, and worse. Both of these articles are so bottom of the barrel that we should immediately be questioning their reliable source status if their articles are going to be literally making up conspiracies and using known conspiracy pushers as their primary sources of evidence. Silverseren^C 04:48, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Silver seren, the basis of Wikiepdia's policy on reliable sourcing and neutral point of view is that we rely on the expertise of the editors of reliable sourcing to make judgement calls as to what information is credible enough to publish. We typically do not assess whether or not individual articles are reliable, but whether or not the publications as a whole are, as we as editors do not have the competence to make the judgement calls on individual articles since the overwhelming majority of us are not professional journalists who are aware of professional ethics and publishing standards.

Both the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal are papers of record with editorial policies we consider stringent enough to make them reliable. We don't simply get to throw one article away because we disagree with the choice to publish. When multiple papers of record publishes something, it isn't just something we ignore. Contextualize, sure. Give it due weight, sure. Name the source in the text of the article, sure. If there's reliably sourced criticism of them running the articles, but it in there. These are all valid ways to deal with the concerns you have. Simply ignoring them and pretending like the publications are not reliable for what they report is not a valid response, though.

We have to deal with the publication in some way. I don't know how to do that, and don't particularly want to be involved with that, but I very much disagree with completely throwing out coverage by WSJ and WaPo because we disagree with a choice made by their editorial teams. That's very much against the intent of the RS and NPOV policies. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:01, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

When an "article" is just a timeline of snippets, we're well within our rights to question whether it constitutes significant coverage and thus changes the weighting that ought to be accorded. XOR'easter (talk) 14:48, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

TonyBallioni, as XOR'easter said, we are well within our right to determine how reliable a source is, and how much "weight" is "due" to give those sources. Yes, both papers are generally reliable. No, that doesn't mean that every single thing they post is due weight to include, nor that the information contained within is reliable. Yes, it's verifiable to say based on those stories that "an anonymous source referencing an unpublished and undescribed US intelligence report, said X". No, that's never due weight to include, just as we don't include all the anonymous sources referencing unpublished sources about the recent plane hijacking in Belarus, or about any other topic. You seem to be taking a "if it's published by a reliable source it's GOLD" - but that's simply not true. We have a duty to evaluate the source in its entirety - not simply look at the publisher and say "welp we must include it then". This isn't disagreeing with the choices by their editorial team - it's disagreeing with your claim that we must republish something just because it's published. It's in no way due weight to republish anonymous reports based on unpublished "intelligence" just because for-profit news organizations chose to publish them. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 21:34, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

I never said we had to report on it as fact. I said that when two highly reliable sources are reporting on it as serious, the question becomes how we present it and with what weight, rather than if we present it. Simply pretending that these two sources don't exist is not an option. Since this thread started The Atlantic, another publication generally considered reliable, prestigious, and within the mainstream of US journalistic publications published an article that says It might have started in the wild, or it might have started in a lab. We know enough to acknowledge that the second scenario is possible, and we should therefore act as though it’s true.

That is a third reliable source taking the position that this isn't just crazy talk. Again, I am not highly invested in the origins of COVID-19. I do, however, have a very strong belief that when three highly respected journalistic publications start discussing it not as lunacy but as a serious hypothesis, NPOV considerations come into play. As I've said multiple times, this is not a MEDRS issue to report that there is now mainstream sourcing discussing this and not just nutjobs. Figure out how to report it. Figure out what to report, but we don't get to not report it. That would be substituting the judgement of anonymous internet volunteers for the editorial judgement of professional journalists in respected publications as to what to publish. We don't get to substitute our judgement on what and how they should have covered this for their judgement. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:30, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I just heard a story about this on NPR today, too. This hypothesis is already a part of the mainstream discussion. It would be against the spirit of the encyclopedia not to mention its existence. Tyrone Madera (talk) 22:17, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

• Question. This is just a matter of context, but what do we know about the alleged program of biological weapons in China, reardless to COVID? I am not familiar with publications about it. Yes, China signed agreements, but it means little. One recent CNN article [12] say this: "The Chinese government is party to the major international agreements regulating biological weapons which prohibit developing, producing, transferring or stockpiling of bacteriological and toxin weapons. The US government has said that it believes China maintained an offensive biological weapons program even after joining the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention in 1984.". OK. But what exactly US government (and other sources) say about the offensive biological weapons program of China? My very best wishes (talk) 03:39, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

@My very best wishes: I think this paper might give you the answer. It mostly concentrates on facilities rather than types of biowarfare products maintained, but it might be a good source for you (at least I haven't found anything better than that). PS. Apparently another leak (now cable leak) published by Josh Rogin said that [Edit: in late 2017-2018]the lab was understaffed for level 4 biohazard protection (as mentioned in the article).Szmenderowiecki (talk) 04:22, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! So, they do have such program in general and facilities. What gave me a pause were reactions and actions by China, such as today. They even promised economic sanctions to Australia, because someone from Australian government said something. Speaking Russian, "на воре шапка горит", meaning a reaction of a gulty conscience. My very best wishes (talk) 15:05, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

• So, acording to this source, "Four named BWA [biological weapons] production facilities (mentioned as ‘factories’), affiliated, in general, with the ‘Institutes for Biological Products’ system in: Kunming—dealing with research and cultivation of BWA; Chongqing—research and cultivation of BWA; Wuhan–Wuchang—cultivation of BWA; and Changchun—cultivation and experimentation of BWA.". And they name Wuhan Institute of Biological Products (main developer of their COVID vaccine) as one of the facilities associated with Chines "defence establishment". Interesting. My very best wishes (talk) 02:00, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

While that might influence your opinion, I very much doubt that Wikipedia allows us to draw adverse inferences from the lack of evidence/sources, and certainly we should not reflect our willingness to do so while editing. That said, the Russian expression describes the situation brilliantly.

PS. Its English equivalent is more or less "the darkest place is under the candle". Szmenderowiecki (talk) 03:54, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

• Unreliable because the sources don't even say that The article in question doesn't even present any evidence or claim toward anything regarding the lab leak conspiracy theory. It tries to wave its arms in the air with wiggling fingers because less than a handful of people (ie 3 out of hundreds at the lab) got a standard seasonal illness sickness. There is no connection to COVID even given and the following Washington Post article is even worse, not even having any sources whatsoever for any claims even being made. Honestly, the trash level of both of those pieces makes me question the general reliability of both newspapers, because this is Breitbart and Daily Mail level crap. Silverseren^C 04:29, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

  You say there were hundreds of people working in the lab. Do you have a source you read that from? I was curious myself about how many people work(ed?) there, but turned up little information. --Chillabit (talk) 05:08, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

  @Chillabit: The latest figure I was able to find was from 2014: As of 2014, WIV has 295 faculty and staff members, including 34 principal investigators and specialists, I'd expect the number to be far over 300 at this point. Silverseren^C 05:36, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

• Reliable as journalistic reporting, not MEDRS per TonyBallioni above. Tyrone Madera (talk) 04:37, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
• This piece should not be used to give further credence to the lab leak conspiracy theory, but it might be used to show that anonymous US intelligence officials are apparently pushing that narrative. -Darouet (talk) 05:10, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

• Comment The number of WP:SPAs showing up to try and push the pseudoscience conspiracy claim is pretty interesting. They're all over the place here and in every related thread to the Covid topic. Is there brigading going on from somewhere else on the internet for them to be finding their way here to this thread in particular? Silverseren^C 05:43, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

  Silver seren, Is there brigading going on from somewhere else on the internet for them to be finding their way here to this thread in particular? Yes. Absolutely. In fact, every time that a popular political conspiracy theory, or a popular conspiracy theorist of any bent makes the news, there will inevitably be brigading of any discussions about it on Wikipedia. This is an extremely common tactic used by groups which engage in deep personal investment into these conspiracy theories, and find our rejection of them deeply offensive.

  On normal controversial subjects, this doesn't happen so much because WP will have numerous editors on all sides of the issue, so the curious supporters of one side who read these discussions will not be so troubled by them. But with conspiracy theories, because of WP's strong bias towards reality, they see their side failing to make headway in the discussions, and cannot abide this, so the calls for brigading go out. It's basically inevitable anytime something like this is discussed. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:46, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

  MPants at work, can't there be a mass blocking for meatpuppeting? Tyrone Madera (talk) 22:25, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

  Tyrone Madera, No, not really. There's no technical way for that to work. We have no ability to tell if a particular editor was part of a discussion about brigading on, for example, 4chan, unless we wanted to engage in some mix of MITM and XSS type malicious coding that would likely trigger firewalls across the world and undermine trust in WP significantly. This would still not be a perfect solution, as it would only catch people who used the same machine for both.

  The proper response is to keep an eye on controversial subjects, especially those involving bigotry and politics, and as the brigading becomes apparent, transition from working to actively improve and update such articles to maintaining them until the furor has died down. WP:NOTNEWS makes it clear that there's nothing wrong with WP being a few days or weeks behind the present.

  I personally would prefer if admins would take a firmer approach during such times, using temporary topic bans and blocks more liberally to target obvious participants in these brigades, but the reasons they don't are deeply entrenched in the WP community culture, and not without merit, so that change would likely require a deliberate push by a significant portion of the community. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:31, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

• Comment Can we please clarify whether this discussion is about the very unlikely "lab-leak" of a deliberately-engineered biological weapon or the more plausible "lab-leak" of a natural, non-bioengineered virus? 09:02, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, we need to separate the accidental lab leak while experimenting on coronaviruses origin hypothesis, from the, maliciously engineered and released bioweapon conspiracy theory, that the current version of the article seems to be trying to blur together High Tinker (talk)

Actually, scientists modify viruses all the time in order to try to make them more contagious to study them in what is called "gain of function experiments". In fact, we know that the Wuhan lab was actually performing these types of experiments on bat coronaviruses. They don't do these experiments in order to engineer a bioweapon, they do them to learn about how viruses work in order to better understand them and how to make vaccines against them. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:54, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

• Comment The Washington Post story literally actually I swear I am not making this up refers us to The Daily Mail, Twitter posts, and essays on Medium. It sucks that a normally reliable source published a shitty substandard article, but anyone who looks at that article, just as an article without bias as to the subject, has to admit that this is really bad journalism. I mean really really bad, someone should have been fired. The fact that it might further support someone's existing beliefs should not magically make it more reliable. Hyperion35 (talk) 13:13, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Because it's a timeline of what's been said about the lab leak hypothesis. Your claim, which you've now repeated here more than once, that Mike Pompeo's tweets (etc.) from 2020 are the sole reason why WaPo no longer thinks the lab leak hypothesis is fringe in 2021 is disingenuous. You fundamentally misunderstand that article. Geogene (talk) 14:32, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

While WaPost may be considering the lab leak (in its new form under the Biden admin, not the Trump version) as something with more credence, WP is still bound by MEDRS, as the only fundamental MEDRS study that has been done to evaluate the origins of COVID is the WHO report. We can talk that there has been more demand for further review by politicians, scientists, and analysts by evidence and aspects that seem counter to the WHO report, but as has been pointed out, under MEDRS, none of these are MEDRS sources to invalidate the WHO report to the point that we on WP can give any credence to the lab leak. We can absolutely talk to the questions of the WHO report that that some want more evaluation if WIV was more involved than WHO dismissed from these standard RSes, but until an actual study is done that meets MEDRS, we're not going to change the medical reporting that has dismissed the WIV lab leak as an origin of COVID. Only a MEDRS source can chip away at that. --Masem (t) 14:42, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

The lab leak theory doesn't fall under MEDRS because it isn't connected to medical advice, and the WHO report doesn't substantiate calling it a conspiracy theory. Geogene (talk) 14:47, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

The scope of MEDRS is "biomedical information", not "connected to medical advice". Some aspects of a virus's origin are biomedical information. Alexbrn (talk) 14:55, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't interpret the scope of MEDRS that way, and the point seems to be in contention. Geogene (talk) 15:02, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

No interpretation is necessary, just read the actual words of the guideline: "all biomedical information must be based on reliable, third-party published secondary sources, and must accurately reflect current knowledge". That is the WP:PAG. WP:BMI provides supplementary guidance, and for background understanding WP:WHYMEDRS and WP:MEDFAQ can be useful. Alexbrn (talk) 15:07, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support requiring MEDRS for information about the actual source and composition of the virus. Oppose requiring MEDRS regarding whether some particular hypothesis about the origin of the virus is a conspiracy theory. The question of what is or is not a conspiracy theory (or some other wording implying a fringe hypothesis that no serious expert or official would entertain) is more political than scientific. At this point (May 26, 2021), continuing to state in wikivoice that lab-leak is a baseless conspiracy theory while reliable journalistic sources have President Biden ordering serious inquiries into that theory just looks ridiculous. Vadder (talk) 18:24, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable as journalistic reporting and I don't believe MEDRS applies. A year ago in a similar discussion, I dismissed the possibility of a lab leak as a conspiracy theory. It's now unequivocally clear that I was wrong. The continuing efforts by certain editors here to label a particular possible origin as a "conspiracy theory" adds a level of animus and bias that clearly defies NPOV. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 19:08, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
• Comment I think, as others have stated, that we need to be very careful about how we phrase this regardless of the outcome, particularly regarding use of the word "originating" which can have several different meanings. While there is an argument to be made that there is a possibility that the virus accidentally leaked from the lab while being studied, we should be very careful that out phrasing does not lend credence to the idea that the virus actually "originated" (i.e. was intentionally created) in the lab. There will be, and in conspiracy circles there already is, a concerted effort to conflate the two. We should also be careful not to use sources that are terming the intentional creation of the virus as a conspiracy theory to say that any lab leak type origin is equally implausible, and vice versa to not treat sources saying that a lab leak as possible as saying that a lab-created origin is possible. We need to be sure which origin the sources are actually discussing. NonReproBlue (talk) 21:07, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable this text and source is classified as Wikipedia:Biomedical_information#What_is_not_biomedical_information?, MEDRS doesnt apply to history. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 22:16, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

  That is under discussion at the RFC mentioned below (and even if it doesn't require MEDRS, WP:SCHOLARSHIP still tells us academic sources are preferred), and I for one am going to shamelessly copy what I said there: how is this "history" when we have A) a still ongoing pandemic and B) still ongoing calls for further investigation (from the WHO report, from other scientists) and C) still ongoing spread of dis-/misinformation about the topic? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:38, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

• Reliable for the ongoing investigation's existence; unreliable for biomedical statements of fact -- I've been following the WHO working group reports.[13] I recommend two sources of particular interest, this Politico summarization of experts' opinions, wherein virologists explain the newfound interest in the lab leak possibility, and this recent preprint (with comments at [14]) which states:

Lab Leak scenarios are inconsistent with several established facts regarding the origin of SARS-CoV-2. The majority of early cases were linked to different markets that sold wildlife or wildlife products in Wuhan. All theories of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 must account for the linkage to different market engaged in wildlife trade. Theories on SARS-CoV-2 must also account for the fact that two distinct lineages of SARS-CoV-2 were distributed at different Wuhan wildlife markets. Scenarios where an infected laboratory worker, an escaped lab animal or faulty waste disposal spread not one but two lineages of SARS-CoV-2 specifically to different wildlife markets are difficult to rationalize.

Given the gulf between these different opinions on current thought, I recommend citing and excerpting from both without making any biomedical statements, but stating the opinions held by the differing authorities. Finally, this timeline is particularly useful for explaining how the situation has developed. 2601:647:4D00:2C40:0:0:0:88EB (talk) 08:45, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

We can't use preprints for controversial matters (or for the very vast majority of matters). The WaPo timeline (reposted on other sites) has its problems, being mostly based on fellow newspapers, US politicians, and poor non-scientific papers (i.e. the already explained "influential paper" issue and also the assessment of the piece by Nicholas Wade as "credible"). The quote farm isn't useful, since quotes are essentially WP:PRIMARY and we don't base articles on controversial matters on primary sources. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:01, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Not for statements of fact, since the MEDRS sources are in agreement that the question is still open. We don't need a MEDRS to support descriptions of the positions of differing authorities, do we? 2601:647:4D00:2C40:0:0:0:88EB (talk) 01:57, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Other than the fact that you just made up that bit about MEDRS sources bieng in agreement that the question is still open? What the MEDRS sources are actually in agreement about is that the lab leak theory is extremely unlikely. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:02, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Technically, aren't MEDRSs supposed to have stood the test of more than 1.5 years' time? I was referring to sources meeting the remaining MEDRS criteria, as I'm sure you are too. And I don't need to point out the obvious that "extremely unlikely" is absolutely not the same as "closed" in science, especially in this case when "extremely" isn't quantified such as with a sigma value. And I'm pretty sure you missed the excerpt I quoted is in agreement with your position. 2601:647:4D00:2C40:0:0:0:88EB (talk) 04:36, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

• Unreliable in this instance While under normal circumstance WSJ, WaPo, et al are reliable, in this case there is nothing to indicate this conspiracy is any more true than it has been for the past year, "anonymous government officials" are not reliable sources, especially for something like this, not to mention the [WP:MEDRS] concerns. The only thing I would say could be fairly sourced from this is that some "anonymous US government officials" belive that Covid leaked from a Wuhan lab, which we already knew. BSMRD (talk) 04:16, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable as to the lab leak theory being investigated as a possible source of the virus, which MEDRS does not apply to. Rreagan007 (talk) 00:34, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
• Unreliable This Wuhan lab leak conspiracy theory being pushed right now is nothing more than US government propaganda attempting to manufacture consent to go to war with China and distract from how horribly the US government has handled the pandemic, and the so-called 'Free press' has fallen in line. The scientific evidence and consensus surrounding the origin of COVID has not changed whatsoever, and no big lie propaganda campaign being pushed by the US govt and the US media will change that. Let us instead stick to what reliable medical sources have to say about the origin of COVID. X-Editor (talk) 17:16, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

What evidence do you have that the U.S. government and media are conspiring to start a war with China? And how exactly are medical sources going to confirm or disprove the lab leak theory when China is refusing to cooporate with any investigations into the lab in question? Rreagan007 (talk) 19:51, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

China is authoritarian, so they will refuse to cooperate regardless of whether or not it came from their lab. As for the war part, of course that is what the US wants to do. The US cannot handle the idea of another superpower, so they will try to make up any excuse they can to go to war so they can stop China. Whether it will end up being proxy wars or a direct war is something I am not certain of. I am not trying to defend the Chinese government, I hate them too. But I do not see why the US is anymore trustworthy in regards to what their intelligence officers say than what China says. Let us instead stick to what medical sources have to say on the matter. X-Editor (talk) 06:00, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

While I agree with the conclusion, I don't believe the rest of the argument is valid in WP settings. All of what you say is adverse inference combined with personal reflections on geopolitical matters, which I'm afraid is not a good argument as it doesn't constitute evidence. Lack of evidence isn't evidence for any option at all, even if that lack of evidence comes from one party (supposedly) maliciously denying any permission to investigate/interrogate. Btw, there are both ways to investigate SARS-CoV-2 origins without access to WIV and apparently the Chinese weren't that uncooperative as some would argue. Also, read the SBM article posted below by Guy Macon. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 20:17, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

I did put too much emphasis on my opinions regarding geopolitics and I apologize for that. X-Editor (talk) 13:26, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

No needs to apologise, just bear in mind not to repeat in the small mistake in the future. Cheers. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 13:56, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

• "If the question is “are both hypotheses possible?” the answer is yes. Both are possible. If the question is “are they equally likely?” the answer is absolutely not. One hypothesis requires a colossal cover-up and the silent, unswerving, leak-proof compliance of a vast network of scientists, civilians, and government officials for over a year. The other requires only for biology to behave as it always has, for a family of viruses that have done this before to do it again. The zoonotic spillover hypothesis is simple and explains everything. It’s scientific malpractice to pretend that one idea is equally as meritorious as the other. The lab-leak hypothesis is a scientific deus ex machina, a narrative shortcut that points a finger at a specific set of bad actors. I would be embarrassed to stand up in front of a room of scientists, lay out both hypotheses, and then pretend that one isn’t clearly, obviously better than the other."[15] --Guy Macon (talk) 20:29, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

The question is certainly not if they are equally likely. The question is is the lab leak theory a plausible theory that should be mentioned in some kind of meaningful way alongside other origin theories, or is it a fringe conspiracy theory that should be downplayed as having any credibility. And as far as whether the Chinese Communist Party could cover up such a lab leak for a year, the U.S. government has covered up "top secret" things for decades, so that doesn't seem that implausible. And we do know that China initially tried to cover up even the existance of the virus in the early stages of the pandemic, which allowed the virus to spread more quickly around the globe. Actually, I would think that there are many governments around the world that would try to cover up a lab leak that lead to a global pandemic. Rreagan007 (talk) 16:29, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

"Biden administration has renewed US calls for a fuller investigation into the [conspiracy theory]"

According to plenty people above, seems like the entire world outside of Wikipedia is pushing for [what is described herein] "a conspiracy theory". I took the time to just list a few of the headlines posted in the past 24 hours or so. I am really curious how are wikiactivists going to try to dismiss these many news outlets discussing what wikipedia still rates as a conspiracy theory:

• Financial Times: US renews calls for investigation into origins of Covid-19
• CNN: Why scientists are suddenly more interested in the lab-leak theory of Covid's origin
• FoxNews: Ted Cruz mocks Washington Post as 'clowns' after fact-check declares Wuhan lab leak theory 'suddenly' credible
• NYMagazine: Latest Developments in the COVID Lab-Leak-Hypothesis Debate
• WaPo: Timeline: How the Wuhan lab-leak theory suddenly became credible
• WSJ: Intelligence on Sick Staff at Wuhan Lab Fuels Debate on Covid-19 Origin
• Reuters: Wuhan lab staff sought hospital care before COVID-19 outbreak disclosed
• CNBC: Gottlieb says there's growing circumstantial evidence that Covid may have originated in a lab
• WSJ: The Wuhan Lab Leak Question: A Disused Chinese Mine Takes Center Stage
• Reuters: U.S. agencies examine reports of early COVID-19 infections in Wuhan lab
• RCP: Will Media Get Away With U-Turning on Lab Leak Theory?
• Seattle Times: Fact check: How the Wuhan lab-leak theory for pandemic origin suddenly became credible
• Fortune: Why the ‘Wuhan lab leak theory’ is getting a second look
• EconomicTimes.in: Theory that COVID emerged from a lab leak in Wuhan gains traction in United States
• ABC.au: WHO member nations, including Australia, call for fresh probe into origin of COVID-19
• National Review: ‘The Suddenly Popular Lab-Leak Theory’
• The Hill: The Memo: Media face hard questions on Trump, Wuhan lab
• France24: Covid lab origin theory gains traction in United States
• Toronto Sun: We need an open investigation into the Wuhan lab leak theory

71.197.184.205 (talk) 10:03, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

It's always somewhat amusing when someone logs out to complain about how "the entire world outside of Wikipedia is pushing for" something. If this were actually the case, it would be very, very easy to get Wikipedia community consensus on one's side. It's quite clear that the above editor either (a) hasn't actually read the 19 sources he links or (b) has read them and knows that he is misrepresenting their context. Most of them explicitly clarify that the "Chinese laboratory" thing is still a far-out conspiracy theory with very little chance of holding water and zero chance of being completely true in its original Trumpist form (which was, without a doubt, a baseless hoax, regardless of subsequent evidence that may emerge of something superficially similar). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:11, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

A great deal of the news media has pivoted recently from "lab leak is a fringe conspiracy theory" to "this is a reasonable hypothesis that must be investigated". It's about time Wikipedia caught up. Indeed here, is a collection of stories showing the recent tone shift. High Tinker (talk) 12:57, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

@High Tinker: Where do you think we still need to 'catch up'? The change on our COVID-19 articles in how we discussed the lab leak (from 'conspiracy' to 'minority scientific opinion') happened months ago after the WHO-China study was released. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:09, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: I think a good place to start would be NPOVing this, perhaps restore the Covid-19 lab leak hypothesis page rather than auto redirect to a conspiracy theory page High Tinker (talk)

@High Tinker: I completely agree on the phrasing in the misinformation article to distinguish better between the science and the conspiracy (see past discussion at Talk:COVID-19 misinformation#Break for rewrite). My only disagreement was with the impression that we haven't made any progress at all, but that was probably my misinterpretation. What's the redirect you're referring to? I'd suggest redirecting to Investigations into the origin of COVID-19#Investigations would probably be a better (and quicker) solution for the redirect than Misinformation. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:38, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Just wanted to call attention to this: The Hill: The Memo: Media face hard questions on Trump, Wuhan lab The most common thesis has always been that the virus jumped from some form of animal, most likely bats, to humans... Again, most scientists still believe the virus occurred naturally. This is how we treat the theory, as an unlikely possibility. Notable, but with low acceptance in the scientific community. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:09, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

All of these reports are current as of a few hours ago. A few things on that:

1. Berating, shaming, or implying bad faith on people who commented well before such reports were made is bad form, and misrepresents the chronology of this rapidly developing story.
2. Per WP:RECENTISM, As a rapidly developing story, a matter of hours is far too fast to determine if this is worthwhile to put into Wikipedia articles, or just a passing blip. Give it a few days and see what becomes of it. It is sufficient to say that on May 26, there have been calls to deepen the investigation of the source of the virus, but we should NOT (either explicitly by our words or implicitly by proximity) make any connection to these as confirming conspiracy theories. I would be fine with a simple sentence, far away and entirely unconnected from the "lab leak" silliness, that there has been additional pressure to further investigate the origins of the virus.
3. If it turns out, some number of years from now, that the lab leak story turns out to be correct, okay, fine, when we have a definitive answer in that direction, we can add it to the article. We should not fall victim to the sensationalism that news sources have when deciding what to publish and how to phrase things, they have different motivations and purposes than Wikipedia does, per WP:NOTNEWS, and how we present our information should not lead people down garden paths of lending credence to ideas that have not been yet established as credible.

That's all I have to say on this stuff. In short, allowing for the slim possibility this may turn out to be true at some unspecified future date, we aren't even close to that now and should not lend more WP:WEIGHT to WP:FRINGE ideas than prudence would dictate. --Jayron32 20:32, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

There's so much false information out there on COVID. So much information. Wikipedia needs to use only the best academic sources here.PrisonerB (talk) 08:24, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

It is not within the scope of wikipedia to decide on the origin of Covid. It is not even within our scope to decide the likelihood of the various theories about hte origins of covid. Our role is limited to reporting what reliable sources say about it. It's at root a scientific question, but at this point its one quite capable of being understood by the general public. It's not something to be resolved by quoting authorities. Rather, it's one to resolved like all content disputes, by reporting what reliable sources say The various statement of the CDC and the WHO and similar agencies elsewhere over the course of the pandemic have left me a little skeptical about the value of assuming that official medical sources are necessarily credible, on this or any other aspect of the disease: they all seem to have said what thtey thought would be acceptable-acceptable to the general public, or to their political masters. The recommendations and statements wee not necessarily based on the best science at the time--they were based on what was politic to say at the time (the Us is not the most extrme example of this--many European countries did at least as badly) .To analyze what politicians and politically influenced scientists say, we have to look at general sources also. We have news sources we routinely use for question s of public policy. In general, the most accurate of the US sources have indeed been the NYT and from slightly different perspectives, the WaPo and WSJ. We've been very reluctant not to follow them, especially because they were saying things most of us wanted very much to believe, not just about this, but about US politics and US public health in general. Now we have a situation where these sources are saying very clearly that something many of us disbelieved might well be true after all. I note that none of them are saying the lab leak theory is correct: they are saying it is an open question.

I thought better of Wikipedians. I thought that many of the people above reluctant to accept that consensus is no longer clear did believe that they were devoted to following the best sources. Now that the the same sources are not in agreement with their prior preconceptions, they are saying : the reliable sources are the ones that conform to our prejudices. They are the churchmen refusing to look through a telescope because they might see something they didn't want to believe. DGG ( talk ) 09:28, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

There isn't a telescope. There is people, who also haven't looked through any telescope yet, because it doesn't exist yet, saying "we should build a telescope". We should not say that the telescope exists when it does not yet. I'll be the first to look through it once it does. What I won't do is speculate on what the telescope that doesn't exist yet might or might not show me. Its is not refutation of any position, it is a "let's have some prudence and wait to see once we have built the telescope". --Jayron32 12:23, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

It is important to understand the dynamics of the situation here. Prior to, say February 2021, the lab leak theory was strictly one made on wild mud throwing and for the most part, baseless accusations related to xenophobia of China. The WHO report essentially identified that the possibility of COVID coming from a lab was statistically unlikely, publishing how they arrived at that conclusion, and dubunking that theory. To that point, this meets all the MEDRS and standard ways we would treat a theory under FRINGE. What has changed since Feb 2021 is that more saner review of the WHO report and additional evidence, while not rejecting the WHO report, ask questions that these people believe leave the WHO report in suspect and have challenged it. This doesn't mean the WHO report is suddenly wrong (eg at this point, we still use MEDRS/FRINGE to treat the original lab leak theory as a debunked conspiracy theory), but we (WP) are not at a point that the questions by newer sources should change how we report it, as they haven't also claimed the WHO report is wrong either; they only say its suspect and are trying their own investigations to validate their own hypothesis. We should also be reporting that aspect, and that is capturing what RSes are covering now too. We should be clear that the newer lab leak theory is less about a xenophobic, purposeful leak, and more that, "hey, WIV possibly had more to do than China is really letting on even if the release was accidental", but again, we're not touching what's concluded by MEDRS's WHO's conclusion at this point. (The "fun" will start when we get gov't intelligence final reports in a few months that assert the lab leak was the origin, and then we'll have to restart this own discussion at that point.) --Masem (t) 13:30, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

• Yes, of course it is reliable, and the information has been widely rereported by dozens of other reliable sources. Older sources which contain obsolete information should no longer be considered reliable. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:37, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

  The question is not whether the sources are reliable, it is whether they are sufficient for making certain statements in Wikipedia's voice. Prudence needs to be taken, especially, in making sure we at Wikipedia don't say more about this than what the sources themselves are saying. That some people have called for further investigation is true, and probably should be reported. Anything beyond that, including what that means for the veracity of the lab leak hypothesis, we should be silent on because that would require a novel synthesis beyond what the sources themselves say. We need to be scrupulously careful that whatever text we add does not, by either explicit writing or by implicit writing such as proximity, imply that the calls for more investigation amounts to an endorsement of the verasity of the hypothesis. --Jayron32 14:16, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

  @Jayron32: Mind suggesting a better wording for SARS-CoV-2? It currently has "Some individuals, including a small number of virologists, have claimed, based on circumstantial evidence, that the virus may have leaked from the Institute. This has led to calls in the media for further investigations into the matter.[93][94]" (in the relevant section). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:39, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

  Since you asked, what I would say is "Some individuals, including a small number of virologists, have questioned the prevailing evidence for the origin of the virus. This has led to calls in the media for further investigations into the matter.[93][94]" --Jayron32 14:45, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

  Only to add This CNN article seems a good summary of the events of the last few days and the important difference between what's being asked about the lab leak now and what was being asked then. Then, it was, as CNN's article calls it "cherry picking" to want to point the finger at China. Biden's new order for investigation is meant to eliminate cherry picking, starting with all possible hypothesis on the origin to be back on the table and thus using scientific methods to eliminate the least likely cases. Again, doesn't yet invalidate anything WHO has said nor how we are treating the lab leak as presently debunked by WHO, but as long as we explain the recent history like this, we're fine to address these newer calls. --Masem (t) 21:36, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Overview at Did Covid come from a Wuhan lab? What we know so far | Coronavirus | The Guardian concludes by quoting WaPo – "Although the resurgent chatter may suggest new clues or proof, the inverse is in fact true. It is the persistent absence of any convincing evidence either for or against the theory that has prompted calls for more investigation." . . . dave souza, talk 04:27, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

• A good article at Wired effectively on why we are doing it right (sticking to MEDRS), no evidence has changed at all, but now the playbook by more rationale heads (read: not Trump) is to have better assurance that the lab leak theory is not true by closing all the possible loopholes on it with further investigation with more rationale, scientific thought. Unfortunately, that's being seen as "giving weight to the lab leak theory" by media and politicians, hence the problem being created by poor/non-RSes. That is, even those scientists asking for a further probe are only looking to increase the statistical numbers against the lab leak origin to fully disprove it, feeling the WHO report didn't go far enough. --Masem (t) 19:08, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Call it what it is: a hypothesis. It is neither proven nor disproven and awaits verification by the scientific community. Tyrone Madera (talk) 20:24, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

"I have now asked the Intelligence Community..."[16] 173.224.187.47 (talk) 02:30, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Anything brought by the Intelligence Community needs to be considered plausible or possible by the scientific community. They must work hand in hand. Likewise, the scientific community alone is going to have a tough time getting information from the People's Republic of China, and must work with the Intelligence Community to gather reliable information. This doesn't change the hypothesis status. Tyrone Madera (talk) 17:38, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

@Tyrone Madera:, I'm not sure why you believe that is the case? Intelligence and spycraft are orthogonal to scientific investigation. In addition, most scientists, (and anecdotally, myself included), do not consider themselves to be agents of the state, the way that intelligence and spies must be. Just because a spy says something does not necessarily grant it any credibility from a scientific perspective IMO... BrxBrx(talk)^{(please reply with {{SUBST:re|BrxBrx}})} 17:23, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. There must be some sort of miscommunication because your correction doesn't feel contradictory to what I said. Tyrone Madera (talk) 19:30, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I must have been thick, I read it as implying that scientists should take the stuff that spies say at face value, or at least, provide an unusually large amount of credibility. I must have misunderstood! BrxBrx(talk)^{(please reply with {{SUBST:re|BrxBrx}})} 05:12, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

@BrxBrx: No worries :) Tyrone Madera (talk) 23:25, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

The Lancet, Science Based Medicine, and Snopes/AP

• Statement in support of the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of China combatting COVID-19 --The Lancet
• The origin of SARS-CoV-2, revisited --Science Based Medicine
• WHO Report: COVID Likely 1st Jumped Into Humans from Animals --Snopes/AP

--Guy Macon (talk) 20:20, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Guy Macon, thank you for starting this whole discussion. Just a few days ago you were completely confused on this topic [17], but now you’ve become a real expert with all the right sources [18]. What are we spending billions on the World Health Organization and their International Treaty for Pandemic Preparedness and Response when we have such smart editors as yourself who can figure everything out without any investigation? I don’t agree much with your assessment however and I tend to agree more with DGG that the assessment of which hypothesis is more or less likely is not a question for Wikipedians like you or me to answer. There is a scientific and political controversy around the investigations into the virus’s origins, so we should not be putting anyone’s opinions as facts in WP:WIKIVOICE, yours and Alexbrn’s included [19]. I agree with Terjen that we should quote the most reputable scientists with WP:INTEXT attribution, giving their expert opinions, whatever they may be. CutePeach (talk) 09:30, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

That is the last snarky ("smart editors as yourself who can figure everything out without any investigation") comment I am willing to read from you. I am setting the notifications in my preferences so that I will not see any pings from you, and from now on if I see your signature on a comment I will jump down to the next comment without reading whatever you write. Have fun shouting into an amply room.

If you are interested in the actual evidence, it is all laid out at User:Novem Linguae/Essays/There was no lab leak#Science. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:11, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

@CutePeach: I really think you're misunderstanding the consensus among scientists here. While plenty of experts have called for a more thorough and involved investigation of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, very few actual virus experts have said they think the lab leak is all that likely. In fact, several of the scientists who signed the Science letter to the editor have come out and said they still think the zoonotic origin is the most likely. More investigations are warranted. But the consensus has not changed that most relevant experts believe the lab origin is not very likely. As per WP:NOLABLEAK, as per the sources cited above.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:26, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: the authors of the Science letter represent an extraordinarily high and diversified level of scientific expertise, and they state that hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data. The science letter isn’t a consensus statement on which hypothesis is likely or unlikely, and I don’t believe anyone here is trying to say it is. Let’s continue this discussion in Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 so that we can find common ground and improve the article. CutePeach (talk) 09:18, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

• Comment If you haven't seen it, Vanity Fair published an excellent article on the topic: The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:36, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Biomedical information has an RFC

Wikipedia:Biomedical information has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Aquillion (talk) 20:50, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

References

Chiangraitimes.com

This website is used a few times as a source. According to their 'About' page they have no editorial standard: "Due to the number of articles and photographs shared by contributors, Chiang Rai Times cannot verify all the content of the articles or photographs." Possibly they did have an editorial standard in the past, otherwise it seems unreliable by their own admission. Pieceofmetalwork (talk) 21:40, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Rethinking sex assigned at birth

Hey I found this thing on The BMJ Called Rethinking sex-assigned-at-birth questions, link here. I haven’t read it yet because I don’t have access to it. But, I was thinking about adding to transgender and intersex related articles to give some due weight to a certain view on the topic, what do you all think?CycoMa (talk) 01:29, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

It is a piece of correspondence rather than an article, so don't add it unless you have a good reason to do so, even if that person specialises in medical care for non-binary patients.

If you want to access the whole of the commentary (which I also can't do), you can ask people at WP:RX, though personally I don't believe you need to do that in the first place. She has proper articles which are something we should cite. Of course, context in which you would like to cite the commentary would be helpful. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 03:12, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Its not a journal or an article. Therefore, its not helpful. What do you need to cite it for? HaughtonBrit (talk) 17:45, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

HaughtonBrit I knew the BMJ is considered a reliable source, so I was thinking about using to give due weight to certain view in the topic.

I honestly don’t many opinions to be honest, also as the other user said one of the individuals has expertise on this.CycoMa (talk) 17:49, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

In my view, this is a high-quality WP:RSEDITORIAL which might very well be WP:DUE, depending on where and how you want to mention the opinion of the authors. The BMJ seems to have standards regarding such "Editorials": Editorials are 800 word articles which usually respond to a topical issue. They must be evidence based, but journalistic in style and written with an international general medical audience in mind. We particularly value pitches authored or co authored by patient advocates, representatives, and leaders. Authors with financial ties to industry are not allowed to write clinical editorials. JBchrch talk 17:53, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

• It is a high-quality WP:RSOPINION piece, but only for what it specifically says. And by my reading it is a very specific opinion, so I'm not sure where it would be appropriate to use it - the question of "should clinicians ask for assigned sex at birth?" probably requires an actual MEDRS source, since it's specifically and directly discussing medical treatment, and even if this qualifies it's not exactly a question that comes up much. What certain view on the topic did you want to use it to illustrate, and where? (You might also look up other papers by the researchers who wrote it - there may be peer-reviewed ones that touch more directly at the questions you want to cover. At a glance, Ash B Alpert has written a lot of papers about eg. treating trans patients with cancer.) --Aquillion (talk) 16:02, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Aquillion sorry I didn’t respond to your post, also you asked me what I met when I was saying give a certain view some due weight.

Keep in mind I don’t have access to the source so I can’t say what these individuals in the source are saying on the matter(I’ll go to resource request for that), but judging by the title I assume they are questioning the idea of assigned sex.

Also I’m honestly not sure where it would be appropriate to use it either to be honest since I haven’t read the whole thing.CycoMa (talk) 21:28, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

No, they're specifically questioning whether it is useful to ask people what sex they were assigned at birth, saying that Given that sex assigned at birth does not accurately characterise gender identity, anatomy, or the health needs of individuals we recommend that questions about sex assigned at birth are abandoned. When specific information about anatomy, physiology, hormonal medication, and history are required in clinical settings, individually tailored questions are more likely to provide the answers required for safe and efficacious patient-centred care. ie. instead of asking someone their assigned sex, you ask them directly about their anatomy, hormonal medications, and so on when it is necessary for treatment. --Aquillion (talk) 01:25, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Like I said man I didn’t read it.CycoMa (talk) 01:39, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

• CycoMa, IMO there's really no point in bringing something to a noticeboard unless you've already read it and have in mind how it could be used. Aquillion has accurately summarized it for you. I would be against any use of this editorial on Wikipedia. The whole point of it is to suggest a change in typical medical practice, which makes it pretty much WP:UNDUE by definition as of the present time. The editors of BMJ deemed it worthy of consideration by the professional community by publishing it, but it is still very much the view of a small minority presently, and odds are it will remain so (most new ideas do not gain wide uptake). You can also see the 'rapid responses' by other professionals under another tab on that page; it seems to have been received negatively. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:18, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Crossroads that’s why I came here, to see if the source was reliable. And judging by all the responses I have seen here I’m against using it. As a Wikipedia editor I’m pretty sure you are aware that even sites that are considered reliable are guilty of spreading some misinformation.(especially around this topic.)

So it’s final I wouldn’t add it.CycoMa (talk) 03:23, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Film School Rejects?

What's the consensus around Film School Rejects? ~ HAL333 22:13, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

• In my opinion, this is not a reliable source. It appears to have a gatekeeping process, however, (a) it has not been widely referenced by other, unambiguously RS sources [when I search "according to Film School Rejects", "Film School Rejects reported" and several variations of that on Google News, it doesn't return sources that are unimpeachably reliable; the closest was a single reference on Business Insider which is, itself, a marginal source], (b) it has no physical presence through which it can be held liable for what it publishes [there is no address on the website and a Whois search shows that the domain is registered via proxy]. Updating to reliable based on referencing discovered by Dr Swag Lord, below. Chetsford (talk) 04:54, 9 June 2021 (UTC); edited 04:54, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
• I would say they might be acceptable as a source for critical reception sections. Rotten Tomatoes lists them as a "Tomatometer-approved publication" [20] and Metacritic cites them as well [21]. -- Calidum 16:58, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
• I would say it's generally reliable for their opinion. They have an editorial team, and they were included as one of the 50 best film blogs by MovieMaker Magazine[22] (if that means anything). They have been referenced by mainstream publications like CNN, Poynter, Indie Wire, Variety, MTV, Harvard's Nieman Lab and The Austin Chronicle. And they have been used as references in numerous University Presses:[23],[24],[25],[26],[27], [28], [29] Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 21:29, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
• I would argue that, whether or not they can be relied upon for accurately reporting the facts (and my view of entertainment sources in general is very conservative on this point -- I think a lot of what most Wikipedians consider "reliable" should not be considered such if we follow Wikipedia policy) and demonstrating the notability of topics they cover (if that is ever an issue, since almost everything on their home page ATM is in the "Hollywood blockbuster" milieu), the blog itself is notable and its opinions can be cited with attribution. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:49, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Flamesrising.com

This website, which for intents and purposes comes across to me as a long-running fanzine-style blog about pop culture and arts, was brought up in this AfD to support keeping the article from being deleted. The argument is that the review provides WP:SIGCOV and thus it can be relied upon to demonstrate notability. When I disputed the website's reliability, as it was disputed by another editor a few years back during another AfD, it was suggested that I take it to the RSN and generate a discussion. It is currently cited in 70 articles across Wikipedia so it is good to get a consensus on whether it is appropriate to use as a cited source. Haleth (talk) 09:26, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

This is a difficult one. The site seems to be on the very serious side of amateur. There is something approaching an editorial process, and the submission guidelines look reasonably professional. However, they clearly rely on donated content from mostly amateur reviewers, state that they do not take responsibility for plagiarism in articles and make no mention of fact-checking. They do not offer payment to contributors. My view is that this is an exceptionally well-run fansite, is not RS except when publishing individuals who are already acknowledged/published experts in a particular field, and should not be used to establish notability in any circumstances. --Boynamedsue (talk) 18:35, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

With respect to the nature of Flames Rising, I largely agree with Boynamedsue--it's a very good fan site. I'd say the submission guidelines are fine. The plagiarism clause is basically the same as any "work-for-hire" writing site has (including places like like Science news and similar where the content mostly comes from freelancers). And I don't think "pay" enters into if a site is reliable. It is a well-run site getting content largely from volunteers. Where I differ is that none of that makes me think the site isn't reliable for details about the material it covers. It has a more in-depth set of submission guidelines than most paid sites and paying the freelancers wouldn't change things. I'd say it's reliable for things like game and movie content. I wouldn't use it for even mildly questionable BLP material or similar issues. (note: I was involved in the AfD mentioned above). Hobit (talk) 18:17, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I think perhaps using it for facts in already notable articles is something I might not do, but probably wouldn't delete in a rage if I saw someone else had. Where would you stand on using it for notability of an article? I don't see it as being able to satisfy WP:SIGCOV as it is effectively self-published. Boynamedsue (talk) 19:10, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Why would you say it's self-published? There are editors and a publisher and there are folks writing the articles that are subject to review (and editing...) by those others. Is it because money isn't changing hands? Something else? But yes, I'm fine with it as part of meeting the GNG for things like games and movies. Hobit (talk) 03:41, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Notability comes from being of sufficient interest to be published by a publishing house, newspaper, magazine, journal of record. These are recognised institutions that sets the debate on a particular topic, a fansite is simply what enthusiasts decide to write in a given place. This fansite is published and edited by an individual who is simply a particularly organised fan, it is the same as a self-published book edited by a private individual. It should not be used to establish notability, per the guidelines on self-published sources. Links to policy: fansites are self-published. self-published work should not be used to establish notability. Boynamedsue (talk) 05:27, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

I see your point about self-published. I do think that the start of that section is more on-point here "...identifying a self-published source is usually straightforward. You need two pieces of information:

• Who is the author or creator of the work?
• Who is the publisher of the work?"

In this case, I don't see how the author of most of the works can be considered to be the publisher, when there is editorial (and publishing) control by a 3rd party. Would you agree that if the site paid their authors, it wouldn't be self-published? Hobit (talk) 19:44, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

I quote from the guidelines "Almost all websites except for those published by traditional publishers (such as news media organizations)" are self-published. This is an individual who chooses to publish the work of other individuals at his own expense, it is a self-published source. If the editor were on the payroll of some traditional news organisation, it would not be self-published. If I tomorrow set up a website on my hobby, and opened that website to contributions from others, the fact I am choosing which contributions to include does not stop my website from being self-published. I have to ignore sources like this all the time when I am searching for sources, it's a pain, but the rules are there for a good reason. Boynamedsue (talk) 22:19, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

I see a lot of nonsense in this thread; e.g., the claim that all websites are self-published is, in fact, nonsense, and a decontextualized quote from the CMOS simply cannot make it otherwise. The relevant passage from the guideline (WP:USESPS) is as follows: The relationship between the author and the publisher is the key point. If it's the same person (or the same group of people) doing both, then it's self-published. If it's a different person or group of people voluntarily deciding whether to make the authors' works available to the public, then it's non-self-published. Websites need to be judged for reliability based on the reliability of their publisher, and the relationships between the publisher, the author, and the relevant subject, and not based on WP:IDONTLIKEIT in its various forms. Newimpartial (talk) 15:23, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

• I have been treating it as a reliable expert source (WP:RS/SPS) as its EIC Matt McElroy is the former director of publishing at the major RPG store DrivethruRPG, and the current director of operations at Onyx Path Publishing, and have mainly used it for uncontroversial information like release dates for certain RPG books. I would at least expect it to be fine in those cases. Please ping me if you reply to me - I don't have this page on my watchlist.--Alexandra^IDV 14:38, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Is "A Haber" a reliable source?

• They published a controversial article about a Turkish streamer. They heavily edited one of his videos to discredit him. No other major media outlet published news about this by the way.[30]
• Erkan Tan is one of their anchors. At the start of the news, mehter march was played. Then he went to claim "our country is under attack by allied Zionist and Crusader forces". After that he prayed to God to protect Turkey against these "forces".[31]
• They have titles like "Burcu Yazgı Coşkun surprised everyone! Nobody knew this." which reads like a tabloid newspaper.[32]

So, is this what you call a reliable source? @Adigabrek: @Victor Trevor:. --V. E. (talk) 20:04, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

• In my opinion A Haber is reliable. It has a gatekeeping process, a legal presence by which it can be held liable for what it publishes in a country with reasonable standards for rule for law, and it has been referenced by unambiguously RS sources (e.g. The Week [33], Ottawa Citizen [34], Al-Monitor [35], etc. etc.). I was not able to find RS that challenged its credibility. All the points above may or may not be valid, however, as editors we are unqualified to engage in original media analysis. We have to go by what RS say. Since these are not points raised by RS we have to assume there's a reason for that and ignore them (probably, for instance, is the fact that Erkan Tan is an opinion presenter and not a news anchor and anything he says can be treated under WP:RSOPINION). Chetsford (talk) 05:05, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

@Chetsford: You have a wrong take on this. Erkan tan is one of their anchors. Also a Haber is a member of Turkuvaz Media Group along with newspapers like Sabah, Atv and Takvim which have close ties to the government.[36] It has been unearthed that these media outlets recieved funding from various municipalities. After that yellow press cards of dozens of journalists were revoked with the initiative of Presidency's Communications Directorate.[37] This article states that Sabah-Atv Group (aka. Turkuvaz Group) published fake news during June 2019 Istanbul mayoral election.[38] This is clearly not a reliable and independent source.--V. E. (talk) 07:08, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Funding source itself is not an indication of unreliability as we established in the case of China Daily on this board. The BBC is funded by the British government and we don't consider it unreliable for that reason. I any case, as editors, we aren't qualified to engage in media analysis. A source is reliable if reliable sources indicate it is, and unreliable if they say otherwise. If your position is that Erkan Tan's commentary show makes A Haber unreliable, you'll need an RS that says so; neither you nor I are RS. Chetsford (talk) 14:12, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

@Chetsford: Other sources clearly state they published FAKE NEWS but you are ignoring this for some reason. You also ignore their tabloid style articles. Although you FALSELY claimed that Erkan Tan is not one of their anchors, he IS. So, it can't be considered as an opinion piece. I don't understand why you are ignoring all these points and others I didn't mention in this answer. @SilentResident: @Buidhe: what are you opinions?--V. E. (talk) 16:31, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Other sources clearly state they published FAKE NEWS but you are ignoring this for some reason. I'm not ignoring them, you simply haven't presented them. The existence of sources must be demonstrated, not simply declared. "I don't understand why you are ignoring all these points and others I didn't mention in this answer." The reason I'm ignoring points you didn't mention is because, like many humans, I lack telepathy and can only observe points you mention, not those you don't mention but are thinking about. Chetsford (talk) 17:13, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

By "I didn't mention in this answer", I meant "there are also other points but I'm not mentioning them again on my current edit." For fake news part: "Sabah-ATV Grubu seçim gecesi İstanbul’da oylar Binali Yıldırım aleyhine dönünce pervasız bir yalan haber üretimine girişti." Note: A Haber also belongs to Sabah-ATV group.--V. E. (talk) 17:24, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

For A Haber-Turkuvaz reliationship: "Bünyesinde Sabah, Takvim, ATV, A Haber gibi iktidara yakın yayın yapan gazete ve televizyonlar bulunan Turkuvaz Medya Grubu Yönetim Kurulu Başkan Vekili Serhat Albayrak’ın “Ticari itibarının zedelendiği” iddiasıyla açılan davada Sözeri ile birlikte Evrensel ve yayıncı şirketten aynı suçlama ile toplamda 200 bin TL talep ediliyor."--V. E. (talk) 17:26, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

"I'm not ignoring them, you simply haven't presented them. The existence of sources must be demonstrated, not simply declared." I have already presented them. It is not that hard to click the link. "This article states that Sabah-Atv Group (aka. Turkuvaz Group) published fake news during June 2019 Istanbul mayoral election.[38]"--V. E. (talk) 17:29, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

I've already addressed why simply posting a source that describes a funding mechanism does not demonstrate lack of independence. There's no need to ping me further. Chetsford (talk) 17:36, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

@Chetsford: You've omitted the fake news part again.--V. E. (talk) 17:46, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

++This article states that media outlets that belong to the Turkuvaz Media Group under which A Haber operates LACK independence and freedom.[39]--V. E. (talk) 16:46, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. Chetsford (talk) 17:13, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes it does. @Chetsford:

"CNN Türk, Kanal D, Milliyet, Hürriyet gibi kanal ve gazetelerin içinde bulunduğu en büyük medya kuruluşları Doğuş, Demirören, Ciner, Albayrak gibi şirketlere ait. Öte yandan Turkuvaz Medya bünyesinde Sabah, Daily Sabah, Takvim, A TV gibi gazete ve kanallar bulunuyor.

Doğan Medya Grubunun alımıyla büyüyen Demirören Grubu, Doğuş, Ciner, Albayrak, Kalyon, İhlas grupları ve Ethem Sancak'a ait şirketler; inşaat, enerji, maden, turizm, telekomünikasyon, bankacılık ve finans alanında da faaliyet gösteriyor.

Bu şirketlerin, medya dışı işlerinde kamu ihalelerine de girmesi ve devletle ticari ilişkileri olması, kontrol ettikleri medya organlarının bağımsızlığı ve özgürlüğü noktasında eleştirilere neden oluyor."--V. E. (talk) 17:24, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

I want to point out, for the sake of discussion, user Chetsford did not answer my concerns about the source publishing fakenews. Although he claims the otherwise this is not true and there is no solid evidence for this claim. So his opinion should be considered invalid.--V. E. (talk) 18:28, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

• I have never made a statement that A Haber source is reliable or independent. Just saying that couldn't see it at WP:RSPSOURCES, Visnelma. --Victor Trevor (talk) 22:38, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Sources for concert tours

• Sabrina Carpenter (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Talk:Sabrina Carpenter#Tagged for primary sources
• prnewswire.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• concertarchives.org: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• Is PR Newswire reliable to support the fact of Carpenter's De-Tour? (Note WP:RSP red color).
• Is concertarchives.org reliable to support any concert tour, or is this a glorified blog? Elizium23 (talk) 00:36, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

PR Newswire is fine per WP:ABOUTSELF, but if the subject is notable there typically is better sources that can be used (which I've done in the article linked). Concert Archives seems to be WP:UGC from [40], so unreliable. Jumpytoo Talk 02:53, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Funny you should mention ABOUTSELF. In WP:RSP it is said that prnewswire is acceptable for claims about "the author". Who is the "author" and why would we even want to source claims about press release authors? Does RSP mean the "source"? prnewswire lists "Live Nation" as the "source" of the press release in question. Is that the "author"? Elizium23 (talk) 02:59, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, "Live Nation" would be the author because the released the press release. They are generally for company announcements so it's fine for citing unremarkable facts about themselves (product releases, quarterly earnings...). Here Live Nation would be an reliable author because they are the promoter of the concert. Though, as I've said before if they're notable news outlets would cover the PR as well, if the PR was the only source available I would question if the artist meets WP:NSINGER. Jumpytoo Talk 04:35, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

My concerns about the new proposal for a new WMF sister project.called Wikifacts - renamed to "Fact repository"

meta:WikiFacts is described as "A Wiki of Facts, as part of or along with meta:Wikifunctions. WikiFacts will be a structured base for facts, and each fact will be given an id number. WikiFacts allows sharing knowledge on point, accurately and concisely. It allows verification and pointing out factual errors precisely, thus fighting misinformation. Demo website at: WikiSpore:WikiFacts_Spore." I'm told that by its proposer, User:Vis M, that it is meant " to extract information from books and simply list it under a topic. Fact-id was proposed to give focus to the facts than topic, and also to allow easy and precise citations." When I pointed out that facts can be in dispute, with the claim that the US election was stolen as an example, I was told that "qualifiers can be add to denote scientific facts, historical facts, general statements, strictness, consensus, estimates, opinions, etc. The main purpose is to breakdown articles into statements, and give focus to individual pieces of facts & statements than topic."

I think this runs against at least the spirit of WP:V and WP:RS. Not only because I think people should read the sources (although I admit I sometimes copy material from other articles without reading every source and I suspect this is very common) but because in many if not most cases context is vital and a plain fact/statement might simply be cherry-picked, eg avoiding the next sentence which says "But of course this is nonsense". I could say more but I'd prefer to see other people's views.

I'm not sure I'm happy with the WMF spending money on meta:Wikifunctions (actually named "Abstract Wikipedia" either - that looks like a done deal however.. Doug Weller talk 13:11, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Well ultimately as a wiki it won't be a reliable source. If it has sources, we can go after those sources for info, but that project itself would fail our verification policies and couldn't be used as a reliable source in and of itself. Canterbury Tail talk 13:31, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

meta:(WikiOpinions), definitely need one of these.Selfstudier (talk) 13:38, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

(proposer here). spirit of WP:V and WP:RS, this is what it aimed particularly, by adding citation for each of the subtopic and also allowing on-point discussion to correct the statements' implied meanings.
might simply be cherry-picked, eg avoiding the next sentence which says "But of course this is nonsense" Cherry picking will be avoided, and each 'fact' piece will contain the "buts" for it. That was the main intend, to stress on the particular facts/subtopics in its entirety along with the cautions, instead of a full topic article. The proposal is for a format that would cut down full topic article in to sub-topics for the smartphone era. That proposal is just a draft for the community to modify and decide if such a format should happen or not.
"with the WMF spending money on meta:Wikifunctions" I don't know why you are worried about that too. WMF collect money to give service to the people, and they are doing exactly what they should do. Wikifunctions would definitely have a significant impact on the humanity. I am only delighted whenever OpenAccess communities start new projects and only wish they spend more money on useful new projects like this. - Vis M (talk) 14:47, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

@Vis M: a lot of editors here would say that the WMF doesn't spend its money on the most important issues. For instance I among a lot of other Administrators are required to use 2FA - but it's a bad implementation with zero support although if I was careless I could be locked out of the project for who knows how long. How is cherry picking going to be avoided? Who provides the buts? Doug Weller talk 14:58, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

The factcheckers and scrutinizers. And it will be the main focus of such a site. - Vis M (talk) 15:21, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

These fact-checkers won't come out of thin air. Presumably they'll be the same admins and experienced editors who already are spread thin trying to maintain some quality control on millions of articles. In addition, there's already a problem of editors bringing issues to general noticeboards (such as NPOVN) that should be discussed on talk-pages, where the context is an important part of the discussion. With this proposal the fact-wiki will become yet another tempting alternative to forum-shoppers who are unhappy that their POV on including or excluding certain facts from an article is not meeting agreement on the talk-page. They can argue that "since the fact-wiki decided it's not a notable fact, it shouldn't be here either" or, conversely, that "since the fact-wiki accepted it as a notable fact, it should be in this article too". NightHeron (talk) 16:27, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Per policy, Wikis aren't WP:RS. Wikifacts cannot be cited as a source. If this project gets approved, and people start trying to cite it to any significant extent, the URL will need to be blacklisted. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:36, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

• The place to complain or object isn't here, but at the proposal page meta:WikiFacts. Johnbod (talk) 02:41, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
  • @Johnbod: it's now meta:Fact repository which is imho a terrible name. The place to discuss how enwiki might respond may be there but here is also appropriate. Doug Weller talk 09:02, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

• I have withdrawn the proposal considering the criticism received. Thanks - Vis M (talk) 09:26, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Gamete competition

I found this article, I cited it for sex and am thinking about using for anisogamy. I was wondering if the source seemed reliable.CycoMa (talk) 03:44, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

• Reliable It's an article appearing in an indexed, peer-reviewed journal published by a reputable publisher (Oxford University Press). The presence of peer review is evidence of gatekeeping, OUP has a physical personality, indexing demonstrates other RS consider it RS. Chetsford (talk) 05:19, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Chetsford Just a quick question but what do you mean by gatekeeping?CycoMa (talk) 17:33, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Sorry if that comes off as a stupid question but I just never heard that term before.CycoMa (talk) 17:39, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

@CycoMa: Gatekeeping means that the entry of material into that source is controlled. A real human with appropriate expertise has looked at the material and decided it's worthy of publication. This is in contrast to YouTube, for example, or most social media, where the organisation doing the hosting merely facilitates the publication of material and doesn't undertake to check it's any good. The gates to an OUP Peer-reviewed journal are shut until the editor (on advice from peer reviewers) opens them; the gates to YouTube are by default open! Hope that makes sense. Elemimele (talk) 22:23, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Self-published claim is single source

Miles Davis

In November 1988 he was inducted into the Sovereign Military Order of Malta at a ceremony at the Alhambra Palace in Spain[186][187][188] (this was part of the reasoning for his daughter's decision to include the honorific "Sir" on his headstone).[189]

.

The citations to Troupe, Carr and Gelbard all rely on the same origin It is also, I believe, an exceptional claim as Sovereign Military Order of Malta is a Catholic religious order, the subject is neither of those things. The Talk page has been pretty lively. Discussion is unresolved.Thelisteninghand (talk) 20:42, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

I found an independent source close in time (23 Aug 1989) to the actual event. "In November of last year, Davis was knighted in Spain by the prestigious Order of Malta, an honor he shares with the likes of Frank Sinatra." Schazjmd (talk) 20:53, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Also around the same time frame, his last interview Thanksgiving 1989 with Spin (magazine) (Q) SPIN: "[Noticing a small red medal on his sweater:] What’s this, Miles?" (A) Davis: "The Knights of Malta. They gave it to me". Isaidnoway (talk) 21:53, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Also wanted to add an independent observation from Dave Liebman, who attended Davis' funeral – They had gigantic pictures of him playing, of him receiving the medal from the Knights of Malta.... Source - Book: Miles Davis: The Complete Illustrated History, (page 208), Authors: Ron Carter, Clark Terry, Lenny White, Greg Tate, Ashley Kahn, Robin D. G. Kelley, Publisher: Voyageur Press. Isaidnoway (talk) 22:49, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Listenhand has no evidence or basis for their claim that The citations to Troupe, Carr and Gelbard all rely on the same origin. That notion is simply fabricated out of thin air. The groundless suppositions of an apparently inexperienced editor are not worth discussing at length. Cambial foliage❧ 23:11, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Thelisteninghand is misrepresenting the evidence. There is no self-published source; Miles Davis' autobiography was reliably published by a large house, and we have proven on the talk page that it has been indepedently reported by other biographers and magazines that are not slavishly quoting Davis. Thelisteninghand has not a shred of evidence for his conjectures, he is committing WP:SYNTH to cobble together a conspiracy theory of fakery and duplicity against Davis. Elizium23 (talk) 03:02, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

We are also going to call WP:FORUMSHOP here by Thelisteninghand, as, in regards to this dispute, he has been to the WP:TEAHOUSE (twice); we already posted an appeal to WP:NORN and the RFC is active, so we'd appreciate it if discussion were more centralized at the article talk page, where it belongs. Elizium23 (talk) 05:32, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Here's the New York Times [41]. JBchrch talk 21:50, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

References

armyrecognition.com

Army Recognition (armyrecognition.com) hasn't been discussed here before. Is this article of theirs a reliable source for the quantity 110 in the statement "The equipment of the Bangladesh Army includes 110 of the Type 83 122 mm towed guns" in List of equipment of the Bangladesh Army?

I don't believe it is. The website's home page has a link for people to send them press releases. Their contact page lists a CEO who also has the title Chief Editor, another Chief Editor of the Press Team, and two Journalists (by title, I can't find any credentials or work history for them). The author of the article in question is anonymous. The website doesn't seem to be cited by news media, but has been cited by a small number of books from reputable publishers (about 5 in the 19 years the domain has been registered). Low use by others indicates that they are not generally considered subject matter experts with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.

There is general agreement that the weapon is in service with the Bangladesh Army, but Wikipedia editors disagree about the number in inventory. The International Institute for Strategic Studies' The Military Balance (2021), which I believe is a much more reliable source, states that the quantity is 20. This figure jibes with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's arms trade registers (another much more reliable source), which show that number ordered from China in 2003 and delivered in 2004. --Worldbruce (talk) 01:31, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

References

• armyrecognition.com isn't a reliable source for the reasons noted above. It doesn't conduct any journalism or research, and much more reliable sources exist for its content. Nick-D (talk) 10:56, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
• Agreed, this source should be avoided. -Indy beetle (talk) 22:27, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

How to decide on the best sources in this case?

There has been a disagreement over sourcing in the "controversies" section of the Pierre Kory Wiki article. Currently the section uses one article by the New York Times, and one article by APNews to discuss Pierre Kory's senate hearing. I feel that since actual senate hearings are involved, we should link the senate testimony, especially since we are directly quoting Kory in the section. I feel this is the best way to prevent his words from being taken out of context. I have been told that primary sources should not be used as wikipedia is mostly against them. While I looked up the policy, it seems that primary sources can be used, it is just up to editor judgement. Can someone please explain in this case why judgement might be against primary sources? (For the record, I feel that we should include all sources (AP News, NYT, and the senate transcripts)). — Preceding unsigned comment added by MsSMarie (talk • contribs) 21:40, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

This is not a question for the reliable sources board. Nobody has disputed that the sources being cited are reliable. The question is whether the use to which they are being put is appropriate. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:48, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Understood. Is there a place to discuss that? MsSMarie (talk) 21:56, 13 June 2021 (UTC)MsSMarie

there is a discussion already going on at Talk:Pierre Kory. The article has been raised at the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. I have asked for input at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine. Going around looking for new places to repeat exactly the same arguments achieves nothing useful since it fragments discussion and makes achieving consensus harder, and can end up looking like forum shopping. Give it time, and let others chip in. There is no deadline. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:11, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I have not posted about the Pierre Kory article in any other place except on the talk page. I was not aware that it was already being discussed. MsSMarie (talk) 22:32, 13 June 2021 (UTC)MsSMarie

Spectrum Culture

Is Spectrum Culture considered a reliable source? There is currently a Spectrum Culture ref (this one) being heavily used on the article Everywhere at the End of Time, which I plan to improve to FA. The Wikipedia page of the publication doesn't have much but from what I searched, it seems to have a good reputation. It

• has an editorial staff and authors who have written for various publications used as sources on various Features articles (per quick insource:"[url].com" and incategory:"Featured articles" searches), including tinymixtapes.com, popmatters.com, and slantmagazine.com;
• is mentioned by Metacritic multiple times ([42] [43] [44]);
• is used in various good articles and in one featured article;
• has a podcast, which does not in itself indicate reliability but does indicate that the website has some audience.

Furthermore, according to its admitedly low-quality Wikipedia page, "Spectrum Culture's work has been featured on the official websites of various artists, films, and restaurants across the internet." It looks generally good to me; I have not found any reasonable reasons to doubt of its authenticity. This is mostly here exactly because of this though—I'd like to see if other people doubt its authenticity. Wetrorave (talk) 04:37, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

I think there's enough to consider it more reliable than unreliable, anyway. I've had limited involvement with SC as a source, but I was impressed by seeing a contributor like Kevin Korber, who's currently one of the site's assistant editors. He has written regularly for PopMatters (which is how I know the name) and Elmore Magazine; he was once reviews editor for the latter publication, apparently. So it might come down to the experience of individual writers on a case-by-case basis. JG66 (talk) 05:47, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

If that is the case, then the article I've mentioned would probably be reliable enough. The author, Holly Hazelwood, has been writing reviews on the website for four years now, and given that the editorial (which y'know, deals with fact-checking and stuff) has also written for other well-established sources, I think Spectrum Culture is ok for FA's "high-quality sources" requirement, and perhaps for inclusion at WP:RSP as reliable for info on music and film reviews. The author does have a political bias but I don't see how that would affect the review of an album about dementia. – Wetrorave (talk) 16:43, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Oh nevermind, I found more info regarding SC as reliable after simply looking at the refs of its Wikipedia page. For instance, the website's work

• has indeed "been featured on the official websites of various artists, films, and restaurants across the internet";
• "is also a featured reviewer on music aggregator sites Cloudspeakers.com and Any Decent Music".

I'd say this is enough to ensure it is a high-quality publication, without considering the individual writers. Wetrorave (talk) 21:38, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

• In my opinion this is an unreliable source. Primarily because I was unable to find any evidence of it being sourced by unambiguously RS sources. Secondarily (distantly), it has no physical presence by which it can be held liable for what it publishes (it provides no address on its website and a Whois search shows it's registered via proxy). The reasons cited for it being reliable are irrelevant: (a) having a podcast does not indicate something has an audience and that's besides the point anyway; the Daily Mail has one of the biggest news audiences in the English-speaking world and we consider it not reliable, (b) the fact that a source is used in WP articles does not make it reliable since WP itself is not a reliable source, (c) names associated with well-known writers are not a demonstration of reliability as we are unable to verify the veracity of bylines; a source that has no physical persona could byline articles to Dan Rather without consequence. No WP editor is qualified to engage in original media analysis. Our only method to judge a source's reliability is whether other RS have determined it to be reliable. Since no other RS have seen fit to source its reporting we have no evidence of reliability. The lack of evidence of reliability means a source is unreliable. Chetsford (talk) 05:16, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Understood. I agree with point (a). I oppose to point (c) because we are able to verify the veracity of the writers and their previous work. To re-work my previous sentence (with different links): a"uthors who have written for various publications including David Harris who has written for tinymixtapes.com, Kevin Korber who has written for popmatters.com, and Jake Cole who has written for Slant Magazine."

While looking through Cole's profile on both Spectrum Culture and Slant Magazine, I noticed the two photos looked nothing like each other and the two Twitter links led to different accounts. Some of the writers seem legit (e.g. Max Heilman who writes at Riff Magazine, Greg Hyde who writes at DIY Mag, and Mick Jacobs who writes at PopMatters). However, others like Jeffrey Davies have their profile description be simply a copy-and-paste of another, more well-known publication they write for (in the case of Davies, Pop Matters). So I think it might, well, come down to a case-by-case analysis of each writer.

I am not sure about point (b). While yes, Wikipedia is not a reliable source, the perennial sources listing is mostly based around consensus. I have specifically pointed out to the Good articles that feature SC as a source because, well, the fact that none of the reviewers indicated SC was unreliable did point towards some unspoken-of consensus that it is an ok source.

In conclusion, I would now say SC is usable when few or no sources exist for a certain topic but depending on the individual writers, it may come across as reliable. And yes, that article by Holly Hazelwood probably isn't high-quality by any means. I'll look for ways to replace it with other more reliable sources. Wetrorave (talk) 04:45, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

"I would now say SC is usable when few or no sources exist for a certain topic So if this source claimed zebras have a written language based on the Amharic alphabet, it would be usable for that claim, since there is no "fully" reliable source that says they don't? If we consider a source so questionable as to be unusable in almost any circumstance, then by definition it's unreliable, not "reliable if there's nothing better". Chetsford (talk) 15:54, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

I am aware that exceptional claims require exceptional sources. To rework my sentence (again): "Reviews of Spectrum Culture can be used in an article as attributed opinion. Depending on the writer, reviews may be used for factual statements, but it should be checked whether that specific writer has also reviewed that certain piece of media in another more reliable source. SC should never be used as sources on articles about living people or for exceptional claims." Take Anthony Fantano for instance, someone whose WP:RSP status is listed as "No consensus"/"unclear"/"additional considerations apply". I would say that "additional considerations apply" is the status of SC. -- Wetrorave (talk) 18:15, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

I definitely disagree. If any source requires a 40-word caveat detailing all the instances in which it can't be used, my instinct is that it's unreliable. In any case, our only standard for reliability is whether reliable sources describe a thing as reliable or whether they describe a thing as unreliable. There appears to be no evidence of RS indicating this is RS. Chetsford (talk) 19:35, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Alright, I've done extensive research now but the only indicator of any kind of remote notability for Spectrum Culture is that it is mentioned by reputable review aggregators Metacritic (multiple times there) and Rotten Tomatoes ([45]). And the only indicator of reliability is its staff, which does include some reputable writers but that does not make the webzine as a whole reliable. So reliable? A big, elongated maybe... depending on the writer's experience. High-quality? Definitely not. Wetrorave (talk) 21:13, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

@Chetsford: Alright, I am again arguing in favor of SC. After checking through WP:ALBUMSOURCE and past discussions (specifically this one of the website Tiny Mix Tapes, I return my original position.

• "I was unable to find any evidence of it being sourced by unambiguously RS sources."

After a look through a search on the News tab of Google (which I didn't check before), I see that SC is mentioned by several other websites. To link the staff/editorial/fact-checking policy/WP discussion of each website, followed by their mention of SC in the numbered link, this includes Looper [46] [47] [48] [49], The Reader [50] (part of the AAN), Nashville Scene [51] [52] [53], Film School Rejects [54] (WP discussion), IndieWire [55], The Desert Sun [56], Bounding Into Comics [57], MSN [58], and AutoStraddle [59]. None of them have necessarily called SC "reliable"/"accurate"/"reputable" but the fact that they mention Spectrum Culture this often indicates in itself that SC is a trusted source; I'm quite sure they wouldn't cite the Daily Mail.

• "it has no physical presence by which it can be held liable for what it publishes"

We are in the middle of a pandemic, so there can be no physical presence _{The previous statement was a joke I was gonna make} but yes, it does not have a physical presence. However, the founder resides in Portland.

• "names associated with well-known writers are not a demonstration of reliability as we are unable to verify the veracity of bylines"

We are able to verify the veracity though. Specifically focusing on editorial staff (not contributors), David Harris' description ("after leaving an editor position at Tiny Mix Tapes, David Harris started Spectrum Culture in 2008") fits with his TMT history which shows he posted more prolifically before 2008; Kevin Korber has indeed written for PopMatters; and these are just two examples of authors who have written for other high-quality publications. If we count the whole staff who has written for reliable sources, the number goes way up.

I would say this is enough to ensure SC is at the very least reliable, plus the Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes links presented. Wetrorave (talk) 16:08, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

"the only indicator of any kind of remote notability" Notability is a different thing from reliability. Breitbart is notable. It is not reliable.

"I see that SC is mentioned by several other websites." A RS merely acknowledging the existence of a source does not prove its reliability, it only proves it exists. Your citations are the former. The Daily Mail's existence is acknowledged by reliable sources. It is not reliable.

"Kevin Korber" I don't know who that is other than a guy with 374 followers on Twitter. Did he win a Pulitzer? Did he used to write for the New York Times? Perhaps you can explain more about why this webzine's mere association with this person "Kevin Korber" makes it reliable.

"the founder resides in Portland" I have no way of knowing that. Chetsford (talk) 17:15, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Notability is a different thing from reliability. I am aware of that. But the two concepts have some correlation, even if at a very minimal level.

A RS merely acknowledging the existence of a source does not prove its reliability, it only proves it exists. In this case, it likely does. Something we have in common is that we've both been using the Daily Mail as an example of an unreliable source. But you see, one of the Daily Mail's most notable aspects is its controversial aspects. None of the RS have cited SC as specifically unreliable however, and its home page doesn't show anything that might come off as sensationalist. The sources presented mention SC as a source for featuring a particular point of view, and not as such a sensationalist newspaper as the Daily Mail. This thus indicates SC is reliable for, at the very least, establishing attributed opinions on WP. You may interpret this as "original media synthesis"; well, because it kind of is. But WP:OR specifically states that "This policy of no original research does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources, such as deletion discussions or policy noticeboards."

Did he [Kevin Korber] win a Pulitzer? Did he used to write for the New York Times?" Ok, perhaps only having Korber as a reliable writer does not indicate that the publication as a whole is reliable. However, three of the website's editorial staff, out of seven, are "Tomatometer-approved" (source). As seen here, the "Tomatometer" indicates "a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans." And I don't think winning a Pulitzer or writing for the NYT is required for a source to be reliable—to jokingly explain, if that was the case, some 80% of refs would be deprecated or something.

For example:

• David Harris, the founder of the website, "began writing professional film criticism for Tiny Mix Tapes in 2007, where [he] was the film editor, and the reliability of Tiny Mix Tapes is discussed in detail here;
• Josh Goller has "been reviewing film in various publications for about 10 years (local weekly print publications prior to Spectrum Culture). [He] also review[s] music for Slant Magazine, and [...] earned [an] MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from Pacific University in 2011. Slant's editorial received praise from the NYT, as well as Rotten Tomatoes;
• Pat Padua has written for The Washington Post, Washington City Paper, and DCist.

Like the writers mentioned above, many other contributors have acceptable writing backgrounds.

This seems like a genuine reliable source for me. It boggles my mind that Spectrum Culture hasn't been discussed here before. Wetrorave (talk) 03:19, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Michael Shellenberger

• Michael Shellenberger (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The website of the publisher of one of his books quotes good things people said about it (but, for some inscrutable reason, no bad things people said about it). The Wikipedia article uses that website as a source. Is it a reliable one? I say no, because of WP:PROMO. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:28, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Not sure if I will weigh in, but it would be useful if you provided the problematic statement and the source used. JBchrch talk 09:55, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Before publication the book received favourable reviews from the climate scientists Tom Wigley and Kerry Emanuel, and from environmentalists such as Steve McCormick and Erle Ellis, but reviews after publication were mixed.

The point is: we have positive and negative statements by scientists, but the positive ones are all preselected by the publisher. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:25, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

References

The article as a whole includes a selection of positive and negative quotes, some of which come from the same people (Shellenberger is a very polarising figure). Clearly one wouldnt just use quotes selected by the publisher, but to exclude quotes from Richard Rhodes, Tom Wigley, Kerry Emanuel, Steven Pinker and Jonathan Haidt just because the publisher likes them seems an odd approach. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 10:32, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

The usual approach would be to try to get those quotes from another, more reliable source, and if that fails, exclude the statement. We only have the website of the publisher as a source for those, which is a biased source whose purpose is selling the book. If you want positive statements so bad that you are willing to use a promotional source for them, and have no other choice, then it seems you are trying to achieve WP:FALSEBALANCE. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:02, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

As discussed on the talk page, there's no doubt that these quotes are genuine. Indeed although Kerry Emanuel has subsequently caveated his remarks, he has specifically not withdrawn or denied them, stating that he has "no regrets about the endorsement" [60]. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 11:28, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

This is just a trick to circumvent the requirement for reliable sources. As far as I know, nowhere in the rules is there a statement that you are allowed to use otherwise unreliable sources if what they say happens to be true

We do not know the original context of those quotes. Maybe all those people had a lot of problems with the book and wrote them down, and the publisher found one positive sentence among them and put that one on the website. We know that the quote of one of them is not representative of his opinion - it was only the positive part of it. We do not know whether he also submitted the negative part to the publisher, who cut it from the quote, or if he just sent the positive part. Wikipedia cannot have a promotional site pre-filter information for it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:01, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Hob Gadling. The quotes in question seem to have been solicited by the book publisher in order to advertise the book, and they come from former and frequent collaborators (Ellis, Steven Pinker, etc.) and only appear on the book's website/the author's website. If these quotes were from an independent, third-party source, then they would be up for inclusion no issue in much the same way the Wall Street Journal and the LA Review of Books reviews are included on the page. However, they are not--they are promotional, dust-jacket material. I think it only makes sense to include reviews and comments from sources independent of the publisher. The book has been out for about a year--there are enough responses to and reviews of the book to provide an overview of its reception outside of reviews solicited by the publisher from frequent collaborators. Further, none of the other books mentioned on the page (Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility, An Ecomodernist Manifesto) include dust-jacket reviews. To include the reviews of the book solicited by the publisher is, I think, a violation of PROMOTION, esp. advertisement.

This is particularly important on this page, as the page has had promotional issues since its creation because of Single-purpose account editing that has been rampant across Shellenberger's page and pages related to him (Ex. Ted Nordhaus, Breakthrough Institute) (See: Here, here, here, here, and here). Efforts have been made recently to clean up the promotional nature of the page, but those efforts were met with pushback and accusations that are clear on the page's TALK page and my own TALK page. -Hobomok (talk) 17:34, 14 June 2021 (UTC)Hobomok (talk) 17:18, 14 June 2021 (UTC)