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Krunoslav Draganović

Does the community think Krunoslav Draganović is a reliable source? His books have been cited in a number of articles (mostly on medieval Bosnian history) and their removal from reference lists has been challenged by several users. [1] [2] For context, Draganović was a fascist collaborator and later played a role in helping many fascist officials, most notably Ante Pavelić and Klaus Barbie, escape justice after WW2. Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 17:59, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

I seem to recall his name cropping up a while back, and no I doubt someone this biased can be reliable for anything relating to history.Slatersteven (talk) 18:02, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Not a WP:RS, maybe on their own page with great caution but never as a third party source or unattributed. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:43, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Before you start jumping to conclusions - we don't reject sources based on authors background that we don't like. We reject them based on our assessment of how much of their work is influenced and compromised by their ideological or political persuasion, and for that we need good argument and maybe some examples, not just "he cannot possibly". Yes, Dragović was a sympathizer and probably a collaborator, but he was left alone by a judicial and security apparatus after the war. Then again, we have great deal of such sources used all over the project, and not one policy or guideline which specifically deals with such a situations (no WP:Reliable authors). We have myriad of historians just from Germany and Austria, whose expertise in some field of historical research was rarely questioned in spite of the fact that many if not most of them were a members of the Nazi party itself, not just sympathizers. Good portion of the Category:Austrian historians were members of the party and many of them are used in our project (you can start with Walter Schlesinger, Otto Brunner). In case of mentioned articles only Draganovic's contribution-research for the synthesis on the medieval history of Bosnia, a seminal book on the subject, was used as a source, which is the field in which he was trained. He is not the only historian who may expressed bias in his work - most Serbian and Croatian historians are ideologically biased when it comes to medieval or any history of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but that does not mean that we cannot or should not use them all, because it is possible to simply filter out nonsense, fringe, polemical or contentious claims - we can manage in refining and deciding which part of their work is usable, which is contentious or simply outdated. Draganovic's particular citation is used as a reference on a perfectly innocuous statement in the article on medieval history, and his conclusions are perfectly correct in the cited book. (I am referring to this as an example, which should be checked out.). In other words, it's not some piece of ideological-political claptrap in relation to World War II or some subject related to his ideological-political thinking or activities that were used. Thus, he, just like any Serbo-Croatian historian, can be used with a care and only for issues related to their specific training. However, I am not saying we should not reject this person in principle if community believe that course of action would be appropriate. I also gave an argument at TP Stjepan Vukcic Kosaca, and there are many interesting discussions at WP:Reliable sources talk page, especially this one in archive: Nazi and Soviet sources.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 23:23, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Draganović was an Ustasha member, and an active one at that. Besides his role as an organizer of ratlines to help Nazi and fascists escape to South America, the article also states he was the military chaplain for the Jasenovac concentration camp. So he was literally a fascist and Nazi collaborator who played a role in the genocidal slaughter of people, not simply a "sympathizer" or someone who was possibly maybe a collaborator. Brunner and Schlesinger are both historians who are known for their scholarship, and not as Nazis or fascists. They happened to sympathize with the Nazi party, which at the time wasn't uncommon given that they were the dominant party (Schlesinger's article even states he became disillusioned with the party for a while). So it is hardly comparable to the Draganović situation. Is he even known as a historian? At least more so than being a priest and aiding Nazi/fascist war criminals evade justice. You're also making another false equivalence when you compare Draganović to any other random Serbian or Croatian historian with nationalist tendencies, which are a dime a dozen. But as far as I know weren't members of a fascist regime.

Having said that, I sort of understand your point regarding the Stjepan Vukčić Kosača article, which is essentially "Yes, he was a bad person but this is a non-controversial statement cited to him so it's ok". On the other hand, if the statement is innocuous then surely a better and reliable source in Serbo-Croatian could be found and cited to that passage instead? (and one newer than 1942 which also falls under WP:AGEMATTERS and is another problem). Maybe I'm wrong but it looks to me like there are three passages cited to him, two of which have citations to other works as well leaving only one passage that is entirely dependent on his book alone. --Griboski (talk) 01:59, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

I can't talk about which Nazi is bigger and nastier Nazi, because I'm not an expert on Nazis - I can only say that we use Nazi, Soviet, communist and various other controversial sources all the time in our project. Having said all this, does not mean that we can use them without control, nor that we should not challenge them in principle and declare them unreliable, but it all depends on how much their expert work, or which part, is compromised by their ideology - as community we are able to decide how much and in what way we will use some part of their opus, what is contentious, what is controversial, and carefully decide what is usable and what is not. Draganović, as far as I know, could be an invaluable source on the subject of Catholic church history, especially medieval to modern - and yes, he was a trained medievalist. His work on these subjects is appreciated and cited by Yugoslav historians without any fuss. WP: AGEMATTERS in case of particular Draganovic's conclusions that were used in several articles (it concerns one very specific issue), does not apply, because those are still relevant - there is no update on those conclusions - and are valid for other articles as well, since it is the same conclusion that has been "copied / pasted" in several biographical articles on personalities from the time of the fall of Bosnia under the Ottomans.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 08:23, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

If we can avoid citing a Nazi, we should. And that he was a historian of the Middle Ages doesn't mean we can cite him on the pretext that that stuff is so old it's innocent--the treatment of the Middle Ages is not somehow value-free, on the contrary. Santasa99, I don't understand this revert. Griboski's removal left only one uncited paragraph, and that happens to be a paragraph starting "it is also noteworthy", which is a completely unencyclopedic throwaway comment, and "probably realizing" is as weak as it gets--so what do we lose by removing the citations and that particular paragraph? Nothing. Drmies (talk) 19:37, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

• And Amanuensis Balkanicus, the easy way to deal with this here is to find another source, even if that means cutting the paragraph down or whatever. I want to agree with you on the principle, but if pragmatic solutions are found to remove Nazis then we achieve the same effect. Drmies (talk) 19:42, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

  Instead of questioning and discussing his (un)ethical approach to research and scholarship in the field he was trained, we are questioning and discussing his character, and the ethics and morality of his political deeds.

  @Drmies: I really don't know where did you read something even resembling "stuff is so old it's innocent", I didn't even imply something that would create such a context even remotely. But, to avoid repeating myself, you can re-read my above posts, I did my best to be as clear and concrete as possible, sacrificing coveted conciseness in the process. I am not sure that he was a Nazi either - it's maybe my fault for playing above with the label and comparing him to prominent Austrian historians who were members of the Nazi Party yet regularly used as a source in our project - he was anti-communist-ethno-nationalist who sympathized and collaborated with NDH Croatian fascists. Epilogue of the case is that he mysteriously appeared in Yugoslavia in 1966 and was completely rehabilitated in 1967 (my conclusion is undeservedly), by Yugoslav regime, the only regime that sought to prosecute him. He was also medievalist whose work, strictly speaking, on medieval and Catholic church history was cited by other Yugoslav historians, while being regularly published both in Yugoslavia and abroad until his death in 80's (especially is unique his work on church statistic, organization, etc. in period from middle ages to beginning of the 20th century, and would be silly to reject it) Meanwhile, University of Zagreb, Catholic Faculty of Theology, has his Faculty Member profile at unizg.academia.edu, with his published books on history, while just last month Catholic Faculty of Theology of University of Sarajevo had a presentation of his book “Catalog of parishes and the decline of the Catholic element in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 17th century” !?

  As for my revert - until we sort it out, in my view he is RS, limited by our rational, sensible and neutral application; of three statements in question, all three absolutely uncontroversial and his refed conclusion from the book correct and still relevant, and all from one page, 555:

  this statement is based solely on him: It is also noteworthy that Herzog Stjepan refrained from claiming the Bosnian crown for his adolescent grandson Sigismund, Catherine's son and Stephen Tomašević's half-brother, probably realizing that Bosnia needed a strong, mature monarch in a time of peril.((sfn|Draganović|1942|p=555)); why we need it is self-evident - he chose to support his mortal enemy's son over his teenaged grandson for the sake of state unity and stability, and Draganović gives a very sound explanation of that behavior. Other two statements are similarly innocuous and source conclusion again true:

  Strained relations with his stepmother, Herzog Stjepan's daughter, the 37-year-old Queen Catherine, were relaxed as he guaranteed she would retain her title and privileges. This was noted by her father, Stjepan, who wrote to Venetian officials that the King had "taken her as his mother".((sfn|Draganović|1942|p=555))+((sfn|Mandić)).

  Very swiftly upon strengthening his own position, peace was finally restored and reconciliation achieved, finally ensuring the nobility's absolute support of their king and loyalty to the kingdom.((sfn|Draganović|1942|p=555))+((sfn|Miller))((sfn|Ćirković|))((sfn|Ljubez)).--౪ Santa ౪^99° 10:50, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

  That will what might be called the "Irving factor", to what degree does a persons poltics affect their ability to present neutral and accurate research. As a nationalist (and indeed ethnonatialist) writer his work, must be suspect when talking about national identity in any way.Slatersteven (talk) 10:58, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

  Well, @Slatersteven:, I agree with you, maybe the example is a little extreme. My personal position in this regard, in our project, is on display here, where I question and object the uncritical usage of the particular conclusion made by another Croatian medievalist, Mladen Ančić, who is current professor at the Cathedra of Medievalistics at the University of Zadar, and so on, and so forth. We can do a better job in discerning, critically, using reviews, commentaries and other sources, which so-and-so author's book, research paper, part of the book/paper, statement and conclusion we should and should not use, than just sweepingly dismiss entire opuses based on ideological or political background of their authors. To this day and since its inception, Serbian and Croatian historiography on Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Montenegro is marred with ideology and politics - in terms of their academic work, there is less difference between the late doctor and professor Draganović and the still very much active doctor and professor Ančić than people would think!--౪ Santa ౪^99° 13:54, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

  I'm not easily going to accept historical accounts that come from Nazis, given how invested Nazis were in rewriting history. Drmies (talk) 14:23, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

  You don't need any Nazis in Serbo-Croatian historiography, either old or new, to lose yourself in the labyrinth of history rewriting and negative revision ;-)--౪ Santa ౪^99° 15:01, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

  That may be true--but again, that's actually supportive of getting rid of them, to eliminate at least one complicating factor. Speaking as a medievalist, I do not trust any Nazi historian. Drmies (talk) 15:20, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

A quick read of this, Adriano, Pino; Cingolanie, Giorgio (2018). "The Massacres of Serbs, Jews, and Romani". In Adriano, Pino; Cingolani, Giorgio (eds.). Nationalism and Terror: Ante Pavelić and Ustasha Terrorism from Fascism to the Cold War. Central European University Press. pp. 189–218. ISBN 9789633862063., and a perusal of the other hits in JSTOR convince me that we should NOT use the works of Draganović to cite anything. The man used his historical work to justify a set of despicable atrocities; that the forced conversion of Serbian orthodox Christians is a "return" to some original state and therefore justified is unacceptable even if not already historically questionable. Drmies (talk) 15:36, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Absolutely, as an environmental anthropologist ;-), i think we should trim their usage as much as possible (any comprehensive uprooting should be undertaken upon serious discussion in WP:Reliable sources TP) - by the way I did not introduce Draganović, he was referenced by another editor, whom I fully trust on the subject matter of medieval history - editor Surtsicna - unfortunately they have been absent from the project for nearly two months, which is, in this age of Covid, quite disconcerting - I really hope his absence is totally unrelated. Draganović conducted a rather invaluable research on history of the Catholic church in Bosnia, and that research is used by other researchers all the time. In the case of these articles, as you can attest, his conclusions are quite harmless for our project, and only one statement is based on him alone. So, we can manage if are serious and sensible in our work here.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 15:50, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

His "invaluable research on the history of the Catholic church in Bosnia" explains how "orthodox priests" took "our living space". They were of a "violent Dinaric type" (that's a pretty common catchphrase) "of a very alien blood". In other words, the racist theorizing (debunked, of course) was there from the beginning. In other words, racism masking as scholarship. See Yeomans, Rory (2007). "Of 'Yugoslav' Barbarians and Croatian Gentlemen Scholars: Nationalist Ideology and Racial Anthropology in Interwar Yugoslavia". In Turda, Marius; Weindling, Paul (eds.). "Blood and Homeland": Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeast Europe, 1900-1940. Central European University Press. ISBN 9789637326813.. I'm sticking these references in, fully templated, for anyone who wants to improve the article on this gentleman racist. Drmies (talk) 19:45, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Did you now read how he used his " research on history of the Catholic church in Bosnia" to justify forced conversions? Nothing he says can be divorced from his agenda.Slatersteven (talk) 15:52, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

You can take any a little more nationalistic historian from Serbia (Vladimir Ćorović, Milorad Ekmečić to name a few) and you will find that their works has been used for slaughter of Muslims by Serbs in 1940's and in 1990's.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 16:03, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

And? This is not about them. If you have issues with those sources bring them here.Slatersteven (talk) 16:06, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

And!? No, I don't have any problems with them, nor numerous others who used their work in history research to justify slaughter of Bosnian Muslims, but that's my point exactly.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 16:28, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Then what is your point?Slatersteven (talk) 16:33, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Really, after all this back and forth?! My point is that if one is serious in her/his approach to editing Wikipedia, and mature adult person with a strong character (some basic intelligence and collaboration with other editors not precluding), then, one could refed any author whose work is controversial, but still nevertheless used and published by many serious mainstream academic institutions and used by some peers, while not being really of Irving kind.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 16:50, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Which goes directly against wp:rs WP:undue and wp:fringe. This is my last word here, he is not usable.Slatersteven (talk) 17:01, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, except he's not a fringe nor undue, which is quite obvious from those three para's above taken out of the article.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 17:04, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

The consensus so far is that Draganović is not a reliable source and should be avoided. Therefore, I don't think you have the right to be edit-warring in order to keep re-inserting him as a source. --Griboski (talk) 17:41, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Of course he’s fringe, what in the world would make you think otherwise? You haven’t presented evidence that his works are "used and published by many serious mainstream academic institutions” but if you would like to you can now. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:02, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I think fringe would apply here. Generally, encyclopedias shouldn't use controversial sources but note when controversies exist. User:Santasa99 says above that Wikipedia uses Nazi sources as RS in articles - do we? I've never seen Nazis cites on Wikipedia as reliable. This discussion has gone on and on and it's hard to even see it as good faith without some evidence to back up these claims.Spudlace (talk) 23:15, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

@Griboski:, no one has a right to edit-war; "consensus so far" does not exists as a norm! WP:RSN needs to be closed, and when it close and if result is that it's unreliable, I will remove it myself, don't worry that much.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 18:13, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back:, of gee, how about those links above, how about WorldCat, is that place where we look in these cases?--౪ Santa ౪^99° 18:21, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

WorldCat says basically nobody cites him. What are you seeing that I am not? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:02, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm not aware that WorldCat shows citations. Are you thinking of Google Scholar? DGG ( talk ) 05:30, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Kirkus Reviews, again

I started a new article about an author (Isabel Thomas), and used a few of those like [3] as refs. I found this Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_180#Kirkus_Reviews earlier discussion, and wonder if that wisdom still holds. Is a KR "safe" if it doesn't indicate "Kirkus Indie"? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:44, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Kirkus Reviews is a great source, and is usually the first I check before creating a new article. Concerning their paid review program, it seems like nothing has changed, as reviews are still tagged under their Kirkus Indie program, as you can see in this review published today. Aside from that, I imagine Kirkus Reviews works like any other big journal/magazine, reviewing hundreds of books sent by the big publishers every month. Isabelle ^🔔 17:24, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up, Gråbergs Gråa Sång, and thanks for the link, User:Isabelle Belato--I had no idea. I've used their reviews too, but never knew about this, and never noticed "Indie". I think that I've used them only for things whose notability wasn't ever in question, but this is good to know. Drmies (talk) 17:28, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

I consider they have always been and remain absolutely unusable for self-published books. They are probably reliable for books from major publishers destined for a public library audience, because that's the audience for the reviews. Academic librarians never use them. and the presence or absence of a review of an academic book there is meaningless. DGG ( talk ) 05:34, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

A peer-reviewed paper by Segreto and Deigin's reliability has been challenged at "Investigations into the origin of COVID-19"

Links: authors-are-not-virologists rebuttal, authors-are-not-virologists-2 rebuttal, lack-of-citations rebuttal, authors-are-not-virologists-3 rebuttal, bioessays_poor_reputation rebuttal, bioessays_poor_reputation-2 rebuttal, Talk:Investigations_into_the_origin_of_COVID-19/Archive_8#Talk_page_consensus_on_high-quality_"Lab_Leak"_sources.

Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.202000240

Article: COVID-19 lab leak theory.

Content: The paper hypothetizes that SARS-CoV-2's cleavage site and specific RBD could result from site-directed mutagenesis, a procedure that does not leave a trace

I open this noticeboard given that in the last talk page discussion about it, some editors said that a consensus was reached to find the source unreliable for its main claim regarding COVID-19 origin, and that any further discussion would be best placed in a RS Noticeboard.

Please discuss whether the source is reliable for the topic.Forich (talk) 22:29, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

This source was cited 42 times. A recent review mentions this source, along with Relman DA (2020) (Opinion: to stop the next pandemic, we need to unravel the origins of COVID-19. Proc Nat Acad Sci 117(47):29246–29248), as a support of the hypothesis that that SARS-CoV-2 may have been manufactured in a laboratory. Nothing in that review suggests Sergio&Deigin is not reliable. However, it seems this source: Segreto, R., Deigin, Y., McCairn, K. et al. Should we discount the laboratory origin of COVID-19?. Environ Chem Lett 19, 2743–2757 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-021-01211-0 should be used instead, because it is more recent, and it is authored by the same authors. --Paul Siebert (talk) 22:37, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

See Template:Origins of COVID-19 (current consensus) #3. I don’t think anything has changed since. It’s not an RS. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:39, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

As a medical source, per WP:MEDRS, there are extra considerations. Keep in mind there was another study refuting their finding linked to on that same page, and also consider whether there is enough secondary source strength to warrant its use. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk)

Is this local consensus supposed to overturn our policy? This source meets all requirements that we apply to top-quality reliable sources. WP:MEDRS is noit a policy, but just guidelines. However, it seems this source is outdated, and the more recent source (see above) should be used instead.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:44, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

There is no separate standard to that applies to MEDRS that does not apply to RS. One is no less a "policy" than the other. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 22:49, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Anyway, here is the abstract of the 2021 paper by the same authors:

"There is a near-consensus view that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of COVID-19, has a natural zoonotic origin; however, several characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 taken together are not easily explained by a natural zoonotic origin hypothesis. These include a low rate of evolution in the early phase of transmission; the lack of evidence for recombination events; a high pre-existing binding to human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2); a novel furin cleavage site (FCS) insert; a flat ganglioside-binding domain (GBD) of the spike protein which conflicts with host evasion survival patterns exhibited by other coronaviruses; and high human and mouse peptide mimicry. Initial assumptions against a laboratory origin by contrast have remained unsubstantiated. Furthermore, over a year after the initial outbreak in Wuhan, there is still no clear evidence of zoonotic transfer from a bat or intermediate species. Given the immense social and economic impact of this pandemic, identifying the true origin of SARS-CoV-2 is fundamental to preventing future outbreaks. The search for SARS-CoV-2′s origin should include an open and unbiased inquiry into a possible laboratory origin."

--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:53, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Still WP:PRIMARY, still published by non-credentialed authors who have little expertise in viruses, or virology, or especially viral genetics. BTW, that envir chem lett paper is an Editorial, meaning it is not peer-reviewed, and is thus simply the opinion of the authors themselves.

The only ways in which this should be used is in how it is cited or discussed by secondary peer-reviewed review papers published in topic-relevant journals. They must tell us how we interpret the proposed ideas and how we perceive the credibility of its authors. BTW, from examining the authors list here, this is just an editorial by all the folks who have any semblance of scientific training in DRASTIC. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:57, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Not a RS. Segretto and Deigin's qualifications have not changed. They are still bucking against the majority consensus opinion of the scientific community, and BioEssays has no relevant expert editors in virology or similar topics. This is an opinion paper at best, it is not a review, it appears to be peer reviewed (it went through one round of revision), but it is published in an essays outlet, and does not contain much, if any, original research). It should be treated as an opinion piece published in a non-topic relevant journal. And, so it becomes a question of whether the opinions of the authors are particularly relevant to the topic or notable/DUE. And I would say they are not. Deigin's highest qualification is an MBA. He has never done any work on viruses, or in biosafety. Segretto's closest work is in fungal ecology, though she does have a PhD. She has not worked in high level biosafety labs or in environmental health and safety. Not every paper that is published in a scholarly journal is useful for our purposes. Especially ones that are purely primary opinion, and are not well respected by the scientific community. The consensus has not changed, that the ideas in this paper are not likely, that any genetic engineering of the virus is extremely unlikely, etc. For all these reasons, this is not an RS. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:54, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

BioEssays is a peer-reviewed journal with impact factor of 4.5 (not a top journal, but still quite decent). Why invent new rules that are not found in our policy?

According to the policy, it IS a quite reliable source. However, as I already explained, it is outdated.

For records: it is quite unlikely SARS-CoV2 was engineered.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:07, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

BioEssays is not well respected, especially not in the field of virology. Citations (e.g. impact factor) are not the only way to evaluate the reliability of a scientific source. This is far from the first time the reliability or usefulness of a piece published in Bioessays has been called into question. It has a long history of publishing pieces that are pure opinion, speculation, "out there" idea, that some have described as belonging more in the lay press or in blogs than in a scientific journal. It's interesting stuff, but people would be concerned if you cited it for a statement of fact in a dissertation. Example: The journal has been accused of using milquetoast peer-review, in which the ideas of the papers published within it are given only a cursory review, and not truly critiqued or subjected to the rigorous criticism normally demanded by the scientific community. Like in this paper about declining sperm counts. [4] or this paper by Gutierrez, Beall, et al in 2015. See criticism: [5]. Or Speijer in 2020 [6]. [7]. Or this cancer paper proposing the "TOFT model" [8]. [9] or the ativastic model: [10]. I'm not saying that Bioessays doesn't sometimes publish good stuff. it does. I even really like the Evolution essays they publish sometimes. But the point is that they often publish stuff that is a little out there. And not respected by the broader community. They like to publish stuff that is on the edge. Groundbreaking, fascinating, controversial. The editors of this journal have even said as much: [11] But this is exactly the opposite of what we need for reliable sources on Wikipedia. We need stable, tried and true, endlessly vetted secondary review papers which evaluate this stuff for us. Not the primary essays which propose these novel and controversial ideas. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:29, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

"It's a peer reviewed journal therefore it's default reliable" is not a good argument. Sourcing guidelines are not blunt instruments. Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology an Elsevier journal once published a paper that suggested cephalopods are aliens. Editors should always have discretion as to which sources are used. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:34, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

We cannot invent ad hoc rules.

The question was quite clear: "Does this source meet RS criteria"?

The formal answer is "Yes it does" (per our policy). However,

• The source seems outdated (another, more recent paper by the same authors should be used instead, where they concede the natural hypothesis is an almost consensus view).
• The source may not meet NPOV criteria: despite being reliable, it may represent minority of fringe view.

That means, (i) instead of this, formally reliable source, another, more recent source should be used, and (ii) a decision about usage of this source should be made if weight issues are resolved. I believe, it will not be difficult to make a brief search to find relative weight of that source. It may be quite likely it expresses nearly fringe view.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:44, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

No. See WP:SOURCE:

• The work itself (the article, book)
• The creator of the work (the writer, journalist)
• The publisher of the work (for example, Random House or Cambridge University Press)

All three can affect reliability.

As per current consensus #3: Specifically, editors were not convinced by the credentials of the authors, and concerns were raised with the editorial oversight of the BioEssays "Problems & Paradigms" series.. i.e. bullets 2 and 3 are a fail. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:04, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Note: WikiProjects Medicine, Skepticism, COVID-19, Molecular Biology, and the Fringe Theories Noticeboard have been notified of this discussion.— Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:02, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

I fundamentally disagree with this approach. Yes,

• I agree that BioEssays is not a top journal, and its editorial board does not look impressive.
• I agree that Environmental Chemistry Letters, where the second article was published, has no direct relevance to the topic.
• I admit that the authors' own credentials may be not too impressive.

However, if Wikipedia editors are allowed to invent additional criteria to reject some sources, some other Wikipedians may invent some other local rules to approve some sources that normally should be rejected. That is dangerous for Wikipedia as whole.

Instead, I propose to use a more formal approach: to admit that that source meets formal RS criteria, but check how frequently this source is cited, and in which context. If majority sources ignore or openly reject this source, and I expect they are, this source should be rejected as fringe. Under this source I mean the 2021 article not the BioEssays article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:46, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia is supposed to be mainstream and academically conservative about scholarly topics (as any encyclopedia would). Is this paper cited by others, and if so, in which context exactly? If it's only cited by papers in dubious journals and by non-experts (read: newspapers mentions fall in this category too), it's unlikely to be an accurate reflection of the academic mainstream. Looking at the list of citations on Google Scholar, many of these are obvious examples of this (self-cites by authors; cites in Env Chem Let by some other authors; pre-prints; predatory journals). All to say, the Google Scholar count is not any useful metric. There appear to be some citations from virological.org (which is basically a place for discussion amongst virologists and a repository for unpublished papers, so not exactly peer-reviewed but not entirely unacceptable per WP:SPS - at least, I'm not planning on citing it, but the authors I'm citing below are indeed virologists and not amateur detectives), but some of them are rather dismissive:

Hence, analyses suggesting that the evolutionary origins of the RmYN02 S1/S2 cleavage site can be revealed by a simple nucleotide alignment (Segreto and Deigin, 2020) are overly simplistic. [12]

Or, more dramatically, entirely unflattering:

Proponents of theories for the unnatural origin of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) have asserted that the 12 nucleotide insert in the spike gene, which results in acquisition of a furin cleavage site in spike, may have arisen by laboratory manipulation (Relman, 2020; Segreto and Deigin, 2020; Seyran et al., 2020; Sirotkin and Sirotkin, 2020). Here, we compile evidence demonstrating that insertion/deletion (indel) events at the S1/S2 and S2’ protease cleavage sites of the spike precursors are commonly occurring natural features of coronavirus evolution. [13]

Putting all that together; you have a paper which wasn't actually cited in other peer-reviewed research, certainly not positively (so it is extremely unlikely to be representative of the mainstream view); it's from non-experts and it's in a dubious journal. So, since it fails all three criteria, not an RS. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:47, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Again, that is not true.

• A journal with impact factor of 4.5 is hardly dubious. Is is quite good.
• Tyshkovskiy & Panchin's article [14], a direct responce to Segreto and Deigin, was published in the very same journal. If BioEssays is a dubious journal, why the two bioinformatic scientists from Misha Gelfand's institute publish their response there? The fact that they are real experts cannot be questioned by nobody in clear mind. The fact that leading experts respond to that article means it is by no means fringe.
• The article was cited 42 times, which is pretty decent for the 2020 article.

We all agree that lab leakage is highly unlikely. However, do not modify WP rules to remove the source that you don't like. If you misinterpret our policy to reject some source, somebody else may do the same to approve some other source.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:02, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Fetishizing impact factor as an exclusive and all-encompassing way to assess the quality of journals will lead us down some very dark paths. I say this as someone who has published in many "high impact" journals (Science, Nature, Immunity). I don't regret it, but I also don't value those papers as exceptionally good, either. Examples of crappy journals with impact factors around that of BioEssays:

• Journal of Ginseng Research, 6.06
• Academic Exchange Quarterly (a well known predatory pay to play journal), 5.11
• Scientific Reports (where half the editorial board resigned in disgust at sham peer review), 4.379

I could go on and on. This is a bad argument.

Saying that a quality scientist also published there does not make it a good journal. Good scientists publish in bad journals and vice versa. Andrew Wakefield's infamous MMR anti-vaxx study was published in The Lancet [15] [16]. Medical Hypotheses has published AIDS denialism (infamously [17]), but they have also published papers by V. S. Ramachandran and several nobel laureates. Doesn't make it a good journal. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 02:13, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Please, mind your tong. Nobody here is fetishizing anything. Impact factor does not guarantee credibility, but it is a relatively good predictor of quality. And, that was just one my argument out of several. Again, if BioEssay is bad for us, why it is not bad for Panchin? Or you reject Pancin's article as a good source too?

Look, if we reject Segreto's article (who supports a lab leakage hypothesis), we must reject Panchin's article too. But we are not going to do that, right?

--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:29, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Keep in mind, I am criticizing your arguments, not you. You seem to be a very reasonable person, and I have no reason to criticize or demean you in any way, and have tried hard to avoid doing so. I would describe Panchin's article as also an opinion piece published in a low quality journal, and therefore also would not cite it. BTW, it is also WP:PRIMARY and should be avoided for that reason as well. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 02:31, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Well, if Wikipedians are allowed to arbitrarily decide what is an opinion piece and what is not, then its quality will deteriorate further.

Ok, I trust you that you authored several Nature papers (which means you are pretty notable person and a true expert). But what if in reality you are just a 10th grade high school student? Why your opinion on Panchin matters? What if I respond you that I personally know his supervisor, and I guarantee he is a leading expert in bioinformatics, and his opinion (as well as the opinion of people working under his supervision) is 146% reliable (no matter where it is published)? That may be true, or I may lie, who knows? And what shall we do in that situation? Vote?

Alas, that does not work like that. We either use some formal criteria, or Wikipedia will become even a greater mess.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:39, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Never said I published multiple Nature papers. I have published in the journals I referenced. The Nature article is a forthcoming topic review I have authored with my former advisor about flaviviruses. That is neither here nor there. Opinion pieces are not inherently bad. Expert opinion is often quite useful. But it depends on the person saying the opinion, as you have referenced. Sometimes, it's amazingly useful, and reliable, like in the many very great articles published in The Conversation which we cite with attribution.

The thing that makes this Deigin and Segretto paper opinion, imo, is that it makes broad sweeping statements that are not verifiable or testable. Is that subjective? Yes. Is all RS-determination of non-WP:RSP sources somewhat subjective? Also yes. This is not a court of law, it is not a mathematical equation. There is some subjectivity in our interpretations of the sources and their qualities. And that is why consensus is more than just "Does it meet the formal criteria?" And why this noticeboard exists, frankly.

The fact that this Deigin and Segretto piece is published by two people who no mainstream scientist discusses, references, or cites, is why they are fringe and would, therefore, be almost always WP:UNDUE to quote. The bad journal, non-expert authors, questionable editorial series, and WP:PRIMARY status are why this particular paper is not a WP:RS. Doesn't even particularly matter whether it's opinion for that part of the determination. As several other editors above have agreed. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 02:45, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

All of that would be completely correct if Wikipedia were edited by professionals. The problem is, however, that that is not the case. Many people even don't understand the concept of peer-reviewing. Imagine you are discussing all of that with 10 users who are 10th grade students, and they achieved a consensus that you are not right. What will you do in that situation? That is why more formal criteria are needed. And the approach is as follows: this source formally passes WP:V, but does not pass (or marginally passes) WP:NPOV.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:59, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

As WP:1AM recommends, I would either 1) put it out of my mind and accept that the encyclopedia is forever a work in progress and it being "wrong" to me in one area does not diminish its overall greatness, 2) start an RfC, or 3) escalate it to this noticeboard, as Forch has done.

Do you have a WP:PAG-based reason for circumventing consensus? Could you provide a quotation of the relevant passage? Because I am not reading that anywhere in the relevant policies. It appears to be your opinion on how Wikipedia should work, not an accurate assessment of how it does. Such opinions on altering PAGs should be placed on the talk pages of the relevant guidelines. They are not relevant here. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 03:22, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

WP:V is if the content is verifiable to the source (reliable or not, vs WP:RS). I also see multiple claims from you that editors would be using their own special rules, when WP:PRIMARY is not that ambiguous. —PaleoNeonate – 04:55, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Shibbolethink, I am rarely editing science related topics, but I know most people here are pretty reasonable. In addition, the amount and quality of scientific publications allows easy evaluation of quality and notability of each source, so these should be not much disagreement in these topics even if we approach the problem totally formally. In connection to that, I find it very dangerous when some users decide to come to consensus about reliability of certain category of sources that are not described in the policy or guidelines. It is dangerous because in some other topics, such as history or religion, many users apply lower standards to sources, and if we allow local consensus to approve or reject some certain category of sources, that may lead (and is already leading) to huge NPOV and OR problems in some topics.

Look, we both agree that this source should not be used. However, I came to that conclusion based on a letter and spirit of WP:V/NPOV, whereas you refer to some local ad hoc invented rules. Whose approach, in your opinion, is less dangerous?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:36, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

The criteria we are using to judge this source are not ad hoc or invented. You are mistaken.

The policies themselves describe the metrics we are applying, as several editors above have communicated to you. Primary vs Secondary, Author, Journal, Relevant expertise, acceptance by the wider scientific community, opinion vs scientific description of findings, etc. etc. are all described as ways to judge source reliability in WP:PAGs and essays. See: WP:SOURCE, WP:SCHOLARSHIP, WP:RSPRIMARY, WP:MEDANIMAL, WP:BESTSOURCES, WP:MEDPRI (policies and guidelines) and WP:RSE, WP:SCIRS, WP:RSUW (essays).

I am not pulling these criteria out of nowhere. They come from the guidelines and essays above. We are not inventing ad hoc rules. We are applying the rules described in the above pages.

Explanatory supplements explicitly endorse the idea of using context to judge reliability, See: Wikipedia:Inaccuracy#Appendix: Reliability in the context.

You are the one who is asserting a new way to understand RSes and what counts and what does not count. If I am mistaken, please provide a quotation from a policy or guideline which describes your approach of ignoring consensus. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:12, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Shibbolethink, our disagreement does not affect the verdict about this concrete source (we both agree it should not be used). Therefore, this discussion is about the procedure in general. If you want, we may continue it, but feel free to stop at any moment.

Actually, the disagreement is only about allowing too much freedom to Wikipedians in their decision of what source is reliable. Let's check you and my approaches (and I apologize in advance if I misinterpret you)

• Primary vs Secondary. No disagreement, except one aspect. Being an author of peer-reviewed publications, you perfectly know that the Introduction and, partially, "Discussion" sections are the summary of the current state of the field: "Introduction" is a mini-review, and "Discussion" is a discussion of own results in a context of the results of previous studies. Therefore, even research articles are, partially, secondary sources. Of course, the author's own data are, by and large, primary.
• Author My approach: The number of citations and/or h-index is a good measure. You propose to analyze if the author is an expert in this concrete topic. You approach works fine if your opponents are reasonable and well educated people, but what if they are not familiar with a subject or are civil POV-pushers? What is they establish consensus that this particular author's qualification in this particular field is insufficient?
• Journal My approach: if the journal is generally relevant (e.g. Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biochemistry, Environmental Chemistry, etc are relevant to biomedicine) and its impact factor should be at least 1. Your approach seems to include a detailed analysis of event the journal's editorial board. Again, my approach is more formal (and less strict), but it allows less freedom for misuse by poorly educated of bad faith users.
• Relevant expertise My approach: if the source/author was cited by several other sources, and there is no wholesale criticism/rejection, then it is acceptable. Your approach seems to require a detailed analysis of the content, which, again, may be a seed of endless debates and possible edit wars.
• opinion vs scientific description of findings Don't see any difference with secondary vs primary.
• At that point you stop and conclude the source fails WP:V. In contrast, I continue, and ask another question: "If this source passes WP:V, should we use it per WP:FRINGE?" And the answer is, most likely, "No". If our approaches lead to the same verdict, but my approach allows less manipulations, why do you think you are right, and I am not?

I doubt my interpretation of our policy and guidelines is less correct than yours. I would say you demonstrate more creativity in policy interpretation. Actually, you are bringing the standards of scientific community into Wikipedia. Personally, I would wholeheartedly supported this approach, but it works only when all users are professionals, which is not the case (and will never be).

--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:00, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

...the Introduction and, partially, "Discussion" sections are the summary of the current state of the field: "Introduction" is a mini-review, and "Discussion" is a discussion of own results in a context of the results of previous studies. Therefore, even research articles are, partially, secondary sources. There is rarely any reason to cite the summary of the field from primary research article intros/discussions because, if the topic is DUE, it will have been discussed in detail in far more comprehensive secondary reviews. JoelleJay (talk) 09:02, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Not sure where to jump in on this conversation so I'll add my thoughts here:

• For scientific topics, I'd say that primary sources are fine for non-controversial statements, which this is not
• When acting as WP editors, our opinions on whether the paper's arguments are convincing is less relevant than the consensus of the published material, which currently leans heavily towards zoonotic origins
• Of the current 42 cites, a significant number are refutations and self-cites (totally fine, but should be omitted from assessing mainstream acceptance/support) and I can't see much independent support for the conclusions presented
• It's cewrtainly fair to say that it's a highly minority opinion, bordering on fringe.
• If included in the WP page, it should therefore certainly be contextualised as "A minority/niche position is that the virus could have a laboratory origin,[refs] however the mainstream consensus is that of natural origins.[refs]"
  • Conceivably the specific evidences for and against can be listed but that might be getting pretty technical.
• I'd not be too concerned about the journal itself - the accuracy variation within journals is often greater than the variation between them and
  • In this context, impact factor isn't a great metric but more useful ones are hard or impossible to calculate e.g. was the paper rejected elsewhere and why, or what were the specific expertise of the reviewers etc.

Hope that helps somewhat with an outside opinion. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 04:23, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

• This [18] is clearly a secondary RS per our policies. This is NOT an original research publication, but rather a critical review or analysis of already published information. The fact it was cited 40+ times only makes the publication more notable and deserving inclusion. This is not a medical claim and not a medical question, as has been debated to nausea. Therefore, WP:MEDRS does not apply, although one might reasonably argue that it is a WP:MEDRS source as a review/analysis article. It does not really matter that authors are not virologists, but biologists. It does not mean that the authors are right. To make it balanced include some opposing views please. My very best wishes (talk) 14:39, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

  In other words, (a) BioEssays is generally an RS on biological subjects, and (b) I do not see anything to disqualify authors of the publications as knowledgeable biologists. This is NOT a misinformation, but a justifiable view that was widely cited and shared by a number of people. Sure, their views and analysis are disoutable, but it is important to cite BioEssays and biologists, rather than only politicians and journalists. I do not see why this needs to be censored. My very best wishes (talk) 19:49, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

  But Deigin is not a biologist in any sense and Segreto is in an unrelated field of biology... JoelleJay (talk) 20:44, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

  Yes, he seems to be a biotech enterpreneur by profession, but I do not think that makes their articles in Bioessays (more recently here) not RS. Most people seem to argue their views are undue on specific page, but the sources are definitely secondary RS. My very best wishes (talk) 16:36, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

  Problems and Paradigms is not a review series. Segretto and Deigin formulate novel analyses and take primary data they themselves have generated for the publication and interpret it. That makes this publication a PRIMARY source. Not a secondary review. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:16, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

  @Shibboleth, no different to the joint China-WHO report then? Aeonx (talk) 22:19, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

  If I were Shibboleth, I wouldn't bother replying with more than "false equivalance". Entirely ignoring the fact that most of our coverage on the topic is not even based on the WHO report anyway. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:46, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

  Huh? An official statement from a prominent medical body is WP:MEDRS, a very different standard. —PaleoNeonate – 04:50, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

  Segretto and Deigin speak only for themselves when they assert broad-based opinions. The WHO report speaks with the authority of a team of experts formally assembled by the WHO. Big difference. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 19:18, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

  It does not matter if this is called "review". This is in fact a review/analysis article. Yes, sure, they are not speaking for the entire scientific community. No one does. I voted "RS" because such source would easily pass as an RS on a typical WP page about a biological subject, and there is nothing wrong with using it anywhere. Yes, this is apparently a minority view, but a very large minority. Personally, I am not a supporter of this view. My very best wishes (talk) 13:42, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

  MVBW, you have always been a very reasonable editor in our exchanges. You are being reasonable here. But I still disagree, I see only parts of this article are secondary, much like how many primary articles have introductions that are secondary. But the components where they create their own alignments, hypothesize on the significance of those alignments, etc. are primary. As are their conclusions, which are novel to this paper. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 13:51, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

  I think you are mistaken. See Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary,_secondary_and_tertiary_sources: "A secondary source provides an author's own thinking based on primary sources...". Author's own thinking. Every good review provides an analysis by authors. A bad review is just a collection of information. I do not think that one is so great, but just mentioning what it say should not be a problem. My very best wishes (talk) 14:00, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

  Yes, but most reviews do not include primary research investigations such as creating alignments and pointing out things about those alignments. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:06, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

  Some of them do. But here is my point. Would including such ref on a page would be helpful for a typical WP reader who is interested in this subject? Yes, it definitely would. My very best wishes (talk) 14:21, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

  Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of relevant information. We have a duty to our readers to maintain our standards of reliability in sourced info. Reading all the screeds of the DRASTIC team would probably be interesting to a user curious about this topic, but we still don't cite them. Because they are unreliable. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:08, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

  Just to jump in on the primary/secondary aspect. This one's definintely a mix. However there are big chiunks that are pretty primary, e.g. the sequence analysis of the furin site is original research in that paper as far as I can see. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 00:06, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Discussing the reliability of a source, without considering what article text someone proposes writing and in which article they are inserting it, can only take you a small distance along the road. Thinking that "Yes it is reliable => I can write whatever I want (about topic X) based on that source" is wrong. Arguing X is just a guideline so can be dismissed is wrong. Our guidelines are the application of policy to specific areas, and e.g. MEDRS is just the application of several policies to using sources for biomedical topics. WP:PSTS (policy) explains our dislike of primary sources and explains that a research paper is a primary source. Footnote C in that policy explains also includes "editorials, op-eds, columns, blogs, and other opinion pieces" as primary sources. Just having an opinion and getting a random journal to publish it is not sufficient on its own for Wikipedia to mention it. See WP:WEIGHT and WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Shibbolethink makes several good points about the authors and the journal that suggest both are outside of their field of expertise while also pushing an agenda. -- Colin°^Talk 14:46, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

• Every critical analysis/review article expresses an opinion by authors to some degree. That does not make a source non-RS. To the contrary, consider Current Opinion (Elsevier) Their review articles are great. Although yes, an opinion to some degree, they are generally very good WP:MEDRS sources. They are not "opinion pieces" as in CNN (and even an opinion in CNN is a valid RS if written by an expert). My very best wishes (talk) 15:02, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
• Colin, Shibbolethink is right in almost everything but one thing: this source is reliable (passes WP:V), but it, most likely, does not pass WP:NPOV. Your "Thinking that "Yes it is reliable => I can write whatever I want (about topic X) based on that source" is wrong." is WRONG. A correct statement should be as follows:

  "Yes it is reliable. However, before using that source, we must make sure it represents at least a significant minority viewpoint.

• Clearly, the facts presented during this discussion demonstrate that it is even not a significant minority view, and the authors themselves recognize that in their next publication.
• I think, if we want to follow the WP:V spirit and letter, the formal summary should be:

  Formally speaking, it is reliable, but it should not be used as an insignificant minority view.

• --Paul Siebert (talk) 15:23, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

  Paul Siebert, I don't see how your "correct statement" contradicts my statement you say is "WRONG". And that "correct statement" examines only one aspect (representing a significant minority viewpoint". That still doesn't allow anyone to cite that source and "write whatever they want based on it". WEIGHT would impact how much text to write, where to write it (lead, body, which article(s)), etc. And we still wouldn't be able to state it as fact, just as a minority opinion. And as others note, there may be more recent papers: people are allowed to change their opinions and what might have been thought important at one point may no longer be. Just saying "Yes it is reliable." is problematic. What on earth is it reliable for? Very little of it is reliable for anything more than the opinion of its authors at that point in time. My very best wishes is wrong. Merely citing other papers doesn't turn an opinion piece into a formal literature review (never mind a systematic review). -- Colin°^Talk 15:43, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

  In this case, the point of determining whether an article is an RS is moot if you anyway argue it should not be included. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 15:40, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

  @Paul Siebert, If we want to follow Wikipedia policy to the letter, we would wait for someone to close this discussion and determine the consensus established here, and that would tell everyone whether or not this publication should be considered reliable for use in the Investigations article. And if that consensus were to establish the source as reliable, it would have to be robust enough to overturn the consensus established on the relevant talk pages, which is that these publications are not reliable. We wouldn't just follow your opinion or my opinion of what we should do. We would follow the consensus opinion. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:22, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

  Since both you and I have no disagreement about this concrete publication (I think it should not be used too, unless someone decides to include Panchin's article, which is a quite reliable RS; in that case it may be instrumental to mention that Panchin analyzed a possibility that RaTG13 was an ancestor of SARS-CoV2, which was proposed by Segreto), no closure is needed. The outcome of our dispute relates to the policy interpretation, not to this concrete source.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:07, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

• @Colin agreed. You can find the relevant discussions about how various users have intended to use the paper at the top of this discussion section. Or also in this consensus template. In brief, several users have wished to use this source to describe how the genetic engineering hypothesis of COVID-19 origins is viable, and not a conspiracy theory. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:39, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

  If those users wished to use this source to confirm viability of the hypothesis of artificial origin of COVID-19, then all of that is an NPOV issue, not V. Which is exactly what I said initially.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:12, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

• RS; it's published in an indexed, peer-reviewed journal and widely cited in reputable sources. Except in an exceptional circumstance, no further information should be required nor investigation of the source undertaken. Any original analysis, by us, as to its content is an inferior form of peer review (done by laypersons) to that which it's already undergone. The MEDRS arguments are stretching that guideline, in my opinion, to cover any article or topic that touches in any way on biology, which is an unconvincing reach. The arguments about its conclusions not aligning with the scientific consensus are also entirely unconvincing. Consensus is what we use to make decisions on WP, not judge the merits of knowledge or purported knowledge. Our WP:UNDUE policy says that articles should represent significant viewpoints, not majoritarian viewpoints. That said, it would be appropriate to give any content cited to this source diminished weight in the article, also with respect to our DUE/UNDUE policy. Chetsford (talk) 22:24, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

  By your criteria, the fraudulent vaccine-autism paper by Andrew Wakefield is also an RS, since it's in an indexed, peer-reviewed journal (Lancet) and it is widely cited in reputable sources. Crucially, what your analysis misses is that it is widely cited for the wrong reasons - i.e. the only citations from actually reputable sources are as an example of fraud (the Wakefield paper). Or in our case, refutations. WP:SCHOLARSHIP is the basic summary of this guideline - i.e. works by actual scholars in their fields and not random nobodies, especially not then there's a huge WP:REDFLAG hanging all over it (something that goes against the prevailing view within the relevant scientific community [virologists], is published by non-experts, and is a primary source, is certainly not the kind of thing that satisfies any of the "high quality reliable source" bit). This, critically analysing the context and the content of a source is the kind of reflection on sources that's entirely routine in serious academic studies, and that's certainly the viewpoint Wikipedia should be written from. Not a popularity contest of which thing gets more attention in US newspapers. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:44, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

  Correct me if I am wrong, but hadn't that paper been debunked? If yes, then the analogy is incorrect.

  And, yes, fringe source if published in a good peer-reviewed journal is RS. However, if that RS is fringe, it should be treated as such, i.e., ignored. --Paul Siebert (talk) 04:57, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

  "By your criteria, the fraudulent vaccine-autism paper by Andrew Wakefield is also an RS, since it's in an indexed, peer-reviewed journal (Lancet) and it is widely cited in reputable sources" Not at all. My standard is "... it's published in an indexed, peer-reviewed journal and widely cited in reputable sources. Except in an exceptional circumstance, no further information should be required nor investigation of the source undertaken." The example you mention, as noted by Paul Siebert, was debunked which is obviously an "exceptional circumstance" in the plain meaning of the phrase. The rest of your comment ("the only citations from actually reputable sources are as an example of fraud" is a demonstrably false statement (e.g. here [19] where it's routinely referenced in a study by the ENS virologist Erwan Sallard and the CNRS virologist Etienne Decroly in the first quartile journal Environmental Chemistry Letters) so I won't bother doing a point-by-point reply. Chetsford (talk) 02:40, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

• Not an RS Let's see, it pertains directly to human health, so WP:MEDRS is in full force (in a way that it wouldn't be for, say, choanoflagellate mucus or sauropod vertebrae); it's evidently a primary source; the authors lack relevant expertise; the journal deliberately skews toward the provocative; impact factor is a shoddy way of telling what journals are worthwhile. Also, 42 citations is a pitifully small number for a hot topic, particularly given that they include refutations, self-citations, and MDPI. XOR'easter (talk) 01:31, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

  I am impressed how can we arbitrarily use formal criteria (if that leads to a desirable result) and use more creative approach (when formal criteria do not work as we want). Clearly, the spirit of WP:MEDRS is: "do not use research articles, because you may misinterpret the raw data from them, and a reader may take that as a direct medical advice". In other words MEDRS warns (not prohibits, for it is just guidelines) against usage of research articles when it may cause a direct harm to reader's health. In connection to that, I am wondering what concrete health risk may be caused by the fact that the two authors assert (wrongly, imo) that SARS-CoV2 was engineered, and, concretely, RaTG13 was its direct ancestor? I cannot imagine a situation when this information may cause any harm to our readers.

  Furthermore, 42 citations in less than 2 years is very good, just take a look at this list: majority of research articles in this list have even smaller number of citations.

  In addition, some articles in that list (for example, this one, which is quite a secondary source and RS) cite articles published in BioEssays (including Sirotkin's article about a plausibility of the lab leakage hypothesis, which was cited without obvious criticism). I am wondering why those authors are unfamiliar with the fact that that journal is unreliable?

  I am not a proponent of the lab leakage hypothesis, and of this concrete source, but we must avoid twisting our policy and guidelines to achieve our own agenda (even if it is quite noble).--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:28, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

  Clearly, the spirit of WP:MEDRS is: "do not use research articles, because you may misinterpret the raw data from them, and a reader may take that as a direct medical advice". This is a total misreading of both the current language of and intent behind MEDRS. Here's a line from the recent close that fell strongly in favor of removing mention of medical advice from the lead:

  There's a solid consensus to begin this guideline with Option 2, i.e. to remove the bit about "medical advice" from the lead sentence. Supporters of this option offered the view that MEDRS exists to help editors find reliable sources in the fraught landscape of biomedicine literature, popular writings, et al. and is not intended to support those seeking health information per se.

  Furthermore, 42 citations in less than 2 years is very good, just take a look at this list: majority of research articles in this list have even smaller number of citations. The paper has only 16 citations in published journal articles. GS does not order hits by citation number so I can't see how you're able to make a comparison among similar papers unless you've looked at all the results, and anyway the search terms you use return all sorts of COVID papers from any time up to the present so it's useless for gauging relative impact.

  In addition, some articles in that list (for example, this one, which is quite a secondary source and RS) cite articles published in BioEssays (including Sirotkin's article about a plausibility of the lab leakage hypothesis, which was cited without obvious criticism). The citation to the Sirotkins is followed immediately by reasoned dismissal of their hypothesis. It was most likely included because it is one of the few (and first) papers remotely entertaining the idea, despite the attention it's gotten in the lay media; there's nothing compelling authors only cite high-quality research for a topic they're just going to rebut anyway, especially if HQRS doesn't even exist for it. JoelleJay (talk) 15:23, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

  In addition, some articles in that list (for example, this one, which is quite a secondary source and RS) cite articles published in BioEssays - This is another opinion editorial, and is explicitly labelled as such. It, therefore, is not a RS, not in the scholarly sense. It could be used with attribution of course, but should not be used for statements of fact. WP:RSOPINION. I would advise you to be more careful about what you label as obvious secondary RS. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:49, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• Primary source that has been reputably published but it's certainly not HQRS, which is what this topic needs, regardless of whether you apply MEDRS to it or not. This is not a widely cited piece (citations in predatory journals, pre-prints, self cites and refutations are the predominant results on google scholar), it has not been published in a mainstream journal and the credentials of the authors are lacking. Context matters and the context is that there is no dearth of scholarly publications on this topic and that this publication in particular goes against the present scientific consensus (it admits as much). This doesn't mean it's just a minority view but one that is not a significant view among reliable sources. It'd be completely undue to include in practically any form, and if used at all needs to be based on review article(s). Tayi Arajakate _Talk 02:31, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
  • "it has not been published in a mainstream journal" Am I missing something? The journal is: (a) first quartile, [20] (b) indexed by SCOPUS and PubMed, [21] (c) published by Wiley & Sons. I must be missing something. Hopefully you can help me understand. Chetsford (talk) 03:41, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

    By not being mainstream, I meant not being so for the topic area, i.e the field of virology. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 04:42, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

    Alas, I presented an example of BioEssays articles that are cited by good CARS-CoV2 related publications as reliable (without any obvious criticism). If they are treated as reliable by peers, why should we treat them differently?--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:22, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• Non-RS, primary source. As others have already said at length here, and as I have said in the diffs linked at the top of this thread, this source fails MEDRS and our standards for the high-quality RS required to cover fringe topics. That BioEssays apparently does not vet the credentials of its "Hypothesis" series authors is a red flag but the poor reputation of the journal is by no means the only reason to reject this paper, so it's not a great use of editor time debating impact factor etc. here. JoelleJay (talk) 09:19, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
• Overall RS, with some parts of the source being primary hypothesis After reviewing the source and many of the comments above. There appears there may be some bias and WP:PUSH by the usual suspects whom have their own pre-formed perceptions on the various lab leak theories. Ignoring all that, just looking at the source and evaluating whether this is a reliable source of information is relatively straight-forward. The source is a WP:RS for the clear reasons mentioned above, however it does contain some secondary scientific analysis of both secondary and primary data and forms a novel hypothesis; the source is reliable for it's analysis on others data, but is not reliable for the primary data and subsequent hypothesis. Aeonx (talk) 10:14, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

  Instead of accusing other users of attempting to push a point-of-view (which is unhelpful, borderline WP:BATTLEGROUND); you really ought to substantiate your "clear reasons mentioned above". Is it the fact this is a primary source? Is this the fact that the author's credentials are unimpressive, to say the least? Is it the fact the source is only cited by at best dubious publications, with the few instances of not dubious publications citing it being refutations? Is it the fact that it's definitively at odds with other, more reliable and more recent sources on the matter (WP:REDFLAG)? What exactly makes you think that this is an acceptable source? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:26, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

  The article contains both novel study data and other data, and provides analysis on both, at times independently and at times not. I believe it is possible to be more nuanced than perhaps you would like. Rather than categorise the source into primary or non-primary, how about addressing the content with more fidelity, examine which parts of the article specifically you interpret to be primary. I've already given my perspective, although you've summarily ignored that and instead launched a whataboutism argument. Which is frankly a false argument. The issue of WP:REDFLAG does not dispute a sources reliability, only it's relative weight in any given article. The reasons of why this is a [WP:RS]] are that it meets the policy criteria as detailed above by others. Me repeating that issue wasting other editors time, as indeed you appear to do. I'm concerned that given your past edits and edit warring with others that you might have an unconscious or intentional bias on this, not an accusation - just something for you to personally consider. Aeonx (talk) 23:13, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• Dubious first, I don't think there's any question that not everything published in what is normally a reliable publisher is a reliable source. There are plenty of examples, some here, of bad material published in good journals. If Bioessays indeed does not vet the credentials of its "Hypothesis" authors as suggested above, I agree that's clearly a red flag. Lack of author credentials alone is usually enough not to use something. It also isn't a journal with any specialism in the field of virology, another reason to be dubious about its use. Doug Weller talk 12:30, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
• Not an RS. Has been discussed before, again and again and again, see here. Fails WP:MEDRS, WP:PRIMARY, WP:FRINGE, WP:FALSEBALANCE, WP:DEADHORSE, WP:FORUMSHOP, WP:IDHT, and probably a bunch of other such pages. I have no patience with users who think guidelines can be ignored because they are not policies; if that reasoning were valid, we should just delete all guidelines because they would never be used anyway. WP:CIR is another relevant page here: if I rarely edited science pages, I would not insist on my lay opinion for several days in the face of users who daily edit science pages contradicting me. They know what they are doing, they even explained why they are doing it several times, and there is nothing arbitrary in using the fine print of the rules in addition to their headlines. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:24, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
• I made this post on the policy page, because I think this discussion is an indication of different understanding of our policy by different users.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:54, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
• Not an RS per Hob Gadling rationale--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:26, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Not RS. Not suitable for Wikipedia's purpose of reflecting accepted knowledge, WP:PROFRINGE instrument only. Alexbrn (talk) 16:27, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• RS, just barely. Paul Siebert makes a good point that any paper published in any non-predatory journal fulfills the minimun requirements for WP:Primary. However, we are discussing a specific claim that requires deeper judgment, and wikipolicies allow us to to invoke the case-by-case rule here. It is done all the time in WP:RSN, that's what it is there for. Here are my two cents onto the subject of reliability
• 1) Authors: Deigin lacks proper scientific credentials, though Segreto is barely ok. So its not definitive what to make of a paper by them, I guess we can trust the more reliable of the two. This rule would apply to those papers with large number of coauthors in which one can be a Ph.D student or someone lacking expertise, but it should not hurt the credentials of the overall authorship group.
• 2) Journal: There are precedents that Bioessays is taken seriously by top journals. For example, in Martin and Koonin (2006), doi:10.1038/nature04531, they cite Poole et al (1999), published in Bioessays. So it is a non-predatory journal that, at least in one ocassion, has entered the top levels of scientific discussion.
• 3) The specific case of the Furin Cleavage Site claim: So, we have a claim going around in different sources saying that FCS is so peculiar and odd that it might have come from a lab instead of nature. Has this claim been repeated in News media? Yes. They tend to cite Nicholas Wade's opinion piece published at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists as the source for it. If one reads Wade's article, he gives credit to a Deigin opinion article published in Medium as source for the FCS claim. That medium article is related to the Segreto and Deigin Bioessays paper, in my opinion, it is almost a preprint of it. Has this claim being repeated in top cientific journals? Yes. The Holmes et al (2021) review published in Cell mentions that The genesis of the polybasic (furin) cleavage site in the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 has been subject to recurrent speculation. Although the furin cleavage site is absent from the closest known relatives of SARS-CoV-2 (Andersen et al., 2020), this is unsurprising because the lineage leading to this virus is poorly sampled and the closest bat viruses have divergent spike proteins due to recombination (Boni et al., 2020; Lytras et al., 2021; Zhou et al., 2021). Furin cleavage sites are commonplace in other coronavirus spike proteins, including some feline alphacoronaviruses, MERS-CoV, most but not all strains of mouse hepatitis virus, as well as in endemic human betacoronaviruses such as HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-HKU1 (Gombold et al., 1993; de Haan et al., 2008; Kirchdoerfer et al., 2016). A near identical nucleotide sequence is found in the spike gene of the bat coronavirus HKU9-1 (Gallaher, 2020), and both SARS-CoV-2 and HKU9-1 contain short palindromic sequences immediately upstream of this sequence that are indicative of natural recombination break-points via template switching (Gallaher, 2020). Hence, simple evolutionary mechanisms can readily explain the evolution of an out-of-frame insertion of a furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2 (Figure 2). Here we see that Holmes et al omit citing Segreto and Deigin, or Wade. They introduce the FCS claim when they say "The genesis of the polybasic (furin) cleavage site in the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 has been subject to recurrent speculation." but with no citations there, which seems to be a mistake or at least, a failure in research protocol for a literature review to properly give credit where is due, in my opinion. It is very hard to believe that they missed the Bioessays paper during their the keyword search part of the review, I mean, just type furin cleavage site sars-cov-2 on google scholar and the Segreto and Deigin appears in the top 15 results. In conclusion, here, most of top newspapers trace the FCS assertion as Wade -> Deigin (Medium) -> Segreto and Deigin (2020, Bioessays), and the best secondary reviews omit them, so its a tie here. So, authors and journal passed the test, and specific case of analysis of the claim results in a draw, a not definitive conclusion, which means that overall its an RS, although just barely. Forich (talk) 04:39, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
• Not convinced by pro-Deigin analyses. Clearly a WP:MEDRS standard applies here, and any such claim (as presented by Segreto/Deigin) must come through strict scrutiny. I will try to respond to what I understand to be necessary criteria before the article comes cited and mentioned
  • Is BioEssays a WP:MEDRS, as the claim is certainly within MEDRS scope? It is certainly a legitimate scientific journal, and the example Forich mentions is quite good to show that for genetics (though not exactly a related subdomain to the one being here in dispute), it is at least sometimes treated seriously. But we have more area of expertise than one touched in this question, and that is in particular virology. Shibbolethink convincingly, in my opinion, showed that the journal has a stated purpose to test new ideas, but Wikipedia is not supposed to be a dumpster of whatever new research and new ideas appear. So yes, the journal is OK, but we should bear in mind what journal does, that is, publish some really new ideas which have not yet been vetted (as is the case here). So, for the third criterion of WP:SOURCE, it's a pass grade but nothing close to spectacular. Just acceptable.
  • Are the authors qualified? The answer here, is no. Deigin has little to do with virology, biosafety, and has touched genetics only to the extent that it was concerned with aging. Not convinced about his virology skills at all. Segreto has much better credentials and her contributions to genetics, I believe, should not be disputed, but all the time she's been working with fungi, not viruses. Again, COVID or COVID-like diseases are not her domain of expertise, and there's no evidence she has received additional virology training before switching to publishing papers on COVID.
  • Is the work itself OK? Well, to begin with, we don't establish accuracy, or even prominence of a scientific (MEDRS-sense) idea using normal press. While the claim may resonate among the lay publications, it is totally irrelevant to the scientific consensus (or lack thereof) in the scientific community, which is what counts. There's one more troubling thing, though. The citations, from my review, rarely, if ever, supported their findings, and many more were in fact rebuttals. There is a good reason Holmes et al. avoided Nicholas Wade and the pair of authors discussed here. The former, who became one of the most active supporters of the theory, has published his opinion in a journal absolutely unrelated to the topic (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists), and he does not have the expertise, either (probably the least among the three of the people mentioned here). As Forich shows, the scheme is Wade -> Deigin (Medium) -> Segreto and Deigin (2020, Bioessays). But it's the Wade to Deigin transition that is by itself worrying. A person who is barely a scientist (and I'm being generous here) makes a claim based on an opinion (piece) of a non-scientist (he was merely a journalist for Nature and Science) and then passes through peer review of a journal that, by self-admission, likes to test the boundaries of science by publishing not-exactly-mainstream papers. This is all too fishy for me. As an opinion piece, provided that due weight is given, probably it could be used (though I don't even recommend doing that), but certainly not on par with other articles.
• Totting up: journal is acceptable, authors are not good enough, and to say that such a paper conforms to WP:MEDRS, or even WP:RS requirements is quite a stretch. Find some better sources. I see no reasons for consensus change. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 12:46, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
  • May be that one is better? Seems to be an RS, and it includes more authors. My very best wishes (talk) 17:11, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

    While the journal is again OK by itself, it's off-topic for the claims they make. Environmental Chemistry Letters does not really cover genetics, and this article is so full of them that they must have chosen a better publication (just like Wade must have chosen a better publication for his hypothesis, too). The citations reveal three papers of the Deigin/Segreto pair (actually two, because two citations actually refer to one article), one which is unpublished (Shneider) and the other articles barely getting one citation at most.

    And yes, even though there are more authors listed, the main two authors still remain Deigin and Segreto, which does not really get rid of the problem of their lack of qualifications. I think this does not pass muster, either. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 18:33, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

    "Environmental Chemistry Letters does not really cover genetics...". I am sorry, but such argument is wrong. For example, one can use any reasonable RS for claims about proteins (for example), not only something like Proteins (journal). My very best wishes (talk) 15:45, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

    Uh, what? It absolutely matters where a biomedical claim is published -- see the third sentence of WP:MEDSCI. Even if you don't agree that this falls under MEDRS, it should be obvious that a journal reliable in one discipline is not going to be nearly as reliable in a completely different discipline. See WP:RSCONTEXT: Information provided in passing by an otherwise reliable source that is not related to the principal topics of the publication may not be reliable; editors should cite sources focused on the topic at hand where possible. Environmental Chemistry Letters is a great journal for research in the fields its editors publish in...which categorically do not include anything remotely relevant to the Segreto paper:

Subfields of editors based on major Scopus topics and papers

Eric Lichtfouse: biocathodes; biosorbents; wastewater bioremediation Jan Schwarzbauer: PPCP; micropollutant; carbamazepine; PAHs Didier Robert: photocatalytic activity; perovskites; titanium dioxide nanoparticles Rengasamy Alagarsamy: sediment contamination; trace metal; pollution load Jayanta Kumar Biswas: sediment contamination; trace metal; pollution load Hong Chen: perovskite solar cells; electrocatalysts; water splitting Nandita Dasgupta: nanoemulsions; titanium dioxide nanoparticles; ecotoxicity Shiming Ding: chelex; porewater; sediment-water interface Mark Fitzsimons: PPCP; micropollutant; carbamazepine; pharmaceutical contamination Sophie Fourmentin-Lamotte: cyclodextrins; complexation; soil remediation Santiago Gómez-Ruiz: mesoporous silica nanoparticles; drug liberation; nanocarriers; nanocatalysts Giuliana Gorrasi: nanoclays; nanotubes; agro-waste Nathalie Gova: PAHs; exosomes; organophosphorus pesticides; hair analysis Jie Han: chemisorption/adsorption of estrone pollution; Ti anodization; wastewater heavy metal recovery; interestingly, he published zero papers between 2017 and September 2020, when he and a couple other editors started capitalizing on COVID with a broad array of completely unrelated-to-their-expertise opportunistic hypothesis editorials published in Env Chem Lett: "Have artificial lighting and noise pollution caused zoonosis and the COVID-19 pandemic? A review", "Unflushable or missing toilet paper, the dilemma for developing communities during the COVID-19 episode", "Electrostatic fine particles emitted from laser printers as potential vectors for airborne transmission of COVID-19", "Locked on salt? Excessive consumption of high-sodium foods during COVID-19 presents an underappreciated public health risk: a review", "Unprotected mothers and infants breastfeeding in public amenities during the COVID-19 pandemic"... Andrew Hursthouse: antimony; urban soils; environmental contamination Inamuddin: enzymatic fuel cells; bioanodes; ultrafiltration Hanzhong Jia: elemental carbon; particulate matter; soil contamination Branimir Jovančićević: paleoenvironment; petroleum pollutants Sunil Kumar: cyclodextrins; sludge composting; solid waste management; pig manure Rock Keey Liew: bio-oil; pyrolysis; biochar Cong Li: haloacetic acid removal; disinfection byproducts; wastewater treatment Lingxiangyu Li: environmental nanoparticles; ecotoxicity Yangxian Liu: flue gases; coal-fired power plant; denitrification Yong Liu: aerosols; liquid-air interface; FTIR analysis of fluoroanions and carboxylic acid salts Xingmao Ma: phytotoxicity; ZnO nanoparticle; ecotoxicity Sixto Malato: microcontaminants; wastewater reclamation; micropollutants Christian Mougin: soil biochemistry; cyanobacterial toxins; agricultural soil Sonil Nanda: gasification of organic wastes; biochar; bioenergy Dai Viet N. Vo: dry reforming methane; steam reforming; syngas; bioenergy; wastewater; biomass/waste valorization Mehmet Oturan: soil washing; nonionic surfactants; electrocatalysis Srinath Pashikanti: biotransformation; nuclear fuel and electronic waste treatment Shivendu Ranjan: nanoemulsions; TiO2 nanoparticles; nanofibers; ecotoxicity Mashallah Rezakazemi: fluid dynamics/modeling; microporous membrane systems; bioreactors Claire Richard: photochemistry; photocatalytic degradation of pollutants Tatiana Rusanova: Ag nanoparticles; nanofibers; immunoassay detection of contaminants/toxins; optical acidity sensors Mika Sillanpaa: brown carbon; biomass burning; radiative forcing; electrochemical oxidation; soil washing; biosorbents; wastewater Vasudevan Subramanyan: electrochemical oxidation; soil washing; wastewater Ngoc Han Tran: micropollutant; antibiotic resistance in wastewater and rivers; wastewater treatment Polonca Trebse: UV filters; oxybenzone; toxic effects of waste materials on microbes Isabel Villaescusa: biosorption; heavy metal removal from wastewater Stuart Wagland: waste disposal facilities; refuse-derived fuels; secondary raw material; municipal solid waste Chuanyi Wang: photochemistry; biosorption; environmental pollutant removal Ruiyang Xiao: micropollutant; environmental pollutant removal; radical-mediated disinfection Shaocai Yu: haze; air pollution; particulate matter Zhien Zhang: gas, water, solid waste treatment technology; solvent- and membrane-mediated CO2 capture; whatever this paper is: "Efficiency investigation on energy harvesting from airflows in HVAC system based on galloping of isosceles triangle sectioned bluff bodies"

• As you can see, not a single one of its 47 editors has any expertise in genetics or biology in general, let alone viral genetic engineering. Publishing papers in fields well outside a journal's stated specialty is a big red flag for reliability, especially when seemingly zero effort was made to recruit editors with even minimal background in virology/epidemiology. Like Szmenderowiecki already said, numerous other journals that are actually specialized in the type of data Segreto et al produced would have been far, far more appropriate. So we have to ask why their paper wasn't published in any of those, and the easiest answer is that it couldn't have been due to quality control by the editors. JoelleJay (talk) 18:54, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

  • No, you are mistaken. Simply looking at the list of articles published in latest issue of Environmental Chemistry Letters, I see The impact of human vaccines on bacterial antimicrobial resistance. A review. So such subjects are actually within the area of their publications. And the journal by Springer is an RS. If it were a fradulent/retracted paper, then it would be different. But this is more like just a secondary analysis/interpretation of data/publications other people may agree or disagree about. My very best wishes (talk) 02:35, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

    As you can see, not a single one of its 47 editors has any expertise in genetics or biology in general, let alone viral genetic engineering. Publishing papers in fields well outside a journal's stated specialty is a big red flag for reliability, especially when seemingly zero effort was made to recruit editors with even minimal background in virology/epidemiology.

    I specifically said they are publishing papers in this field, but that none of their editors are remotely qualified to assess them, which is why it's a big red flag. JoelleJay (talk) 07:21, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

    • "not a single one of its 47 editors has any expertise in genetics or biology in general"??? That is where you are wrong. You have no idea what was the actual education of the editors. Maybe some of them were taking classes or read books on genetics or biology in general? I am sure some of them did. Now, the article in question is not a rocket science, and someone with a general biological education would be qualified to make a judgement beased on peer review. Once again, they take articles on vaccines, resistance, etc. My very best wishes (talk) 01:03, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

  • @Szmenderowiecki: a journal on genetics would be the appropriate type of publication for a matter that is purely or mainly about genetics, but determining the origins of the genome cannot be solved only by looking at the genome of SARS-COV-2, just like we cannot know the origin of Cavendish bananas from looking its genome alone. We know that Cavendish bananas originate from Mauritius by way of a greenhouse in Chatsworth House where they were first cultivated and they are now fully dependent on cloning for reproduction. If we looked only at the DNA of this fruit, we wouldn’t be able to tell if it was a product of natural evolution or directed evolution, and we would rely on a genetics journal to answer this question. Also, was first published in médecine/sciences (10.1051/medsci/2020123), which even Alexbrn agreed is a reliable source. This topic area is plagued by editors with an extreme prejudice who nitpick at any little thing they can find, and there is no point in any of these discussions on these noticeboards. If you have something specific you would like to add to a specific article for the benefit of our readers, I can find multiple sources for you. Ruling out primary sources like this Segreto/Deigin paper only means that we can’t attribute the original source, as in some secondary sources they are not given credit. For example, this Reuters article quotes Fauci mentioning the Mojiang Miners, without crediting TheSeeker268 of DRASTIC. For now we can just reference the Reuters article, because no one will argue about that on this noticeboard, and when its published, we can reference Alina Chan and Matt Ridley’s to assure that TheSeeker is properly credited. --Francesco espo (talk) 00:07, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

    Well, first of all, I would ask you to set your "prejudiced editors" comments aside, 'cause that is not going to let you to anywhere good.

    Secondly, the Segreto/Deigin paper is reliant from A to Z on genetic evidence that they say indicates an alternative path might be a better explanation for the origins of COVID. This is not what this journal really writes about. Look at the content of the issue: [22] (or the previous issue, and point me to one article that is this deep into genetics as either of the two in question. They have simply chosen the wrong journal for that purpose. Yes, we have to compare genetic material between each other, but there are other, specialised publications. And, to finish this discussion, as I said, their work was not really cited much in respectable or influential publications, so it is unlikely they are a representation of a significant viewpoint, let alone good enough for facts when we have other publications (previous discussions have, unsurprisingly, seen similar conclusions).

    Thirdly, 10.1051/medsci/2020123 hasn't even been discussed here. Deigin et al. only cite him once (in their attempt to synthetise other papers seeking to uphold the lab leak theory), and whether Sallard et al. is admissible is another story (and it's not the same paper as Deigin's, or not even close to a translation from French), and evaluation of them is for another discussion. We stick to Deigin.

    Ruling out primary sources like this Segreto/Deigin paper only means that we can’t attribute the original source, as in some secondary sources they are not given credit. But do we need to mention them in the first place? My answer is no due to above reasons.

    For example, this Reuters article quotes Fauci mentioning the Mojiang Miners, without crediting TheSeeker268 of DRASTIC. Because Fauci's opinion is notable, unlike that of an Twitter activist aka amateur researcher; besides, Fauci needn't have consulted TheSeeker268 to get to their conclusion. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 01:19, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

    Szmenderowiecki, all good points, but I don’t understand what you mean about Fauci consulting TheSeeker268. It was TheSeeker268 who made the discovery about the Mojiang Miners, where the WIV later admitted to collecting RaTG13 from, after obfuscating it and even outright lying about it (on NBC news [23]). I’m not sure if you’ve read this Segreto and Deigin paper or if you understand the significance of tying the virus most similar to SARS-COV-2 to a mine where people died of a SARS-like illness, but Fauci does seem to have read the paper and called for the Chinese to clarify this matter. As Colin and Tayi Arajakate say above, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS and what is missing from this discussion is any proposed context for any proposed text. I see a rough consensus not to use this paper for COVID-19 investigations, but I don’t think there would be a problem using it to explain Mojiang Miners incident in the COVID-19 lab leak and DRASTIC articles in conjunction with secondary sources. I do not see the point of this discussion if we are not focused on content. Do you agree? Tagging Forich and Paul Siebert. Francesco espo (talk) 23:26, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

    What I meant is that Fauci and his advisors are not likely to be following DRASTIC on Twitter, and even if they do, they reasonably took all of their findings with a grain of salt and researched it independently, ultimately replicating their ideas (btw, not aware of their Mojiang Miners scoop, could you please send a link of proof that they were indeed the first). However, few scientists would want to publicly say "I've been making COVID guidance based on DRASTIC", and that's for a good reason.

    As for Segreto and Deigin papers, I've read them both, but my reasons remain unchanged + I see no evidence Fauci started to call for Chinese to clarify their involvement because of the Deigin's paper.

    what is missing from this discussion is any proposed context for any proposed text I don't see the text (yet), but if you insist on using Deigin and the text is not in the framing of "several amateur scientists, some of whom are known to be part of DRASTIC...", then it's an automatic no because their opinion is not an expert opinion; not to mention that inclusion of the text even in this framing would be seen as inappropriate where we are describing expert investigations into COVID and not Twitter activists/mycologists looking for what seems to contradict the main narrative). If you want to explain Mojiang Miners incident, on the other hand, you actually don't need MEDRS-quality sources (but you should be extra careful: just to state that such an incident existed does not need a MEDRS, but any genetic claims of links b/w RaTG13 and SARS-CoV-2 must use MEDRS; and extraordinary claims would require extraordinary sources). Szmenderowiecki (talk) 07:12, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

• RS. I agree with the comments above from Paul Siebert, Chetsford, My very best wishes and Aeonx. I see other editors here are opposed to using this paper as a source as it is a primary source, but many of its findings can be found in secondary sources. I see many articles on Wikipedia citing primary and secondary sources in conjunction with each other because it’s important to attribute findings to their authors and enable readers to check the original source for themselves.--Francesco espo (talk) 23:57, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

  Since you pinged me, I have a feeling some clarification is needed. By saying that this source is reliable, I meant it meets WP:V standards, but that does not mean it meets WP:NOR/MPOV criteria. Numerous argumets presented during that discussion confirm it fails NOR/NPOV, which means it should not be used except in a context of its criticism.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:49, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Will anyone uninvolved please close this whole discussion? Thank you. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 07:14, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Please, wait a little bit.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:46, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

I feel uncomfortable with the direction this discussion is turning into. Firstly, Siebert keeps bringin up the matter of WP:V, which I feel is out of place here. The source exists, therefore it can be safely traced to a valid not self-published source. We are not interested here in discussing if the source is verifiable, we are asking about Reliability. Second, let me express the problem more clearly out there: the relevant wikipolicy is WP:SCHOLARSHIP, which says that Material such as a... research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses.. Does Segreto and Deigin pass this test? The closing editor need to focus on that question, IMO. Now, the wikipolicy says one must follow When relying on primary sources, extreme caution is advised. Wikipedians should never interpret the content of primary sources for themselves. This means that we use what RS say of Segreto and Deigin (here the debate is whether News sources or MEDRS are required). I do not suscribe to the view that the fact that Holmes et al (2021) omit citing Segreto and Deigin proves that it is unreliable. However, we can look at interviews and tweets of the authors in Holmes et al (2021) to discuss whether they engaged in discusssion with Segreto and Deigin. I remember Kristian Andersen and Angela Rasmussen having gone back and forth with Segreto on twitter, maybe someone can help me trace back what was their judgment of her and her ideas. Finally, we have from the wikipolicy, this: One may be able to confirm that discussion of the source has entered mainstream academic discourse by checking what scholarly citations it has received in citation indexes. The closing editor need to take in consideration this, because a published paper that receives no citations is regarded as a document that simply did not entered the the mainstream academic discourse. In this citation count analysis, self citations do not count, of course. Forich (talk) 21:21, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

IMO, the discussion isn't turning in any new direction. I asked these four questions just to make everyone's position more clear. By no means I wanted to affect the discussion's outcome, and, in my opinion, by answering these questions you will make discussion's closure easier.

My poit was to demonstrate that the question "Is this source reliable?" is actually a composite question that contains at least four different questions. Different people understand this question differently, and answer accordingly, which leads to confusion. By splitting this question on four, I made the situation simpler, and it is easy to see that there is not much disagreement among the users. However, if you believe that the questions are incorrect, or you believe they should be amended/expanded/modified, please propose your own questions.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:45, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

We should definitely not be using tweets or whatever to gauge how scientists judge the authors' conclusions. We don't even need to see what RS say about Segreto and Deigin at all: it is abundantly clear that someone with a doctorate in fungal ecology and someone with zero science background are wholly unqualified to write a paper on this topic, and the journals they published in are not particularly (or at all) specialized enough in the relevant fields for the content to be considered reliable. JoelleJay (talk) 22:24, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm quite a bit surprised, and unpleasantly so, by the recent WP:VOTE direction that has been taken. The outcome still appeared rather clear, despite the walls of text that lead to it. Was there any good reason to do this, besides perpetuating this discussion for a bit longer?

— Preceding unsigned comment added by RandomCanadian (talk • contribs) 21:35, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

See above.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:45, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

I looked at the tweets from Segreto's account and this is what I found. She repeatedly tried to engage with Andersen but he did not answer to her and blocked her. Deigin also tweeted that Andersen blocked him. Here Eddie Holmes tweeted that he blocked Segreto for "descending into personal attacks on me: that I've lied, fabricated data, or am a CCP agent". My guess is that Holmes et al (2021) did not cite Segreto and Deigin because they had this beef in social media, and (if the behavior of Segreto mentioned by Holmes is true), it is a red flag against her reliability. Forich (talk) 19:05, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

This is Scimago's information on Bioessays, it places the journal at the Q1 (top quarter) of the area "Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (miscellaneous)" Forich (talk) 19:10, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

But do you agree that per MEDRS we cannot use it? In addition, the "primary vs secondary" question actually means that some expertise is needed for correctly interpreting S&D's data, and there is a rist to misinterpret them. And that is exactly what PSTS says: do not use a source if there is a risk to misinterpeet it. I agree that BioEssays is good per our policy, and the article was reputably published, but does it affect the overall verdict of the discussion?--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:47, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

I would guess Holmes didn't cite Segreto et al because neither author has any standing whatsoever in virology, epidemiology, biosafety, or genome engineering and therefore Holmes didn't consider their paper worth mentioning. Authors are not obligated to cite every paper putting forward a hypothesis, especially amateur ones. JoelleJay (talk) 21:02, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert:, I vote on not banning Segreto and Deigin as we are currently doing in the consensus' third bullet point. If we don't like their conclusions it suffices to impose the weight of our best MEDRS (Holmes et al (2021)): the FCS is not that odd and can perfectly arise naturally and the source of the claim that FCS looks unnatural remains unnamed, as in Holmes, until and if a new MEDRS gives them the credit of coming up with that hypothesis.Forich (talk) 23:27, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Survey (Segreto and Deigin)

Szmenderowiecki, Francesco espo, JoelleJay, Alexbrn, Doug Weller, RandomCanadian, JoelleJay, Tayi Arajakate, Shibbolethink, XOR'easter, Colin, Paleo, T.Shafee(Evo&Evo), RandomCanadian, Hemiauchenia, Pyrrho the Skeptic, Forich, and other participants of that discussion (I am not sure I listed all of you), please, do me a favour and answer the following questions (just "Yes"/"No"):

• Leaving MEDRS/NPOV/NOR considerations beyond the scope, is the Segreto and Deigin's paper reliable per WP:V only?

  Answers

  • Yes --Paul Siebert (talk) 18:02, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No Szmenderowiecki (talk) 18:28, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 18:36, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Depends, it satisfies WP:V for the claims/findings of its authors, not necessarily for anything else. It should be handled per guidelines on primary sources with the consideration that it's reputably published. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 19:09, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No, because WP:V is context-based, and these fail on contextual usage due to the author, journal, editorial basis which are delineated as ways to assess exceptional claims.— Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:01, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes, Forich (talk) 20:40, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No per shibbolethink XOR'easter (talk) 21:18, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No WP:BURDEN (part of WP:V) requires that "burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution." (emphasis mine) A reliable source is then described in the next section, WP:SOURCE, "The word "source" when citing sources on Wikipedia has three related meanings [...] All three can affect reliability." Per my analysis and that of others, the paper is not a reliable source, and thus cannot be used to satisfy WP:V, since verifiability requires a reliable source. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:31, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No. Context matters, and especially for minority (at best) claims only the strongest sourcing should be used. JoelleJay (talk) 22:28, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Irrelevant Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:22, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes, certainly - based on WP:Verifiability. My very best wishes (talk) 21:50, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes, but that's an irrelevantly low bar in this case. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 05:07, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Only for the opinion of the authors, that differ from other experts. --Kathy262 (talk) 19:50, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
  • (your answer) (please, write it above this text)

• Yes minority viewpoints need to be represented by whatever reasonably goood sources are available. And we have no business stated whether or not their hypothesis is true or false. It should be used in such a way-as to make it obvious its a minority view. DGG ( talk ) 05:49, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
• Does the Segreto and Deigin's paper comply with the WP:MEDRS recommendations?

  Answers

  • No --Paul Siebert (talk) 18:02, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No Szmenderowiecki (talk) 18:28, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 18:36, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No Tayi Arajakate _Talk 19:09, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:01, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No -- Forich (talk) 20:42, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No XOR'easter (talk) 21:18, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No This was never in doubt RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:31, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No. JoelleJay (talk) 22:28, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:22, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Irrelevant because it covers a non-medical subject. The subject is biological and partly a politics. My very best wishes (talk) 21:50, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No, but it need not be for using it to illustrate the history of a fringe position so long as it's clearly signposted as such. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 05:07, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No. --Kathy262 (talk) 19:50, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
  • No, but that's not relevant. We're not usingit for the prevention, diagnosis or cure of a disease. DGG ( talk ) 05:49, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
  • No and it is relevant, because WP:MEDRS applies to biomedical information, which this certainly is. NightHeron (talk) 11:32, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
  • (your answer) (please, write it above this text)

• Can the Segreto and Deigin's paper be considered non-fringe per WP:FRINGE, and does it pass the WP:REDFLAG filter?

  Answers

  • No --Paul Siebert (talk) 18:02, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No Szmenderowiecki (talk) 18:28, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 18:36, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No Tayi Arajakate _Talk 19:09, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:01, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes - Forich (talk) 20:46, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No XOR'easter (talk) 21:18, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No Many of its claims have been contradicted or directly refuted by mainstream scientific publications, and the paper does not appear to have garnered any positive (as opposed to sources which then refute it or describe it in other unflattering terms; as described in the previous discussion) citations in such mainstream publications. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:31, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No. JoelleJay (talk) 22:28, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:22, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes for the following reasons: (a) the publication express non-fringe minority views; a lot of other publications discuss the same possibility (hence this is not fringe) (b) BioEssays is a mainstream source on biological subjects, (c) the opinion/analysis in the paper just discusses well known scientific data. My very best wishes (talk) 21:50, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No I feel like I've been answering the same question for months. How much longer is this bloody article going to be shopped around by WP:PROFRINGE adherents? Alexbrn (talk) 04:24, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No, Still very fringe position currently. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 05:07, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No as it is very different from most other sources. --Kathy262 (talk) 19:50, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

• Minority, but not fringe... Fringe views are those which essentially no reputable source supports, as differentiated from "small minority". This may of course need subsequent re-evaluation one way or another. DGG ( talk ) 05:49, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
  • No since it reflects the views of a small minority of scientists who dispute the consensus view. NightHeron (talk) 11:32, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

    (your answer) (please, write it above this text)

• Can the Segreto and Deigin's paper be considered as a secondary source in this context?

  Answers

  • No --Paul Siebert (talk) 18:02, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes Szmenderowiecki (talk) 18:28, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No Source seems like more of a database of primary research than an author's analysis in this context. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 18:36, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No Tayi Arajakate _Talk 19:09, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No/Depends on how it's used. It is secondary only for undisputed facts, and primary for most of what people want to use it for. (e.g. the sequence analyses, considerations of genetic engineering. In these it creates novel hypotheses based on novel data, and thus is primary.)— Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:01, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No. But this is not the question that we are asking. It is a primary source from within the scientific community (albeit from a low-ranked journal) that has managed to be cited in RS secondary sources (news sources, not MEDRS). Whenever a secondsary source acknowledges a primary source, the two can and should be mentioned to backup claims. Forich (talk) 20:49, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No XOR'easter (talk) 21:18, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No per Shibboleth. "Undisputed facts" can be cited to better sources. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:31, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No. As has been repeatedly discussed here and elsewhere. JoelleJay (talk) 22:28, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Irrelevant Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:22, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes, simply by definition: it provides analaysis and interpretation of data published in other sources. My very best wishes (talk) 21:50, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
  • No, for parts relevant to this discussion (e.g. the furin site sequence analysis) much of it is original research. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 05:07, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

• Yes, again by defintiion--it represents analysis , not original research. DGG ( talk ) 05:49, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

  (your answer) (please, write it above this text)

In my opinion, your answers will be extremely helpful for closing that discussion.

Thank you in advance. --Paul Siebert (talk) 18:02, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Why does the reliablity of these author's matter? If someone is "investigating" the origins of sars-cov2, surely you could simply state that there are notable unreliable people with under developed resumes that are also investigating. If their opinion is not notable, then it probably doesnt need to be in wikipedia. 70.191.102.240 (talk) 21:42, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

• Comment. I am not involved with this discussion but I just want to note that creating sections where editors are asked to log their !votes, and only their !votes (just "Yes"/"No") is probably not compatible with WP:CON (which is a policy) and WP:VOTE. I don't want to make a big fuss about it here, but let's keep in mind that this is not the direction in which this noticeboard should go. JBchrch talk 22:13, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

  IMO, that is not a big problem, because the outcome of the discussion seems obvious even without this survey. Actually, my point was to demonstrate that the (ostensibly) singe question "Is this source reliable in a context?" is in reality a composite question that may have no binary answer.

  In addition, just "Yes"/"No" is not mandatory, and, as you can see, that does not prevent those users who wanted to clarify their position from doing that. --Paul Siebert (talk) 23:13, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

I've been away for a few days, and agree with RandomCanadian above that turning this into a vote was a bad idea. Paul above seems more interested in proving some abstract points than about using a source in an article to support a given text. I suggest an admin close this discussion and just close it without trying to describe a conclusion. Once again covid controversies prove to be a distracting timesink and a random mess of policy/guideline comments. Please, everyone has wasted too much time. The opening post saying "The paper hypothetizes ..." was all anyone needed to know: no it isn't suitable. -- Colin°^Talk 09:06, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

I am a little bit surprised by this your post. You correctly noted that that controversy became a distracting timesink, but it seems you resist to my attempts to finish it once and forever. It seems quite clear that the discussion can already be closed, and the result is obvious: "Although there are some reasons to argue that the source was reputably published (it may pass WP:V sensu stricto), it does not meet other important criteria, and cannot be used in Wikipedia to support the lab leakage hypothesis."

It seems the only disagreement is if the source was reputably published. It seems you guys refuse to recognize the obvious: per our policy, and if we leave guidelines beyond the scope, it IS. Does it affect the outcome of the discussion? Obviously, it doesn't. Therefore, continuation of this discussion can and should be moved to the policy page, because it is not a discussion about this source, but about our vision of the policy.

IMO, I helped to show the roots of our disagreement, and that demonstrated that there is no significant disagreement about the main point: if this source can be used. I think we have already achieved consensus about that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:24, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

The questions you asked in the survey make little sense. I see folk have tried their best to answer them but still. At WP:V it says "To discuss the reliability of a specific source for a particular statement, consult Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard". Reliability is always in context with what fact or opinion someone is drawing from the source. There is a huge difference between "John says the earth is flat" and "The earth is flat". Most sources are reliable for what the author said, and many people are capable of describing uncontested established facts, even if they say things that are fringe or novel. Asking, for example, if a source is "reliable per WP:V only" isn't useful. Many sources, including this one, make a lot of claims. So the FRINGE question depends on what claim you are talking about. And many sources are a mix of primary, secondary and tertiary material so asking if an entire paper could be considered secondary is also not a useful question on its own.

If you remain confused about policy and want clarification, I strongly recommend discussing it with a non-covid example. As you can see from some of the comments, editors are getting tired of being asked repeatedly about this paper. And frustrated that so many very straightforward sourcing questions get escalated to RFCs and noticeboards where the discussion gets contaminated by agenda-supporting votes. -- Colin°^Talk 11:34, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

That is not correct: The header of this page says "If your question is about undue weight or other neutral point of view issues, please use the NPOV noticeboard." And that is exactly what I have done: I demonstrated that to resolve the dispute we had separate WP:V and WP:NPOV related aspects. Anyway, this is not a discussion about that source, so it is better to move it to another place. I responded to you at WP:V talk page.

BTW, it seems we can close this discussion (I am not sure a formal closure is really necessary, because the conclusion seems obvious).--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:14, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

thespruceeats.com and its parent

• thespruceeats.com  , and more generally thespruce.com   from which it likely split off some years ago (some links still go the general domain)

Brought here by a question on the Teahouse about a ref to [24] in the article about dough. It does get linked for recipes quite a few times, but reading their editorial policy, it does not strike me as something with the highest editorial standards. Thoughts? Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 09:19, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

As a home cook, I've always found Spruce Eats to be one of the most useful and reliable sources for food descriptions, techniques, and some science. This isn't just user-generated content, and I see no actual complaint about its use or accuracy at the Teahouse thread. I don't expect the WSJ or BBC, as the user compares it to, to be writing on this sort of topic. Skimming its uses from the search link, it appears to be used appropriately, even if in some cases there are also offline-published sources that may be better. Reywas92^Talk 04:48, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

This is encouraging]. Not just the awards, read the whole page about the publisher. Doug Weller talk 14:42, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Reliability of a source written by a chiropractor, but published in a medical journal.

There is a discussion currently on the NPOV:Noticeboard discussing whether or not such a source would be considered reliable with respect to its assertions on spinal manipulation and stroke. Please see the discussion at the link below. Please continue the discussion there, rather than transferring it here.

Link to NPOV noticeboard section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#RfC:_Neutrality_of_a_secondary_research_paper_written_by_a_chiropractor,_but_published_in_a_medical_journal.

Link to talk page on chiropractic article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chiropractic#Risks:_Stroke,_Death

Jmg873 (talk) 19:00, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

The Unz Review

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

---

I saw that this site was used as source for an article on Robert B. Spencer. While the article was from what I saw was reasonable "That most American Muslims are not radical" its a pretty clear case of a broken clock striking right once. When one of the head articles has titles like "Jew York Times" and other racist and ant-Semitic articles, not to mention just reading Ron Unz's page makes its pretty clear to me that this should be Deprecated. Wikipedia:Deprecated sources Does anyone oppose doing that to this site? 3Kingdoms (talk) 18:41, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

• Deprecate it. Thanks 3Kingdom for your work in improving wikipedia!155.246.151.38 (talk) 18:50, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
• Deprecate. Their "About" page makes it clear that the site doesn't even necessarily stand behind the batty stuff their writers espouse. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 18:57, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
• As much as I think The Unz Review is an unreliable source, Unz.com   shows that it is also being used as a source for old journal articles. For instance This copy of 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' by John Speirs published in Scrutiny, Winter 1949 is being used in the Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In fact having a look through the duses, links to old journal articles seem to be the predominant use, and I don't think their use is problematic unless there are copyright issues. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:11, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Agreed. Deprecation doesn't seem like the best solution. I am unsure of current or historical reliability. Jlevi (talk) 22:14, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
  • It's a terrible source, dodgy enough that I'd be reluctant to use it even as a source for third-party material in this manner, as this might encourage its use in other contexts - David Gerard (talk) 23:56, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
• Deprecate. There is no way in which using this source is good for Wikipedia - David Gerard (talk) 23:57, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
  • this should prrrrrobably be a proper deprecation RFC, fwiw - David Gerard (talk) 23:58, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
• Deprecate. A lot of the bloggers are random racists or anti-semites who aren't expected to be reliable primary or secondary sources by whatever editors the site has. There are a few people where this domain is a useful source for their own views, so it's not a domain that should be blacklisted, but it is just about the last source I would want to see on any controversial topic. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 00:02, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• I say we take off and deprecate the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:16, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• Deprecate. Unz is platform open for to any crank seeking to promote the very fringe of the fringe of racist and pseudoscientific beliefs; it should never be used to support statements of fact and views published inside it are almost always WP:UNDUE. To address the source archive points mentioned above, its archive of print journal articles and magazines to provide fulltext for older stuff may be useful for research, but that's not necessarily an indication we should provide a link to them in a citation. Now I'm no fan of how copyright law is currently applied in general, but these are the facts: Unz appears to be hosting a lot of magazine scans etc that are clearly not in the public domain, from the 1940s Speirs article to National Review articles published as recently as 2010, and he appears to do so without any sanction from the copyright holders or any meaningful restrictions on their distribution. So generally we'd avoid linking to these sources per WP:COPYLINK. There's really no compelling use of the source I can see. —0xf₈e₈ 💿 (talk) 22:51, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• Some comments:

  - Wp:Deprecated sources: Deprecation "primarily exists to save time by avoiding the endless discussion of the same issues, and to raise awareness among editors of the status of the sources in question. ... Deprecated sources should not be considered to be either unique or uniquely unreliable. They may be those that are most often cited by unaware editors, or those that come up in discussion the most often – for example, due to real-world controversy, borderline reliability, or a tendency to be promoted on-wiki despite a lack of reliability." So, the normal reason for deprecation is to prevent frequent discussions of questionable sources. However, as far as I can determine, this is only the third time that The Unz Review has been brought up at the RSN. Exactly how often have its articles been cited on Wikipedia?

  - I think that it's a fairly poor idea to suggest that a Wikipedia article "makes it clear" that a source should be deprecated.

  - Although a site may generally be regarded as a poor source, there may be particular situations where it has value. For instance, it may be used to show when its writers have been misquoted or misrepresented.

•     ←   ZScarpia   23:43, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
• I just recovered this section from Archive 349 - it looks like it was archived before being acted upon. The above appears to be what would normally be considered a WP:SNOWBALL for deprecating the Unz Review. Could someone who didn't comment please do so? - David Gerard (talk) 19:20, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
  • If I close it do I have to add it to a list anywhere? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 19:24, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
    • nuh, someone else can do those bits - David Gerard (talk) 19:27, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

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

New York Public Library event and program bios

The New York Public Library website's events and programs pages provide a short writeup of the performer or the subject. These come under the URL www.nypl.org/events/programs/. A bunch of such citations (such as) have been tagged as unreliable at Oopali Operajita with reason Appears to be a self-submitted bio for a performance.

Can such writeups be considered reliable sources for biographies and BLPs? Jay (talk) 07:48, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• I'm the editor who tagged the source as "unreliable source?". The source appears to be the bio an artist or speaker typically submits for inclusion on the website and/or in the program for an event, similar to an actor's bio in a Playbill. I'm somewhat skeptical it was either assembled by, or closely vetted by, the NYPL's staff. That said, if it's just used for uncontroversial points, doesn't seem egregious to me - that's why I used the ?. BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 12:07, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

  We probably shouldn't use bios of this sort as sources - resume padding is, unfortunately, all too common and these bios are not carefully whetted (not saying that this is the case here). In this particular case, do we want to be mentioning a masters thesis in the first place? They are a dime a dozen and "supervisor" doesn't mean a whole lot. --RegentsPark (comment) 12:57, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

  such bios , whether for them for for an other event or organizations, are invariably written by the individual or their press agent. I don't think they could be used even for uncontested routine facts in the career--a person could decide what not to include, or could magnify their role, whatever they please. They're not official, like a faculty member's official bio on his university page, or a legislator's bio on the legislature site, which can be used for uncontested routine unchallenged facts, because significant untruths there have consequences.

  an interesting confirmation can be seen by checking their potted bio squib at other places--they usually read exactly the same (that works for detecting press releases of all sorts, for example if they appear to have been republished in multiple news sources.)`` — Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (talk • contribs) 05:29, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

• I find many articles using the NYPL blogs, such as Avalon. Another article that uses events and programs (as a bio) is Joan Dye Gussow. Jay (talk) 19:50, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Podcast Review: A Los Angeles Review of Books Channel

There are very few reliable sources dedicated specifically to podcasts. I would like to know if the Podcast Review can be considered generally reliable. I asked about the source's reliability at the Teahouse and I was directed here. The source is published by the Los Angeles Review of Books and the website's about page indicates that there is an editorial board. However, the submit page seems to indicate that anyone can submit a request to have their podcast reviewed. If a specific instance is needed to evaluate the reliability then I would be interested in hearing whether the review of Blowback (podcast) or this list containing a short write-up of Draft:Knifepoint Horror is reliable. TipsyElephant (talk) 20:09, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

• The submission form allows people to pitch podcasts, but there's no indication that the reviews themselves are unvetted user-generated content. The site looks reliable. Vahurzpu (talk) 15:32, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
• I would say that it's highly context-dependent. The problem with publications like the Los Angeles Review of Books, just like the New York Review of Books or the London Review of Books, it's that they almost exclusively publish editorials and op-eds written by guests, i.e. content that is subject to WP:RSEDITORIAL. I think the article on the LRB absolutely hits the nail on the head when it says that the magazine publishes "essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews". Reading the Blowback review that you linked, it's pretty clear that it's exactly what's happening here. So maybe it's reliable for something very general like "Blowback focuses on the involvement of the US government in to Iraq War", but I'm not sure if there's much else that we can use it for. JBchrch talk 16:55, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
• Sounds like it would connote notability for the podcasts; per JBchrch I'd be wary of using it for facts that aren't about the podcasts themselves, but it should be fine for helping establish that a podcast is notable - David Gerard (talk) 17:01, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Is Shodan (website)'s blog reliable?

They are a vulnerability searching company and I wanted to reference their list of top site defacer. But got reverted.[25]. Blog, softpedia tertiary source: http://blog.shodan.io/tracking-hacked-websites-2/

https://news.softpedia.com/news/top-10-website-defacers-january-2016-edition-499112.shtml

Greatder (talk) 12:04, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Since noone replied yet, my impression is that they are a primary source. It may be useful for some statistics, but they gather their data using spiders and scanners themselves. It's a bit controversial as the resulting databases may also serve to easily find known vulnerable targets to attack. Shodan scanners are often blocked by netadmins. It's notable and if the information is not controversial, I think it can be used where useful with attribution (WP:SPS, WP:ATTRIBUTION, WP:BLOGS). —PaleoNeonate – 06:25, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Note that John Matherly could be considered a subject-matter expert, but this particular post does not look like a very sophisticated study in terms of methodology. It's more like regular blog content filling. MarioGom (talk) 15:01, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

encyclopedia.com article

This [26] says at the end that it's from "Encyclopedia of Religion". Can someone tell me what Encyclopedia of Religion that is? Is it this one [27] or something less exalted? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:55, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Gråbergs Gråa SångYep, it's the one you linked. Actually, there's an article on Italian Wikipedia about it, and you can see his Gardner's name among the authors. Safe to use. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 15:06, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

@Szmenderowiecki That's what I was hoping for, thanks! Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:23, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

designntrend.com / Design & Trend

• Design & Trend  

I was taking a look at the sources currently being used over at MatPat, and I saw this one. It seems to have been owned by IBT Media, so should I just treat it the same as WP:RS/P#IBT? –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 04:51, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

I see it's used at another BLP, Toby Fox, so I would like to reiterate my request for feedback on this source. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:20, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm afraid some of IBT Media's assets have been scrutinized and heavily criticized, such as IBT, and even Newsweek, whose popularity has plummeted after its acquisition by the IBT Media. I would say its better to just find another source than to use IBT Media, a company responsible for deteriorating the reliability of its media assets. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 00:37, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

The World News: massive copyvio?

• 2011 Kano State gubernatorial election
• 2015 Kano State gubernatorial election
• 2018 East Africa floods
• 2019 Nigerian Senate elections in Katsina State
• 2020–21 South Pacific cyclone season
• 2021 Eastern Australia floods
• 2021 Tongan general election
• 2021 Zambian Charity Shield
• Achta Nour
• Afemata Tunumafono Apelu Aiavao
• ʻAkosita Lavulavu
• Alan Balang-Amer
• Alan Marinelli
• Amar Sejdič
• Amédée Pacôme Nkoulou
• Anjali Watson
• Anna and Bernhard Blume
• Annasofía Facello
• April 16
• Ashfaque Nipun

As far as I can tell, The World News (theworldnews.net) does nothing but publish other sites' stories without attribution. No author names, no sources, but randomly picking a few recent stories I find them on other websites. They are missing an "about us" page or staff page and, maybe not a coincidence, there is a link to their legal department on the homepage.

Can someone else please look and see if I'm right about this? ☆ Bri (talk) 14:25, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

"TheWorldNews.net is the world's first and largest decentralized news aggregator, built on blockchain.." - Seems clear they are likely copyvio and definitely not RS. Slywriter (talk) 14:53, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

The Kano Elections articles have a different problem. 70 plus sources attached to a few lines of text. No idea on reliability of Nigerian sources to even begin to cull. Slywriter (talk) 18:04, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Regarding Nigerian elections articles, I agree. See Talk:2011 Kano State gubernatorial election#Citation overkill and Talk:2015 Kano State gubernatorial election#Citation overkill for a list of sites. I'm not an expert on this by any means, but have done some source review before, and these look mostly legit to me. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:22, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Do we blacklist? Or simply deprecated? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:11, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

I'd say a blacklist would likely be in order here. No reason to use this site over the site the content was stolen from. Jumpytoo Talk 04:27, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Adding linksearch:

• theworldnews.net: 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
• Jumpytoo Talk 04:27, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

America Daily Post

Withdrawn, took to blacklist request, as very similar to existing blacklisted site. BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 18:17, 20 October 2021 (UTC) 1. Source: America Daily Post
2. Article: Taylor Jeffs
3. Content: Being used in multiple places in the article to show notability. Source looks like it's actually designed to create sources for SEO, with some real stories intermingled. Certainly doesn't look like a legitimate news organization. Article being used in the Taylor Jeffs Wiki article is titled "An Influential figure in the industrial world, the Story of Taylor Jeffs." Quite apart from the capitalization errors in the headline, the article seems to have been created the day before the Taylor Jeffs Wikipedia article was created. BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 16:58, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Matt Taibbi's Substack and Bret Weinstein

1. Source: [28]

2. Article: Bret Weinstein

3. Content: Taibbi's view on Weinstein in general, and on him being censored, in particular. Taibbi's view can be seen here

Please discuss the general reliability of Matt Taibbi, and the reliability of his reporting on Weinstein. How would you rank Taibbi against other sources, and should all his statementes be attributed or can we use any of his content as wiki voice? Forich (talk) 15:46, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

• Substack is a self-publishing site. So not useable for BLP's regardless of the writers expertise. --Kyohyi (talk) 15:51, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
• Unless the page in question is Matt Taibbi we can’t use that at all either attributed or in wikivoice. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:54, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
• No. Clear WP:BLPSPS situation. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 16:03, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
• Per WP:ABOUTSELF, the only place that primary source can be used is in Taibbi's own biography and nowhere else. He is only a RS for his own opinions. The only way his opinions (with the exception of distant past sources) can be used in other articles is when he is cited in clearly RS, and then with caution as he is no longer the RS he used to be. -- Valjean (talk) 16:21, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
• WP:SPS is very clear: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. ... Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer." Matt Taibbi satisfies the first condition but still it can't be used for BLP articles. Alaexis_¿question? 18:56, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
• Per WP:BLPSPS, Taibbi's posts on Substack are not admissible sources for the biography of Weinstein. XOR'easter (talk) 23:39, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Podcast Magazine: Beyond the Microphone

Is Podcast Magazine (https://podcastmagazine.com/) a generally reliable source for podcasting related subjects? Can articles from Podcast Magazine be used to demonstrate notability? The about page indicates that there is a "team of dedicated writers" and there is an editorial board which consists of four people as far as I can tell. The Meet the Editor page for the owner of the website seems pretty promotional. Neither Steve Olsher nor Podcast Magazine have Wikipedia pages as far as I can tell. For specific instances, I'm interested in hearing whether this review of the The Black Tapes or this article about Roman Mars and 99% Invisible are reliable. TipsyElephant (talk) 16:50, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Arb request filed

People here may be interested in a recently-filed request for clarification or amendment from the Arbitration Committee. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Amendment request: Fringe science and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the Wikipedia:Arbitration guide may be of use.

Thanks, DGG ( talk ) 17:02, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Argenson, Jim (2008), Mariah Carey Concert Tours

• Argenson, Jim (2008), Mariah Carey Concert Tours, St. Martin's Press, ISBN 978-1-155-56204-9

There probably is a better place to ask this, but -- does this source exist? It is used in a bunch of Mariah Carey articles (e.g. Hero (Mariah Carey song)), but I can't verify anything about it -- author, title, ISBN don't show up outside of Wikipedia. It was added in 2011 by a user that's no longer active but is responsible for numerous GA and FA related to Mariah Carey. Hopefully I am just missing something and it's not a hoax source. Renata•3 16:02, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

I can only find 2 sources for that ISBN, both of which return that as the book title so that does imply the ISBN is correct. It's easy for anyone to register and buy an ISBN, and having an ISBN implies zero about its reliability. That being said I can't find anything to suggest the author is notable, the work is reliable or it wasn't self published. The sources I found look like one of those self-published books on Amazon. St Martin's Press has no record of that book. Canterbury Tail talk 20:28, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Where did you find isbn for this? Worldcat showed nothing for it. Renata•3 13:19, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Definitely self-published (Print On Demand) judging by this Amazon page. Certainly unreliable. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 21:00, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

And that's the third reference I've seen to it actually being published by Books LLC. Just read our very own Wikipedia page on that publisher and it's definitely not something that we can use as a reference. It actually implies that it's a circular reference using Wikipedia pages on her tours into a book that is then used as a reference to support the article on her tours. Canterbury Tail talk 22:16, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Yikes. I see what you mean. So what can be done here, if this source is being used so heavily in Mariah Carey-related articles? How much content removal is acceptable in this situation? Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 23:02, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

You could remove this source as clearly unreliable and replace it with citation needed tags in each case. Then if no source is provided in a reasonable time period remove that content. Canterbury Tail talk 01:28, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Ok, I have gone thru the articles and replaced all citations with {{fact}} and removed the full cite as well. Hope some Carey fans can sort it out. Renata•3 20:19, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

BBC Azerbaijani Service

The BBC Azerbaijani Service is a very unreliable source that should be blacklisted. This became apparent during an AFD discussion back in February. The AFD found there are no reliable sources proving that the Agdaban massacre actually happened. A BBC Azerbaijani Service article about the subject was basically the only thing the now-deleted article was built on. The article cites no sources or experts, downplays the Armenian history in Artsakh, and presents Azerbaijani negationist historiography as fact. As Jr8825 discovered in the AFD discussion, it seems that BBC Azerbaijani Service may have a connection to the user Habil Qudretli. Habil had made one edit back in 2015, then returned in late 2020 to make several nationalist POV-pushing edits that were largely reverted. He also uploaded a photo of distraught villagers to the Commons claiming it was of the Agdaban massacre and citing it as his own work. Two days later, that photo appeared on the BBC Azerbaijani Service article. BBC Azerbaijani Service is a highly unprofessional source that promotes undue historical revisionism and should not be allowed on Wikipedia. --Steverci (talk) 21:57, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose We need more evidence than a critique of a single article. Blacklisting a division of the BBC would be extraordinary. I have trouble following that AFD but it does seem to be the case that a story in BBC was not found to exist elsewhere. That is not surprising; accessing Azerbaijani news is not easy, and even serious issues in Azerbaijan may not be covered in English language media. BBC is respected but all news sources can have fact-checking in Wikipedia. If there is a problem, then the start to identifying it is posting here, so thanks. If you surface more evidence then log it here. This is a permanent public archive and if a problem persists then it will become apparent with time. Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:01, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

  @Blue Rasberry: the issue is that the massacre isn't mentioned in secondary sources, whereas other contemporary massacres are. Jr8825 • Talk 01:54, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

  Being worth over a billion in assets does not give BBC a free pass for yellow journalism. It often presents Armenian genocide denial as being credible and refers to the genocide in scarequotes,[29][30] so it clearly has many flaws. Even so, this would only blacklist the BBC Azerbaijani Service, not the main BBC website. --Steverci (talk) 20:50, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

• Additional considerations apply - I think BBC Azeri should be treated without caution for claims related to the AA2 topic area. I did my analysis of an article published by this source at the 2nd AfD on the Agdaban massacre, where it was being used to support the retention of an article that had already been deleted once, about a massacre that doesn't appear to be mentioned in contemporary sources or secondary RS (the result of the AfD was delete). I encourage other editors to read the AfD discussion and examine my research. Despite the fact that it's published under the auspices of the BBC, I'm consequently concerned about its accuracy, given that it's the sole (ed: corrected in light of the Cornell source brought up below, which I'd forgotten about – I discussed both in detail at the AfD) one of very few English-language source to mention this massacre. The image the BBC Azeri article uses was uploaded to Commons two weeks before the article was published by an active Azeri editor. Separately, another active Azeri editor indicated they personally knew BBC Azerbaijani Service staff on my talk page. I sent a complaint to the BBC, who forwarded it to the BBC Azerbaijani Service, who didn't respond. All of this just doesn't seem right to me, and based on this, I suspect BBC Azeri may not be held to the same editorial standards as English-language BBC output, and I think we should seriously consider limiting its use as a source for contentious claims related to AA2 topic area. By extension, if BBC Azeri isn't held to the editorial standards we'd expect for the BBC, this raises questions about other foreign-language BBC World Service output, which should be scrutinised. Jr8825 • Talk 01:48, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
• Comment: I'm seeing Levivich argue (to some extent) in that second AfD that the issue wasn't so much with the BBC reporting bad information, but that the information was being mistranslated when applied to English. I am hopelessly unable to understand Azeri, so I'm wondering if there (a) there are any fluent Azeri speakers who can translate the relevant portions of the article and/or (b) if any reputable news organization (including the BBC) has provided a translation of the particular article that people are taking an issue with. This appears to be one of those cases where machine translations won't cut it for the purpose of participating in this discussion. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 07:13, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

  Additionally, reading a cached version of the article, there does appear to be very little in terms of everything directly related to the incident. Looking for additional sources written in English, I see a (very brief) reference to something happening in "Agdaban" in this JSTOR-hosted article published by Johns Hopkins University Press. But, it's not an (academic) article that cites any sources. I'm also seeing a 2020 article from Pakistan's National Herald Tribune (available via Gale Document Number: GALE|A634685374) that lists "Agdaban" as among massacre sites. None of these are super high quality mentions, but it seems that this isn't only talked about by the Azerbaijani press. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 07:13, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

@Mikehawk10: thanks for taking a closer look. I also mentioned the literary review article published by John Hopkins at the AfD, as it was the only thing that came up for me on JSTOR. Setting aside the fact it's not a historical journal, the article separates Agdaban from the other, better documented massacres and doesn't explicitly mention killings: whereas it lists numbers of dead for the other massacres, the sentence on Agdaban reads "all 130 houses in the village of Agdaban were burned and the Azeri residents driven out" (p. 646) – the author is describing it as an atrocity, forced expulsion, but isn't able to confirm whether there were killings (and there's no mention of torture). In contrast to The Sewanee Review article, the BBC Azerbaijani piece quotes specific numbers of casualties at Agdaban: "more than 30 residents were killed, hundreds were tortured and taken prisoner" which can't be found anywhere else. There's a notable lack of sources for an "Agadaban massacre", both when searching via JSTOR and Google, which is suspicious given that other contemporaneous massacres, including those of a similar scale, turn up a lot of results: there are 32 JSTOR results for the contemporaneous Khojaly massacre, and 15 results for the Maraga massacre. Both are widely mentioned across different sources, as a Google search attests. The hardest massacre to find sources about (excepting Agdaban) is Garadaghly, but that's still mentioned by several international news outlets such as the Jerusalem Post and a UNESCO record, and a search returns far more results than the tiny pool of hits for "Agdaban massacre". Add in the fact that the BBC Azerbaijani article appears to have a nationalistic tone and seems to contain historical revisionism (admittedly, this is using a machine translation, but it certainly looks that way – I agree it'd be helpful it a native speaker could confirm this), and then also consider that the image the article uses for Agdaban first appears a couple of weeks earlier on Wikimedia Commons (but is attributed to "Kəlbəcər RİH" by the BBC), and the whole thing seems off, and untrustworthy for exceptional claims within AA2. I'm afraid I can't find that Gale item – I haven't used Gale much so I may be searching incorrectly (or my university may not subscribe to that content), which Gale collection is it in? Jr8825 • Talk 13:43, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

@Jr8825: Regarding the gale source, I found it through The Wikipedia Library after searching for the term “agdaban” in its (newly-provided) unified search feature. I honestly can’t find the original article online anywhere except that database, so it appears to be at most a regional Pakistani paper owned by Hindustan Times that doesn’t carry a lot of weight. And, the mention was less than a full sentence. I wanted to note it for posterity sake—it’s not motivating me to say “yes, the BBC is right”, but more that they aren’t alone in their coverage of this. It also might be that a killing of 30 civilians in that war simply didn’t make international news owing to its non-notability, but that’s obviously speculation. I’m not a content expert in AA2, so I would prefer to leave that to those with more knowledge than me and those who can look up sources in relevant languages other than English. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 14:11, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

---

FWIW, Svante Cornell says in Small Nations and Great Powers, p. 81 "From early February onwards, the Azeri villages of Malybeili, Karadagly, and Agdaban were conquered and their population evicted, leading to at least 99 civilian deaths and 140 wounded" citing Yunusov, Statistics of the Karabakh War, p9. Alaexis_¿question? 14:55, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

@Alaexis: I'd forgotten about Cornell, since the AfD was quite some time ago. I also addressed Cornell and the Yunusov source he's citing from at the AfD. Unfortunately the Yunusov paper is not available in either digital or printed form (it's described as an "unpublished paper in the author's possession" by another source) and the figures don't appear anywhere else, so it's impossible to verify. Svante Cornell reportedly has connections to, and has received funding from, the Azerbaijani government, according to two European human rights/anti-lobbying NGOs. Also the numbers aren't the same as the BBC Azerbaijani article's (I haven't seen BBC Azerbaijani's numbers anywhere else). I encourage other editors to critically examine the AfD discussion in full, including my analysis in the green collapsed section, and the comments by other participants. Jr8825 • Talk 17:31, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Jr8825, I agree. Overall the sourcing is weak and would only justify mentioning it with clear attribution. But it's not an obviously wrong claim so it wouldn't justify making BBC Azeri unreliable. Alaexis_¿question? 18:53, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

And what about the historical negationism the website promotes? --Steverci (talk) 20:50, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Cornell is essentially a government employee of Azerbaijan. Him being the only one to claim something practically confirms it's WP:UNDUE. --Steverci (talk) 20:50, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Should Yahoo! News / Sports be listed as an reliable, unreliable, or deprecated source?

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

---

I am opening an RFC Proposal as according to the instructions in Wikipedia:RSN when initiating discussions for adding an item to the list in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. Yahoo! is not listed currently, which is quite surprising considering that it is well known around the world.

Which of the following best describes the reliability of Yahoo! News? news.yahoo.com  

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting

• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply

• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting

• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated as in the 2017 RfC of the Daily Mail

Other important questions:

• Should Yahoo! Sports be considered the same as Yahoo! News? sports.yahoo.com  
• Should other Yahoo! news-like sites be considered the same as Yahoo! News?

There have been multiple discussions in RSN and other places in Wikipedia, regarding the reliability of Yahoo! News and Yahoo! Sports. A main topic that I know is a major concern is that Yahoo! News does mostly act like a news aggregator website. Bellow are links to the related discussions.

RSN discussions that took place already:

• [31] - Yahoo! News article or PragerU
• [32] - Is Yahoo Sports a reliable source?
• [33] - Is news aggregator Yahoo News...
• [34] - Yahoo! news as a reliable source for military affaires
• [35] - RfC -- Yahoo! News

NPOV Notice Board discussions that have some relation to Yahoo! News:

• [36] - COVID misinformation and PPP loans at PragerU

Other places where discussions of Yahoo! News have taken place:

• [37] - Is a Yahoo! News article including material from the Alethea Group due?

Me personally would say I am leaning towards Option 1, as it makes many of its own great articles, but then at the same time Yahoo! News has not completely stopped being a news aggregator. News aggregators I think would fall under Option 2. Aceing_Winter_Snows_Harsh_Cold (talk) 02:02, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Responses

Discussions

• We just had an RfC about Yahoo News: here. Aside: it was surprisingly hard to find. Turns out GizzyCatBella [accidentally?] removed it after it was archived. But yeah, let's not just start a new one. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 03:49, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites:But that seems to be more of a discussion on whether it's reliable or not in the form of yes or no. The question I am placing here is, how it should be listed in the list of Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. There are more than just yes or no when it comes to listing a news source on that list. On that list there are somewhat like 4 different levels as described as above. Even if were to go based of the discussion you linked, it would still leave us at the first two options. The reason being is, the list does not look at a website at a particular angle, but at all angles. The discussion you linked discusses Yahoo! News at an angle without looking at it with the news aggregator view.Aceing_Winter_Snows_Harsh_Cold (talk) 04:18, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites - My apologies, I’m not sure how that happened - GizzyCatBella🍁 06:11, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

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

The crisis group

Can this source be counted reliable for saying, in an attributed manner, that there is an idea saying the maximum pressure campaign against Iran has not been successful? --Mhhossein ^talk 13:30, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Please provide a full context. In what article do you want to use it? Shrike (talk) 14:09, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

The reliability of ICC has been discussed not long ago here Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_342. There weren't too many responses but mostly they were positive. Regarding your question, I don't see why they shouldn't be considered reliable for this. Of course it's not necessarily WP:DUE. Alaexis_¿question? 20:21, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

It is an opinion column, so the question is not reliability but due weight. Why would their (attributed) opinion be worthy of inclusion? Inf-in MD (talk) 21:26, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

@Alaexis and Inf-in MD: How do you determine worthiness for inclusion? I thought WP:DUE was determined by how often a view comes in WP:RS. To me both seem to be connected, but I'd like to hear other views.VR _talk 15:51, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Personally, I evaluate how notable the group is by how often their views are reported in reliable sources, and who is their editorial staff. So if the ICC was frequently used by AP, or the Wall Street Journal, or CBS, or had a prominent academic signed to that opinion piece, I'd give it more weight than if it was only used by RT News or Counterpunch, or published anonymous pieces. Inf-in MD (talk)

@Inf-in MD: thanks for the response, that's an interesting perspective. Is this description of DUE currently in policy? If not, should it be? I ask because DUE seems to mean different things to different people and I would like it to be more consistent.VR _talk 00:40, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Vice regentWP:DUE says "Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." The claim you want to include is "maximum pressure campaign against Iran has not been successful." The other possible claim is "maximum pressure campaign against Iran has been successful" which might or might not be supported by reliable sources. WP:DUE simply says that the coverage should be proportional to the prevalence of each viewpoint in RS (including ICG). Alaexis_¿question? 06:01, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

It is an analysis. All analyses can be dismissed as 'opinion' pieces, but the difference persists. I can't see any valid reason for challenging the utility of this analysis for the argument.Nishidani (talk) 09:15, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Travel websites

Are the following considered RS for the purposes of (1) sourcing a venue's programming (i.e. the shows and entertainment they host), and (2) any content in a Reception section, such as quotations containing positive or negative criticism? Mikehawk10 expressed concern that some of them may contain self-published content, which I was not able to see myself but which I would certainly like to clarify so as not to inadvertently include SPS in the affected article.

• https://gaymapper.com/NewYorkCity/venues/290
• https://www.travelgay.com/venue/rise-bar-new-york/
• https://www.nycgo.com/nightlife/rise-bar
• https://www.shermanstravel.com/advice/the-best-queer-bars-in-new-york-city

Thanks, Armadillopteryx 18:44, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

• It seems to me that travelgay.com and to a lesser extent gaymapper.com allow for user-submitted edits/places, and in the case of the former, user submitted photos, but that does not itself imply to me lack of reliability for basic information about the place if those edits are properly vetted; however, it seems that travelgay.com allows users to add events at a location, which could lead to user submitted events. Having said that, the submission form on the website was broken so I cannot check how that event information is taken. I would argue nycgo.com is another issue in its own right as its from a tourism board, so the information will likely be accurate, but promotional. Shermans Travel's articles seem fine, but again they are a travel agency so concerns about promotion/advertising should be taken into account as well. snood1205^{(Say Hi! (talk))} 15:44, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Reliability of Optometry and Vision Science, Journal of the American Academy of Optometry

1. Source:[38]
2. Article. Vision therapy.
3. Content: Proposed sentence

   prospective studies have shown vision therapy to effectively treat binocular disorders after acquired brain injury

It also is one of many articles that means the opening sentence of the Vision therapy page is not neutral or true.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Snapdginger (talk • contribs) 17:29, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Primary source, so not reliable for the proposed text per WP:MEDRS. Alexbrn (talk) 19:11, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Will someone else comment? Snapdginger (talk) 05:05, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

OK. As Alexbrn says, it is a primary source, so per WP:MEDRS is not suitable as a source for a statement of that sort. But even if it was to be considered a reliable source for biomedical statements, the conclusion stated in the abstract (I don’t have access to the full paper) doesn’t actually support your text: it just says that the “majority of participants who completed the study experienced meaningful improvements” rather than stating a causal relationship. And it’s a study with 19 subjects, six of whom dropped out, and no control group. Brunton (talk) 16:47, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Comment Primary source, so not reliable for the proposed text per WP:MEDRS -Roxy the sceptical dog. wooF 16:50, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

This makes a lot more sense to me now. Thank you, and user:Alexbrn, sorry for not better understanding the primary vs secondary source aspect. That was probably quite annoying. I missed it in my wiki-learning.

user: Brunton, You may have some other insight for something I'm stuck on. Is a journal that publishes to it's own profession unreliable because of that aspect? Does it differ for differing professions? And are some professions considered outside or inside of mainstream? Is there somewhere you can direct me to better understand. Snapdginger (talk) 17:41, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Some professions are in WP:FRINGE areas, and journals on fringe topics (e.g. paranormal investigation) are not reliable for assertions of fact because Wikipedia is bound to reflect accepted scholarship of the wider world. Alexbrn (talk) 17:56, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Sohu and Sina

Hi, I couldn't find sohu.com and sina.com.cn anywhere in WP:SBL nor WP:RS/PS. Are their articles (for example, [39]) considered reliable sources? Thanks in advance. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 06:17, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

insource:/sohu\.com/ (4,685 hits), insource:/sina\.com\.cn/ (7,583 hits). P.T.Đ (talk) 08:55, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Depends, they're mostly aggregators so you need to see who published the content, so similar to how you would evaluate MSN News or Yahoo News. However for Sohu they also allow WP:SPS, so great care must be taken to validate that the author account is in fact an actual news outlet (Ngoui's example for example is SPS content and shouldn't be used). You can generally Google the author account name and you'll know pretty quickly if its SPS or a news outlet. Jumpytoo Talk 21:40, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

As Jumpytoo said they’re mostly aggregators (although Sina does publish some extremely low quality reporting under their own byline), the problem comes from none of the sources they’re aggregating from being generally reliable WP:RS. At best they’re of marginal reliability and at worst they’re full on deprecated. In general Sina or Sohu links should either be removed or replaced with the article from the original publisher. I would hazard a guess that >90% of our current uses for these sources are inappropriate. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:53, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree aggregators should be treated with caution, and even more if the content they are used for validation, is controversial or sensitive. It has happened several times to see information in politically sensitive topic areas such as the Middle East, China and the Balkans being removed because of this. Btw, [40] doesn't load for me. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 14:27, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Synth and Software.com

Can Synth and Software.com (SNS) be considered as a reliable source for synthesizers and other electronic music tech? They seem to have some really notable contributors, such as Mark Jenkins who wrote excellent books about synthesizers that are widely used as sources and references and he is considered to be an expert on the topic. He regularly writes articles on this site. On the other hand many news and announcements on the site are simply credited to "Synth and Software Newsroom".
StingR (talk) 09:45, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

It looks like a lower quality source per RS standards but I would be OK with it if the claims are not controversial. See RS and CONTEXTMATTERS (part of RS) for more information. Springee (talk) 14:00, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. The most widely known work of Mark Jenkins is this book and it is cited on numerous pages on Wikipedia. Just after quick search, here are some pages that cite from his book: Synthesizer, E-mu Systems, Alesis Andromeda A6, Roger Powell, String synthesizer, Synthesizers.com and Switched-On Rock. Mark Jenkins is also cited and his book is mentioned in this article by Red Bull Music Academy which is considered to be a reliable source per WP:RSINSTRUMENT. I agree that the site is of lower quality, but the fact that such a widely cited author is a regular contributor to the site would warrant consideration. Maybe even addition to WP:RSINSTRUMENT, but with a note that it is of lower quality. StingR (talk) 19:41, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Feb 2021 RFC on The American Conservative

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive_329#RFC_:_The_American_Conservative is a February 2021 RFC on The American Conservative, which was archived without a proper close, despite considerable and extensively-cited discussion. It should get a proper close. Shall I copy it here? - David Gerard (talk) 17:43, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Is there any reason not to just list it at WP:CR? If it gets copied over, it would probably just end up taking up extra space on the main noticeboard. Sunrise (talk) 00:07, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Would probably need copying here first, as archives shouldn't be edited, then that - David Gerard (talk) 16:06, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

IMO, closure of discussions is an exception to the rule against editing archives, and I have closed archived discussions before without anyone objecting. If the closer feels that un-archiving is necessary, they can do it at the time of closure, but insisting on keeping an un-archived version of the discussion strikes me as a NOTBURO issue. In the case of copying (as opposed to un-archiving), it duplicates the discussion with no real benefit. In addition to adding extra length to the main discussion page, I would argue that it risks restarting contentious debates that have already naturally lapsed. That said, I have no plans to pursue this issue myself. Sunrise (talk) 19:16, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

It's a tricky one, but you may be right: I see this one has just restarted too - David Gerard (talk) 20:32, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Last year I asked Redrose64 about closing archived discussions. The reply, as I interpreted it, was: archiving is closing. The top of an WP:RSN archive page has the template for talk archive navigation saying "This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page." Other discussions here, here, here. I conclude that Sunrise should not have closed archived discussions because they were already closed and because that's not general practice, and as for the fact that nobody objected: I don't believe we'd know because I don't recall seeing archive changes ever although WP:RSN is on my watchlist. Now that I know, I object. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 21:48, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

...If your contention is that an archived discussion cannot be formally closed simply because a closer didn't get around to it in time, that is definitely a NOTBURO issue. Certainly one can argue that a new discussion would be needed because too much time has passed, but that is a separate matter. Also, in the most recent complete CR archive (Jan-Oct 2021), I count a total of 10 discussions that were specifically mentioned as being archived before closure. In contrast, only 2 such closures were declined due to time elapsed (3 separate sections, but one was relisted in a new section and closed), so it seems that closing is in fact the general practice. Finally, the idea that we "wouldn't know" about an archived discussion being closed doesn't make sense - even if the closer doesn't unarchive the discussion or leave a note on the main discussion page, there would still be a record at CR, and furthermore it would seem to suggest that none of the participants of the discussion in question cared enough about the issue to check on the result. Sunrise (talk) 00:53, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

When people reach for WP:NOTBURO (or better yet WP:IAR) to excuse their actions, discussion based on Wikipedia rules becomes difficult. But at least you now know that your phrase "without anyone objecting" is no longer true. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:14, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for telling me, I guess? But it's still the general practice, as I just demonstrated. I haven't closed many discussions over the last few years - if you think the practice needs to be changed, then I'm not the one you need to be talking to. Sunrise (talk) 03:53, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Is The Verge a reliable source when it comes to social issues?

The Verge, which I know is mainly considered a tech blog has been weighing in on social issues recently, and I couldn't help but notice an implicit bias. I became aware of The Verge mainly through working on the article for the new Dave Chappelle special The Closer. My thoughts are the site are that it has cherry picked controversy on these social issues. For example the headline for this article [41] is "Netflix just fired the organizer of the trans employee walkout" where a related Associated Press article's headline was "Netflix employee fired in wake of Chappelle special furor" [42] - the reason given by Netflix being that the employee was fired due to a data leak of nonpublic information. Some other examples of The Verge: [43] and [44].

My RfC on this matter is: Does The Verge have implicit bias on social issues and should The Verge be considered a reliable source outside of tech related articles and reviews? CaffeinAddict (talk) 17:32, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Keep in mind headlines are not considered usable parts of any reliable source, even from AP or NYTimes, so I would ignore that.

That said, the Verge does tend to bias in favor of tech workers' rights or against Big Tech in this field. But in the case here, the Verge still gives Netflix its side of the story (that the employee was fired for leaking confidential information), though it does initially frame it "oh, this person organized the walk off, and maybe Netflix fired them for that.") There's really no issue with the Verge as long as this bias is understood and we don't write towards that, and if other more mainstream sources cover the same topic, then its probably good to use those other sources. But absent those, Verge is still fine keeping that bias in mind. As RS says, bias does not immediately make a source unreliable. --Masem (t) 17:40, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

So I looked it up and The Verge is part of Vox Media (and has been since its inception as far as I can tell, not a recent purchase like NYMag/Vulture.com). WP:RSPS says The Verge is reliable for tech reporting, but WP:RSPVOX says "Some editors say that Vox is a partisan source in the field of politics." I think that explains a lot. While I cannot be certain if Vox and The Verge are deliberately politically partisan or merely pushing culture wars clickbait, either way I do think they are better avoided since this is not tech reporting and there are plenty of other more neutral sources we can use instead. Personally I'd downgrade Vox.com from Green to Yellow status on the WP:RSPS list, but the warnings are already there at WP:RSPS. -- 109.77.207.91 (talk) 22:21, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

They definitely show a bias, but bias is not the same as reliability. The articles linked have nothing factually wrong about the situation, just that they are written to emphasis the plight of the workers and stress dislike of Netflix's position. But they don't state factually Netflix fired the person for speaking out, for example. (Again, we ignore headlines from any RS). We know how to write around bias for such cases. --Masem (t) 01:37, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

109.77.207.91, just a clarification. Masem is correct that "bias is not the same as reliability." You'd be amazed that we even allow so many editors to edit who don't understand the way we are supposed to use, and how to deal with, biased sources. We don't try to find "more neutral sources we can use instead". That would violate NPOV, which specifically allows biased sources, and thus biased content. We should try to use all RS, and there is a wide gamut of them. We don't want "blah" content. Biased sources are often the most interesting and informative, as interpretation of facts is important, and strictly informative sources don't usually include interpretation. So we want facts and biased interpretation. We want sources that perform the synthesis we are not allowed to do. Just avoid, and often delete, bias that is counterfactual.

It is primarily editorial bias we forbid. Editors must remain neutral when they edit. I am not saying it's wrong to find neutral sources. Not at all. Also, we must avoid sources that are so biased it affects their reliability. Such sources are usually rated poorly or deprecated at WP:RS/P. It is lack of reliability, not the presence of bias, that is the problem. Most sources are biased, and many biased sources manage to remain fairly factual and usable. From a political POV, right-wingers/conservatives don't like this, but all fact-checkers and sources/agencies that evaluate bias and factuality, find that right now, at this point in history, many right-wing sources tend to allow their bias to go so far that it affects their reliability, while far fewer left-wing/liberal sources have this problem. People who don't understand this then complain that many of our political articles seem very biased toward the left. That is true, but the reason is that there are more left-wing sources that are factual, with too many right-wing sources pushing lies, disinformation, and conspiracy theories. This phenomenon has been summed up by Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, who has noted why this applies mostly to liberal sources:

• "On the Liberal Bias of Facts"
• "The Facts Have A Well-Known Center-Left Bias"
• "Facts Have a Well-Known Liberal Bias"

There is more about this in a section, "The liberal bias of facts", of a rather rough, unfinished, and neglected essay I have hidden here.

I have written another essay dealing with this topic: NPOV means neutral editing, not neutral content: "NPOV means neutral editing, not neutral content. We do not document exclusively neutral facts or opinions; we write about all facts and opinions neutrally. NPOV refers to an editorial attitude and mindset; it is not a true "point of view".

Editors must edit neutrally when they deal with biased content. Since Wikipedia does not take sides, and because it documents all types of biased points of view, often using biased sources, article content cannot be neutral. Source bias must remain evident and unaffected by editorial revisionism, censorship, whitewashing, or political correctness. We document all aspects of reality, whether we like it or not." Otherwise, carry on and keep up the good work. -- Valjean (talk) 15:02, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Arguably if we know a source has a bias in the topic area but otherwise generally reliable, and the same information can be sourced to another reliable source that is known not to have same bias, we absolutely should do this, unless the first source is an essential element of the reporting chain (eg such as having done an investigation or interview with parties involved). In this case, if we have a NYTimes article reporting on the same details that the Verge article gives us, we probably should use the Times piece over the Verge. But if the Verge was the only real source reporting on it, or if we were looking other tech-heavy sources like Engadget, Wired, etc. that also reported on it, which really don't have any greater "superiority" over Verge here, there's no real reason to remove it. We just have to make sure that in that case, we look past any bias (eg WP don't take the side of the fired employee like the Verge did). --Masem (t) 15:09, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

• The Verge is generally reliable for this sort of thing. @CaffeinAddict: why do you not consider this to be tech reporting? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:00, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Sure it's tech related but so are a great deal of subjects today. They've seemed to have taken a political or social stance on the issue. CaffeinAddict (talk) 01:04, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

If its tech related then its within The Verge’s area of expertise. What specifically seems like taking a political or social stance? Also can you be more specific about what “the issue” is? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:06, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

The issue about Dave Chappelle's new special specifically is that he made jokes, and the trans community took them as literal and now they're upset. The issue with Netflix is that employees were upset that their employer would release said special and took it upon themselves to leak nonpublic data that was commercially sensitive. My issue with The Verge is they're suggesting these employees were fired or suspended because they spoke out against their employer and not because they had actually leaked data which the company is notoriously tight about keeping nonpublic. It's disingenuous and it's clickbaiting. CaffeinAddict (talk) 01:24, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

The issue about Dave Chappelle's new special specifically is that he made jokes, and the trans community took them as literal and now they're upset. What are you trying to imply here? Just because something is a joke doesn't mean it's not offensive or that jokes only needs to be taken literally to be offensive. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:29, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

The coverage in one of the linked articles "Last week, Netflix fired a leader of the trans ERG who was helping to organize the walkout. The company said this worker had leaked confidential information. Internally, that reasoning has been disputed.” doesn’t look disingenuous or like clickbait to me. It looks balanced. Is there something else that you’re referring to? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:53, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

• The Verge is a tech magazine, and in 2021 that involves the social effects of tech. Their articles around the Netflix/Chappelle issue look good, and I know of no reason to presume they have not put in the effort to do perfectly good journalism to the degree we assume of WP:NEWSORGs. I would assume The Verge is a general RS unless you have really good evidence otherwise - David Gerard (talk) 23:37, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
• The Verge has seen some apparent WP:USEBYOTHERS on this topic. By CNN and The Washington Post on the firing of the Netflix walkout organizer: 1 2. By CNN, NPR, NBC News, Variety, The Wall Street Journal, and The Hollywood Reporter on the subject of the Netflix walkout in general: 3 4 5 6 7 8. Also by Vulture, but this is another Vox Media product. By The New York Times and the LA Times the subject of The Closer controversy in general: 1 2.

That headlines aren't citable follows from WP:HEADLINES. The meat and potatoes of the reporting (i.e. this person was fired, they were an organizer for this walk-out and a leader in this resource group, Netflix says they were fired for leaking data, that is denied) seems fairly well-corroborated in other media such as the NYT. --Chillabit (talk) 14:47, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Right. It's easy to forget that clickbait or sensationalist headlines are not only a subjective quality, but a part of modern mainstream media now and should not be considered too heavily when considering the facts within the article. They are also often selected by a separate editor, and not the reporters involved. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 17:11, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

• The OP has not included any non-factual statements deliberately made by the source. Even the headline they noted is 100% factually correct (though, of course, we do not normal cite headlines as sources of factual information). The bias of a reliable source (and 100% of sources have a bias. All of them. It is not possible to be unbiased. It is just how you are biased) is about how the source chooses to emphasize certain facts. Every source cannot write every fact about every issue, it doesn't make for a compelling-to-read narrative, and sources are limited by space as to how many characters they devote to a story. Insofar as a source has to choose what to emphasize, that is their bias, and it is impossible not to do so. We don't care that a source emphasize certain known true things (since it isn't possible not to), instead we focus on are the things they are reporting factually correct insofar as we can tell. I see no reason why this source isn't reporting factually correct things. The Netflix employee that was fired did help organize the trans walkout. That both of those facts are 100% true. The person was fired by Netflix and that same person did help organize the walkout. --Jayron32 17:32, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
• Every source has an implicit bias on social issues, if that's how you want to phrase it. There is no neutral stance on such questions. For instance, if you're reporting a killing by the police and decide to mention that the victim was black and the perpetrator was white, that takes the stance that the races are relevant, perhaps because they think there is systemic racism within the police. If you decide not to mention their races then that takes the stance that the races are not relevant, perhaps because they think there is no systemic racism within the police. You can't choose neither: you either mention the races or don't.
  This generalises to almost all articles and many details of identity, where both mentioning and not mentioning are political choices. The Verge has a political narrative, yes. So does The New York Times and the BBC and so on. However, they are completely reliable for facts, and their view of what details are relevant is a significant and respected one. — Bilorv (talk) 19:48, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

References

RfC: Yahoo! News as a source

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

---

I am starting this because of an RfC at Julian Assange. We are voting on whether or not to include a report that the CIA was plotting to kidnap/kill him, and the investigation was originally from Yahoo News. I noticed that Yahoo! News wasn't included at the list of sources, so I am starting an RfC about it.

Which best describes the work of Yahoo! News:

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

Bwmdjeff (talk) 16:00, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

• Could we not launch a general RfC for a specific content question. Anything about assassination plots is obviously WP:EXCEPTIONAL so would need more RS than one news outlet anyway. Alexbrn (talk) 16:14, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

  Comment I thought this was a good opportunity to do an RfC because there hasn't been any yet on the reliability of this source. Bwmdjeff (talk) 16:17, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

  It's not a good idea, if there is no entry, that means it is not a "perennial source" issue for discussion. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:23, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

• No we cannot have a general RfC based on a single use case. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:16, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

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