Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 208

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FreeBMD

The reliability of FreeBMD.com has probably been discussed here before but I couldn't seem to find it. There is a post on BLPN regarding the birthplace of an individual. Determining the reliability of this source will help in resolving the birthplace dispute. Thanks! Meatsgains (talk) 17:55, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

• Reliable In the absence of obvious red flags, a source is reliable if it is widely referenced by other sources we know are reliable. This appears to be the case with FreeBMD. BlueSalix (talk) 04:02, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

@BlueSalix: Thanks for your input. Would also appreciate any feedback in the BLPN discussion. Meatsgains (talk) 16:47, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Sorcha Faal reports; multi-parter

OK at the talk page of the above listed article, have arisen as to whether, with regard to the following, the sources are reliable for the content, and also if this is UNDUE.

• A) In Russia both Sorcha Faal and the website have been described by Trud as a "drain tank/cistern through which one of the groups of American military and political elite merges information uncomfortable for their opponents" with Russian professor and political scientist Igor Panarin adding "Of course, it is an element of information warfare, and within the American elite", and REN TV saying that "Sorcha Faal has repeatedly been accused of publishing scandalous, controversial, even classified information."

References

The above is opposed by one set of editors and supported by another. One of the supporters of the above, made the argument that if the above sources are dismissed as Russian tabloid/propaganda, then in order to be neutral the US sources below must also be dismissed as propaganda and removed them from the article. So, with regard to the following, are the sources are reliable for the content? Questions of UNDUE have not been raised about this.

• B) It (the website) has been described in the United States by The Washington Post as an "ultra-fringe conspiracy theory Web site", Some of the reports have received mainstream media attention, and some have spread through social media. In 2015, The Atlantic magazine described whatdoesitmean.com as a "conspiracy website" which had suggested that the Central Intelligence Agency was responsible for the downing of Metrojet Flight 9268. In 2016, The Huffington Post noted a report alleging that a meteorite was to blame for EgyptAir Flight 804 crashing into the Mediterranean Sea on 19 May 2016 according to "an intriguing Ministry of Defence report circulating the Kremlin." The Huffington Post described the claim as "bizarre" and Whatdoesitmean as a "somewhat dubious source".

References

Thanks. I've set up subsections below for discussions about each of A and B. Jytdog (talk) 08:39, 29 May 2016 (UTC) (amended B per feedback below. Jytdog (talk) 17:56, 29 May 2016 (UTC))

While I'm happy to have more eyes on this article - saying "this is an RS for this purpose, this isn't" doesn't address the issue with the editing on this article. The actual problem here is the uses the sources are being put to, and an incompetent but determined editor looking for excuses to bend sources into strange shapes. Overarching rules or guidelines on the sources themselves don't really address the abuse of them - David Gerard (talk) 09:45, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Discussion of A

Note - the content below from Izvestia is not actual article content we have been discussing, but rather background that Picotm feels is important. Jytdog (talk) 10:39, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

• Note Posting editor forgot to add this Izvestia link:

  "On the Internet, fierce debate, whose is this project. Converge debaters in one - a "really knowledgeable people" are behind him. So, they hinted, the company, which registered address of the site, located in Langley, Virginia. Well, yes, there was placed the CIA headquarters. However, the server is based in another state, they meet other experts. So, we must look elsewhere. Of course, for the project are special services, but who exactly understand yet difficult: British MI6, Mossad, CIA, DIA (Intelligence Agency of the Ministry of Defense) and the American National Security Agency, for example," - says an expert in the field of information warfare professor Russian MFA Diplomatic Academy Igor Panarin. "Certainly, it is an element of information warfare, and within the American elite and the time is not chosen by chance -. A crisis escalates," - he believes."

References

• Opinion The central issue here is simply this: Do individual editors (or small group of editors) have the right to determine the reliablity of Media of Russia and delete content on an article based on that determination? And if so, can all editors then delete from other articles content based on these editors criteria that Media of Russia sources are unreliable? Thanks. Picomtn (talk) 09:09, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

The quotation of the Iszvestia link above does not appear to be written in English. Does anybody know what language it is written in, as Google translate does not recognise it either? -Roxy the dog™ woof 09:34, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi @Roxy the dog: The articles language is Russian, and sometimes with Russian language articles it's best to bring it up in its own window then open another window with Google Translate--and instead of putting the entire link in, copy and past each paragraph. In doing this though, I've found it best to not put in more than 2 paragraphs at a time. Hope this helps. Thanks. Picomtn (talk) 09:41, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Roxy the dog -- the paragraph above is garbled and unintelligible and thus unusable. Softlavender (talk) 10:18, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

• Picotm I did not forget that. That content has never been in the article according to WikiBlame and was not included in this dif which is what we are discussing. It also appears just to be a long quote and not even proposed WP content. Please withdraw it or put it in some different section of this board. Jytdog (talk) 10:10, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi Jytdog If you read the Trud source deleted from the article you would see that all it is doing is quoting from the 2009 Izvestia article (and it says exactly that in the Trud article). As it is the original source for the disputed content its inclusion here in this discussion is extremely relevant. Thanks. Picomtn (talk) 10:19, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

If you read the instructions at the top of this page, this board is for discussing specific content and its sourcing. Above you posted the Izvestia content as though that is actual article content we are discussing and as though I forgot it, and neither thing is true. Jytdog (talk) 10:22, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

I agree -- Picomtn, your post and quote at the top is confusing and makes no sense here --please strike it. Softlavender (talk) 11:01, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

• Comment: The source of the first citation in A at the top (the first two quotations) is very clearly Izvestia, not Trud: [1]. The Trud citation isn't even about Sorcha Faal, which it only mentions very briefly in passing and in doing so quotes the Izvestia article. If A is retained, the citation needs to be corrected. Also, the second citation (from REN TV) mentions Sorcha Faal only briefly and for no obvious reason and without any context or explanation, so I don't think that's a usable quotation. The source article should at least be primarily about Sorcha Faal or have some context or reason for mentioning it. Softlavender (talk) 10:18, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for chiming in softlavender. the first source is here (that is the google translate version). It is clear from Trud so I am not sure what you mean. (I do acknowledge that Trud cites Ivsetia, but Trud is the cited source... Jytdog (talk) 10:26, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

To repeat, the Trud citation isn't even about Sorcha Faal, which it only mentions very briefly in passing and in doing so quotes the Izvestia article, which is entirely about Sorcha Faal and from which the quotations stem. Softlavender (talk) 10:31, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Confusing. The Trud article has a subsection called "Turks against the US Marines?" that is based entirely on a Sorcha Faal report. Newspaper articles often have this kind of subsection - "meanwhile, over here in a related story...." Izvestia is in the fourth paragraph down and the part of the Izvestia article that we take is the part that Trud took. Jytdog (talk) 10:36, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

The wiki text says In Russia both Sorcha Faal and the website have been described by Trud as a "drain tank/cistern through which one of the groups of American military and political elite merges information uncomfortable for their opponents" with Russian professor and political scientist Igor Panarin adding "Of course, it is an element of information warfare, and within the American elite" (emphasis mine), but that's not true -- that information and those quotes are all directly from Izvestia, and only quoted by Trud, so the wiki text needs to both properly attribute and properly cite the quotations. Softlavender (talk) 10:50, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

That makes perfect sense now, thanks. Jytdog (talk) 11:03, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

• the content is supported by the sources, but the sources are Russian propaganda/tabloids and are not reliable, and this content should get no WEIGHT in the article. Jytdog (talk) 10:40, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi @Jytdog: And there you have it: "the sources are Russian propaganda/tabloids and are not reliable". Can you even appreciate the blanket charge you're making against all the Media of Russia? REN TV, one of the largest private federal TV channels in Russia is propaganda, Trud, first published in 1921 is propaganda, Izvestia, a long-running high-circulation daily broadsheet newspaper in Russia is propaganda. Does any individual editor here have the right to make this determination? Picomtn (talk) 11:04, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Nope, but the community does, which is why we are here.

Prior discussions of Russian media here at RSN include:

here

here and

here (I was part of that one) and

yet another RT one and

this mega-discussion.

There is a lot skepticism in the community about Russian media, especially when it is discussing propapanda-ish topics like this one. Jytdog (talk) 11:18, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi @Jytdog: Respectfully, the Media of Russia aren't "discussing propapanda-ish topics" as far as this articles subject is concerned, they are outright stating that it is an intelligence operation as you well know. Picomtn (talk) 11:42, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

• We should report the controversy with appropriate weight. It isn't our job to decide on the truth or suppress what we think of as falsehoods but we can certainly say who says these things rather than say them in Wikipedia's voice. Dmcq (talk) 12:22, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Discussion of B

• Opinion This issue is predicated on a determination of Discussion of A allowing individual editors (or small group of editors) to remove content from articles using Media of Russia sourcing on an article-by-article basis by simply stating it's non-reliable and without providing proof--and if allowed, do other editors have the right to challange the reliability of U.S. media sources?

In this particular instance, a small group of editors determined that all Russian mainstream media sources were not reliable by their simply stating that these Russian sources were "an outlandish, borderline absurd one", "propagandizing conspiracy theory bullshit" and only have "passing amusement value".

By this logic, therefore, and in attempting to maintain neutrality, I countered that if Russian mainstream news sources could be deemed as non-reliable on an article-by-article basis simply by statements, then the reliability of U.S. mainstream media sources could, likewise be challanged--but in using WP:RS supported facts, which I provided by stating in the talk page discussion:

As Udo Ulfkotte, the former editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (one of Germany's largest newspapers), has recently admitted that all Western media is being manipulated by the Central Intelligence Agency: "We all lie for the CIA"[2], and a Gonzaga University research paper titled The Propaganda Model: Corporate and Political Collusion in the Creation of an Oligopolistic Mainstream U.S. Media[3] convincingly argues that the 6 media companies that control 90% of American news[4] are, in essence, publishing propaganda, and Reporters Without Borders has dropped the U.S. to 41st place[5] in their world press rankings to reflect these, and more, facts, I have removed from this article all American mainstream media references as they no longer meet Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources guidelines.

So, and its most basic level, (at least to me) individual editors should have no right of determiniation as to the WP:RS of Media of Russia sources on an article-by-article basis (or U.S. ones). And if allowed, would result in massive chaos here with editors challenging Media of Russia sources for thousands of other articles that use them for sourcing. Is that what we really want? Thanks. Picomtn (talk) 10:11, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

• The sources are reliable for the content in B, and the objection to this specific content and its sourcing, is the definition of WP:POINTY - it isn't based on WP:RS. These are reliable sources and the content is supported by them. Jytdog (talk) 10:17, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi @Jytdog: But, according to WP:RS this applies to Media of Russia sources too, and as evidenced by thousands of WP Russian articles that use them. So please answer as to why they are reliable for other articles, but not this one? Thanks. Picomtn (talk) 10:55, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Please stop arguing and actually read WP:POINTY. It is exactly what you are doing here. Please stop doing that. You are not making an argument that an article published in The Atlantic about this website is not a reliable source per WP:RS. Jytdog (talk) 10:59, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi @Jytdog: That is EXACTLY what I'm arguing, that the Atlantic, and all U.S. media sources in fact, are not reliable due to the unique WP:RS interpretation being applied to this article relating to the reliability of Media of Russia sources, that if allowed to stand should, likewise, apply to them too. Picomtn (talk) 11:10, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

So that guideline says: "Such behavior, wherever it occurs, is highly disruptive and can lead to a block or ban.". That is where you are going by persisting in this. And you just actually acknowledged you are doing it. Jytdog (talk) 11:15, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

• Citation 3 (Colorado Springs Gazette [6]) does not directly substantiate what it is appended to and is OR/extrapolation, so I'd say that sentence and citation should be removed. The other citations do substantiate what the wiki text says, and although slightly cherrypicked (granted there's probably not a lot of extended mainstream info about Sorcha Faal in RS media given that it's a wacky conspiracy site), they are very reliable sources in terms of WP:RS. I think those mentions are fine for the article because they are reliable and provide noteworthy background information. Softlavender (talk) 10:42, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

That's a reasonable critique, thanks! Jytdog (talk) 11:03, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

@Picomtn: I don't offhand see anyone blanket claiming that Media of Russia sources as a whole are always unreliable. Sources have to be analyzed and gauged one at a time. In terms of the sourcing on the Russian quotes in question, it is probably difficult to trust the accuracy of a Soviet-era newspaper which has changed hands but is still apparently under state control. The Putin administration is not known for its transparency. That said, there may be a case for arguing that the one article that is entirely about Sorcha Faal could possibly be quoted, sparingly, if there's anything it says that can be summed up clearly. The current random non-sequitur quoted bits don't make much sense and lack context even as to what the point is, so I think they add confusion rather than information to the wiki article. Softlavender (talk) 11:08, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi @Softlavender: That's the point. But when you have editor @David Gerard: saying about this article "I would be most happy to set it on fire and put it in the bin it belongs in", and editor @Jytdog: saying that "the sources are Russian propaganda/tabloids and are not reliable" while at the same time saying "the content is supported by the sources", and both of them supporting the deletion of all Media of Russia sourced content from this article, what other conclusion can be drawn? And please remember, if you go to the original article (that took months to work on) you'll see that is exactly what was being done, putting this entire articles subject into the best, and neutral, context possible. Also, I believe it's very important to point out that these Russian sources claim this articles subject is an intelligence operation, that even one of their top officials is quoted as saying is true. And with, literally, thousands of other non-reliable sources (in too many languages to count) making this same claim, shouldn't this article reflect this reality? Thanks. Picomtn (talk) 11:35, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Note Picomtn resorting immediately to personal attacks on other editors rather than addressing the point. This has been an ongoing pattern ever since this article was in draft space, and before - David Gerard (talk) 11:49, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

I don't see any clearly worded statement anywhere on this page that it "is an intelligence operation", or "that even one of their top officials is quoted as saying is true". I do see a lot of garbled nonsense that could be interpreted any way one wants to interpret it. And your drawing conclusions is not helping matters, any more than your doing so has ever helped matters from the time I first counselled you about Wikipedia. You have to make your case within the confines of Wikipedia policies, not within the confines of what you want to happen or by attacking the behavior of other editors. I checked the original article, and it contains a large amount of POV-pushing and outrageous POV claims. When you create an article like that, you get blowback. The current article may not be how you would like it, but it's a lot more accurate and neutral than your POV-pushing original. Softlavender (talk) 11:55, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Although all of this is interesting, we have an editor who has made comments on the Sorchs Fasl talk page such as "Here are some of my final thoughts about this, and everyone here at WP should be proud today for the fine work you, and these other editors, are doing to help these people[7], who, like you, are working hard everyday to keep us all safe from the bad things we shouldn't know about." So far as I can see from their comments they believe that Wikipedia itself is a funded part of a conspiracy - @Picomtn: have I misunderstood you or is that your belief? The article itself is under discretionary sanctions. I'm not sure that the problems over editing this article can be settled here. Doug Weller talk 11:56, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Major injuries caused by electronic cigarette use

I just renamed the relevant article talk page section to Talk:Electronic_cigarette#Explosions_-_sourcing_and_weight Jytdog (talk) 18:59, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Please note that this topic area is under discretionary sanctions, which were originally imposed by the community and have been adopted by Arbcom. A number of editors active in the topic area have Arbcom restrictions of one kind or another.

There are a number of reliable sources that describe the safety of electronic cigarettes, and there isn't all that much agreement between them. The sources reach quite a range of conclusions, some feeling that there are circumstances in which medical professionals should consider encouraging patients to use them rather than continuing to smoke tobacco, and others feeling that there's nowhere near enough information to recommend anything like that. One of the reliable sources, Grana/Berkowitz mentions a risk of major injury. None of the others do. When you check what Grana/Berkowitz gets its information from, it cites references #76 (which, when you check it, is this popular press article about major injuries caused to an un-named person who was not available for comment) and #77 (which, when you check it, is this popular press article in which a woman from southeast Atlanta claims that an e-cigarette scorched her couch and burned a hole in her rug, but nobody was actually hurt).

The question I hope you will help me evaluate here is whether, given the lack of mention in any other reliable source, this claimed risk of major injury from fires and explosion really belongs in the lede. There is relevant discussion on Talk:Electronic cigarette, which I invite you to read with the skepticism appropriate to a fraught article with a history with Arbcom.—S Marshall T/C 16:44, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

This source describes "gruesome" injuries in Seattle. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:09, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

And then there is this coverage from Denver describing serious injuries. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:17, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Here is an article from Scientific American describing a "trail of injuries", many of which are quite horrifying. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:23, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Here is a story about a man in Orange County, California who lost an eye when his e-cigarette exploded. Reliable sources show that the risk of serious injury is real, though presumably rare. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:30, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

• Yes indeed, there are other popular press sources. On the article talk page, I'm being advised that popular press sources such as these should not be used because they don't meet WP:MEDASSESS. My position is that WP:MEDASSESS only applies to medical claims. This point is not a medical claim because it relates to the fire and explosion risk from an electrical device, and physicians have no special knowledge about that. My position is, therefore, that popular press sources should be allowed, and it should be possible for Wikipedians to compare the sources and decide which is the most reliable (a procedure which apparently would not be allowed under WP:MEDASSESS). Do you have any comments on this?—S Marshall T/C 07:42, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

• Ooh! Following those links brought me to this source which does come from an organisation with special knowledge about fire and explosion risk. That was rather useful, thank you.—S Marshall T/C 07:46, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

• Comment – As you can see in the discussion, there are multiple points in contention there. S Marshall favors the inclusion of pop press articles in place of this source, and this reversion was what initiated the discussion. Honestly, I'm not sure what the benefit is of making that change, so I don't necessarily disagree with the revert. However, the discussion has morphed into several different debates:

1. Is that source considered primary or secondary for the statement it is being cited for?
2. Given the vagueness of that statement, is it adding any real value to the article, and if so, is it enough to warrant mention in the lead?
3. For the claim in question, does it fall strictly under WP:MEDRS guidelines which favor this source over other pop press sources?

The source doesn't appear to be analyzing or interpreting the occurrence of "explosions and fires". It is simply saying they have occurred, a mere observation and regurgitation of the pop press sources it cites. Without quantifying its findings or assessing the risk involved, the value it brings to the table isn't necessarily "more reliable" than pop press sources, as one editor claims it is. And since it doesn't seem to be one step removed from primary sources by providing an "author's own thinking", I'm not sure why it's being defended in this fashion. The pushback is that it's a "systematic review", and therefore any claim made within it should be free from scrutiny per WP:MEDASSESS.

While I would agree that this is true for medical claims supported by the review, this particular one is an exception to the rule. In the spirit of WP:CONTEXTMATTERS and possibly even WP:ALLPRIMARY, we should be able to assess if this source is adequately supporting the claim. One might argue that "safety" is undoubtedly a medical concern, but "explosions and fires" is a topic it doesn't analyze and not one that would only exist in the medical realm. The lack of clarity here suggests the claim needs better support from other secondary sources, and if none are provided by the editors who support its inclusion, then it should be thrown out of the article, or at the very least removed from the lead where it is being given undue prominence. Perhaps we're over-analyzing this, but it would be nice to have the feedback from a few uninvolved editors. --GoneIn60 (talk) 09:03, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

• A couple of comments. Any electronic device has the potential for catastrophic failure that could result in injury. This may be exceedingly rare, or in the case of known defects, likely. 'setting fire to my chair while I fell asleep holding it' as a (poor) example would not make an e-cig any more dangerous than any other electronic device used improperly. A manufacturing defect however that caused it to explode in someone's face would be. Either way, these are not medical issues and dont require med sourcing. Manufacturing defects are a safety/standards issue, and e-cigs until recently have been a poorly regulated and wildly popular. A combination that *will* lead to misuse and injuries. But it is not indicative of e-cigs in general. They are not inherantly dangerous anymore than toys are. Yet you still get injury from dangerously made toys and we dont label them as a group of causing major injuries (with some exceptions). Given the largely unregulated nature of e-cigs up until now, I would say from a safety standpoint there is an increased risk from poorly made devices - this is why we *have* safety standards after all - but likewise there are millions and millions of people using them with no problems. Its entirely undue, absent reliable sources which explicitly state as such, to use it to imply e-cigs in general are dangerous mechanically. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:25, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
• Actually from reading the FEMA link they attribute it almost entirely to Ion-Li batteries (which have known explosion/heat issues that drastically increase depending on the quality of manufacture) so its basically a battery problem. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:31, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

On a side note: Thank you for your well-articulated comments. In addition to the possibility of low-quality manufacturing, high-end e-cigs typically use removable lithium-ion batteries that are "unprotected", meaning when they come in contact with metallic objects at either pole, they can begin to react and overheat leading to an explosion. Many users aren't aware of this, and some of the explosions were the result of improperly carrying spare batteries in their pocket, which may contain the ingredients for such a reaction: keys and loose change. Glad you brought up this perspective. --GoneIn60 (talk) 09:42, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

• Just to clarify my position: no its not a medical issue so medassess does not apply and standard reliable sources can be used. However personally I would not include material regarding risk of majory injury as there does not appear to be real risk (from the FEMA article S.Marshall linked above, the % is staggeringly low in the US). Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:35, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
• Thank you. I concur that MEDASSESS doesn't apply to risks best assessed by firefighters. I think material regarding the risk of fire and explosion from improperly recharging lithium batteries does belong in the article but it's UNDUE to include it in the lead. Would anyone disagree?—S Marshall T/C 16:33, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

The issue is whether it applies to physical damage — which isn't an issue, because even a cursory glance of WP:MEDRS & WP:BIOMEDICAL tells you that it does. Carl Fredik 💌 📧 10:10, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Personally I think its undue to have it in the article at all. Ion-Li batteries shortcomings are extremely well known and the batteries are in a wide variety of products. If it should be included in the article, it is certainly not lead material. As a comparison, our article on Lawn darts doesnt even include the safety aspects, the banning, not to mention they actually killed someone, in the lead. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:45, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

It's prominent enough to be mentioned in some of the leading reviews about electronic cigarettes. I doubt there are review-articles about lawn-darts — so it clearly is not a reasonable comparison. Carl Fredik 💌 📧 10:10, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

You are joking right? Toys get more reviews than most products and are usually safety-checked to a far higher standard than goods sold to adults. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:33, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

• TO clarify some misrepresentations here - the content was formerly cited to two news reports -we had anecdotes. In general we want reviews of data, not anecdotes. That was the point of the initial reversion. Next, S Marshall started to "peer review" the references in the source, which is a level of "peer review" of sources that isn't appropriate for WP editors to do. I am super happy with the FEMA source so that should lay this to rest. Just wanted to correct the distortions here. Jytdog (talk) 08:44, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

So basically, it was a problem to begin with and the review was an attempt to make it better. The forming consensus here is that it didn't really help things. Yes, hopefully the better FEMA source will lay a lot this to rest, assuming others in support of the original source are willing to move on from it. --GoneIn60 (talk) 12:06, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

• Critical evaluation of the reliability of a source is not only normal and appropriate, it's the central task of the content editor. People who can't do that should stick to vandal fighting or manual of style stuff. WikiProject Medicine's views are unique to their own niche, and do not apply to the general encyclopaedia.—S Marshall T/C 17:53, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Critical evaluation of the type of source is essential, and how it fits in the context of the literature. Actually doing peer review on the source itself goes very far beyond any editor's authority here. Very far. I don't think what you have been doing has any support in policy, guideline, or common practice, S Marshall. Jytdog (talk) 08:45, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

• We can reject content for any reason or none. Yes, someone with a PhD wrote something in a scholarly article, and it's technically verifiable, but per policy, verifiability doesn't guarantee inclusion. It certainly doesn't guarantee inclusion in the lede of a Wikipedia article about electronic cigarettes. Editors can come to a consensus that the content should be excluded if, in their editorial judgment, there are good reasons to do so. Deciding on those reasons entails analysing the source. We have to decide: has it been superseded by better scholarship? Is it biased, COI? Is it UNDUE? These are judgments that content editors routinely make, well supported by policy and guideline, and well within scope of talk page discussion. The business of questioning my "authority" is complete bullshit. There's no concept of "authority" anywhere in Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. I and any other good faith editor have the "authority" to do anything that improves the encyclopaedia, and explicit authority to ignore any rule that says otherwise. So I'll question the credibility of any source I want to, Jytdog.—S Marshall T/C 14:40, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
• This is the third or fourth time I've seen the comparison of a "peer review". A simple definition from Merriam-Webster about that term:

"a process by which a scholarly work (such as a paper or a research proposal) is checked by a group of experts in the same field to make sure it meets the necessary standards before it is published or accepted"

We are not "a group of experts in the same field", nor are we trying to evaluate its scholarly acceptance or ability to become published. We are simply looking at one statement from the Wikipedia article, and deciding whether or not that statement is properly supported by the source in question. Proper support entails making sure that the source is saying what our Wikipedia statement is saying in the context it is used. This process does not match up with the definition of a peer review; we're scrutinizing in a way that is very much in line with WP:V and WP:RS, which for all intents and purposes supersede WP:MEDRS. I think we've agreed to move on from this source, so really these are all moot points. --GoneIn60 (talk) 18:20, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

To be clear, S Marshall has gone inside the source, and looked at the sources used by the source and on that basis - essentially acting like a RW peer reviewer, is rejecting it. That is not OK here. Jytdog (talk) 01:44, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

• Rubbish. It's perfectly OK and normal to challenge the reliability of a source based on its methodology.—S Marshall T/C 03:56, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Oh come on Jytdog, you work in the fringen and pseudoscience areas enough to know we do that *all the time* when various quack papers start citing research in support of their own quackery (with the usual result that the research within the research does not appear to say what the source says it does). It goes both ways, just because something is generally reliable, we dont completely stop looking at the sources in detail when something seems off. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:31, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Really OiD? I have never seen that - I am not being disingenuous here. We have talked about things like impact factor and editorial board of the journal but I have not seen someone try to invalidate a source by doing peer review on its sources. In every context I have been in where sources were questioned and someone tried to do anything like this (like questioning whether the conclusions of the paper are justified based on the data presented) on their own authority I have seen that angle shut down. Jytdog (talk) 19:03, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

We could go on for a long time trying to break down what's being said by whom, since multiple editors have approached this from several different angles. Is it really necessary? We've already decided there's a better source. A better use of our time is to go back to the article talk page and decide how to use it. --GoneIn60 (talk) 02:56, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

change.org

Should a petition on change.org be allowed in an article? Anyone can create a petition, and just having one is not notable enough to say, "A petition for X has been filed" or something along those lines. I think that any reference to a petition needs to be a "real" petition, not to change.org. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 18:18, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Just like anything on here, a petition is only notable if it's covered by reliable independent sources. Like you said, anyone can create a petition on change.org: it's basically Wikia for petitions. But that doesn't mean that a change.org petition is automatically not notable, just that you need to follow the sources. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 18:25, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Ivan. Simple existence on change.org isn't enough, even if there are millions of signatures. Anyone who wants to mention such a hypothetical petition would simply have to wait a few days for the media to cover it, anyways. There's no way they wouldn't, because the social media and word-of-mouth buzz around it would necessary make for a good story. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:29, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

rantfinance.com

A relatively new blog site, rantfinance.com, appears to be ramping up its presence on Wikipedia.

The spam from May 21 adds some opinion, in Wikipedia's voice, to vacation: diff source

"Most large Corporations have generous vacation policies. Some allowing employees to take weeks off and some companies like: Twitter, General Electric and Engage:BDR even allow unlimited vacation."

More recently, a statement of Ali Khamenei's self-reported net worth has been added to Setad and Ali Khamenei.

"Finally in 2015, Khamenei claimed he has a personal net worth of only $150 million." diff

"In 2015, Khamenei claimed he has a personal net worth of only $150 million." diff

All of these edits are from single-article accounts.

The routine question for this board: Is this a reliable source for these statements?

Followup question: Is there another place I should be reporting this activity? Thundermaker (talk) 22:08, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

@Thundermaker: if these are obvious spam, as it sounds, you might want to try WP:HELPDESK or WP:ANB. If it's a large enough problem they can ban the URL or the user posting it or something like that. But... yeah, it doesn't sound like a reliable source to me either. :) - Scarpy (talk) 22:41, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Medgadget.com

1. Source: Medgadget.com appears to be an unedited fee-based publishing platform for businesses. See fee structure at "Your PR on Medgadget ... excellent SEO" http://www.medgadget.com/pr
2. Articles: Many medical-related articles, generally of a low quality. LinkSearch
3. Content: Questionable. Examples:

softball interview linked from Esther Dyson. Looks like it was engineered by a PR person.

Device announcement a pure press release linked from VisualSonics

This shouldn't be used to source any MEDRS material on Wikipedia. Brianhe (talk) 10:30, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

It is basically a form of press release by the companies in question. Not independent and should be removed from all articles and possibly blacklisted IMO. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:43, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

• Unreliable Indicative of reliable: (1) site claims to have editorial controls and provides a list of seemingly qualified editors, (2) site appears to enterprise original features ||| Indicative of unreliable: (1) the bulk (but certainly not all) of content is reposted press releases for which the site advertises costs for posting - these are not collated into a separate section a la Reuters' IR disclosure section, (2) I can't find site referenced by other sites we consider reliable, (3) site's limited original features may be advertorial/sponsored content in nature due to their republication verbatim on corporate websites (see: [8]). / (Brianhe, if you found my feedback helpful, I would appreciate your input here.) LavaBaron (talk) 17:07, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

• unreliable. I get spam from these folks - really irreponsible stuff hyping early stage inventions. Jytdog (talk) 06:48, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

"Frightening the Horses: Gay Icons of the Cinema"

[9]

Is this a "reliable source" for the claim

The two had first met early on in Grant's career in 1932 at the Paramount studio when Scott was filming Sky Bride at the same time as Grant was shooting Sinners in the Sun, and moved in together soon afterwards.

I found no reviews for the book, and am, alas, uncertain as to what the book is a reliable source for and what it is a poor source for. The Google-scription is

Now fully updated, a sweeping illustrated survey of gay and gay-themed cinema, with 150 photos and posters and a comprehensive filmography. Frightening the Horses is a celebration of gay cinema, from the "undercover" icons of the 40s and 50s, and the sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s, to more recent acclaimed and Oscar-honored movies, like American Beauty, Capote, and Brokeback Mountain. Chapters include: Forbidden Topics, Circumventing the Censor, Gay Icons, Public Versus Private Lives, and Out of the Closet, and extended treatment is given to cult stars like James Dean, Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, and River Phoenix. Featuring 150 photos, film stills, and posters, as well as an extensive filmography, this is a fabulous guide to some of the most subversive and provocative films of the last hundred years.

Which makes me wonder whether it is possibly pre-disposed to make allegations of gayness not meeting the fact-checking standards needed to be a reliable source. Collect (talk) 17:55, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Works by Terrell A. Hayes in Debtors Anonymous article

Concerns have been raised by @TBliss: on the Debtors Anonymous talk page about usage of works by Terrell A. Hayes in the Debtors Anonymous article. These are as follows.

• Hayes, Terrell A (2010). "Labeling and the Adoption of a Deviant Status". Deviant Behavior. 31 (3): 274. doi:10.1080/01639620903004861. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hayes, Terrell A (2001–2002). "Potential Obstacles to Worldview Transformations: Findings From Debtors Anonymous". International Journal of Self Help and Self Care. 1 (4): 253–368. doi:10.2190/PLE7-543Q-7NTF-NQ2H. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hayes, Terrell A (February 2000). "Stigmatizing Indebtedness: Implications for Labeling Theory". Symbolic Interaction. 23 (1): 29–46. doi:10.1525/si.2000.23.1.29. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hayes, Terrell A (1996). Social and self-labeling processes in recognizing compulsive indebtedness: findings from Debtors Anonymous. Vanderbilt University. OCLC 37916407. Retrieved 2010-06-14. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |degree= ignored (help)

I would post all of the text here but these are used at several places in the article and there are places where other citations are supporting the same material. The majority of it appears in the section titled Changes in world view. - Scarpy (talk) 21:46, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

My concerns are that these studies are by a single author who surveyed 46 members of an anonymous program out of thousands of members to develop his theory. They have no other mention that I've found, no other author refers to them, no online article discusses them. The studies seem to be a separate topic from the wiki article itself, and perhaps it might be best to create a page for the studies and link to it from the Debtors Anonymous article although I doubt these studies meet the notability requirement. To include the references to these lone studies would be like taking a scholarly study in any other field, which are often easy to find and often not particularly meaningful or evident of an actual phenomenon, and using that study to bend an article to a lone theory that is not widely accepted or even all that relevant. If nothing else, I would limit all references to the study to a single, smaller section and remove mention of it in the introductory paragraphs which lend these studies a distorted legitimacy.TBliss (talk) 22:10, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

@TBliss: "Labeling and the Adoption of Deviant Status" has been cited 14 times. "Potential obstacles to worldview transformation: findings from Debtors Anonymous" has been cited twice. "Stigmatizing Indebtedness: Implications for Labeling Theory" has been cited 23 times. So, yes they have been mentioned by many other authors. But that's not the point.

On Wikipedia, article topics must meet notability guidelines (e.g. Debtors Anonymous has to be shown to be notable) and that is demonstrated by how much it is discussed, and how it is discussed, in secondary sources. The works by Terrell Hayes actually help demonstrate the notability of Debtors Anonymous as it shows it has been the topic of scholarly research. See WP:SCHOLARSHIP for guidelines on scholarly research sources - Scarpy (talk) 22:27, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

It’s helpful to see that Hayes’ studies have been cited numerous times, thank you for providing that information. However looking at these citations, none of them seem to address the relevance of the studies to the subject of Debtors Anonymous, which is what we’re discussing. They show the notability of the studies themselves, which backs up my suggestion to create a separate page for the Hayes studies, but they don’t show that an in-depth discussion of the theoretical findings of the studies belongs on the Debtors Anonymous page, I strongly believe it’s a separate topic. BTW I’m aware of notability guidelines, with which Debtors Anonymous should be in good standing with or without including mention of the study in the actual article. The study would suffice as just a citation to further show notability. It seems to me several sections are intent on proving the thesis of the study, rather than sharing factual information about Debtors Anonymous. It would be enough to state that the study was conducted, rather than to go into detail about Hayes theory of “deviant status”. Do you not see that it’s not relevant to the article at hand and would be confusing to the average Wiki user?TBliss (talk) 02:06, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

@TBliss: It seems like we're discussing a different set of points now. Initially you said you were concerned that the Hayes sources didn't meet the "notability requirement as a citation" but it seems that we now both agree that they Hayes sources meet requirements for WP:RS, but our disagreements are about the weight they're given in the article.

The Hayes sources do share factual information about Debtors Anonymous, they're the result of research conducted from surveying Debtors Anonymous members. This research was published in a Ph.D. dissertation and in three articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. In terms of scholarship, these are arguably the best sources used in the article. In fact, looking again, theses are the only non-WP:SPS articles that specifically discuss Debtors Anonymous. All other books and journal articles cited only mention it in a chapter or part of a larger discussion. An argument could easily be made that we're giving undue weight to the other sources in the article. - Scarpy (talk) 14:48, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

You're spinning. I go back to my previous point -- there should be a separate article for the Hayes studies and the theory of Deviant Status -- it has little to do with Debtors Anonymous. The studies might be notable themselves as far as the Deviant Status theory, but no one else cites the studies to back up the information they contain about DA. To frame the entire DA article through the lens of Deviant Status theory is extremely distorted. As I said -- maybe one small section might be appropriate. But this information is referred to in several sections. There is not a single other source online that backs up the importance of Deviant Status theory as it relates specifically to Debtors Anonymous. It should be cleaned up and at most relegated to a small section with one or two sentences that the study happened. To explain Deviant Status theory in depth here in the article only provides information about Deviant Status theory, it does not provide factual information about Debtors Anonymous.TBliss (talk) 16:54, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

@TBliss: Yes, framing the entire article based on those four sources would be undue weight. That's why it's one section out of five which is in proportion to the representative amount of what's in the scholarly literature. As I pointed out previously, there's not many scholarly sources covering Debtors Anonymous in general. What is contained is a summary of the results found from from researching members of Debtors Anonymous. That's why they're relevant to the Debtors Anonymous Wikipedia article. There is no explanation of "Deviant Status theory." The word "deviant" doesn't even appear in the body of the article. - Scarpy (talk) 17:21, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

It's confusing. Honestly it's taken several readings to even understand the way that the studies are woven into the article. So now I understand all of Section 5 is really about the studies. It's a LOT of text devoted to this, it's more about the study than it is about DA. I would rename Section 5 entirely to something like "the Hayes studies" or "Alternative Points of View". I think there could still be a section titled "Changes in World View" but maybe only the first paragraph as a subsection under the Concepts section. I understand at the end of this section you come back to the theme of Changes in World View, but it's not coherent as an overall theme. I thought it was going into more descriptions about the DA program -- Intergroups, Bankruptcy and Outside Sources. It took me awhile to realize that these are discussed only to circle back to how they relate to the studies. I would seriously confine any talk of the studies -- which I do think are not notable -- to a single section clearly titled. Here's my suggestion:

The Hayes surveys

Using convenience and snowball sampling sociologist Terrell A. Hayes found and surveyed 46 DA members from July 1993 to June 1995. 42 of the members surveyed were attending meetings in the Eastern United States, the remaining four attended meetings in Austin, Texas.[45][46] An analysis of the data Hayes collected revealed specific parts of DA hindered acceptance of DA's overall ideology. These included: labeling, intergroup and intragroup differences, lack of a clear position on bankruptcy and debt-shifting and contradictory information on what literature DA groups should use.[3] Law Professor A. Michele Dickerson suggested that something like Debtors Anonymous may be a useful addition to debtor education precisely because it would add a guilt-based component to the curriculum. The stigmatization would, Dickerson argues, change the debtor's economic philosophy and reduce the likelihood of impulse buying.[47] Mental health professionals find, however, that DA participation reduces shame.[22][40]

BTW I would delete reference to the studies from the bankruptcy and outside sources sections and move them to the Concepts section. Since DA adopted a document titled The Twelve Concepts of DA in 2014, I would rename the Concepts section to something like DA Beliefs to avoid confusion.TBliss (talk) 20:28, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Southern Poverty Law Center on Debbie Schlussel's Anti-Muslim stance

The Southern Poverty Law Center is a leftist source that opposes racialism and nationalism, while Debbie Schlussel is a right-wing European racialist and Zionist, so they would have an ideological agenda against her. Plus her Anti-Muslim views are well documented in her own writings. So wouldn't it make more sense to just quote from her own writings to show she opposes Islam, because that is not disputable and since it comes from her own words is not biased? Also, is it appropriate in a broader sense, to cite groups like that in articles on an encyclopedia? For example, the Anti-Defamation League, another leftist group, is cited in the Pat Buchanan article as a source for his Anti-Judaism, since ADL is politically opposed to Buchanan I don't think citing them there is appropriate either. I think citing ADL and SPLC in articles about Buchanan and Schlussel would be like citing the John Birch Society or the neo-Nazi Institute for Historical Review as a source in an article about Clinton or Obama. Is my view correct or mistaken? RandomScholar30 (talk) 20:56, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

WP:BIASED applies. SPLC's opinion is notable and their research is used by the FBI. Institute for Historical Review is WP:FRINGE. SPLC and ADL are not. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 21:04, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Question: Is SPLC work product still used by the FBI? I think I read that the FBI were no longer relying on SPLC data. I don't like or trust the SPLC myself but WP:BIASED does appear to apply. Given the vitriol on both sides, some "in-text attribution to the source", as cited from WP:BIASED below by @RandomScholar30, should be exercised. Quis separabit? 20:21, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

WP:BIASED also states "When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control and a reputation for fact-checking. Editors should also consider whether the bias makes it appropriate to use in-text attribution to the source, as in "Feminist Betty Friedan wrote that...", "According to the Marxist economist Harry Magdoff...," or "Conservative Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater believed that..."" So I think it would be appropriate to note their ideological agenda. We could "liberal political group SPLC" for example. Because it certainly is not an objective source. RandomScholar30 (talk) 21:10, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Probably need to discuss on a case-by-case basis. Most readers likely know the SPLC's political leanings, and links to SPLC can help them if they're not. But we don't have any blanket rules saying we must identify the SPLC or similar sources as adhering to a certain ideology. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 21:14, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Can be used as WP:BIASED, with attribution to SPLC. K.e.coffman (talk) 21:15, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Also, in the case of Schlussel it is obvious from her own writings that she hates Muslims. So her Anti-Muslims statements in her own writings are a sufficient source for her Anti-Muslim views, so I don't see why the SPLC should be used as a source for her article when we can just source the fact to her own writings. Similarly with Pat Buchanan, many conservatives have accused him of being Anti-Jewish, such as William Buckley and Ben Shapiro, since they agree with Buchanan's political views, there is much less likelihood of that being seen as biased unfairly against Buchanan, so I don't see a reason to cite ADL for Buchanan's Anti-Judaism when more neutral sources and even sources who agree with Buchanan's political views have said the same thing. I think ADL and SPLC perhaps should be used as sources for claims of racism when no more objective source exists making the claim but if the claim is also made by more objective sources it seems counterproductive and unnecessarily controversial. RandomScholar30 (talk) 21:17, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

I would say that we should include them because WP:SECONDARY is preferred to WP:PRIMARY. Further, we don't want to interpret primary sources too much lest we commit original research. We we're going to mention contentious labels like "anti-Muslim", we need to have secondary sources call the living person that label per WP:BLP. If they call themselves "anti-Muslim", we can add that too. Without secondary sources, we'd should ideally use "self-described" or something similar when describing the self-identified label. (Related, if we use "Islamophobic", we'd need a secondary source and I doubt the individual would use that term as most anti-Muslim folks reject the "phobic" part). That's just my take on the issue. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 21:21, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

"we don't have any blanket rules saying we must identify the SPLC or similar sources as adhering to a certain ideology" However, are there rules saying we cannot do that? In other words, would it be allowed to state "the politically liberal SPLC" or "the politically liberal ADL" if the bias is relevant to objectivity issues, while we still quoted them as a source? RandomScholar30 (talk) 21:23, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

I'd think so if it's relevant to the context. But consensus might be needed if it's contested. I'm personally of the opinion that most people don't need that given the fame of the groups. And I'm not sure everyone accepts the labels for those groups (which is why I prefer to just link to the groups and let curious readers see what the article says about them). The ADL, for example, might not be considered too liberal at times as many left-wing folks aren't pro-Israel. Tl;dr - use those caveats with caution and expect people to challenge their use. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 21:31, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that'd be contested very quickly. Probably by editors arguing that the SPLC is not liberal (though I would counter that they could not do what they do without being liberal) and by editors arguing that wikilinking is enough; because any interested reader could see by clicking on a link to Southern Poverty Law Center that they're left-wing, adding it in the original claim is a weasel word intended to undermine the SPLC's credibility.

Personally, as a self-admitted liberal/progressive/left-winger and proud 'lib-tard', I say go for it. Bias is bias, and should be noted, even when the bias is understandable, and even (perhaps especially) when we trust the source.MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:01, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Well-written, @MjolnirPants. Your comment, "Probably by editors disingenuously arguing that the SPLC is not liberal" would be even more accurate. Quis separabit? 20:25, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

I considered phrasing it that way, but political climates being what they are, I'm quite certain there are a few liberals who honestly don't understand that their political ideology is rooted in wider ideals that encompass things like that. They might honestly think that that there's no political dimension to advocating for civil rights and tolerance. (I'm not trying to imply that non-liberals can't or don't care about civil rights and tolerance, it's just that those things are liberal by nature). MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:30, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Rodanthi Tzanelli (credible or questionable source about fustanella kilt)

In Nation-Building and Identity in Europe: The Dialogics of Reciprocity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), Rodanthi Tzanelli touches a bit on the Fustanella (pages 78-80). @Theban Halberd: has raised some concerns about her academic background as a non-historian (she's an Associate Professor of Cultural Sociology). Is this an issue with regards to RS? DevilWearsBrioni (talk) 23:46, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

No Sources, but article is published?

How does an article get published without sources? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympusat — Preceding unsigned comment added by LG Brichetto (talk • contribs) 03:30, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

That's not really a question for RSN. WP:N indicates which articles should be published (or not) and if the subject is notable, it can be published. It should really have sources to support reliability. If you can't find any, then you may nominate it for deletion. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:13, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Fandom Post

1. Beveridge, Chris (July 27, 2015). "'Sword Art Online II' Anime Dub Cast Gets Erica Invasion". The Fandom Post. Retrieved April 28, 2016.; Beveridge, Chris (September 9, 2011). "Media Blasters 'Squid Girl' Anime Dub Cast Revealed". The Fandom Post. Retrieved April 25, 2016.
2. Erika Harlacher

Fandom Post (fandompost.com) is used to verify roles for this voice actor, but the last discussion ended with the opinion that the site had no hallmarks of reliability. The article cites multiple reps for each role in the table, so the truth of the statement sourced is not the issue—I'd like a third opinion on whether Fandom Post is reliable for statements of fact. czar 02:33, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Bump czar 07:25, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

For the non-controversial details like this, I would consider using these sources, treating them similar to press releases, which it looks like they were derived from.

Looking for info on the author/chief-editor, I found this local story: http://www.communityadvocate.com/2013/03/15/923/ but not much else. The site is quoted by other sources, some of which may, themselves be reliable: Anime News Network[10], GameNGuide[11], Christian Today(?)[12]. Flimsy stuff, but it does suggest a positive reputation within the niche. Grayfell (talk) 21:05, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Statement at Zoë Quinn

Do these sources support the statement Harassment associated with Gamergate resulted in widespread recognition of misogyny in gaming.; if so, how? If editors could also address questions of inclusion of the statement in this biographical article (WP:NPOV, WP:BLP), that would be appreciated. Thanks. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 02:23, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

References

• My own review of the sources is that they do not make the claim included in the statement. While they do mention harassment, they do not mention "misogyny in gaming", far less a "widespread recognition" thereof, and certainly not such "resulting" from that harassment. Suggest that the statement therefore is a interpretive one, which fails to align with policy. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 02:53, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
• [ec] At the article talk page, Ryk has already been shown the quote from the Washington Post piece, "The campaign against Quinn, along with similar attacks on feminist video game critic Anita Sarkeesian, got a lot of attention. Gaming sites wrote think pieces about the death of gamer identity. The New Yorker profiled Quinn." I don't see a lot of difference in meaning between "widespread recognition" and "a lot of attention"; they're both just ways of saying that the events were well publicized. The Business Insider source (for a long time the only source) also has language justifying "widespread recognition": "The game industry has been in the spotlight for the past week, with several incidents of harassment and sexism making headlines. ... More than 2,000 industry professionals have signed the open letter ... in the wake of several incidents involving harassment within the video game industry." Again, there isn't a big gap in interpretation between "in the spotlight/making headlines" and "widespread recognition". It is true that the Post never uses the exact word "misogyny" and the BI uses it only in a quote, but if we only were allowed to copy the exact words of our sources we'd all be plagiarists. As far as I can tell, Ryk's argument is that we should not allow such claims to be sourced by a WP:NEWSBLOG. On the article itself, his attempted removal of this sentence has now been reverted by three different editors. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:55, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
  • Respectfully, I could be happy with a statement that the harassment received "widespread attention" or "widespread recognition of harassment in gaming culture" or similar; but the statement as is, is "widespread recognition of misogyny in gaming" and, as far as I can see, these sources don't support that. I do not support plagiarism, but equivocating "harassment" with a broader "misogyny" across a whole industry or hobbyist community where this is not supported by sources is not acceptable to our policies. I also maintain that per WP:NEWSBLOG, we should attribute claims which are sourced to news blogs, and an attributed statement would be acceptable; but as these sources don't support the statement, that is not the crux of the argument. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 03:07, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
    • Respectfully, your removal of the sexism behind the harassment from your preferred version of this claim is problematic. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:31, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
      • Respectfully, the sources that we have do not make the claim that is included in the statement in the article. This is not my "preferred version", it is one which better aligns to the content of those sources. If we want to include a mention of "misogyny", then we should find sources which support that claim. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 03:36, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
      • David Eppstein, on review, I concur that the Business Insider source does mention "misogynistic", but it does so only in the context of a Change.org petition requesting "indie developers, AAA developers, and other folks to stop branding gamers as neckbearded, misogynistic, hatefueled, ignorant, homophobic, idiots". To use this statement from the source to brand gamers as misogynistic is incredibly poor sourcing. (Whether Gamers are or are not misogynistic is a WP:VNT discussion). While we may not see a lot of difference between "widespread recognition" and "a lot of attention", there is a difference between "these attacks... got a lot of attention" and "widespread recognition of misogyny". I do, however, acknowledge the concern that the sources do mention or reference "sexism", and will make a renewed attempt at a compromise version at the article Talk page. I would appreciate your input there. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 11:03, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
• Well, let me start by saying that I think the sentence is true. If you google "misogyny in gaming," you're going to find lots of articles about Quinn and Sarkeesian, two central figures in the Gamergate controvery. That their treatment represents misogyny is inarguable. That their treatment stands out in contrast to the treatment of feminist figures prominent in other media is inarguable. That being said: No, these sources do not support it. I'm absolutely sure there are reliable sources out there that will support it, so I suggest finding one of those. The specific quote I saw pulled from the second source, which states: "The campaign against Quinn, along with similar attacks on feminist video game critic Anita Sarkeesian, got a lot of attention." is speaking about the specific attacks (explicitly identified in the statement) against those two. So if the statement were modified to say "Harassment associated with Gamergate received widespread recognition." that would be supported. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 12:45, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

• Here's one source that supports the statement [13] “Gaming culture has been pretty misogynistic for a long time now,’’ says Edwards, 50, a lifelong gamer and developer who worked on Microsoft’s Halo. “There’s ample evidence of that over and over again . . . What we’re finally seeing is that it became so egregious that now companies are starting to wake up and say, ‘We need to stop this. This has got to change.’ ” I'm pretty confident the statement as is can be sourced, just not with the two given. --MASEM (t) 15:18, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
  • Another [14] Gamergate, a movement opposed to the increasing prominence of feminist critics and designers in gaming, has been a flash point for misogyny in the video games industry. --MASEM (t) 15:24, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

I wonder if "misogyny in gaming" is the same as "misogyny in the video gaming industry" at all - I suspect the sources might support the second wording, but the first might be read as implying that the games themselves are intrinsically misogynistic, which the sources do not appear to support as I read them. Collect (talk) 15:50, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

No its not. Mainly for a couple of reasons: Gamergate is a conflict between a small vocal section of people who play games, some of the gaming 'press', and various activists/SJW's. It has almost no impact or influence on the games industry at all except for a couple of independants like Quinn & Wu whose experiences have little in commmon with women working in the games industry. The general industry response has been to keep quiet as it doesnt involve them and for the most part it is no more misogynistic than any other industry. Its not surprising someone who worked on Halo has an opinion that gaming culture is misogynistic, Halo, first person shooters, and xbox live are all some of the worst offenders for unfettered and unrestrained asshattery in gaming. For years. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:53, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Well before GG the VG industry knew it was misogynistic and it was being reflected in the player community (See [15], [16], [17], [18] etc.). It just was never as public beyond the bounds of the industry until events in GG caught mainstream media attention. While there is a difference between misogyny in the industry (the developers, publishers, and journalists) and the player base, the two are far too connected to easily separate. --MASEM (t) 05:34, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

How about these sources? Appear to support the thrust of that statement: [19][20]. Fences&Windows 22:11, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm dubious whether they're much of an improvement over the sources we're already using. If the sticking point is the word "misogyny", the Telegraph piece uses it only in a headline, and I think the usual wisdom here is that using information from a headline that doesn't also appear in the body of the source is no good. The first person of the Vox piece makes it read more like an editorial than a factual piece, and it says nothing about widespread recognition. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:26, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Issue pertaining to reliable source criteria

I have described a situation which may be of interest to readers of this noticeboard at Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view#Undue use of primary source literature review sections to delete material in Economic growth. EllenCT (talk) 05:58, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

What source are you talking about? Please follow instruction on the top of this page. However, if this is a general question about research publications in scientific journals (rather than review articles), please realize that (a) such publications are never purely primary sources because they include Introduction and Discussion with references to work by other authors - such parts of the sources are "secondary", and (b) speaking about novel findings in such articles, they can also be included as "straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge" - per policy. My very best wishes (talk) 13:06, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

I am concerned with these sources, some of which were removed at [21]. The situation is such that there is a wide consensus in the secondary literature reviews which reach conclusions on the question, but there is at least one secondary source which is inconclusive. Under those conditions, statements contrary to that consensus in the literature review sections of primary research should not be allowed to support the removal of actual bona fide peer reviewed literature reviews. I will post a formal discussion in accordance with the noticeboard format after I have researched the history of similar situations. EllenCT (talk) 15:13, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

So, trying to translate your question in the format required for this page ("Please follow instruction on the top of this page" in Mvbw's words):

---

• Sources:
  • Temple, J (1999). "The New Growth Evidence" (PDF). Journal of Economic Literature. 37 (1): 112–156. doi:10.1257/jel.37.1.112.
  • Clarke, G (1995). "More evidence on income distribution and growth" (PDF). Journal of Development Economics. 47: 403–427. doi:10.1016/0304-3878(94)00069-o.
  • Baumol, William J. (2007). "On income distribution and growth" (PDF). Journal of Policy Modeling. 29: 545–548.
  • Herzer, Dierk; Vollmer, Sebastian (2013). "Rising top incomes do not raise the tide". Journal of Policy Modeling. 35 (4): 504–519. doi:10.1016/j.jpolmod.2013.02.011.
• Article: Economic growth
  • (suggestion: maybe indicate section/paragraph where you'd like the content extracted from the above sources to be added)
• Content. The exact statement(s) in the article that the source supports. Please supply a diff, or put the content inside block quotes. For example: <blockquote>text</blockquote>. Many sources are reliable for statement "X," but unreliable for statement "Y".

---

Please replace the last bullet by the statements you propose. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:57, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

@EllenCT. At the first glance, all sources in your diff are valid RS, just as sources used by your "opponent". I think problem is not the sourcing, but a content dispute. I would suggest posting a content RfC, however you should decide first what exactly is your content disagreement. For example, are you trying to include a statement that "economic inequality is the main determinant for the economic growth" (per such and such sources), but another contributor suggests to include statement that "economic inequality is one of many determinants for the economic growth" (per such and such sources)? If so, you should try to find a compromise wording, and if you can not, then post an RfC. My very best wishes (talk) 16:00, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Genetically modified organisms

This is just a notice that Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Genetically modified organisms is now open for public comment. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 18:11, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

dummies.com

Can we trust this site for anything? I was going to try to find some citations for Plato and it was the first site to come up ([22]). Not very impressive take on the big three philosophers for sure. But I just want to know if the site can be trusted to have been reviewed at all--I think the Dummies series books probably are. We never learned about Plato's broad shoulders in my Philosophy classes, but that doesn't mean Dummies just made it up. Maybe dummies.com did their homework? --David Tornheim (talk) 08:38, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I would consider it is a reliable educational and reference series. They have a team of editors. Below is from their website:

The For Dummies collaborative tradition provides authors with every support possible throughout the writing process. Our editors work closely with authors to discuss project ideas, assess the viability of proposals, and develop manuscripts — our goal is to help our authors write the best books they can.

Meatsgains (talk) 15:13, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

VDM Publishing

Just bringing this to people's attention as this group publishes a large number of books duplicating our articles under various publishers' names. Doug Weller talk 15:08, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Really? What are some examples? I'm curious to see. DaltonCastle (talk) 00:11, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

RS for Philosophy Articles

I posted this at WIkiProject/Philosophy too...

Plato

Plato is rightfully listed as among our top 1,000 Vital articles. I was disappointed to see that Plato was rated a class C article there, although I think it might currently be Class-B. The reason: lack of in-line citations. I agree; that's a problem. Same with other Philosophy articles I have encountered.

I'm willing to do a little work to find citations. However, finding good RS on-line is not fun. I've Google searched for Philosophy material on-line many times since I took Philosophy classes, and it is always a chore. Most of it is long rambling articles written by people who may or may not be experts. If they are it is often way too technical for the lay reader, or just the opposite: way too superficial. My initial search turns up self-published works at universities.

Any suggestions on where to go for good WP:RS for Plato and for other Philosophers and Philosophy subject matters? I could go to my bookshelf, but then it makes it harder for others to verify, if my book is not available on-line. Same problem with going to the library. --David Tornheim (talk) 08:54, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

I think, for this type of subject, there is likely to be little good substitute for books. Some, at least, may be online, for instance through Google books. Another possibility is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which has a long onliine entry on Plato: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/ – it's already used as a source but could likely be used more heavily. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:44, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Gutenberg is a good resources. It has some historical works on their. I think, in general, primary sources are acceptable for historical pages. DaltonCastle (talk) 00:14, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

E-cig question

A new editor would like to add the following to the Electronic cigarette aerosol and e-liquid article.

E-liquids are made with various food flavorings, and some have been known to contain diacetyl, acetoin and acetylpropionyl

References

Is that source reliable for the content, and do we want to use it? thx Jytdog (talk) 17:30, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

A commercial shop as a source? Nope, definitely not. --T.i 05:28, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Depends. Most countries (the US and far stricter in the EU) require shops to sell products that clearly list the ingriedients of their products. Is there any suggestion that e-liquids dont contain those components? There should be a better source out there however. Since the first two are used extensively in food flavouring, and Acetylpropionyl has been investigated as part of e-liquids, I dont see any problem with it. The only issue for me would be using a commercial link as a reference. A primary source may be better in this case if a secondary one cannot be found. (Much like you would cite Mars corp for the content of a mars bar, rather than 7-11.) Only in death does duty end (talk) 07:39, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

I agree that this is not a reliable source, as it is a commercial shop. There are probably many and more reliable sources out there where you can find this information. Cheers, Comatmebro User talk:Comatmebro 12:18, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Even though it looks like a consensus is reached, just to be clear: unreliable. DaltonCastle (talk) 02:42, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Cary Grant

Is very heavily sourced to [23] (Higham, Charles; Moseley, Roy (1990). Cary Grant: The Lonely Heart. Avon Books. ISBN 978-0-380-71009-6. per Wikipedia biography)

The book has been used as a source for making broad claims about Grant being gay etc. and appears not to be from a "scholarly publisher" at all.

The NYT review[24] noted:

" Mr. Higham is the author of several celebrity biographies specializing in the revelation of unflattering details (the Duchess of Windsor was a prostitute in China; Errol Flynn was a Nazi spy). He and Mr. Moseley, who has written books about Merle Oberon and Rex Harrison, set out to reveal how unpretty was Grant's life. "

" But the primary focus of the book is to prove Grant's bisexuality, which had been rumored since his early Hollywood days, when he lived for years with one of his alleged lovers, the actor Randolph Scott - but which Grant always denied. Grant also had an affair with Howard Hughes, the authors assert with nothing but hearsay to back the claim. The book's obsession with Grant's sexuality is more a reflection of the authors' keen perception of what sells books than of any allegiance to the dictates of ethical journalism. Cary Grant: The Lonely Heart is a compilation of blind items and thirdhand pronouncements, among them, It was common gossip in Hollywood that they [ Howard Hughes and Randolph Scott ] had been lovers. The reporting is not just nasty, it is irresponsible. Grant was arrested for performing a sex act with a man in a public restroom during World War II, they blithely report, with unnamed sources confirming the incident."

"When they are not slinging innuendo, the authors assume the pious tone of men performing a public service, as if Grant, by living his life privately, had pulled a fast one on us. The honest biographer cannot shirk the painful truth, even at the risk of being called deliberately sensationalist, they crow. Then with oily mock generosity they add, Cary Grant, despite his many very human failings, did his best to be a good and decent man. Let others argue if they will. A wily duo, Mr. Higham and Mr. Moseley supply all the information we need to despise Grant and then scold anyone fool enough to do so. "

With such a "glowing" review, I ask whether the biography of Cary Grant should rely so heavily on a book the NYT would likely have burned.

People magazine said[25]

"What is it about Cary Grant biographies that seems to require two authors? Here's a better question. What is it about Grant that he should be subjected to smarmy treatment? Those who love Grant would be advised to skip this book too. It is that rare work that is at once tedious and offensive."

" In this lurid book, the authors cruelly defame a man who can't defend himself and show disdain for his admirers' ability to distinguish honest biography from innuendo. Even if what they write is true—and the evidence they offer is hardly convincing—the question remains: Why would Grant's admirers want to subject themselves to this kind of disillusionment? "

A review that says the book is not convincing, is "lurid" and is more "innuendo" than biography would seem to indicate a somewhat less-than-reliable source.

Re: Higham, the Los Angeles Times[26] said:

"At the conclusion of the account of his investigation, Donati writes: "Charles Higham describes himself as a serious writer and a scholar; yet, in the academic realm the worst sin is falsifying primary-source material to prove one's thesis. Deceitful, pseudoscholarship degrades information and distorts the truth.""

"Higham stands firmly by his conclusions about Flynn. And Higham--author of a number of best-selling biographies including most recently "The Duchess of Windsor: The Secret Life," which also contains material about the duchess' Nazi connections--said that his most important work consists of "American Swastika" and "Trading With the Enemy." Both depict assistance and support of--and dealings with--the Nazis by prominent people and businesses."

" For instance: "According to theater historian Milton Goldman, it was widely rumored that Archie (Grant's real first name) was a gigolo in New York, servicing a wealthy woman. However, there is no evidence to support this." A few pages later Higham and Moseley write, "There is no record of his having any love affairs with women at this time.""

"In the interview, Higham said that the episode regarding Grant and his location on the night of the Manson murders is "poorly documented" and is based on a conversation with now dead producer William Belasco. In the book, the incident is described as "the most mysterious and puzzling act of his (Grant's) entire career, still unsolved and baffling to the biographer.""

OK - a book not regarded as genuine "biography" by any major reviewers, which has an author who appears to be a tad fanciful in his handling of the truth, etc., which links Cary Grant to the Manson murders, is a reliable source? Collect (talk) 13:22, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

In short - no. Although exactly what material is it being used to support? Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:55, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

About 2/3 of the entire article, AFAICT. I removed some of the "Grant was gay"-type stuff, and the "Biographers Charles Higham and Roy Moseley claimed, in addition, that Grant had been "the illegitimate child of a Jewish woman, who either died in childbirth or disappeared" but it still includes such stuff as "He later performed in drag in Coney Island, a place which he detested.", "Higham and Moseley state that by this time Archie had "shed his callow, awkward manner, his strutting, bowlegged, cockney walk and his excessive mugging; he looked like a man-about-town and at the same time he displayed the necessary roughness of an Australian type", "Higham and Moseley state that by this time, at the age of 26, he was at the "full bloom of his handsomeness" and would "merely have to appear before an audience to captivate virtually every woman in it"."Though sophisticated in appearance, he was often cocky and vulgar in his humour, leading Highman and Moseley to summarise him as a "tough, brash, sardonically humorous West County lad screaming to be let out".[148] They describe him as a "mass of contradictions" whose life was "painful, even tortured", and was spiritually ambiguous and "deeply compulsive" almost to the point of insanity. Despite often being careless with his attitude to domestic cleaning, he would obsess about the smallest of details, from the position of a light, the glass in the window to the ironing of his shirts.[149] During periods of stress, Grant had a volatile temper, and was prone to neurotic outbursts and mood swings, going to extremes in his behavior" and on and on and on. Collect (talk) 14:02, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

• Can we tell who has been adding the material and when they started? I agree it is a serious problem and editors should have free rein to remove anything the least bit questionable or negative sourced to that. Softlavender (talk) 14:25, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
• Yeah anything sourced to it needs to go. Or replaced with an acceptable source. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:35, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

I disagree that anything sourced to it needs to go. The Higham and Moseley book is comparable to the Kelley book for Frank Sinatra. Is otherwise a resourceful well-researched biography but makes a point of certain things and makes some dubious/controversial claims in with it to sell the books. Only negative or doubtful info should be removed. I've been checking some of the info with other sources and it's mostly accurate I think, even the obsessing over small details. I'll try to replace what I can though. Eventually there will be a fair balance of books, provided I can find the will power to continue to edit here with such hostility ;-)♦ Dr. Blofeld 06:12, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

• Attribution for particularly controversial claims should be present on the page. I agree it seems erroneous to remove most of the content from the page if its using this source. And the source is not altogether a bad one. Trimming some reliance on this source, coupled with appropriate attribution might be the way to go. DaltonCastle (talk) 02:46, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

AllGov

Is allgov.com a RS for news and information about the U.S. government? I'd be interested in getting some feedback. LavaBaron (talk) 03:16, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

• Not Reliable - I consider "not reliable" as: (a) according to the site itself, it is partly edited by UCLA students and actively recruits volunteers for editing assignments, (b) I can find no instances of it being cited by other unambiguously reliable sources after a search of Google News, (c) its FB page has fewer than 5,000 likes, which doesn't say anything of itself except is usually a fingerprint of a something less than spectacular, (d) the site's highest self-reported editorial staff member is Danny Biederman whose LinkedIn profile [27] identifies him as the proprietor of a traveling sci-fi museum, AllGov being only a part-time gig.. LavaBaron (talk) 03:12, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
• Probably not reliable. I'm leaning towards "not" as well. The contact page gives no physical address which is sometimes meaningful. But more importantly it's hard to decipher who is in charge or what their bona fides are. On the "about us" page there's no Editor in Chief for instance. Although the "about us" page lists UCLA School of Public Affairs, if it's a university supported project they don't make that clear. Randomly checking stuff they do, I come across "National Institutes of Health Approves Experiments to Reactivate Brains of Dead People" which doesn't give me a good feeling of a solid news source. To the extent that they do provide solid news, it seems it would be better to go to another source, and the other opinion-y stuff doesn't really have standing for WP sourcing. - Brianhe (talk) 10:38, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
• Reliable - According to our article on David Wallechinsky, he is the founder and editor-in-chief of AllGov.com. In an interview with CNN, Wallechinsky stated - "We pride ourselves on accuracy, double-checking". They have been cited by Hazardous Waste Superfund Alert, Westside Gazette, Federal Document Clearing House (Congressional Testimony), The News-Item, Air Guide Online, The Washington Examiner, Sofia News Agency, Congressional report on FOIA Oversight And Implementation Act Of 2015. AllGov has been used as a reference in numerous books (just a small sampling): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and Google Scholar returns multiple hits where it's being used as a reference. Danny Biederman is the author of The Incredible World of Spy-Fi. His collection of spy artifacts is "the world's largest" according to The Washington Post, the CIA ran an in-house exhibit of Biederman's collection, as well as the International Spy Museum. It's also helpful to include the article in which the source is being used and the exact statement in the article that the source supports.-- Isaidnoway (talk) 15:50, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

The claim that he is founder of AllGov is uncited in that article. Regardless, after reviewing the sources on which this BLP is baesd, I'm going to go ahead and AfD the entire David Wallechinsky article so it will be going away soon. And some of the linked sources either don't check out or are, themselves non-RS (e.g. Washington Examiner). The fact Danny Biederman wrote a book on "TV spy gadgets" doesn't make him qualified as a gatekeeper at a site chronicling statistics about the U.S. government. LavaBaron (talk) 22:08, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, good luck with your AfD, and like I said above, it's helpful to include the article in which the source is being used and the exact statement in the article that the source supports.-- Isaidnoway (talk) 16:58, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

• Not Reliable - after a thorough search of this site, I don't think it is a reliable source. Like an above user has already mentioned, the site is edited occasionally by volunteers and students, and is not used as a source or cited in any other article that I could find. To be safe, I would try to find other sources with the same information and use those. I don't think it will be hard as these are much talked about subjects. Good luck, Comatmebro User talk:Comatmebro 12:17, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
• Not Reliable: A volunteer-based press release is a blog. It also lacks an editorial board. DaltonCastle (talk) 00:21, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
• Not Reliable: reasons well-articulated already. while David Wallechinsky is not an obvious candidate for AfD, it sure is for stubification based on WP:N. If CNN airs an interview with someone, do all their livejournal posts automatically become RS? SubcommandanteLOL (talk) 03:51, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Jayski's Silly Season Site as a source for NASCAR races

• Source: jayski.com, known as Jayski's Silly Season Site. Note we have an article on the site. Specific page for the article in question is this archive.org version.
• Article: 2008 UAW-Dodge 400, and probably quite a few other NASCAR race articles.
• Content: Multiple examples; here are a couple.
  • "Hornish scraped the turn-two wall early in the session"
  • "Reutimann did the same and scraped the outside wall, causing right-rear damage to his car. He was black-flagged by NASCAR because parts were hanging from his car"

I picked the two examples above because they are easy to find, since they are not well paraphrased, but there are plenty of others. The article is at FAC, here. I'm concerned because per the about page, the site seems to be essentially a hobby site run by Jay Adamczyk without editorial oversight. However, the site was purchased by ESPN in 2007. If it hadn't been purchased by ESPN I'd be sure this did not meet the requirements of an RS, but because it's owned by ESPN I'd like to get other opinions. Thanks. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:01, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

While it may not be relevant to the article mentioned above, Jayski's Silly Season Site is the only website that I'm aware of that publishes NASCAR's official race documents on a weekly basis (such as this official race report). Furthermore, Jayski's Silly Season Site is used on most, if not all, NASCAR race articles that have achieved good article status or featured article status for practice times, schedules, as well as other information that may not be available on any other website. – Nascar1996 ^{(talk • cont)} 20:10, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

I think those pdfs are clearly reliable; they're copyrighted by NASCAR so I see no reason to doubt them. The example above uses the site for lap-by-lap commentary -- this driver crashed, that driver spun off, another driver was overtaken for the lead. That's almost certainly Adamczyk typing as he watches the race, whether at the track or on TV, and I doubt that's edited prose, so I'm not sure the site is reliable for that sort of information. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:33, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

You are probably correct in saying that he typed it as he watched the race. Most lap-by-lap commentary are left unrevised and published as it was during the live event, even on NASCAR.com. – Nascar1996 ^{(talk • cont)} 22:44, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

ESPN also has a link to Jayski.com in their a menu bar from the NASCAR section of their website. – Nascar1996 ^{(talk • cont)} 00:42, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Not sure how much you know in the NASCAR world, but this website publishes accurate and reliable information as far as race results and such goes. This is just like ESPN's branch of NASCAR news. United States Man (talk) 21:48, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

I know almost nothing about it except the little I've picked up from reviewing articles. I can see the information is almost certainly reliable in the non-Wikipedia sense of the word; Adamczyk wouldn't have much of a following if his notes were inaccurate. I think the argument that it's a reliable source would have to be something like "ESPN wouldn't use it as part of their brand if they didn't have confidence in its accuracy". Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:33, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Nudging here to request more opinions. I'd really appreciate it if some experienced eyes could give an opinion on this; the site is used in all of WP:NASCAR's five featured articles, and probably in most or all of their good articles too. I don't want to oppose a FAC for this source if there is evidence that it's reliable, and I don't want to give a productive WikiProject a headache if there's any way the source can be shown to be reliable. Thanks for any additional opinions on this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:56, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Given that it is reliable within its industry, and respected by those interested and involved in NASCAR, I think that satisfies reliability. DaltonCastle (talk) 05:13, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

OK; I think the link from the ESPN site mentioned by NASCAR1996 above also makes this a reliable site. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:24, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Siege of Londonderry

Is this exerpt Macaulay, T. B. James the Second's Descent on Ireland and the Siege of Londonderry in 1689. Gebhardt & Wilisch, Leipzig 1902 a reliable source for the Siege of Londonderry article? Centuryofconfusion (talk) 12:37, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

What statement is it being used to support? Martinlc (talk) 13:41, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

The closing of the gates in 1688 plus lots more throughout the article. The contested source covers the whole siege. Centuryofconfusion (talk) 13:50, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

I would not call it unreliable... Macaulay was an expert in his day. But I hesitate to say he is the most reliable source possible in today's world. Perhaps "reliable, but out of date" would be the best description. Certainly if he is contradicted by more modern scholarship, we should use the more modern sources, but for basic uncontested stuff he is probably ok. Blueboar (talk) 01:19, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Blueboar, Thank you for your response. The source had been in the article for years, until removed two days ago, and it was being referred to generally for uncontested historical facts. It's even very hard to imagine which of the historical facts could be contested, but that's a separate matter which I am currently trying to establish. Yes, Macaulay was an acclaimed historian and he wrote the account one hundred and fifty years after the original events, making it the textbook definition of a reliable secondary source in its fullest extent. It would be hard to find a more modern source that didn't itself rely heavily on Macaulay. I will therefore restore it into the lede? Centuryofconfusion (talk) 09:42, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Source isn't contested per se (but it is old) issue on the article is the relevance of the some of the material ----Snowded ^TALK 10:40, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Ah... having now looked at the article history and talk page discussions, I see that the question isn't whether Macaulay is reliable (or unreliable)... the question is whether the information (cited to Macaulay) belongs in the article's lead. This is not really the right venue for answering that question. However, I will offer a possible solution: consider placing the information (with the citation) somewhere else in the article... in one of the later sections, not in the lead. Blueboar (talk) 12:22, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Blueboar, will do. Centuryofconfusion (talk) 14:12, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Can WASET be a reliable source?

Main question: What do you think about putting World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology's website on the spam blacklist (with a whitelist entry for the article about the business)?

Basic information: WASET is generally considered (or at least strongly suspected of being) a predatory publisher, or perhaps an outright fake academic publisher.

They seem to be holding arguably fraudulent academic conferences, using impressive names or names that are trivially confused with reputable conferences. For example, there is a highly reputable, legitimate 6th International Conference on Cyber Security in New York next month, and WASET is offering an apparently illegitimate [http://www.waset.org/conference/2016/07/zurich/ICCS 18th International Conference on Cyber Security] in Zurich, which "just happens" to have the same name, only claiming to be the older event.

For next month, they have actually scheduled these 160 academic conferences, which are all allegedly happening in the same small hotel on the same two days next month. These 160 alleged conferences cover mostly science- or tech-related subjects.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?target=*.waset.org&title=Special%3ALinkSearch Special:LinkSearch for their website] shows a few dozen links. IMO there is no reliable use for sources from such a publisher, and that it would be more helpful to the project to blacklist the links, so that editors won't unknowingly cite papers from this publisher. What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:56, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

• Not reliable and suitable for blacklisting as listed here [28] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:51, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
• Support blacklisting as not reliable I am unable to find reliable support for this publisher's products and conferences. A wide variety of moderately-reliable sources list WASET as unreliable. — soupvector (talk) 12:23, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
• Support blacklisting. Love having all those conferences at once at a hotel that can't even feed 200 people at one time (162 to be exact).[29] Doug Weller talk 13:58, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
• Support blacklisting. One can't help wonder what are the odds that some waiting Kantonspolizei might find some angry attendees or even an organizer. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:42, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
• Support blacklisting - the source is not reliable. Comatmebro User talk:Comatmebro 12:20, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Update: I've posted a note about this at the usual WP:BLACKLIST request board. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:46, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Can IFPI List on the Web be a reliable source and is this a "blog" by definition?

Loong Kin Sang, credited as Lung Kim Sheng, just received encouragement for her effort to remember her mentor Yam Kim Fai and pay-it-forward to bring young, new talents onto stage in 2014.

DVD of the event "Ren Yi Sheng Hui Nian Long Qing" by Lung Kim Sheng , one of the 2015 Best Sales Releases, Classical and Operatic Works Recording, was Live Recording of 2014 stage production.

Lung Kim Sheng IFPI HKG 2015 List of Best Sales Releases, Classical and Operatic Works Recording (Order in Chinese Stroke Counts)

1. Reference listed IFPI HKG 2015

2. Definition here Blog

Loong Kin Sang Edit in dispute207.102.255.36 (talk) 17:43, 10 June 2016 (UTC)207.102.255.36 (talk) 17:33, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Dark Empire Strikes Back credits

"The Dark Empire Strikes Back" A Cleveland Compilation. Released 1994 by Dutch East Empire record label. I 'Johnny Amanse' is on the song 'Angry Son' and also on the credits of the album. Please correct the misspelling of my last name. Best Regards — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.56.1.160 (talk) 12:20, 12 June 2016‎ (UTC)

Which article are you wanting corrected? I can't find one for The Dark Empire Strikes Back. I find a hit for the name "Johnny Amansi" while searching in the article Six Feet Deep, but I wouldn't change that without a clear reliable source for the spelling. —C.Fred (talk) 13:33, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Mohammad Pakpour

I deleted some material on the Mohammad Pakpour article because it was sourced to a web page that does not look to me like a reliable source. [30]. The editor who inserted the material seems certain that I'm wrong. [31]. After reverting my deletion, he started a talk page thread, to which I've responded. I have no corner on the wisdom market. Sometimes I'm moved to question whether I even have a stall there. I'd welcome other opinions on the talk page, pro OR con, as a reality check. Thanks. David in DC (talk) 19:39, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

I can't say for sure without doing more research. The Long War Journal article says it is described as a "blog." If so, it wouldn't be a reliable source. For it to be reliable, we must have information that there is editorial oversight. The attribution in the article is wrong. It should be attributed to the author, not the journal (unless it is in an editorial). In general, full citations should be included to start interrogating the reliability of the sources. People that use bare url's are generally not cognizant of the reliability issues. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:12, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

It is hard to tell. The website is published by Public Multimedia Inc. which is run by Bill Roggio. The Huffington Post describes it as a "a site he launched in 2007 to cover the United States’ fight against al Qaeda and militant groups worldwide." Other sources cite it as a website. I'm not completely sure on this one - but I wouldn't rule it out completely yet (however it does have a "donate" button in the top right hand corner which seems odd). Cheers, Comatmebro User talk:Comatmebro 14:42, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

"the Long War Journal" is not merely a "blog" or "website", it is an an ACADEMIC PROJECT of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_for_Defense_of_Democracies), a respected Washington DC think-tank. The Wiki page for the project (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_War_Journal) itself states: The Long War Journal has been used as a SOURCE by a number of large, mass media organizations. So really, yes, it is a reliable source and can be used to put the info on the Pakpour page.

Use of DOJ source in Rick Alan Ross

• Article: Rick Alan Ross
• Source:

1. "Report to the Deputy Attornet General on the Events at Waco: Part IV, The Role of Experts During the Standoff". The United States Department of Justice. 8 October 1992. "The FBI did not "rely" on Ross for advice whatsoever during the standoff. The FBI interviewed Ross only at Ross' request, and politely declined his unsolicited offers of assistance throughout the standoff. The FBI treated the information Ross supplied as it would any other unsolicited information received from the public: it evaluated the credibility of the information and treated it accordingly."

• Content removed due to claim of BLP violation [32]

After Ross offered advice to the FBI during the standoff,[1] a later-published Department of Justice report on the matter stated, "the FBI did not 'rely' on Ross for advice whatsoever during the standoff".[1]According to the report, the FBI "politely declined his unsolicited offers of assistance throughout the standoff" and treated the information Ross supplied as it would any other information received from the public.[1]

• Talk page discussion: Talk:Rick Alan Ross#DOJ Source

Is this source sufficient for the claim made. There have been questions raised in later documents about the preparation of the report however they seem to be relating to use-of-force issues and not the assessment of experts used. The DOJ has not retracted the report and it is currently on their web site. Jbh^Talk 14:44, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

• I dont see why not. We use primary sources for the opinion/statements of the primary source. If the DOJ says the FBI didnt rely on RAR, then we would state the 'the DOJ has stated the FBI did not rely on RAR' and link to where they stated it. They are not making any comment about a third party, they are stating their position. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:50, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
• Although I am not convinced it is a 'primary' source as such, as that would be a statement by the FBI. A post-event analysis/investigation by the DOJ would undoubtedly not be an independant source. But even if you do consider it primary, it would still be valid. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:52, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
• I dont rate the BLP argument as the info it is being used to support is not about the subject except to refute their version of events. If living person A says they were contacted by B, and B states they never did, we wouldnt remove B's denial because its a primary source. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:59, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
• Saying that, all material that is contentious and poorly sourced can be removed from BLP's. So if RAR is saying one thing, which is being directly contradicted by the people he is saying it about, then it should be removed. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:00, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
• Ah I see the problem, its not RAR, its someone else. So secondary sources have stated that RAR was involved with and consulted by the FBI on the waco siege, and primary (FBI)/not independant (DOJ) sources say he wasn't. Well IMHO if a secondary source is being judged reliable over a primary one that directly contradicts it, both should be included for neutrality. Or neither. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:10, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Those secondary sources are, from my memory, all based on Ross' own claim that he was consulted by the FBI. As far as I know the situation is Ross claims one thing and the FBI says it is not so while the secondary sources simply take Ross at his word. There is no truely independent verification of either claim. Jbh^Talk 16:27, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

You've decided that all of the secondary sources are based on his own claims. Literally none of them say that they're based on his own claims. —PermStrump(talk) 16:56, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

I have the same impression: The sources just repeat Ross' claims. If any of the high-quality sources identified on the talk page say otherwise, please identify them. --Ronz (talk) 17:03, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

None of the news reports say that they're repeating Ross's claims. The news reports that came out at the time of the event said the FBI consulted Ross as do several later articles. I can think of several ways journalists might have corroborated that fact, especially when it was at the time of the event. In the later articles, after Ross's involvement had been disputed by the Scruggs report, it certainly would have behooved journalists to double-check that fact before printing it. It would be easy enough for Ross to tell them which FBI agent called him and for the journalist to call that agent to verify who called who first. As wikipedia editors, we have to assume that reliable sources are doing fact-checking or else we'd never be able to source any articles. —PermStrump(talk) 17:13, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

No, we don't assume fact-checking is being done, especially on topics that are heavily sensationalized as this is. WP:NOTNEWS is policy. We've better quality sources. What do they say on the matter? --Ronz (talk) 17:24, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

See my response below to a different one of your comments. In short, WP:NOTNEWS doesn't apply to the articles I linked which are from 2 years after the event. And there are no reasons based on wikipedia policies and guidelines to assume that the news sources I suggested weren't engaging in fact-checking or are for some reason less reliable than other news articles that wikipedia does consider reliable. —PermStrump(talk) 19:56, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

• If the only issue were that it's a primary source, I'd agree that it should be used to represent the FBI's own statements, but it's a questionable primary source. The larger part of the issue is that the authors and publisher had a blatant COI and a history poor fact-checking in the same exact document. "Poor" as in, they didn't even engage in fact-checking. There were so many doubts about the reliability of the original Report to the deputy attorney general on the events at Waco (aka the Scruggs report; the one cited in the BLP) that in 2000, the government initiated a re-investigation (the Danforth report). Danforth wrote, "Scruggs and his team did not conduct a formal investigation. They did not make efforts to determine or challenge the veracity of the statements of witnesses..." and that their failure to report certain facts "was the result of initiating the investigation with the assumption that the FBI had done nothing wrong, was inconsistent with the responsibility to conduct a thorough and complete investigation, and was clearly negligent." Only a preliminary version of the Danforth report is available to the public and the part that's available doesn't address this specific section of the Scruggs report, but it speaks to the document's and the authors' poor reputation for fact checking and also to the fact that the COI was clearly relevant and not just something I'm harping on as a hypothetical possibility. —PermStrump(talk) 16:56, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
  • The motive for the FBI to be dishonest about whether the they solicited Ross's advice vs Ross offered unsolicited advice was that prior to the Scruggs report, Nancy Ammerman had written the FBI a letter criticizing their response at Waco. In short, she said that if they had listened to her unsolicited advice, the violence could have been prevent. And she heavily criticized them for "depending" on Ross for advice. When you read the Scruggs report in that context, it's clear that they were directly responding to the complaints they had already received and had blatant reasons interest in presenting the scenario in a way that would justify their actions. We have to assume that major newspapers are engaging in fact-checking. The news reports that came out at the time of the event said the FBI consulted Ross as do several later articles. I can think of several ways journalists might have corroborated that fact, especially when it was at the time of the event. In the later articles, after Ross's involvement had been disputed by the Scruggs report, it certainly would have behooved journalists to double-check that fact before printing it. It would be easy enough for Ross to tell them which FBI agent called him and for the journalist to call that agent to verify who called who first. —PermStrump(talk) 17:10, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

TLDR: The FBI report is a questionable primary source with a COI and a poor reputation for fact-checking and makes contentious statements that (1) put the subject of a BLP in a negative light and (2) aren't supported by reliable secondary sources. More importantly, we have multiple reliable and independent secondary sources that cover Ross's involvement at Waco and the controversy surrounding it that we could cite instead.^[33][34][35] —PermStrump(talk) 17:00, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

We're here to see if there's consensus for this viewpoint on the reliablity of the source. I'll point out that a source can be reliable for some information and unreliable for other info.

My impression is that we've no better sources than the FBI report, bad as it might be, on this topic. If there are, they need to be pointed out. Maybe the categorized list of references we used earlier would help Talk:Rick_Alan_Ross#Table_and_references. --Ronz (talk) 17:09, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Ronz I linked to 3 reliable secondary sources in the comment you've just replied to! —PermStrump(talk) 17:11, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

I didn't notice while recovering with the multiple edit conflicts with you.

None of them are they type of high-quality sources that we've discussed. --Ronz (talk) 17:20, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Ronz: Like I said in my previous comment above, there are also news reports from several years later stating that the FBI consulted Ross. For example, This story from 1995 in The Observer says,

"In 1992, his reputation was sealed when the FBI sought his advice on David Koresh and the Waco (or Branch) Davidians. A year later, as the Waco siege raged..."

And this 1995 article in the Phoenix New Times says,

"Ross has been reviled in print as a kidnaper and a vicious religion-hater. Some even blame him for the disaster at Waco, Texas. He's been hounded by private investigators and threatened with violence. Some of his friends fear for his life....During the 1993 Branch Davidian siege near Waco, Texas, Ross acted as a consultant to the FBI....Ross made two trips to Waco during the siege and one after the fire. During negotiations with Koresh, the FBI consulted with Ross, as well as 60 other experts."

Both articles are in-depth coverage about Ross that were published 2 years after Waco. These are both third-party, secondary sources that are also reliable according to WP:Verify, which says "What counts as a reliable source...third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy...Editors may also use material from reliable non-academic sources, particularly if it appears in respected mainstream publications. Other reliable sources include: Mainstream newspapers". There's no reason to claim that they wouldn't be reliable in this context as this is not a nuanced or specialized claim. Therefore, as Wikipedia editors, we trust that as respected mainstream publications with reputations for fact-checking and accuracy, that they in fact checked their facts for accuracy before publishing them. There are no concrete reasons to assume otherwise or to assume that their information came directly from Ross. Whereas, with Scruggs's DOJ report, high quality reliable sources heavily criticized the Scruggs report for failing to engage in fact-checking and for publishing false information in the authors' own self-interest. Those are concrete reasons to question the reliability of an otherwise seemingly reliable source. To the best of my knowledge, articles in the mainstream media are the highest quality sources we have on Ross's involvement with the FBI during Waco because they're the only third-party, secondary sources on the topic that I'm aware of. —PermStrump(talk) 19:19, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

• At worst we should present the FBI source with Ammerman as context if we can find any RS which brings up the connection Permstrump mentions. If we do not have such an RS we can not attribute motives to the Report writers ourselves, that is OR/SYNTH. It can be frustrating but as Wikipedia writers we are not analysts.

  No matter any of this the FBI's statement on the matter is significant and needs to be in the article. They are, after all, the primary party and if they are saying something different from everyone else it is significant and WP:DUE. Jbh^Talk 18:11, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

  • Jbhunley: That would only be ok if the Scruggs report were a reliable primary source, but it's not appropriate since the Scruggs report is a questionable primary source. According to WP:NOTRS: "Questionable sources should only be used as sources for material on themselves, such as in articles about themselves. They are not suitable sources for contentious claims about others." In addition, it would be original research/synthesis to put Ammerman's statements back to back with the Scruggs report since her statements contradict, as opposed to supplement, the FBI's statements. On top of that, BLP policies specify that it's only OK to use a primary source when it's supplementing a reliable secondary source and Ammerman is a primary source, so that would be inappropriate. What we can, and should do, is use one of the reliable secondary news sources, probably this one from the Phoenix New Times and supplement it with the Ammerman source. I don't see a way to connect it to the Scruggs report without OR/SYNTH though. —PermStrump(talk) 19:41, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
  • Thank you PermStrump for the TLDR summary. DOJ as a source should be avoided in this instance. Primary is an issue, as well as COI. If its notable and wiki-worthy, there should be reliable, secondary sources. DaltonCastle (talk) 20:53, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
  • I support PermStrump and DaltonCastle on this: this primary source is as unreliable on this BLP as the other DOJ report that reproaches the FBI/BATF to have used Ross' services (Ammerman, p. 1 (= p. 69 of document)). Both reports are a discussion between FBI, BATF and academics, with Ross caught in the cross-fire, without possibility to add his view in a Waco-related DOJ report. These DOJ reports are collections of individual opinions, with no attempt to analyse them into the DOJ's stance (the DOJ published them as submitted, without even unifying the page layout between the various submissions – these submissions are not peer reviewed nor even edited into a coherent report). There is no DOJ secondary source that describes, and even less summarizes or analyzes, the incompatible stances of FBI, BATF and various academics (with quite different views), so they're just collections of primary sources contradicting each other. The main topic of this collection is: what could have been done to prevent the horrendous events at Waco? So all of these authors are looking in their respective crystal balls, based on their own experience, to make a prediction on what can be done to prevent a next Waco (and defending themselves from reproaches by others). Ross, the subject of the BLP we're talking about here, is nowhere a direct topic of these predictions, the indirect attacks on his reputation are just collateral from the perspective of these reports. So, these reports should be kept out of this BLP, unless where reliable secondary sources place them in perspective. Ammerman and other academic NRM defenders have a COI in this (apparent from the report I linked to above): they want to earn money advising the FBI, and from their perspective Ross is just the competition that needs to be crushed. So their analyses of Ross are always tainted by that perspective, making them unable to produce true secondary sources. If after that newspaper reports are the best reporting we have to build Ross' BLP on Wikipedia that's what we need to use by Wikipedia standards. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:35, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

In Waco_siege#Role_of_anti-cult_activists (Wright, S.A. 1995. Armageddon in Waco: Critical Perspectives on the Branch Davidian Conflict: University of Chicago Press) is used to verify the same info. Anyone have access? --Ronz (talk) 15:22, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

I have a copy and will see what I can find in to. Jbh^Talk 16:11, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

There are several pages in two chapters which contradict the this report and state he had access to the FBI and BATF. I will try to scan the relevant sections and pull some quotes we can examine. It may be a day or so depending on how easy it is to get good scans to OCR. Jbh^Talk 16:24, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Hmmm... looks like the claims trace back to Ross and Ammerman: "The link between the Ross and the BATF was confirmed by the deprogrammer himself on several occasions by news media" ^p.89 and "An addendum to Nany Ammerman's report made evident the significance of deprogrammer Ross as an FBI advisor... Ammerman's direct access (as a behavioral science expert) to government officials and non-public documents critical to the Waco catastrophe lends particular credence to the claim of the deprogrammer said influence (see also Ammerman in this volume^p0.88-89

This could also bring the Ammerman letter back in as a source. Jbh^Talk 16:50, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Ammerman's still in the article and I'm pretty sure that's the source her statements are cited to. —PermStrump(talk) 03:03, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

The quotes above may be visible to most Wikipedia editors here (Google Books). The redaction of the second quote wasn't indicated properly:

An addendum to Nany Ammerman's report [...] made evident the significance of deprogrammer Ross as an FBI advisor, [...] Ammerman's direct access (as a behavioral science expert) to government officials and nonpublic documents critical to the Waco catastrophe lends particular credence to the claim of the deprogrammer's [said] influence (see also Ammerman, [in] this volume)

Some points:

1. The Wright source mentions nothing about the FBI denying having consulted Ross: as that material was apparently only based on a questionable primary source (see above) and seems to have little relevance to the BLP biography I think PermStrump was right in removing that material (with the primary source reference) from the Wikipedia BLP biography.
2. Ammerman's addendum itself is a primary source (the "postscript letter" I mentioned here), so it is preferable that material is referenced to the Wright book instead of to the raw primary source in Wikipedia's BLP article.
3. Apart from the BLP text based on secondary sources such as Wright and newspaper articles, primary sources can be given as a complement, and as a service to the reader: in that case Ammerman's primary sources (the official part of the DOJ report I mentioned above, and her self-published "addendum") shouldn't be linked to from the BLP article unless when also quoting the subject's publications on this matter (per WP:BLPSELFPUB). The primary source on the FBI denying involvement with Ross (i.e. the DOJ report mentioned in the OP) should be kept out of the article unless there's a secondary source quoting it as relevant to Ross. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:45, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

The simple fact that the FBI denied, in that report, relying on Ross has been commented on in secondary sources

"The FBI apparently did not 'solicit advice from any "cult experts" or "cult deprogrammers" '. At least two such individuals did approach the Bureau, however, together with one of the ex-Davidians whom the ATF had used. The Justice Department report, with uncharacteristic ambi- guity, concluded only that 'The FBI did not "rely" on Ross [a professional "cult expert"] for any advice whatsoever during the standoff.' Instead, according to the report, 'it evaluated the credibility of the information and treated it accordingly.' The report makes no mention of whether after the evaluation, the Bureau found the information credible, or what, if anything, it did with the information after that point. Since the report generally treats such matters in considerable detail, the omissions here constitute at least circumstantial evidence that the information was deemed credible and used." From: Barkun, Michael (1994). "Millenarian groups and law enforcement agencies: The lessons of Waco". Terrorism and Political Violence. 6 (1): 86–87.

and its significance is remarked on. Jbh^Talk 13:37, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Re. "...its significance is remarked on" – yes, as basically "unknown", with some guesses based on the "significance" of omissions thrown in to construct some sort of "circumstantial evidence".

Also that these second guesses have any significance for Ross' biography is not established: this is still about a discussion between the FBI and Ammerman. Ross provided information to the BATF prior to the Waco standoff. All secondary sources, and Ross himself, agree on that. To what extent the information provided by Ross was used by the FBI remains unknown, as the Barkun source confirms. The chain of causes constructed by Ammerman in her self-published "addendum" attacking Ross' reputation, linking Ross to the Waco debacle, is nowhere demonstrated, it is not even repeated in the secondary sources that comment on Ammerman's self-published addendum and/or on the unduly self-serving primary source FBI report. The secondary sources only confirm what was said by Ross all along, that he provided information to the BATF.

That being said, there was at least an attempt to damage Ross' reputation ("collateral" at first in the Ammerman-FBI disagreement, later more outspoken): that is imho the important point for Ross' biography. Some of the later commentators went quite far in this, up to holding Ross responsible for Waco (as at least one newspaper reported). I'm not sure whether these extreme accusations, found in maybe one or two reliable sources, should have a place in the subject's BLP biography in Wikipedia (I think they were once in the article, and then removed after a prior discussion), but the flack he got from NRM-defending academics is certainly a topic for the article. And if some of these reproaches by academics are petty, Wikipedia should not go to any length of presenting them as less petty than they are, or extrapolate from sources in their defence. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:28, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

The academic view is the academic view. It seems to me that many statements critical of Ross are being discounted because the editors feel that the academics have a POV against Ross/for NRM but items reported from things like Ross' own interviews and commentary are being accepted even though Ross has a personal and professional interest in presenting a particular pro-Ross/anti-NRM view. We report the sources and when an entire discipline has negative things to say we should be noting that and not discounting the material.

Waco and the controversy surrounding Ross participation or lack there of is a significant portion of his biography. There is a huge amount of material discussing Ross in relation to Waco - just becuase some authors think he messed up or the FBI messed up in consulting him is not a reason to avoid mention of the matter. To discount that discussion becuase the academics are "pro-NRM" is massively POV and goes so far as to endorse Ross' anti-NRM viewpoint. Attributed opinion is attributed opinion and a huge claim in the whole Waco mess is that the FBI says they did not rely on Ross and now we even have a secondary source saying why that claim may be important.

Of course it is important to note major commentators wanted to damage Ross' reputation (I also note that even phrasing it that way is implicitly accepting that he did nothing worthy of criticism and is a stance we can not take without violating OR) is important to note. The FBI spent a couple of paragraphs addressing his participation or lack thereof in their official report - that is significant and we not have a secondary source which says that it is significant. Non-significant people/events do not get mentioned in DOJ after action investigations or discussed in RS. Jbh^Talk 16:23, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Darren Wilson (police officer)

I want to know what other editors think about the use of Breitbart.com as a source in Darren Wilson (police officer) to support the following content: "That same day, there was a protest in Ferguson, during which protestors carried a roasted pig, wearing a police officer hat, with the name "Darren Wilson" scrawled on the side of it. After the group reached a police department, the pig was placed on a concrete barrier around the building and the protestors carved and ate from its head." I am aware that Breitbart is not considered a very reliable source, but I'm not sure if it is reliable enough to support this claim. Everymorning (talk) 01:27, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Breitbart would be reliable for only the most innocuous facts, with no obvious connection to their political agendas. This does not qualify. At best, Breitbart could be used for its editorial opinion about the meaning of the event, if another more reliable source were to verify the event as factual. Rhoark (talk) 03:04, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

That is inaccurate. Breitbart is a reliable source. Political slant does no negate this. If that were the case virtually every newspaper would be unreliable. DaltonCastle (talk) 00:04, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

They can be reliable for innocuous facts. Where their politics come into play, they have a strong tendency to distort, exaggerate, or mislead by omission. (And they rarely bother to write a story that doesn't pertain to their politics.) That said, they are sometimes the biggest outlet to call out distortions, exaggerations, or omissions by their rivals, so they're an important addition to the NPOV mix. Rhoark (talk) 02:17, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

A reliable source is one which has a reputation for accuracy and fact-checking. Breitbart does not have such a reputation. At best, it's a questionable source. Also, note that for WP:BLPs, we should insist on using high-quality sources, which clearly Breitbart.com is not. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:24, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

A source which allegedly "calls out distortions, exaggerations or omissions" is only useful if its own work is not thoroughly riddled with distortions, exaggerations or omissions, not to mention outright lies and fraud about those whom its ideology opposes. Breitbart is entirely the latter, as AQFK astutely notes, and thus has no place as a Wikipedia source except for the few places where it is relevant to itself (such as its own article, articles about its writers, etc.). NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:34, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

I concur with Baranof: there are only the rarest of circumstances in which Breitbart could be regarded as a RS; and assertions to the contrary by DaltonCastle do not change that. --Orange Mike | Talk 04:43, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

NorthBySouthBaranof's analysis is correct. Breitbart is never a reliable source, except for statements about itself, its writers, etc. Neutrality^talk 04:42, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

It is generally unsuitable for BLP claims. It does not need to be angelic to have a seat at the table, though. Per WP:BIASED, "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject." Rhoark (talk) 13:55, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

This is not a question of the source's bias, this is a question of the source's reliability. Breitbart is perhaps the cardinal example of a source with "a poor reputation for checking the facts." As policy dictates, Questionable sources should only be used as sources for material on themselves, such as in articles about themselves; see below. They are not suitable sources for contentious claims about others. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 14:30, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Bias is the principal factor. I haven't seen evidence that Breitbart contains uncorrected falsehoods at a higher rate than other accepted sources. You can only get so much mileage out of the Loretta Lynch mistake. What makes Breitbart untrustworthy is what they choose to omit or to exaggerate the importance of, which is a matter of bias. Rhoark (talk) 18:03, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it's reliable. Covered elsewhere too. Picture worth the thousand words.[36]. --DHeyward (talk) 14:57, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

If the fact is sufficiently notable to belong in the article, it should have been picked up by a more reputable source, and that should be cited instead. If it only appears in Breitbart and the Daily Mail, it probably isn't notable enough to warrant inclusion in the article in the first place. Is this event mentioned because it's important for understanding Darren Wilson? Or is it just an inflammatory anecdote? Nblund (talk) 20:03, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Good article reassessment: World War II biography

A community good article reassessment has been started for the article on Hyazinth Graf Strachwitz, a World War II biography. The reassessment page can be found here. Part of the reassessment deals with sources being used in the article and thus falls within the scope of this noticeboard:

• GAR section on sources

Interested editors are encouraged to take part and comment on whether they believe the article still meets the GA criteria, or to provide suggestions about how it could be improved so that it can retain its GA status. Regards, K.e.coffman (talk) 22:57, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Possible WP:COPYVIO info from a book in a forum

In the article "Imagine", the following forum source from australian-charts.com is added. Now australian-charts.com is a reliable source since they are affiliated with ARIA and have the permission to post the official published ARIA charts in their website. No problem in that. However, there is no indication that the chart forums, where users like you and me can post information, have any right to post information from any source, without permission. The url linked there posts information from the Australian Kent Music Report book, by a staff member. However, my very understanding is that we can never use this link as a WP:RS as first of all, its a WP:COPYVIO since no where its indicated that they have the right to post information from Kent Music Report. And then, some of the editors "assume" that they have the right to post info to the forum on the website, but have no concrete information about the copyright status of it. Doing so essentially opens a can of worms in using any source that can link to a book scan and then pass it off as reliable. What do the other editors say? —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 21:39, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Synthwave.94 DONOT edit war over copyviolating content. Achieve consensus in the sources noticeboard first and then proceed. —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 22:12, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Can you please stop removing correctly sourced content from the article ? The info is posted by a staff member and comes from the Kent Music Report. It's obvious that this source is reliable and is enough to support all Australian peak positions before 1988. Synthwave.94 (talk) 22:18, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Synthwave.94 read again what I posted in detail. Don't come with the same argument that its posted by a staff member. Nobody is blind to that. I am strictly challenging where is the proof that the staff member have the authority to post information from a copyrighted book on the forum of a non-adhered website to Kent Music Report? Read again clearly, the website is affiliated with ARIA, not KMR. This is not a overtly reputed website like BBC, Rolling Stone or Billboard that the staff would pass off as emeritus. —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 22:21, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Staff members can post infos from the books (chart runs, peak positions, etc) if other users are asking for this. Not really complicated to understand. Synthwave.94 (talk) 22:29, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Who gave them the authority to do so Synthwave.94? As I recall nowhere in the website it says that its affiliated with David Kent and his book? COPYVIO is also not difficult to understand. —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 22:32, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

@Kww: you have directly worked with the Hung Medien websites. Can I have your comment regarding this issue at hand? —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 22:33, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

(→) On second thought, has any member here have access to the Kent Music Report book? The source is: Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992. Australian Chart Book, St Ives, N.S.W. ISBN 0-646-11917-6. —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 22:25, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

That post seems to go beyond fair use to me, so I think WP:COPYVIO may apply.—Kww(talk) 01:27, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

• I think the copyvio objection is actually WP:ELNEVER, right? Regarding that, I don't see on the forum where the information about Imagine is said to be sourced from the Kent book. Where do you see that? On a different tack, I object to the use of a forum as a source in WP - that is not WP:RS. So on that basis I say not reliable and the discussion about ELNEVER is not relevant. Jytdog (talk) 23:51, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

1950 newspaper a reliable source for WW2 tanks?

User:Andy_Dingley insists that this is a reliable source. Is it? Bean, CEW. "Korea Has Spotlighted The Vital Role Of The Tank". Sydney Morning Herald, 17 Aug. 1950

Unless there is later information as a result of more research that contradicts it, then yes. Age is not necessarily relevant to reliability except where information has been superseded. If it has, then newer sources should be easy to come by. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:07, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

There is. More than half of that article is written with opinions that have since been proven wrong. It's filled with debunked myths. The author was not well versed in the topic he was writing about. --MaxRavenclaw (talk) 11:13, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Meh, I had a look at the statement concerned and it is broadly correct given the specs of the M4 and its opponents at the time. It was cheaper, more reliable and available in much greater numbers (due to its ease of manufacture). On an individual spec level, almost every aspect of its performance was outclassed by other tanks (armour, firepower etc) in service in the late-war period (as the M4 itself had outclassed other tanks in the early/mid period) - which can be covered by reliable sources. That does not detract from its main plus-points: numbers, reliability and cost effective - which was why it was still the chassis of choice. If the argument is over the vague statement it was 'surpassed' then thats going to be an editorial decision over wording. In one sense it was surpassed technically. In others it was not. I find the argument 'it should only be compared to other mid-weight tanks' weak - any comparison would include the other tanks it was likely to face. Regardless of size. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:01, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Just to clarify - I think the source is reliable for what it is being used for, editorially I think that without more clarification about what is being 'surpassed' its a bit of a wishy-washy statement. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:08, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't think the source is reliable. While not directly stating some things, it suggests them. The Sherman catching fire often is a debunked myth. The Russian obsession with heavy tanks was wrong, since the universal tank soon became the obvious choice. The M4 has been recently reanalized by Steven Zaloga and other historians and found to have been more than capable of doing it's job. Compared to the German tanks that were supposedly "surpassing" it, it was used by numerous countries after the war, while the German tanks were not, except for the French who didn't very much like the Panther. Many of the things said in the article are written based on the opinions of that period, which in hindsight has been proven wrong. --MaxRavenclaw (talk) 12:26, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

As to give examples for why the source isn't reliable. "[the Shermans] caught fire so easily". No they didn't, or at least not much more than other tanks. The wiki article itself talks about it. "[The Centurion] owes much [the Panther] much in design". Centurion was in development in 1943, and the natural evolution of the British Cruiser design. The only thing that the Panther might have influenced about the Centurion was having a strongly sloping and thick front glacis, which was in turned inspired from the T-34, and even still, not a new or revolutionary concept. "[The Russians] have continued in the Easter Zone making the German "Tiger"". I don't even know what to say here. The Russians never produced Tigers for as far as I know, and I can't find any source that would state otherwise. "the Russians [...] produced the best tanks. The Germans came next. And at the bottom of the list were the Allies." The Russians were part of the Allies. And what about the Italians and Japanese? Do they not exist? My point is that this is not a reliable source and we should remove it. There are far better sources out there to use.

IslamStroy

I'd like to know if this website by Ragheb el-Sergany is reliable for being used in articles with Islamic history context. Thanks. Mhhossein (talk) 03:06, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Obviously not. There are plenty of scholarly research books on the history of Islam. There is no need to use web sites at all. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:23, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Is a plaque or monument a reliable source?

Is a plaque or monument a reliable source? One would think that there would be fact checking prior to making a bronze monument, but perhaps not. Your opinions, thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dig deeper (talk • contribs) 13:44, 9 June 2016‎ (UTC)

The source of the information on the monument would govern reliability. The monument itself isn't actually a source; it's just a medium of expression. —RCraig09 (talk) 14:05, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

I'd phrase this differently, though I think I agree with the underlying point: it's the publisher, so to speak, of the plaque or monument, rather than the source. If a local historical society puts up plaques, the information on the plaque is as reliable (or not) as any other publication of the society. An inscription on a town monument is as reliable as a statement about that piece of history published by the town council -- probably not all that reliable in some ways, since a monument-making body is not necessarily an authority on history. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:22, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

This sounds like a monument has a plaque with some detail on it. Could someone just take a photo of that and upload it to WikiCommons? DaltonCastle (talk) 23:48, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Dig deeper, assuming from your editing history that you're talking about Canada, don't follow DaltonCastle's advice above, since it will be immediately deleted as a copyright violation. Freedom of panorama does not apply to 2-dimensional works in Canada (or anywhere else whose copyright law derives from English law), unless they qualify as a work of artistic craftsmanship that is permanently situated in a public place or building, and explicitly doesn't apply to "paintings, murals, advertising hoardings, maps, posters or signs". (Chapter-and-verse on the matter here.) That doesn't mean you can't cite the sign as a source, provided it's produced by someone who's a reliable authority on the matter—just use the {{Cite sign}} template as a reference and fill out the appropriate fields. ‑ Iridescent 23:57, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. So if I understand things right, a plaque is basically a copywrited medium. It's reliability depends on who put it there. So a Parks Canada plaque would probably be as reliable as a Parks Canada tourism book. So is there a special way to cite a plaque? Dig Deeper (talk)

Per this, {{Cite sign}}--S Philbrick(Talk) 01:52, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Also note: Signs, monuments and plaques do not have "perpetual copyright" and many such are cited in many places. Collect (talk) 12:34, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Collect, that's complete nonsense. Assuming the signs are erected by a government body in Canada, they'd fall under Crown copyright which is a prerogative, not a statutory, power, and thus the copyright would expire whenever the GG or provincial/territorial authority declared it lapsed, which could be any time from their initial creation to a million years in the future; if the sign includes a governmental or Crown symbol, it's highly likely that it would never lapse. If it doesn't fall under Crown copyright, then since the sign won't be covered by FoP it would have exactly the same "50 years from the death of the creator" protection as any other Canadian work. Have a browse of commons:Category:Canadian FOP cases/deleted and you'll see exactly what happens if you try to upload a photo of a 2D Canadian work to Commons. Anyone who's worked OTRS and dealt with the regular stream of takedown notices for photographs which include the century-old London Transport logo will be wearily familiar with how persistent Crown/government copyright ownership can be in countries whose copyright law derives from the Statute of Anne (which is virtually every English-speaking country in the world). ‑ Iridescent 16:12, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

You are right - the KJV is under perpetual crown copyright. But that copyright does not apply in the US which is where Wikipedia is located. Your argument would have us remove every single KJV quote <g>.

Canada could bar all Canadians from using Wikipedia, but somehow I doubt such an action is likely. Copyright on religious works "In the United Kingdom, the King James Version of the Bible is covered by a crown copyright."

And so on. And to the extent that the plaque makes a simple assertion or statement of fact, the fact itself can not be copyrighted in the first place. The actual image of the sign (which includes a copyrightable shape or image?) might not be usable as a photo on Commons, but statements of fact absolutely can be attributed to copyright works, just as we can use copyright works as a basis for any claim of fact. Collect (talk) 18:46, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

This was explicitly a question about uploading photos to Commons, which follows and always has followed the law of the country of creation, not the law of the US. The laws of where the WMF is based—and the content of the sign as opposed to its image—are completely irrelevant in that context. ‑ Iridescent 18:49, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps you failed to read the initial query -- this noticeboard does not make rulings about Commons, and Commons does not make rulings about reliable sources on this project. Commons allows many images, for example, which would be found improper for use here, and we do not control what its criteria are. Rules about use of copyrighted material and use of facts are in the proper venue of this noticeboard. Under Canadian law, simple statements of fact are not found to have originality for copyright, as far as I can tell. Census totals which are reported do not need to have "Crown Copyright" asserted, for example. Collect (talk) 12:42, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback, much appreciated. Incidentally, according to Canada's copyright act (1985), copyright for the Queen (ie.Federal, Provincial, and Municipal governments and crown corporations) is not a million years, but 50 years, like anyone else. So technically, a plaque that was put up 50 years ago (1956) would be OK to photograph and post on Wikipedia. [[37]]

Where copyright belongs to Her Majesty Without prejudice to any rights or privileges of the Crown, where any work is, or has been, prepared or published by or under the direction or control of Her Majesty or any government department, the copyright in the work shall, subject to any agreement with the author, belong to Her Majesty and in that case shall continue for the remainder of the calendar year of the first publication of the work and for a period of fifty years following the end of that calendar year. R.S., 1985, c. C-42, s. 12; 1993, c. 44, s. 60. Dig Deeper (talk) 18:19, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Use of Breitbart on Alt-right

Milo Yiannopoulos, one of the leading figures of the Alt-right movement and one of the most popular conservative media personalities, wrote an in-depth piece giving significant coverage of what the movement is at Breitbart. However, there has been a concerted effort to keep this information off the page because Breitbart is not a reliable source (ironic, because the article in question relies heavily on Buzzfeed). My question: Even if generally considered unreliable (like Buzzfeed), is a leader of a political movement considered reliable for his own perspective on what the movement is? Even on articles that actually are FRINGE like Duesberg hypothesis and MMR vaccine controversy, we cite statements made by Duesberg and Wakefield about their own beliefs. I would think it falls within guidelines, but I'd like further input. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 17:40, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Brietbart goes beyond being an unreliable source into being am actively fraudulent source, it should probably not be used for anything if avoidable. Artw (talk) 01:55, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This isn't really the right place for this discussion, as (1) unreliable sources are still reliable for the opinions of their authors, (2) whether their authors' opinions should be cited is a question of encyclopedic value, not the reliability of the source, and (3) even if citing the authors' opinions is considered appropriate, how they should be cited (named inline, named in a footnote, not named but simply given in a list of citations of "several prominent right-wing commentators", etc.) is yet another question. If your question is "Does this meet the guidelines laid out in WP:RS under the circumstances I have laid out?", then the answer is (probably) yes; if your question is whether it is appropriate to cite the opinions of the author in this or that case as having some encyclopedic value, then I think the venue is wrong. WP:BRD (or, if the page is as active as Alt-right appears to be, be cautious and open a thread on the talk page first) and, failing that, WP:RFC. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:03, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

It's unquestionably reliable for what Milo says the alt-right is about. The critical question is due weight, which is established if independent high-quality sources identify Milo as an opinion leader about the article topic. Independent secondary sources should lead the framing, but if the secondary sources are hostile, their omissions should be supplemented from the primary source. It is not WP:IMPARTIAL to describe a POV exclusively from the perspective of its opponents. Rhoark (talk) 03:00, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

That's what I was thinking. I remember reading some other sources describing Milo as a leading/influential figure within the alt-right movement, I'll have to go find them. Currently the article relies heavily on Buzzfeed, and relies extensively on sources obviously biased against the movement. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 14:00, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Breitbart is a reliable source. Political slant does not negate this aspect. If that were the case, virtually no newspaper would be reliable. DaltonCastle (talk) 00:06, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

And as above, Buzzfeed is not a reliable source. That said, there are circumstances unreliable sources can be added, with attribution. But its rate. And I think the over quotation of Rosie Gray needs to be trimmed. DaltonCastle (talk) 00:08, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

That's just the thing: many of the same people saying that Breitbart is unquesitonably unreliable (even "fraudulent" as indicated above) also think it is fine to rely heavily on Buzzfeed to accurately describe a right-wing political movement. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 05:34, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

While many of its stories are clickbaity, BuzzFeed's news unit is developing a reputation for quality reporting, as noted repeatedly by CJR and other media criticism outlets. The same cannot be said of Breitbart, whose publication history is riddled with a continuous series of misrepresentations, lies and outright fabrications aimed at people whom it ideologically opposes. One has had occasional lapses, the other is systematically journalistically broken. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:04, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Buzzfeed is not a reliable source. If we are deciding that Breitbart sources can only be used to mention what the opinion of Breitbart is, that applies to Buzzfeed as well, if not more. DaltonCastle (talk) 22:56, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

In public opinion, Breitbart is trusted at similar levels to Salon and the Huffington Post, all of which are far above BuzzFeed.[38] Rhoark (talk) 13:46, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Also, neither CRJ source above confirms BuzzFeed as reputable, only that they want to change their image to be more reputable. As the first CRJ link says, important to our use of sources like Buzzfeed here is understanding they are not as objective as a source like NYTimes: "Online organizations can have stronger points of view than most legacy news organizations within the parameters of what they’re calling news. So I think that appeals to people who have passionate feelings about conflicts." These are subjective outlets, and thus per RS we have to use caution when using them particularly on a contentious topic as "alt-right" certainly is per WP:BIASED. --MASEM (t) 14:03, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

I agree. Breitbart may not be a reliable source for news coverage, but their opinion pieces are certainly reliable for their own opinions. Since the SPLC calls them "the media arm of the Alt-right", their opinion on what the movement is probably should be mentioned. Milo is specifically named as a leading alt-right pundit by many sources including ones cited in the article already, and identifies as such. His opinion on what the movement is is probably as relevant (if not more so) than the other opinion pieces allowed in such as Newsday, Buzzfeed and Haaretz (an opinion piece by a non-notable writer in an Israeli newspaper used to insinuate that the movement is anti-semitic). The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 17:25, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

In the article in question, he actually says he does not consider himself part of the alt-right, though to an outside observer the distinctions might appear as inside baseball. What matters is that secondary sources consider him part of the topic. Rhoark (talk) 17:58, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Hmmmm, you're right. I know he did identify with them at one point, maybe it was on his podcast. I'll see if I can find transcripts anywhere. His accent is incredibly soothing, but I think 12+ hours of listening to him talk to find a specific sound bite is a bit much. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 18:08, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Generally speaking, Breitbart does not pass the level of WP:RS necessary to cite it for statements of fact, since it lacks a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; but it can, of course, be cited for the opinions of the people writing for it, in situations (like this) where that coverage passes due weight. It's already cited in the analysis section in that context, though (alongside a few other sources to establish relevance). --Aquillion (talk) 19:13, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

On that note: it might be helpful to know what, precisely, Breitbart is being used for. Saying "Yiannopoulos believes X" might be okay, and saying "Yiannopoulous believes that the alt-right as a whole is X" might also be okay as long as it's given in-text attribution and isn't an exceptional claim. Regardless of the provenance, this editorial is a primary source for the beliefs of the movement, and should be handled accordingly. Nblund (talk) 19:51, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

So reading all of the above, can we establish the consensus that Breitbart is reliable only for the opinions of its writers and can be cited (if those writers are notable in context), and that Buzzfeed is mostly okay for routine things but should not be used as a reliable source for contentious claims? That seems like a basic summary of the above decision, leaving out the issue of left-wing versus right-wing issue. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 14:34, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Is the Huffington Post a RS?

I know this is oft mentioned topic, and when it comes to the Huff Po, probably context dependent. Diff supplied below.

An editor removed a detail that said there was violent threats made at an event arguing that "violent threats only mentioned in Huffington Post blog source. This is self-published" as the basis for removal. To my knowledge, the Huffington Post does have quite a few editors so the "self-published" rationale for exclusion may not be accurate.

So, what does RSN say?Mattnad (talk) 17:48, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I think the consensus has generally been that HuffPo is a reliable source as the columnists are vetted and there is an editorial board, but context of the work matters. At the end of the post there is the notice, "This post is hosted on the Huffington Post’s Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and post freely to our site" - even though there is a board, as an opinion piece this post probably wasn't subject to intensive review. We wouldn't use an offhand remark in an editorial as the standalone source for a central claim in an article, even if the editorial comes from The Guardian or The New York Times. In this case WP:UNDUE may apply as well - whether protesters made threats is quite tangential to a biography of Yiannopoulos. Intelligentsium 18:15, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Mattnad the content is posted to HuffPo's "contributor platform". This person isn't employed or paid by HuffingtonPost, and it appears to be little more than a glorified comments section, with lot's of stuff that clearly isn't edited content: case in point Nblund (talk) 19:10, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Regardless of how reputable the Huffington Post itself is, not all parts of a website are equally-usable as sources; in this case, if you look in the top-left of that page, you'll see that this is the Huffington Post's blog platform. At the very best it would only fall under WP:NEWSBLOG, and it's probably closer to a WP:SPS (depending on the degree of editorial control the Huffington Post exerts over its blog.) That's what the editor who removed it meant by "Huffington Post blog source" -- it's not just that it's on the Huffington Post, it's where it appears on the Huffington Post (just like eg. the NYT or the Wall Street Journal are reputable, but we could only cite something from their editorial pages for opinions, not facts; this part of the Huffington Post is comparable to them) The author doesn't appear to be a professional, either (it just lists two of his personal websites as his byline), so my reading is that it definitely doesn't meet the standard necessary for statements of fact. It could only be cited as the opinions of the author, with an inline citation along the lines of "so-and-so said...", and even then, you'd have to argue that they're relevant enough to pass WP:DUE weight. It definitely can't be used to cite what it's being used used for there (relying on a blog, editorial, or opinion piece to support something that's being presented as unequivocal statement of fact is a clear no.) --Aquillion (talk) 05:38, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Ok, so on this basis, I presume this blog by Huff Po Blogger Anne Therriault is not a reliable source either?. I suspect that when an editor agrees with something said in the Huff Po by a blogger, they will do a 180. Lets see what Nblund and Aquillion do here.Mattnad (talk) 09:27, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm confused, did someone cite this source? Nblund (talk) 13:57, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Don't be confused. I'm asking you if you'd consider this a reliable source based on your statements above?Mattnad (talk) 14:58, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

As always: the question is "reliable for what purpose?" As Collect and others have noted: blog posts and opinion pieces can be reliable sources for an author's opinion, but usually not reliable for statements of fact. If Therriault is prominent in some field, it might be useful to mention her opinion (with in-text attribution), but it wouldn't be okay to cite this piece for anything beyond a wholly uncontroversial factual claim.

From what I can gather, posts like the Therriault piece are submitted to section editors before being posted, so there's some oversight, (and yet nonsense still gets in) but posts to the "contributor platform" are not even subject to that minimum level of editorial control. The Yiannopoulos post is even a step lower in terms of quality. By contrast: posts by actual HuffPo employees are usually fairly reliable, in my experience. Nblund (talk) 19:18, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

It depends on what it's being used to cite. As I said for the other one... something they published under their blog byline can't generally be cited for statements of fact; but it can be cited for the opinions of the author, with an inline citation along the lines of "so-and-so said...", provided you can successfully argue that they're relevant enough to pass WP:DUE weight. (That is a whole different question, which mostly falls under WP:NPOV rather than WP:RS.) So you definitely can't use it to say "Elliot Rodger was..." as an unqualified statement of fact about him; but you could potentially use it to say "Commenting on the Huffington Post, Feminist blogger Anne Theriault connected Elliot Rodger to the Men's Right's Movement, saying..." People might still object to it being included, though, on grounds of whether you're giving her opinion WP:UNDUE weight. Then you'd have to argue over who Anne Theriault is and whether her opinions are noteworthy enough to go into the article. It's technically a reliable source for those opinions, in other words, provided they're presented as opinion and not fact; but that wouldn't be the end of the discussion. The thing you linked us to was a clear-cut case because you were trying to cite an opinion / blog piece as a source for a statement of fact, which is unequivocally not allowed. --Aquillion (talk) 20:41, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

HuffPo publishes opinion pieces which are usable and citable as opinions of those holding them. It is not generally an actual independent source for claims of fact. Collect (talk) 11:12, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Just to add to the above 'which are usable' is the main point. An opinion *can* be used cited as an opinion. If that opinion is notable enough or has gained coverage of its own to be included is a different discussion. Not all opinions should be included in articles for obvious reasons. Generally with blogs the majority of opinion pieces are not notable enough to be included in relevant articles. Even when cited as opinions. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:18, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Highly sensitive person - overhaul and adjudication.

So it all started with an AfD on the subject which resulted in clean-up and merge due to WP:PROMO and WP:PRIMARY. From there I asked for some help from the Psychology Portal. They seemed to be suspicious of the term too, from there the matter has been sent HERE on the advice of the Fringe Theories Noticeboard. So does anyone have any adjudication or can offer help in the way of tackling the article?

Basically there's a psychologist trying to tie their own personal very touchy feely (at times contradictory) psychological concept (as well as book and movie range) "The Highly Sensitive Person" to another theory called "Sensory-Processing Sensitivity" in order to run retreats and talk to celebrities (and have a Wikipedia page to help out). There may even be some "involved" interest on the talk page from people who know Aron personally. The sources need to be checked, and it needs to be decided how close to the sources Aron is and which terms are being used to what ends.

Another concern is that "Highly Sensitive Person" gets used as a general phraseology in scientific test ranges and papers. I'm sure we're all highly sensitive to something; so to use those terms to try to manufacture a condition (just because the terms appear in many places), well there's something questionable going on there. Any help/comments appreciated. P.S Here is E. Aron's website promoting "The Highly Sensitive Person" condition and some "Highly Sensitive Therapy". --Jobrot (talk) 23:02, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

-(A)- Editor Permstrump has correctly pointed out on the article's talk page that the Hsp article would benefit from addition of secondary sources independent of psychologist E. Aron, and placing Aron's descriptions in context. I am the editor who spent >100 hours overhauling the article in Jan-Feb 2016, and recognize that as initial propounder of the terms HSP and SPS, Aron still dominates the field and her various scientific papers are of course cited by others, and I agree that informed addition of independent secondary references would, as with any article, help the Hsp article. —RCraig09 (talk) 01:44, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

-(B)- However, before wasting too much time, be advised that Jobrot's above narrative is permeated with persistent subject-matter misunderstandings and gross misrepresentations of prior WP processes (his AfD, WikiProject Psychology talk, Fringe Theory Noticeboard). Jobrot has been on a 5+ month Reddit-inspired crusade, backed by exactly zero references, for his conspiracy theory that Aron & colleagues conspired to generate a scam psychological concept just to sell books, videos, and workshops — a conspiracy that has somehow gone undetected by thousands of Ph.D. psychologists since Aron's first HSP publications 20 years ago, a conspiracy theory not hinted at in the hundreds of journal articles that cite the term sensory processing sensitivity. Those editors with science, preferably psychology, backgrounds, would be the most useful contributors. —RCraig09 (talk) 01:44, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

"a conspiracy that has somehow gone undetected by thousands of Ph.D. psychologists since Aron's first HSP publications 20 years ago, a conspiracy theory not hinted at in the hundreds of journal articles] that cite the term sensory processing sensitivity." The fact that Aron and her Husband as a pair have been putting together a range of books, movies and even a horse retreat all premised on a WP:NEOLOGISM for "highly sensitive"; for 20 years now - doesn't equate to it being a conspiracy. Nor does it equate to it being a legitimate or accepted area of study by the broader scientific community or for scientific language in general.

Instead I believe the idea that "Sensory processing sensitivity" [which strangely enough there's no article for] is the "sciencey name" for HSP is WP:OR and originates from Aron's website. In closing; yes psychology "researchers" can go unnoticed, and be left to their own devices for 20 years. Especially if their intention is to avoid just enough scrutiny. Aron has specifically said she has no interest in HSP being a diagnosable condition, and the current tests for HSP are an online self-survey and/or Dr. Aron's opinion. --Jobrot (talk) 08:09, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Factually: Aron&Aron (1997) specifically defined HSP in terms of sensory processing sensitivity (SPS); it is not "all premised on a wp:neologism for 'highly sensitive.'" And SPS is, as I just demonstrated, used in hundreds of scholarly articles. Now, Jobrot insinuates that Aron, who has published a now-million-seller book and numerous scientific and lay articles, had an "intention to avoid just enough scrutiny". Editors, start your analysis with credible hypotheses. —RCraig09 (talk) 14:52, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Really? A million copies huh? Glad you had the sales stats at hand... but I don't think the people purchasing Aron's self-help books or videos are looking to scrutinize them - they're looking for answers. This self-help guru stuff is in a category no higher than Dr. Phil or Tony Robbins, and articles need to be checked by multiple editors (who can access them) to make sure there's a strong reflection of the sources on Wikipedia; especially what with all the slight of hand and language games going on. I mean come off it; a Husband and Wife team backing each other up? Horse Retreats? The online self-diagnostic survey? The Promotional Video with Alanis Morissette? Does any of this not erk you as hype and branding? Kinda untrustworthy? Are you suspicious at all? Or are you coming from somewhere else? What's your interest here other than perpetuating an WP:UNDUE WP:COATRACK WP:FORK article with WP:PROMO and WP:PRIMARY issues? --Jobrot (talk) 19:12, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Anyone who has put in the time reading Aron's academic and lay articles knows they do not rely on the items Jobrot lists at 19:12, 11 June. After reading her 1996 book in ~2012 and spending >100 hours studying dozens of academic and lay references in Jan-Feb 2016, what I "suspect" is that Aron is a research and clinical psychologist who applies scientific research to help people. After reviewing a website, Jobrot "suspects" hype and branding, and initiates an AfD and canvasses for support for his theory. Fortunately, what editors suspect doesn't govern Wikipedia. I've welcomed RS-based editing (e.g., paragraph (A) above and "suggested starting points" below). —RCraig09 (talk) 21:19, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm sure Aron's books are very much in favour of Aron's theories. I'm also sure Aron's spouses books are ALSO very much in favour of Aron's theories. But that doesn't solve the WP:Primary issues. Someone cannot be used as the sole source for a theory they came up with - that's the very definition of WP:OR. Nor does any of what you've said cover WP:UNDUE which is why I went to the psychology portal for help: Where they confirmed that Aron's work isn't well respected... and yet we have a whole page devoted to it. A page with ongoing WP:PROMO and other issues (let's remember that "100 species" stuff you're quote comes verbatim from Aron's website). Nope this page is too suspicious; which is why the merge to Sensitivity_(human) was suggested during the AfD - and I'll add: Not by me. I don't think you've got the consensus here. Policy is a factor here (as well as sourcing, everything works together) and WP:PROMO can refer to theories that don't have wide scientific acceptance. --Jobrot (talk) 05:38, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

(sigh) Factually:

1. the Hsp article presently has 26 footnotes not naming Aron as author, undercutting Jobrot's insinuation that Aron's works are "sole sources."

2. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Psychology#Highly_sensitive_person_(HSP)_legit? (presumably Jobrot's "psychology portal") included an initial, and mixed, impression from one single editor (Permstrump) — not enough for Jobot to claim "they confirm(ed) that Aron's work isn't well respected". This is another example of what I was talking about yesterday at 01:44 about Jobrot's "gross misrepresentations of prior WP processes."

3. The "100 species stuff" (Jobrot's phrase) was sourced at least to Wolf 2008, so the content was not merely from Aron's website (and, as I quoted below yesterday at 21:19, was not verbatim).

4. >300 scientific articles cite Aron's 1997 paper, and exactly zero of the dozens of references I studied in Jan-Feb even hinted at a lack of respect for Aron's work.

Jobrot, we all seem to agree that WP policy and sourcing should govern content. But the misleading insinuations, factual misrepresentations, and unsourced personal suspicions are merely distracting editors here from starting the work. This section is already five times longer than needed to communicate the issues, so let's keep to the facts to stop arguing and let the work begin. —RCraig09 (talk) 13:26, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Well; you know what I think makes the most sense (to me anyways). Create an article for Sensory Processing Sensitivity (which I see you've already set up as a re-direct) merge everything from HSP (completely untouched) into the Sensory Processing Sensitivity Article - slap a Neurology Portal template on it - set HSP to redirect to SPS and call it a day (so essentially just swapping their locations and changing the portal temp.) What do you think RCraig09 - would that be an okay conclusion? You know what with the whole "science-name" thing; that way the article is made distinct and separate from Sensitivity_(human); the psychology people don't have to put up with me - and it will protect the article from other future editors like me who feel skeptical because of the commercial aspects.

In fact I think it's even in naming policy. From WP:COMMONNAME: "When there are multiple names for a subject, all of them fairly common, and the most common has problems, it is perfectly reasonable to choose one of the others." --Jobrot (talk) 14:45, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

These Issues are already being discussed on the article's talk page. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:43, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

First, to keep the record straight, I initiated the HSP discussion at WP:FTN, not Jobrot. Second, I don't agree that Jobrot's "above narrative is permeated with persistent subject-matter misunderstandings and gross misrepresentations of prior WP processes". I think he/she described the subject-matter and outcomes of the prior WP processes exactly accurately. However, I do want to note that it's the second time RCraig09 has mischaracterized Jobrot's comments/intentions, in what seems to be an attempt to invalidate the concerns he raises and shut down the discussion. Third, I'm copying my comment from FTN that led someone to suggest this noticeboard as it's pretty relevant to the current discussion:

After reading some of Aron's papers, I was honestly confused about why so much of it was getting published in independently published, peer-reviewed journals. But after looking into more in depth, I've found that her husband, Arthur Aron, was an editor or reviewer for most, if not all, of the journals that have published Aron's work.

Lastly, just for the sake of clarification, I'm pretty sure "sensory processing sensitivity" (SPS) was also coined by Aron as a more scientific-sounding synonym for HSP. —PermStrump(talk) 02:29, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

To minimize wasted time, I'll merely state that I've misrepresented nothing in this matter. I only want to put to rest a conspiracy theory that is based on, from Jobrot over five months, completely unsourced suspicions. Obviously (see talk page) I was not trying to "shut down" careful, informed, rational, fact-based, reliable-source-based discussion. —RCraig09 (talk) 03:16, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

-

That's really great work User:Permstrump. I know that we all need to WP:listen to each other and I feel consensus has always been growing on the side of investigate/clean-up/merge. In a way I think it helps that Aron's promotional material is hackish; I remember at the start of the year the article still contained mention of the "over 100 other species" the "trait" of being a highly sensitive PERSON could be found in. This was one the more obvious statements that was in the article and came directly from Aron's website. This was before the article sparked my interest, so I think User:RCraig09 is really lacking good faith with their accusations and comments, as there's been fairly obvious editorial issues from the start. It's interesting because I've not actually been keeping on it. If you look at the page history I've barely edited it. I've mostly just been following the advice of the helpful Wikipedians as I come across them in my spare time. Ergo any input from Reliable Sourcing is more than welcome. --Jobrot (talk) 06:57, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Factually: The article stated that "something similar to the trait is present in over 100 other species," citing three non-Aron references. Editors should be aware that, still, Jobrot struggles with Jobrot's 06:57 11 June post belies a lack of even a foundational understanding of SPS (the multi-species trait) and HSP (a particular human having the trait). Editors: investigation and clean-up are fine (suggested starting points); merging is not (reasons). —RCraig09 (talk) 14:52, 11 June 2016 (UTC) modified by RCraig09 (talk) 21:19, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Okay User:RCraig09 I'm just going to caution you against violating WP:GOODFAITH an ask you not to be demeaning or insulting like that. Let's try to stay WP:CIVIL. You have no knowledge of whether I "struggle with even a foundational understanding of ..." anything. And you certainly don't have a right to make that claim. It's very rude of you, and I really think you should apologize. Other than that; of course editors are allowed to investigate and clean-up; that's what I came here to encourage and ask for help on; it is not up to you to 'allow' it WP:OWN. But yes; that's why I've come to the sources notice board; to get help investigating and cleaning up. How that is done and whether it resolves the article's other issues (namely: undue, coatrack, fork, promo, primary) is another question. Also no clarification was given on the nature of the clean up and merger; so editors may perform it as and if they deem fit. All arrogance should be laid aside for now in the search for due and unbiased clarity. --Jobrot (talk) 19:22, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

I've modified my 14:52 post to refer to "Jobrot's 06:57 11 June post" rather than to Jobrot himself. My 14:52 comment was not intended as personal per se and I do apologize. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:19, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for this courtesy. It is much appreciated. --Jobrot (talk) 05:38, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

• After this wall of text would someone please clearly formulate what the question for this board is? Is there a particular source under consideration or are a group of sources under question becuase of the appairant COI of the author's spouse being and editor or reviewer for the publications in question? What claim(s) are these disputed source(s) being used for?

  As a general note, back and forth between the disputants tends to obscure the question being asked and hinder gatering opinions from independent third parties which is the whole point of a Noticeboard discussion. Jbh^Talk 14:57, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

To Jbhunley/Jbh and editors: Valid sourcing issues to consider are wp:primary and wp:COI:

(1) dealing with wp:primary sources from the original propounder (psychologist Elaine Aron) of the terms Hsp and SPS, in a fairly small and still-young field in which she still publishes; and

(2) detective work re possible wp:COI of husband (psychologist Arthur Aron) as associate/consulting editor or editorial board member or "occasional reviewer" on journals that published some of Elaine Aron's papers (see Arthur Aron's 2011 resume here).

Editor Jobrot implies, without sourcing, that Elaine Aron's marketing to the public of books, videos, workshops, and retreats, inherently render all her scientific works unreliable; I disagree.

The more constructive discussion is in the following section "Take 2".

Take 2

Jbh: I'm pretty sure OP is more asking for editors to help with sourcing at the article as opposed to a question that needs an answer here. I think. Someone at WP:FTN suggested this noticeboard after I commented that: After reading some of Aron's papers, I was honestly confused about why so much of it was getting published in independently published, peer-reviewed journals. But after looking into more in depth, I've found that her husband, Arthur Aron, was an editor or reviewer for most, if not all, of the journals that have published Aron's work. I have a lot of questions about what's the appropriate thing to do with this articles, should it be moved, to where, should there be an article for both "Highly sensitive person", the purely self-diagnosed, pop psych concept, and The Highly Sensitive Person the book about the pop psych concept? This isn't the right noticeboard for those questions, but if it felt like there were more editors than myself, Jobrot and RCraig watching the article, some of the conversations on the talkpage might be a bit more productive. IMO all of the sources need to be verified and many of the primary and nonindependent sources replaced, before it will be clear what should happen with the article. Right now it feels like a WP:CITESPAM/WP:BOOKSPAM farm. A few weeks ago, I started verifying/replacing sources and updating the language to be more in wikipedia's tone. I made it through the first two sections and stopped before Highly sensitive person#Practical implications for individuals because I needed a break. It seemed to me that if this article were written entirely by independent sources, it would probably be called sensory processing sensitivity (SPS), that is, if there are enough independent sources to warrant its own article. Many of the independent sources are still primary research papers measuring SPS using the Highly Sensitive Person Scale (HSPS). —PermStrump(talk) 15:27, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

From a cursory look I am inclined to agree with you. It looks like "sensory processing sensitivity" is being popularized as "Highly Sensitive Personality". Cleaning up the article looks to be an enormous job. Simply familiarizing oneself with the terminology is quite a job. It looks like Aron developed the Highly Sensitive Person Scale and is trying to capture the terminology in academia while pushing HSP as a term in pop sci works. I think SPS is the root term and this abstract (I have not tried to get the whole paper) seems to support that "Results demonstrate that the HSPS is a valid and reliable measure of the construct of SPS._{(emp. mine)} From: "A psychometric evaluation of the Highly Sensitive Person Scale: The components of sensory-processing sensitivity and their relation to the BIS/BAS and "Big Five"". Personality and Individual Differences. 40 (6): 1269–1279. April 2006. Great care should always be taken when an author is both publishing academic and pop sci/self help material using the same terminology. My suggestion would be to ditch all of the pop sci material, re-write the article as SPS. A close examination of the pop sci sources is needed to see if they are presenting PSCI/FRINGE POC even if they are using the ame terms as the academic work. Jbh^Talk 16:03, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

-Reply & background. I'm the editor who in Jan-Feb 2016 overhauled the article, which had been in desperate need of stewardship. A large share of the work was extensively re-organizing pre-existing referenced content, which was understandably Aron-centric since she was the original propounder of the terms Hsp and SPS and still researches and publishes in the relatively new field. My reading of the dozens of Aron and non-Aron references' content didn't raise my suspicion of nepotism/fraud/conspiracy, and in view of Smolewska 2006's validation of Aron's HSPScale, Aron's questionnaire seems no more inherently suspect than the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator questionnaire. However, in Jan-Feb I did not even think to consider which journals' editorial staffs included an Aron, and it would be an intrinsically newsworthy story if it were discovered by Wikipedians that Arthur Aron was in fact "an editor or reviewer for most, if not all, of the journals that have published (Elaine) Aron's work" (quoting Permstrump's 15:27 post). Underlying the foregoing issues is that this >900 views/day article is what the public looks to, probably not previously having heard of SPS (see talk page), though the content itself is more important that its name/location. Though by now I'm quite comfortable with the article's concepts, I'm be only moderately comfortable learning to do detective work in academia, and I agree that beaming the entire article into the NoPrimarySource quadrant is an enormous task. —RCraig09 (talk) 18:44, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

-Related concepts. On the naming issue, be aware that Aron considered SPS, and Wolf 2008 considered "responsiveness", to constitute what other personality researchers called under various names; see Related concepts section. This observation both complicates the issue of what to name the article, and broadens the universe of sources that could be considered descriptive of essentially the same trait under whatever name. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:55, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

- COI issue. On the issue of husband's COI, Arthur Aron's CV (here) shows he is involved in sections of "Interpersonal Relations & Group Processes" and "Personality Processes and Individual Differences" and "Personal Relationships" and "Psychological Science"—not Personality Psychology which has been Elaine Aron's focus. Without further evidence, it's purely speculative whether Arthur's Aron's long list of "Occasional Reviewer" even intersects with Elaine Aron's papers. Without factual demonstrations, any assertion of a conspiracy or undue editorial influence is speculative. —RCraig09 (talk) 14:58, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

- WP:Primary issue. Ergo, I think wp:primary, more than coi, is a pursuit that can be more solidly resolved in the article, on a sentence-by-sentence basis. Concerning wp:primary, I think E. Aron's sources are totally proper for her definitions, and when distinguishing from other concepts (introversion, autism, etc). However, primary-source content that merely reports her own experimental results or conclusions is of course a valid concern and, if retained, should at least be contextualized as "Aron concluded that ...". —RCraig09 (talk) 14:58, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

If the COI issue has not been raised within academia then it is not something we can really use to invalidate sources since by doing so we would be makeing some rather serious claims of academic dishonesty. Ultimately it would be best to move away from SPS material even though this is intrinsically difficult to do when dealing with a a topic's primary researcher. I think a good first step would be removing Aron's pop sci writings except for some limited contextualization / lay explanations. In particular if there are any claims which could be considered "medical" or "treatment", particularly as relates to autism, they should be sourced per WP:MEDRS.

Re likening the work to Myers Briggs Personality typing, unless I am mistaken that has been relegated to pseudoscience/fringe for many years so that is a bit of a red flag to me for how this topic should be handled. Jbh^Talk 16:18, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm finding it impossible even visualizing how these two definitionally-related terms could be separated on WP (be aware: recent edits have muddied Aron's very definition of HSP as a person having high SPS). Also, this is a Personality Psychology topic portrayed as a temperament/trait and not a disorder to be treated, and I read nothing approaching "medicine" or "treatment" that would invoke MDRS. Methinks a wp:primary tool is best. —RCraig09 (talk) 22:41, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Jbhunley Fair points about the COI. I'd still argue she has a vested interested, because of her book by the same title, so I don't think her work should be given the same weight as independent primary sources, and just to clarify, there are a few peer-reviewed sources about SPS and the HSPS (scale) that seem to have been written and published independent of the Arons. They are all primary sources on their own research though, no review articles or meta-analyses, so still less than ideal and we probably have to be careful not to base the majority of the article on those either... which leaves us with newspaper articles, most of which are promotional for her book and website in some way, so there would probably end up being a lot of duplication with the article on her book (which I haven't even looked at yet and cringe to think about). It's hard for me to imagine this article not continuing to be an WP:ADMASQ (an ad masquerading as content).

BTW, that's also my understanding of the Myers Briggs and other personality testing as well, which was why I brought this to FTN a few weeks/months ago. Also because of Aron's dubious claims that she's been trying to prevent the term from being used in the DSM as a disorder... as if everyone's begging for her to let them use it in the DSM. —PermStrump(talk) 02:37, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

• Comment Just noting my agreement with the consensus forming above. --Jobrot (talk) 03:59, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Source does not include Mike Singletary

[39]

Warren Sapp

At the time of his retirement, Sapp was one of only six defensive players in NFL history to make the Pro Bowl, be named Defensive Player of the Year and win a Super Bowl or pre-Super-Bowl NFL title. The others are Mean Joe Greene, Jack Lambert, Lester Hayes, Lawrence Taylor, Bob Sanders, Reggie White, Ed Reed, Ray Lewis and Sapp's former teammate, Derrick Brooks.

empoprise-mu.blogspot.com meeting RS

There was a content dispute over a {{unreliable source?}} on I Predict 1990. The content is

[The song] "Jim Morrison's Grave", describing a pilgrimage to the artist's burial place is a reflection on the cult of personality.

It uses Bredehoft, John E. (2010-02-22). "Jim Morrison's Grave (the Steve Taylor song) and Kurt Cobain". Empoprise-MU. Retrieved 2016-05-31. as the source.

First, https://ccms500bestalbums.wordpress.com/2011/05/27/65-i-predict-1990-steve-taylor/, which is also not a RS, but has high regard from the Christian music project, argues against the idea that it's a reflection on the cult of personality. The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music mentions it three times, but does not go into detail so no help. www.examiner.com/article/steve-taylor-and-jim-morrison-s-grave also doesn't support the idea either. The official (supported by Taylor) fan archive at http://www.sockheaven.net/discography/taylor/ip1990/jim_morrisons_grave/ lists several reviews and interviews. I'll let readers use them as a basis for comparison.

So my questions are,

1. does the reference meet RS?
2. should the statement stand? If so, is there a source to support it?

Thanks for your time. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:09, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, it's clearly a blog, and I don't see any credible claim that John E. Bredehoft is a recognized expert, so that alone is enough. I'm not really seeing that the source actually supports the statement that the song is a "reflection on the cult of personality". It seems like it's sort of implying it, but the sockheaven quotes it uses are more directly implying that it's about artistry vs. personal integrity. The blog also quotes from a later press release: "A stream-of-consciousness graveside meditation on the folly of dead-rock- star worship..."[40] which is, again, implying without saying. As presented, the source is not an RS, and the statement is WP:SYNTH, so this should be removed.

Also as a general reminder, Examiner.com is blacklisted, if that was even under consideration. Grayfell (talk) 06:01, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

I removed both now that the page dispute lock as been lifted. Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:35, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

This is the first I'm seeing this. Reading through the sites above. I would argue that Walter Görlitz isn't quoting them correctly, or to prove his point. Really though, I would say that the commentary in the blog is good enough to substantiate one line of text. --evrik ^(talk) 14:54, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

I would be pleased to have you quote them correctly considering I didn't quote them here at all, I only linked to them. Please show me where I quoted them? Really though, shut up already. You're wrong and you're too proud to admit it (see Proverbs 16:18). The blog, empoprise-mu.blogspot.com, is not a reliable source. Several people have stated that and not one has said it is a reliable source. It can't be used to support anything. When are you going to get that into your head? When are you going to admit that you were wrong to use it as a source? How is the statement even verifiable? Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:14, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Why are you telling me to shut up? The blog is a commentary and goes to substantiate the one line of text in the article. --evrik ^(talk) 15:17, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

It's not a reliable source. Its author's main job is to "write biometrics and identification proposals for MorphoTrak (a subsidiary of Morpho, a subsidiary of Safran)".[41] Doug Weller talk 15:48, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Telling you to shut up was a bit harsh and I should not have written that. I'm sorry. The issue simple: a reliable source would be someone who makes their living writing about the field, or whose writing is vetted by one or more knowledgeable or responsible people (editors), or can accept the liability of making a claim. Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources goes into great detail of what does and does not constitute a reliable source.

The author is not a recognized expert in the field and so the author's opinion on this subject is not considered a reliable source. The blog is making a claim. That claim cannot be used to substantiate anything on this subject, but if there is a blog were about something pertaining to biometrics, you might have a case, particularly if the blogger were considered an expert in that field (which is also not supported at the blog). The source can not be used.

The statement is not even supported at the blog. 208.81.212.224 (talk) 19:14, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

It talks about the Morrison cult. Whatever. It was one line of text. --evrik ^(talk) 19:36, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Am I interpreting you correctly? You think a source that fails the criteria for reliable sources can be used if it's only for a small amount of text? Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:50, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

@Evrik: Sorry. That was a real question and I am curious if that's what you meant, or if you meant something else? Feel free to correct my misunderstanding in that case. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:14, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

The grave is a destination. That was the nexus of the sentence. I'll work on this again later. --evrik ^(talk) 17:20, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

@Evrik: That wasn't the question. The question was what you felt about the use of the source in this context. I want to understand, "it was one line of text" and how that relates to the unreliable source you used to support it. Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:37, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Are reviews by major medical organizations authoritative as systematic reviews or meta-analyses?

This relates to reports by Public Health England (link) and the Royal College of Physicians (link), which incorporate systematic reviews and meta-analyses, ultimately concluding with a range of public policy decisions.

CFCF contends that "According to WP:MEDASSESS we assess the quality of the article-type and quite evidently the PHE review amounts to a narrative review, which is lesser than meta-analyses or systematic reviews in weight of evidence."

I, on the other hand, argue that major institutional reviews which incorporate systematic reviews and meta-analyses are widely considered ideal evidence, as WP:MEDRS states:

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of randomized comparative (or controlled) trials can provide strong evidence of the clinical efficacy of particular treatments in given scenarios, which may in turn be incorporated into medical guidelines or institutional position papers (ideal sources for clinical evidence).

Zvi Zig (talk • contribs 10:56, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Page 17 of the actual report:

For the evidence review (1) above, given the short timeframe for this report, a systematic review of the literature was not possible

Enough said.

Note that this discussion actually only concerns the PHE report, the Royal College of Physicians report is unrelated as it was never a matter of dispute)

Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 20:09, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Note that the "short time frame" relates to the daunting task of a systematic review covering the wide scope of PHE's report. Given the explosion in recently published papers, this task is yet to be undertaken by any recent report.

You note the RCP review's status is uncontested even though it's not a systematic review. Whenever a systematic review is not undertaken, this obviuously relates to time/resource constraints - that does not demote the status of major institutional reports. Zvi Zig (talk • contribs 01:03, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Even a good systematic literature review is not a meta-analysis. If PHE undertook a review and drew public policy conclusions, it would be reasonable to cite them as saying so "PHE revised guideline that 100kg of sugar is unhealthy". That is not a WP:MEDASSESS statement that "Sugar has been shown to be unhealthy".Martinlc (talk) 13:30, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

In general, high-level scientific organizations tend to carry at least as much weight if not more than review articles since they tend to synthesize the peer-reviewed literature for the public. Those can include the WHO, NAS, AAAS, etc. I am not particularly familiar with these two groups, but they might appear to be lower tier organizations at first glance where that distinction is not so clear cut. We also often run into issues where a lesser known agency or a small subcommittee makes conclusions that are out of the line with the literature. If one of these organizations if conflicting with the totality of reviews out there, I would not overly rely on them in terms of weight. That's especially if there have been valid criticisms from other reliable sources about these organizations' statements. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:36, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

FindaGrave, once again

So is FindaGrave a reliable source or is it not? See also previous discussion. 32.218.41.1 (talk) 19:20, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

No, but if there are images of grave stones, that makes it hard to refute. I supposed the images could be manipulated? Meatsgains (talk) 02:33, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

No. See Wikipedia:External_links/Perennial_websites. Ultimately, it's WP:UGC. If that picture were in a book, there would've [ideally] been more done to verify it is what it purports, and is neither manipulated nor someone else with coincidental information. Sure, plenty of the images are going to be legitimate, but you might as well cite a photo of a grave on Photobucket. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:00, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

I'll add a no to the two already mentioned. As R mentions FindaGrave is WP:USERGENERATED. As with IMDb most of the info is likely legit but they are open to manipulation and hoaxes. Rhododendrites knows this all too well as can be seen here User:Rhododendrites/Chaney. In particular there is an examination of how pictures can be manipulated in this thread on the talk page. The most recent discussion that I remember seeing (admittedly it was months ago) came to a consensus that FindaGrave can be used as an external link but not a reference. MarnetteD|Talk 19:04, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

4icu.org

Is the 4icu.org a reliable source particularly to state that a University exists in addition to a primary source like the Website of the Univeristy .It has a comprehensive list of Universities worldwide particularly for continents like Africa and some parts of Asia for finding additional sourcing is difficult particularly for recent universities and where web presence is limited . It is produced by the 4 International Colleges and Universities higher education search engine and directory.Note it is a Search Engine

It is a Search Engine for Universites but as per icu.org only lists The 4icu.org directory includes worldwide higher education organisations which satisfy the following requirements:

are officially recognized, licensed or accredited by nationalor regional bodies such as ministries of education and/or recognized higher education accrediting organizations. are officialy entitled to grant four-year undergraduate degrees and/or postgraduate degrees. provide traditional face-to-face learning facilities, programs and courses.

and The 4icu.org directory currently does not include:

two-year degree granting institutions such as Community Colleges, Vocational Colleges, Training Colleges etc. distance learning only organizations. other higher education organizations that do not satisfy the above requirements

To ensure the quality of the directory listing, 4icu.org does not participate in link exchanges or include affiliate resources within the directory.

Note :Its Ranking is different issue as it is only based upon an algorithm including four unbiased and independent web metrics extracted from three different search engines as per this and not on academic criteria but only identifies which Universities' websites are the most popular in terms of online international presence and popularity.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 16:25, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure if this source is reliable. I think the onus is on someone to demonstrate that it meets our establish criteria which I can't quite do just by poking at the website for a couple of minutes. In any case, I'm not sure that the original question is terribly useful without additional context as it seems to touch more on WP:DUE than WP:RS as I'm not sure why someone would want to establish the mere existence of an institution. As is usually the case, if something is worth including in an encyclopedia article and especially if something is proposed as the primary topic of an article then there should probably be multiple, independent, and reliable sources that focus specifically on the subject. ElKevbo (talk) 20:44, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Enterprise Storage Group whitepapers

Are whitepapers prepared by so-called Enterprise Strategy Group and hosted at EMC's website like this a proper source for EMC products like EMC Elastic Cloud Storage? - Brianhe (talk) 00:02, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes, the whitepapers and link you provided would considered a reliable source, especially when the information isn't controversial. Meatsgains (talk) 21:16, 20 June 2016 (UTC)