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The Wire (Indian Publication) and Meta Controversy

FYI
 – Unarchived to close. ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 19:39, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

With the increasing use of The Wire as a source for citation for various articles, we should assess The Wire as a reliable source for Wikipedia. Attached are some links below to go over the controversy.

Scroll Explainer

Meta's Report SpunkyGeek (talk) 03:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm a little confused here. Is there any reason anyone on this planet should believe anything Meta says? I mean, come on.
If there's more to this, we certainly need a much better source than Meta. :bloodofox: (talk) 03:47, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Are there other issues with Wire that require an assessment of their use on Wikipedia? Wire-Meta seems premature for the community to discuss as even the tech community appears to be divided/confused as to what's going on, per the scroll source. Slywriter (talk) 04:15, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
The Wire has conceded that there was a breach of moral conduct. The printed story seemed politically motivated because it was pursued with fabricated evidence.
Hence the question that the story it publishes is reliable enough to cite as a source.
https://thewire.in/media/the-wire-editorial-to-our-readers-an-apology-and-a-promise
https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/10/27/the-wire-issues-apology-cites-deception-by-a-member-of-our-meta-investigation-team SpunkyGeek (talk) 04:55, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
  • We obviously can't just take the fact that Meta itself (as a primary source) disputes the Wire's coverage as evidence that there's some problem the Wire is unreliable; this, at least, is an obvious WP:MANDY situation - if the simple fact that the subject of a piece denied things was enough to render a source unreliable, no source that reports on anything controversial could be reliable. And even if there was secondary coverage saying that the Wire got this particular thing wrong (and the Scroll article - which isn't particularly impressive as a source - says no such thing, it just reports competing claims), that wouldn't necessarily impact their status as a WP:RS, because a source's reliability is based on its overall reputation for fact-checking and accuracy and not one particular incident. Do you have any reason to think that the Wire's overall reputation has been harmed by this, as opposed to them just saying some things that Meta disputes? --Aquillion (talk) 04:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
    Agreed we cannot take Meta's statement as the truth. However, the issue is that The Wire conceded that there was a breach of conduct from one of their employees (fabricating the evidence). Reporting something wrong and fabricating something to prove a story are different things. SpunkyGeek (talk) 04:59, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
    It's not just meta saying things; it's The Wire fabricating things and destroying their reputation. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 20:32, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Is there any indication (ideally from a reliable source) that we should consider this to be more than a deplorable, yet individual incident? Der Spiegel is by consnesus generally reliable, inspite of the mass fabrications by Claas Relotius. –Austronesier (talk) 06:14, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
    @Austronesier: See The Economist, which notes that The Wire destroyed its reputation in this whole affair. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 20:33, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Still reliable They did a story and took it back with a notice. There is nothing wrong with that. Capitals00 (talk) 06:21, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
    The Economist provides credible information that there was an intentional breach of journalistic morals (fabricating evidence). SpunkyGeek (talk) 22:10, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Every source screws up at least once. It's only the response to the screw up and the pattern of behavior that matters, not a singular event. The Wire's response seems appropriate as to what a reliable source does when one of its employees engages in bad practices; this is a sign that they are reliable, not the other way around. --Jayron32 13:45, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Deprecate Generally unreliable Poorly worded opening post, which lacks any background. The issue is not that Meta disputed their report. MANDY is horribly misapplied here. The issue isn't that they made a "mistake", either, or that they were hoaxed by an employee (which happened to the most reliable outlets). The issue is that
  • an employee completely fabricated evidence used in news stories that had multiple senior editors on the byline
  • that this fabrication was so blatant that the most basic fact-checking mechanisms would have caught it
  • that these senior editors publicly stood by the story, saying that it was based on two separate sources.
  • that the outlet as a whole (not just the fired journalist) vociferously quadrupled-down on the fabricated story
  • and that this "explosive" news story is exactly the kind of story that actual WP:RS would either jointly investigate with other WP:RS, or at least scrutinise very deeply. A good example is this competent joint reporting by The Guardian and other outlets.
This fiasco could never have happened at a reputable outlet. The Wire's editors admit that they never bothered to verify the sourcing, despite public claims otherwise, and despite that being journalism 101. We judge reliability based on the level of editorial scrutiny. This story shows that The Wire has none, and firing the at-fault journalist does not address this. The Economist says The Wire fell for a "massive conspiracy", and blames The Wire's partisanship. WaPo notes growing questions about The Wire’s integrity and accuracy. The Editors Guild of India, their national journalistic association which had previously stood by The Wire, now calls out their circumvention of journalistic norms and checks.
We simply cannot treat an outlet that lacks proper "journalistic norms and checks" as reliable. Let's not be lenient on this. DFlhb (talk) 15:22, 17 February 2023 (UTC) changing from Deprecate to GUNREL, since this isn't an RFC 22:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
India has no reputable outlets left, not a single one. The irony is that even after all of this The Wire is probably still the most reliable Indian news source... If we were to move to prohibit the use of every source as reliable or less we would be prohibiting the entire Indian media industry. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:58, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Only 194 to go.
More seriously, thanks to those who have clarified this is more than a simple dispute. Based on the above fact set, I would support some form of downgrading of the Wire, though not sure we are in deprecate territory yet. Slywriter (talk) 18:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
I have to kindly disagree. India has many reputable sources and reliable outlets like The Indian Express, The Hindu, etc.
Breach of journalistic ethics by The Wire in the above case contradicts your argument. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:37, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Agreed with most of the points presented.
Will make sure more background is provided in the future. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:41, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
@DFlhb: For what it's worth, deprecation can only be achieved by formal RfC. I'm not sure that I would support outright deprecation (this is probably fine for run-of-the-mill facts) but I do think the question deserves discussion. Do you think that it would be wise for me to open up a standard four-option RfC below? — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 21:56, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
In that case, I'll change my !vote to "generally unreliable". It's indeed pretty reasonable for outlets to be declared GUNREL before being considered deprecated, so proper scrutiny can be applied for each "downgrade". Also, I'll likely have little time to contribute over the next few weeks, except watching my watchlist, so I won't be able to do the kind of more in-depth analysis I like to do in RFCs. DFlhb (talk) 22:14, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Not generally reliable. Like Jayron32 says above, the response to the screw up and the pattern of behavior matters most when determining whether a news group has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. But, looking at the response to the screw up and the pattern of behavior here, I am struggling to draw lines between The Wire's response and that of Rolling Stone following its publication of A Rape on Campus; for various reasons including the lack of rigor in Rolling Stone's editorial standards for that topic area, we have WP:ROLLINGSTONEPOLITICS. DFlhb lays out a persuasive case that The Wire no longer possesses the reputation for fact-checking that generally reliable sources do, and the reputation of The Wire seems to have taken a hit inside of even the more reliable Indian newsrooms, following both its fabricated October reporting about Meta and its fabrications relating to Tek fog:
    CNN-News18 and NewsLaundry give a decently long summary of the extent to which evidence was fabricated for the October story regading Meta:
    1. The Wire had alleged that an Indian government official more or less had the power to remove posts on Instagram. Meta denied the story.
    2. When Meta initially denied the story, The Wire posted fabricated screenshots stating that a user had "X-check" privileges. Meta responded by stating that the "X-check" privilege did not actually allow what The Wire said it did (previous reporting did not indicate that the privileges could actually be used to take down posts), and that the screenshots contained a fabricated url on a page designed to look as if it were something related to Instagram.
    3. After Meta responded saying that the url and website were deceptively fabricated and the privileges shown in the previous screenshots did not do what The Wire claimed, The Wire released a doctored video to back up its reporting that falsely claimed to show one of its journalists having access to Instagram's backend.
    4. Aside from all of this, both experts The Wire claimed it received access to an email from Meta executives, which the Meta executives denied. The Wire claimed that it had conducted checks with specific experts in cybersecurity to verify that the content of the email was legitimate, but those experts themselves say that they never talked to The Wire or that they explicitly refused to run the verification. The Economist, linked below, notes that the email was written in painfully broken English, which is not exactly expected of senior anglophone Meta executives, and this should have been a bright red flag for The Wire.
    5. Within two weeks of publication, the entire meat of the story had been publicly shown to have been a total and utter fabrication, and CNN-News18 notes that The Wire has been accused of fabricating evidence to validate its report after the fact.
After this whole fiasco, The Economist wrote that The Wire had shattered its own credibility and criticized the Indian news website's editors for their stupidity of choosing partisanship over process. If you have access to The Economist, I hope you read the whole article, as it's truly eye-opening regarding this news source. The Washington Post, in their esposé on the issue, also tore into the doubling-down and tripling-down, suggesting that basically every attempt by The Wire to provide evidence just kept raising more questions in The Wire's reporting.
Next, let's look at a summary of the (under review but not officially retracted) Tek Fog story, which India Today correctly notes is even more damaging than the Meta controversy:
  1. The Wire, in January 2022, published a story alleging that a secret app, called "Tek Fog" was allegedly being used by the BJP and by the Indian government to harass female journalists.
  2. The story was quickly picked up internationally, particularly in the opinion sections of Washington Post and Bloomberg, a academic blog post from London School of Economics, as well as nationally on Indian TV and among other Indian news organizations.
  3. At the time, the Editors Guild of India expressed significant concerns regarding the treatment of women journalists in India.
  4. After the whole Meta scandal, news organizations systematically re-evaluated the reliability of the Tek Fog reporting. In light of the battered reputation for fact-checking within The Wire's investigative reporting, the issued a statement saying that serious questions on the veracity of their reporting and called upon news groups to resist the temptation of moving fast on sensitive stories, circumventing due journalistic norms and checks. Bloomberg news even retracted(!) an opinion article on Tek Fog because it had been based on reporting from The Wire.
Both of these stories alleged extremely serious violations—and wound up being of extremely questionable factual accuracy. The response to criticism of the October investigation into Meta was simply to double- and triple-down on the fabrications that they had published. And so too was their response to Tek Fog; until the Meta story completely and utterly fell apart in front of their very eyes ten months after they published the Tek Fog piece, The Wire's editorial staff had refused to issue a correction—despite the report being extremely factually dubious. This is a sign that the organization has irresponsible oversight from editors, and the organization frankly does not have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy in its investigative journalism. For reasons of having systemic deficiencies in editorial oversight and editors from the paper repeatedly and publicly insisting that false and fabricated content was true until the weight of criticism against them became too great to handle, and several well-respected publications more or less saying that The Wire's credibility is totally shot following this charade, this should source not be considered to be generally reliable—and I would have great concern about using this whatsoever with respect to WP:BLPs. This isn't a case where we're dealing with simple errors or misinformation; these stories well appear to be intentional political disinformation attempts. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 19:12, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Agreed. This is a case of intentional manipulation for political goal-scoring where it seems even the top leadership has a role. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

RfC: The Wire (India)

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
This is a request for comments on the reliability of The Wire, and Indian news website. Last year, The Wire published a story, fabricated by one of their employees, alleging that an Indian politician had been given the power to delete other users' posts on Instagram. No participant in the discussion questioned the seriousness of this incident. However, editors provided evidence that The Wire has previously been considered reliable. Most participants agreed that this was an isolated incident, the likes of which happen to many reliable sources. The publication's reaction to criticism was central to the discussion; editors who consider The Wire unreliable argued that they "quadrupled down" on their mistakes before admitting them, and that there was no evidence of a change in their editorial practices. Editors who consider The Wire to be generally reliable compared this incident to other similar incidents involving reliable publications, and argued that The Wire's reaction was appropriate, and that their retraction and apology speak to the website's reliability. Of these groups of editors, the latter was significantly more numerous. As such, I find a consensus that The Wire remains generally reliable for factual reporting. ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 19:39, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Which of the following best describes the reliability of Indian news website The Wire (direct url)?

— Red-tailed hawk (nest) 02:02, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Survey: The Wire (India)

  • Option 3. As I've noted in my large comment above, what we have here is a website that was exposed for creating hoaxes out of whole cloth in order to engage in political disinformation. The set of fabrications published by The Wire are of such a complex scale as to be compared to infamously fabricated Rolling Stone piece "A Rape on Campus", and many of the same deficiencies that plagued Rolling Stone at the time appear to be plaguing The Wire. When Meta contested the reporting from The Wire, the website outright accused Meta of fabrication rather than admitting its mistakes promptly. They only withdrew the story after doubling- and tripling-down on baseless allegations that were supported by fabricated evidence; rather than doing their due diligence before making extraordinary claims about Meta, The Economist correctly observes that The Wire's editorial staff undertook the stupidity of choosing partisanship over process and in the process shattered its own credibility. Responsible news organizations don't attempt to cover up their mistakes by continuing to fabricate evidence; after being asked to retract the piece, as The Washington Post notes, The Wire also published screenshots of emails it said were from independent experts vouching for its authenticity, but those emails showed incorrect dates from 2021. The images were edited to show the correct dates [(i.e. 2022)] after the story published, but not before readers caught the error. And lo and behold, those emails were indeed fabricated; everyone who The Wire claims to have sent them an email either explicitly stated that they refused to work with The Wire or stated that they had not been contacted by The Wire. This is a total failure of editorial integrity, from the reporters who initially made the incorrect reports, to the editors who knowingly allowed a doctored email to be published in an attempted cover-up rather than admit their mistake.
    It isn't just foreign observers who lack confidence in The Wire following these revelations. The Editors Guild of India has noted that issues with factual accuracy extend deeper into the website's investigative reporting, noting serious questions on the veracity of their reporting in The Wire's investigation of Tek fog, an alleged app that allegedly allowed people to send automated messages to harass female journalists, and reminding the media organization to resist the temptation of moving fast on sensitive stories, circumventing due journalistic norms and checks.
    All in all, this was a total and utter failure of fact-checking on topics that allege significant (and perhaps criminal) wrongdoing against specific parties, on multiple occasions, both on topics with explicit political relevance. This goes beyond sloppiness or misinformation—this was disinformation that appears to have been conducted and approved by both the journalists who wrote the original report as well as the editors who initially attempted to cover that very same report up. I would never want to cite this source for facts about a WP:BLP, nor for contentious facts. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 02:02, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
No reliable secondary sources accuses the editors of covering up or political disinformation nor do they mention accusations on those lines by any third party. To the contrary, the Washington Post article features a comment by the main person (the CIS co-founder) who unraveled the fabrications, where he says that the editor "maintained his personal integrity". This is pertinent because you have missed a key fact that we would not be certain that those emails were fabricated if the editor had not co-operated and disclosed the identities of the senders (they were kept anonymous).
If they really wanted to, they could have forgone accountability and easily rode on their reputation and it would have remained a debated issue among tech experts. Most of the retractions and commentary came after their own retraction. The structural conditions, i.e pressures on journalistic organisations, the need to protect sources, outstretched resources and the state of press freedom is in far severe condition in India than in the United States (read this article by NYT), so any comparison is misguided.
And saying that "foreign observers lack confidence in The Wire" (or reliable Indian ones) is inaccurate and there isn't much substantive evidence for it. It should be noted that The Economist piece is an opinion column that is making an appeal to The Wire and in general, and compares their reporting to things like Russian interference in US elections and the Cambridge Analytics scandal related to Brexit, describing them as similar mistakes, as far as I understand these are still debated over if not accepted. The full EGI statement is also a reference to the reporting on the Tek Fog app specifically; it says "Since the Wire has removed those stories as part of their internal review following serious questions on the veracity of their reporting, the Guild withdraws the references made to all those reports". It shouldn't be conflated as a judgement of The Wire general reporting. Tayi Arajakate Talk 09:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 1 Fabrications and deception by one of their employees (who was subsequently sacked) shouldn't be conflated with the news publisher as a whole. Both the stories whether Tek Fog or the one on Meta were retracted and an apology published. This is standard practise when journalistic misconduct does occur and is an indication of a reliable source.
They otherwise have a solid track record of investigative journalism and reputation as a high quality news publication, consistently receiving both major Indian and international awards. A lot could be written on this but I'll give one prime example that shows that they are considered authoritative and clearly demonstrate that it's a reliable source. BBC News has the most extensive coverage of any high quality international news publisher in India and they regularly, in nearly every major (and extremely contentious) story on India, use The Wire as a source for important related facts, without seeing the need for any attribution or qualification (such as describing it as a claim) and simply with hyperlinks directly to "thewire.in", some instances (note that these are hard to collect since they don't come up in searches, but are rather abundant):
  1. hyperlink at "ensure that Muslims stop wearing skullcaps"
  2. hyperlink at "called Muslims demons", another one at " people have been held over tweets" and another one at "held for putting up posters"
  3. hyperlink at "criticism"
  4. hyperlink at "a vendor was beaten up", etc etc
Other international outlets have a similar practise, using it as a source and present its reporting as facts, a few instances below.
  1. this report in Columbia Journalism Review on threats to journalists during the 2020 Delhi riots, it was used as a source for facts (see "...fifty-three people, the majority of whom were Muslim, had been killed..." ("fifty-three people" is hyperlinked to a thewire.in article).
  2. this piece (hyperlink at "disaffection") in the The Diplomat uses it as a source for facts on jurisprudence regarding the sedition law in India
  3. this Coda Media report (hyperlinks to 4 articles at "rebuke", "had", "observed" and "maintained") uses it as a source for facts regarding migrant workers during COVID-19 pandemic and inconsistencies in the government's claims
  4. this piece in The Verge on net neutrality
  5. this report from The Independent on the Haridwar hate speeches, and many more.
In addition, to give few examples of their reputation, as in how they are described, in the Columbia Journalism Review report on news media in India, The Wire was extensively covered and specifically described to have carried "award-winning reporting", the International Press Institute in a a report during the pandemic had stated that it "is providing some of the best coverage in the Asia-Pacific region on the impact of the coronavirus and the lock-down on disadvantaged and disempowered Indians", Foreign Policy in one of its columns described the publication as "Indian's most respected online news service", etc. Tayi Arajakate Talk 06:54, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
All of these links are from before the controversy. DFlhb (talk) 11:38, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
Kindly Disagree. This was not journalistic misconduct. It is a case of fabrication of evidence for political goal-scoring. All the cases that you have provided where The Wire has been cited as a source is before October 2022. I highly doubt that any credible news agency has used their story after this expose. SpunkyGeek (talk) 12:07, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
It demonstrates that they had a reputation for fact checking and accuracy and any determination of the source as unreliable would mean one would have to discard all articles from this period.
It also doesn't appear anything has changed post—October 2022, in December 2022, they won 2 Red Ink Awards, one for their contribution in the Pegasus Project collaboration as it's Indian partner (which they still are, and it includes reputable publications from around the world) and one for their report on transgender prisoners. The BBC documentary, India: The Modi Question (which is very high stakes), released in January 2023, features the editor of The Wire in an authoritative capacity. Tayi Arajakate Talk 13:22, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
India: The Modi Question documentary is a controversial documentary. The Wire has a known history of political bias against the present government in India hence much of its reporting is in that particular space. The documentary is a critique of the present Indian government's domestic policies. Most of the journalists who are currently part of The Wire have presented their critical analysis on the then Gujarat government (2002) and the present Indian government, therefore are part of the documentary. (We are not discussing the authenticity of their analysis here)
The Wire fabricating a piece of evidence to pursue a story with biased editorial oversight is a whole different case. Why I said 'biased' is because there have been no repercussions for senior editors or the board members of The Wire. SpunkyGeek (talk) 20:40, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
It was controversial with supporters of the present Indian government, but it was also accurate and reliable. What exactly is the issue you take with it? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:18, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
What issue I have with the documentary is irrelevant to the discussion. The Wire has practiced unethical journalism is the story here. SpunkyGeek (talk) 00:58, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 3, see my detailed reply in the pre-RFC discussion, which I won't summarise here. The Meta story was genuinely ludicrous; all the tech experts I follow on Twitter immediately questioned its veracity. Why didn't the outlet? This is far worse than A Rape on Campus, which was at least a little plausible. The Meta story had several senior editors (including a founding editor) on the byline. When Meta said sources were fabricated, these senior editors should have checked (indeed, any outlet would have done so before initial publication). Instead, they vociferously quadrupled-down, called Meta's denials "obfuscation", and wrote about Meta's denial in a shockingly combative way (alleging that Meta was trying to "goad" them into revealing their sources). The Wire's editorial failures go far beyond the fired journalist, and four months later, still haven't been addressed. They pledged "transparency", yet haven't publicly announced any changes to their editorial process. Firing a journalist doesn't solve their lack of editorial oversight. The Tek Fog story hasn't been corroborated by other outlets, relied on the now-fired journalist, allegedly has "glaring holes", and yet is still not retracted (only "removed from view"). It's on them to prove they addressed their editorial issues, not on us to assume they did.
Let's see what third-parties think:
  • "Unprecedented polarization, the trumping of ideology over facts, active hate-mongering or pamphleteering, and the death of nuance — particularly in prime time television — all make up the new normal. Journalists are increasingly either chamcha ya morcha: sycophants and shameful supplicants to power, or activists dreaming of regime change." (Semafor)
  • "a once-dependable news website", "sheer irresponsibility" (Slate)
  • URLs shown in the report didn't actually exist (a MarketWatch reporter)
  • "The Wire did not ask Meta for comment [...] ahead of publishing" (a Buzzfeed News reporter); that's egregious!
I'm not alleging that this was a deliberate hoax on The Wire's part. But I don't need to. I evaluate sources based on their editorial practices, and theirs just aren't good enough. DFlhb (talk) 12:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
This is easy to say in hindsight but the fact is tech experts were uncertain and divided. Even Sophie Zhang, someone who had understanding of Meta's systems was for a time convinced by the journalist's conviction despite her initial doubts. It's also inaccurate to say they have announced no changes, they did in the apology they published.
In the end there's a simple question, can you (or anyone) bring any news report of theirs or any reliable secondary coverage that questions their reporting and is not in the context of this controversy, this one journalist, or these retracted and/or withdrawn (or "removed from view" if you will) reports?
There is so much evidence that demonstrates that they have a "reputation for fact checking and accuracy" which is how we determine which sources are reliable, not on our own ideas of their internal workings (based on one episode that is), one should at least be able to show a pattern across the organisation. Tayi Arajakate Talk 13:22, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
Zhang had left Facebook two years earlier, and had no understanding of Facebook's then-current systems. She also falsely claimed that the docs must have been faked by a Facebook employee, which is... understandable, given her dislike of the company, but was completely baseless. Meanwhile, independent observers and proper journalists were skeptical from the start, and were harassed by The Wire's supporters.
The fact is, trust is earned, not given. It's true that they're among the better Indian outlets, but declaring them GENREL means they can be used as sourcing in BLPs, and everywhere else. Here, "business as usual" is not tenable. The polarisation pointed out by Semafor means that it's no longer a case of outstanding independent journalists on one side, and government propagandists on the other side; sadly, the independent side is no longer fully trustworthy either. DFlhb (talk) 14:37, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
That doesn't answer my question, you are just showing me twitter comments and opining on them. With the evidence you have the only articles that shouldn't be used for BLPs and elsewhere are the ones that can't be used anyways because have been withdrawn/retracted. Tayi Arajakate Talk 15:36, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
The argument that a news outlet is printing against a government can be termed as a reliable source is meaningless in this context.
Here we have a specific case where it seems that the top leadership of The Wire has participated in the intentional fabricating of evidence. Giving them amnesty would not only set a wrong precedent but will also put a question mark on WP:RSP guidelines. SpunkyGeek (talk) 19:52, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
The Wire was also ordered to take down 14 (not 1 or 2) of its stories by the Telangana Court for reporting against Indian vaccine manufacturers (Bharat Biotech, COVAXIN). Yet no action was taken by the "internal editorial board" of The Wire.
(Such were the violations that Telangana Court also barred The Wire from further reporting)
See:Telangana Court orders The Wire to take down its stories
If you are claiming this is to be a one-time incident then I have to kindly and strongly disagree with that. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:07, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
An Indian court ordering a news source to take down a story does not mean that story is not true; indeed, given recent events, it may even be more likely that it is. Black Kite (talk) 22:23, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
If the stories were authentic, don't you think The Wire would have gone to the higher courts?
Also, many other publications would have supported them to pursue this. SpunkyGeek (talk) 23:13, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
DFlhb In fact, the very Slate article you quoted here shows them having a solid reputation even in midst of the controversy. I hope you read it in its entirety. Some full quotes from it:
  1. "The Wire has done important, noble work under duress, and its best writing remains a brilliant exemplar of what Indian journalism can do best. But going forward, it’ll be so much harder to do this type of journalism."
  2. "To be clear, informed analysts of the saga did not tend to believe the Wire acted maliciously in order to defame Meta. Rather, they said this was probably the result of an elaborate scheme planned by someone with a vendetta against the Wire. Or, as Stamos put it, “an extremely successful op against opposition journalism.”"
  3. "Misinformation from BJP foot soldiers at all levels make it so sites like the Wire are the only way anyone outside India can get an accurate view of one of the world’s most important countries."
  4. "Wire had become one of the most dynamic Indian publications of the Modi years, a singular bulwark against the flood of false and propagandistic “news” that took over so much of Indian media. Along with outlets like the Caravan, Scroll, Alt News, the Print, and Cobrapost, the Wire offered detailed, incisive reporting on the realities of modern-day Indian life and politics."
  5. "The pressure is high in the subcontinent, and the Wire’s most intrepid writers doubtlessly face daily threats of the kind few American journalists are familiar with. Yet that also makes their rectitude all the more imperative."

They are treating it like a reputable publication that has made a mistake, which is exactly what we should be doing. Tayi Arajakate Talk 14:32, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I did read it in its entirety, and this misdirects us into the weeds. The fact that The Wire faces threats by the government, or that they weren't outright malicious, or that "their best writing" is good, has nothing to do with their editorial standards, which is what we judge here. The two Slate quotes I give earlier do address The Wire's reliability. Note that beyond publishing an apology, "promising" to vet their stories better, and retracting the Meta story, they still haven't shown any evidence of changes. They still haven't retracted or re-examined their TekFog story, and the founding editor on the Meta byline is still employed. DFlhb (talk) 14:44, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
It has everything to do with "editorial standards" and is exactly what we should be looking at. Coverage from reliable secondary sources is how we determine their reputation and their editorial standards. It doesn't matter whether you find it trustworthy or what you imagine their editorial standards to be. The article is more or less describing their journalism as one of the best and one of the few where you can get actual news in the country, that very very clearly shows that they are considered a reliable source.
WP:REPUTABLE and WP:USEBYOTHERS are guidelines on reliable sources, and by now it's clear that they more than comply with both. Tayi Arajakate Talk 15:36, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
There's a difference between a website's stated editorial standards and the extent to which they are put into practice. If extremely senior people are disregarding editorial standards (such as happened in "A Rape on Campus"), then that reflects much, much more broadly on the quality of the organization's editorial oversight than a mere blurb of text that the news organization claims to adhere to. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 15:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
I second your point @Red-tailed hawk. The leading editors in this fiasco have faced no inquiries or consequences. The same editorial board is now reviewing the misconduct. This alone should be shocking for an editor with some journalistic standards. SpunkyGeek (talk) 20:58, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Observation What would be the optics of Wikipedia declaring a news source unreliable, when that news source has been one of those recently harrassed by the Modi Government (the most recent was the BBC, whose Indian HQ was invaded by "tax inspectors") because it prints news that show the Government in a bad light? I suggest those optics would be very poor. Black Kite (talk) 15:03, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
    Nobody here is arguing that the source unreliable because it shows the Indian government in a bad light. We're arguing that it's unreliable because of failures of editorial control and fact-checking, and that responsibility for this goes all the way up to the top. I hope that answers your question. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 15:29, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
The irony here is that BBC itself seems to be find them reliable. Tayi Arajakate Talk 16:26, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
Why are we considering optics here? Whom are we trying to satisfy here? The only thing that should matter is if a news outlet has participated in journalistic malpractice that too intentionally on the highest level, then there should be repercussions for it.
Those who want to consider optics should also consider that if grave misconduct by a news outlet is gone unscathed what precedent are we setting here? SpunkyGeek (talk) 20:00, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
My concern is that two (yes,two) incidents are being used to turn one of the few reasonably neutral Indian news sources into "unreliable" and put it on the same footing as actual Indian fake news sites such as Republic TV. This isn't the Daily Mail or Russia Today that we're talking about here. Black Kite (talk) 20:47, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
See:Telangana Court orders The Wire to take down its stories
Another violation for your reference.
Also, your argument does not provide any substance to nullify points made by @Red-tailed hawk and @DFlhb. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:11, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
I see. Well, on the same subject, perhaps you could give us a run down of this edit of yours, explaining why the mainstream news services there are unreliable (I am well aware that Reddit and forums are no good, it's the other sources I'm interested in). Black Kite (talk) 22:20, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
The context of this forum is The Wire's reliability.
However, the content written was opinion based rather than having encyclopedic language. I would be happy to work with you on that article if you have some suggestions. SpunkyGeek (talk) 22:59, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 1 per Tayi_Arajakate. They have a lot of quality content and the response to the Meta incident shows that they have editorial standards and act upon them. Alaexis¿question? 20:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 1. It's the response including take down and corrective measures that test a publication's reliability. The case where a publication themselves intentionally fabricates is where it is deemed unreliable. The Wire was deceived by one of their own thus causing a fiasco, the publication didn't intentionally fabricate. They took it down and took corrective actions. Unreliable sources don't — DaxServer (t · m · c) 21:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 3 I think arguments made by @Red-tailed hawk and @DFlhb are spot on. There has been no accountability for the senior editors in this incident. What can be more shocking is the same team is reviewing this debacle. (Not the first time that The Wire is under severe scrutiny). An impartial inquiry is needed which seems highly doubtful here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SpunkyGeek (talk • contribs) 23:10, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 1. The Wire has screwed up big time, but their ultimate response has been that of a reliable news organization, and the tenor of the most detailed pieces, such as the Slate article, suggest they have been hoodwinked rather than that they've engaged in intentional malpractice. If something similar happens again in the future, it might suggest that there's a systemic issue here, but otherwise it's too soon to deprecate. Vanamonde (Talk) 22:38, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
    The Slate article is a Future Tense column. We recently discussed these sorts of columns on this very noticeboard; the pieces are characterized by Slate itself as daily commentary published on Slate, and the piece from Slate isn't exactly straight news reporting. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 06:31, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
It's quite inaccurate to charecterise Future Tense as a column (columns are personal or editorial opinion sections of particular columnists). This is a newsletter under a wide collaboration, which includes commentary (and reportage) and brings in expertise with it. Tayi Arajakate Talk 11:10, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 1 we shouldn't rush to judgement on the basis of one incident allegedly involving one rogue reporter. The wire has been painted as an anti-Mohdi publication and is therefore subject to intimidation, demonization and propoganda including from pro-Mohdi sources in the same way as many other respectable sources have been including the BBC. See these two articles from The Guardian for some context here and here, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 22:22, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 1: for an organization that won prizes for its journalism in the past, and issues corrections when they make mistakes. Mottezen (talk) 22:48, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 1: The situation that led to this RFC is very bad, but it is still singular. The organization took the steps one would expect such an organization to take when the problem became known. Long-term, institutional problems have not been demonstrated beyond this event. Yes, it is not good, but it is still just one incident. --Jayron32 14:12, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment Then how about Option 2: exercise additional caution for tech-related reporting? That’s a small minority of their stories; and the founding editor admitted that the main reason for this fuckup was a general lack of tech expertise among their staff, who would have caught it if they had better domain-knowledge. This would also allows us to keep using them for Indian politics, since it’s true that they’re one of the few independent publications left in India, and have done some good work. DFlhb (talk) 07:33, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
No, that's a bad option and just unnecessary, it would bring into question their coverage in the Pegasus Project collaboration, for which there is no evidence that there's anything wrong with it. The rest of their other tech related news coverage is just very basic "who said what" reporting; for example this report or this report, there aren't any problems with these either.
After what happened, it's highly unlikely that they are going to try to pursue any tech related story on their own again, for the foreseeable future. And if any issue arises in the future, we can always revisit this. Tayi Arajakate Talk 09:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 1 The Wire has retracted the problematic reporting in question. You can find problems in just any source which has published thousands of articles until now. Unless there is a pattern of biased reporting I don't think we should be really discussing this. Capitals00 (talk) 02:51, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 1 - It is reliable enough for a news website. I don't see evidence to the contrary even after reading the whole discussion above. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 04:49, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 1 Per Tayi and Atlantic306.
    Even giants like NYT (Jayson Blair) and WaPo (Janet Cooke) have fell victim to hoaxes courtesy rogue reporters but such episodes are blips in a stellar record of journalism across the years. Much has been made out of the fact that the outlet had "quadrupled down" on the story in face of adverse comments (before coming to retract it) but such a defensive response is natural when one considers the sorry state of media freedom in India — anyway, for a comparison, Cooke's story had raised quite a many red flags in the newsroom and even by external observers but her editor chose to not buy them and instead nominated it for a Pulitzer!
    On the overall, I have a hard time believing that the OP has followed any media scandal in the past couple of decades. The RfC is misguided and unless The Wire develops a track record of producing similar dubious stuff, we shan't be revisiting this. TrangaBellam (talk) 05:49, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Let us see what a domain-expert who aided in debunking the fake story says:

    I do not think that The Wire as an organisation was complicit in this, if nothing else, because their behaviour was not consistent with that assumption. For instance, The Wire provided the identities of the experts to other people to verify. If you knew that these were forged, it is unlikely you would do that—you would make up an excuse about their safety and say, “We can’t tell you who it is,” or something like that.
    — Zhang, Sophie (2022-12-01). "What the Wire-Meta saga means for the future of tech-reporting". The Caravan.

  • It is blindingly obvious that the publication was taken by a reporter — who has since been documented to have highly dubious antecedents and a propensity for pathological lying — for a ride. This gullibility does reflect poorly on the organization but it was possible only because — as Zhang notes — tech journalism has not yet developed in India. TrangaBellam (talk) 06:44, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 1. Even the best publications like The Lancet (the Wakefield "vaccines cause autism" hoax) and The New York Times (the Jayson Blair incident) have, at some point or another, had these kind of screwups. What tells us if they are reliable is not that they never make an error, even a big one, as over enough time, they will. Rather, it is whether they own up to it, appropriately publish corrections and retractions, and generally seem to care that they made the error and commit to doing better going forward. If this becomes a pattern, we can revisit the issue, but that hasn't happened yet. Seraphimblade Talk to me 15:23, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 1 The best of news organizations get taken in by a story that's too good to pass up (Hitler diaries and the venerable The Sunday Times and Stern (magazine) come to mind). Unless there is a pattern of misreporting and poor editorial judgement, there is no reason to downgrade an otherwise respectable source. --RegentsPark (comment) 16:51, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
    With all due respect, but Stern doesn't belong in the league of "green" sources. I've checked WP:perennial sources with relief not finding it there. They fell for Kujau's forgeries for a reason, and would have fallen for all other Kujaus to come; they were just spared because other potential Kujaus wouldn't choose Stern because of its borderline reputation, thus being a bad venue for propagating "high-quality" hoaxes. –Austronesier (talk) 21:23, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 1 per Tayi, TrangaBellam etc. I have asked in the pre-RfC discussion if there is "any indication (ideally from a reliable source) that we should consider this to be more than a deplorable, yet individual incident?" and since then haven't seen anything that comes even close. Instead, I see a narrative that attempts to present The Wire in an undifferentiated manner as a wilful agent of fabricating false information, when no source actually support such a claim. Yes, it was reputation-shattering event, but no-one has provided evidence of a pattern of low editorial standards in their previous or subsequent output. –Austronesier (talk) 21:14, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 1 - The problems that arose were in one narrow section of technology invesigative reporting, where the editorial board lacked sufficient expertise. I judge that The Wire handled it responsibly after problems were discovered. There is nothing here to castigate the media house. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:43, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment: I am not familiar enough with the source and haven't looked through all of the links but it seems to me that nobody arguing for options 2 or 3 is basing it on any pattern pre- or post- the recent Meta reporting. Use by others up to October 2022 suggests it was widely considered reliable until then. The very upfront and prominent apology suggests that lessons have been learnt. For us to move to anything other than option 1, I'd need to see evidence outside of the Meta stories. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:57, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 1, they had a serious issue and according to the reliable sources they adequately addressed those issues and they are not indicative of widespread issues with their other reporting. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:21, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 1. It is absurd for us to be even considering deprecating an otherwise reputed and trustworthy news website as unreliable for a solitary instance of a slip-up, where they not only retracted the story and formally acknowledged the oversight, but took corrective measures to guard against future recurrence of it. That, if anything, reflects credit on thier journalistic ethos. The Wire, indeed, for long have distinguished themselves, amongst all the partisan noise, with thier elaborate reportage, critical and erudite commentary and critique, high journalistic and writing standards. It would be a travesty to downgrade this eminently reliable source of information. MBlaze Lightning (talk) 19:42, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 3 per SpunkyGeek, Red-tailed hawk and DFlhb this is not a one time incident. Its reporting is very controversial it has been subject to several ongoing defamation suits by businessmen and politicians the number of cases disproportionately high for a website of its size.Here for example Bharat Biotech has filed 100 Crore ongoing suit against it here and Telangana court ordered them to take down 14 articles hereand herePharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 02:03, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
    Oh, come off it. That's such an absurd proposition and a travesty. Defamation suits by rogue "businessmen and politicians" ought not be construed a blemish on the The Wire's character; it is, if anything, a testament to their bold, intrepid and undaunted investigative journalism. Those are the earmarks that beckon amidst the jarring context of a conspicuous decline in press freedom in the country, where, paradoxically, an obtrusive section of the predominantly docile media hobnobs with a rogue, Hindu nationalist regime to boot, and disseminates disinformation to bamboozle a credulous populace. The Wire's investigative journalism has, notwithstanding the context, stood out as a torchbearer of journalism in the country. MBlaze Lightning (talk) 07:28, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
Being a target of legal cases is no evidence of unreliability, if this is so then most independent press in the country would become unreliable. Do you have any secondary reliable source documented anything wrong with the articles related to these cases? To my knowledge, there is none whatsover. To the contrary secondary reliable sources (including scholarly ones) describe them as instances of harassment,[1] intimidation,[2] attacks on press freedom,[3][4] strategic lawsuits against public participation,[5] etc.
Here the takedown order isn't even any kind of judgement, it's an ad interim ex parte injunction, i.e a temporary order (for the duration of the case) granted solely on the basis of one party's concern. In 2017, the same injuction was applied on a different case and dismissed after two years, it means absolutely nothing. Tayi Arajakate Talk 10:00, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 1 (Weak vote) I am definitely not informed enough to make a unqualified !vote on this. There's clearly editors with agenda participating in this discussion, which seems to have driven up the back-and-forth engagement through the roof. However just reading all the arguments (and not having done enough background research of my own), I'm not convinced at all by any argument in favour of Option 3. There's a few facts that are being recycled through over and over in the hopes of convincing others, without addressing most of the core issues brought up by others. I'd request any closing admins to scrutinise policy behind the arguments very heavily. Soni (talk) 04:29, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 3: I am moved by Red-tailed hawk, especially his reference to one of the most credible media outlets out there, The Economist, which not only lambasted The Wire's coverage on Meta and Tek Fog for "choosing partisanship over process", but also defined it as an anti-BJP religious bigot with the following, "wanting to believe is a fine quality in a pilgrim but a lousy one for holding power to account." Fayninja (talk) 10:05, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
@Fayninja: The Economist did not "defined it as an anti-BJP religious bigot" at all, you're radically misinterpreting an idiom. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:55, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Three Indian journalists could be jailed for nine years for tweets about video". Reporters sans frontieres. 17 June 2021.
  2. ^ Deb, Siddhartha (2019). "Killing Press Freedom in India". In Burrett, Tina; Kingston, Jeffrey (eds.). Press Freedom in Contemporary Asia. Routledge. pp. 288–289. ISBN 978-0-429-01303-4. ... The caution of the national media can in part be explained by the pressure and intimidation it can expect. The Wire was served with a criminal defamation suit by the lawyers of Jay Shah, with the court obligingly issuing a gag order until the trial was complete ...
  3. ^ Ghoshal, Somak (2020). "Open book? In India, where people are forced to download a tracking app to get paid, journalists are worried about it also being used to access their contacts". Index on Censorship. 49 (2): 53–55. doi:10.1177/0306422020935803. ISSN 0306-4220 – via SAGE Journals. ... the government's retaliation against independent journalists who are exposing the human costs of the pandemic is severe. Siddharth Varadarajan, founding editor of news platform The Wire, was recently summoned by police to Ayodhya, a city in Uttar Pradesh, 435 miles away from his home in Delhi, during the height of the national lockdown, when travel even within cities was severely restricted ...
  4. ^ Mukherji, Rahul (2020). "Covid vs. Democracy: India's Illiberal Remedy". Journal of Democracy. 31 (4): 91–105. doi:10.1353/jod.2020.0058. ISSN 1086-3214 – via Project MUSE.
  5. ^ AK, Aditya (26 November 2018). "Another SLAPP in the face? Anil Ambani's Reliance Group now has The Wire in its crosshairs". Bar and Bench.

Discussion: The Wire (India)

I didn't get mine. Wasn't an issue though. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:58, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
@Red-tailed hawk, I suspect that your ping failed for everyone. This page lists the triggers for pings to work. Because your edit began with a change to an existing line—even though you added lines later on—I'm guessing Echo skipped it. The same thing probably happened with this edit as well. Woodroar (talk) 02:20, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
Well, I guess I've learned what not to do. Thank you for the link; I'll keep it in mind the next time I try to send a mass ping. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 03:46, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Is the credibility of the source at risk?

Was what I did wrong? -- Karsan Chanda (talk) 02:13, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

No. I just now reverted the removal of your well-sourced edit at that page. The reference was specifically discussed previously at RSN. Banks Irk (talk) 03:02, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

World Spider Catalog

I am currently reviewing Wanda Wesołowska for Good Article, and came up with a sourcing issue that I think would be better answered by discussion here than through the GA review process itself. Most of the sourcing on the article is unproblematic. But there are two footnotes I was wondering about, to the "World Spider Catalog".

In the current article, footnote [3] is to a 2001 archived version [4] of a catalog page [5] listing spider species in one of Wesołowska's publications. The archived and current version are slightly different (e.g. current lists an urn under Epocilla calcarata; several species have changed names and positions in the table). It is used to source the sentence "The paper included descriptions of nine new species, including Euophrys pygmaea and Icius parvus, which were both later moved to the genus Phintella, and Plexippoides regius." According to the nominator, you can tell when a species is new by a capital D in the pages/figure column of the page, and you can find removals to other genera by comparing the published and species column. The removals to other genera have changed between the two versions but despite appearing in different places the number of Ds seems to be unchanged.

Also in the current article, footnote [7] is to a search results page for the catalog, for a search for Wesołowska as species author [6]. The page I get when I follow this link shows "1 to 50 out of 572 entries", with links to more pages of results for the rest. It is used to source the sentence "As of January 2023, according to the World Spider Catalog, Wesołowska is responsible for naming 572 species and 40 genera." It doesn't list genera directly but if one changes the "spec author" search field to "gen author", and does the search again, the result is a list of 40 genera.

So, my questions, looking for more opinions here: are these two types of catalog page reliable, in general? And is the information sourced from it acceptably sourced, or is it original research by synthesis? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:22, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

"The World Spider Catalog considers all taxonomically useful published work. Unpublished statements – even if correct – will not be taken over here. Also contents of websites that are not published elsewhere are not considered."[7]
"The Editorial Board screens submitted publications and decides if they shall be included into the World Spider Catalog. Dubious cases are forwarded to the Expert Board. In general, the Organizing Board may ask the Editorial Board for advice."[8]
It is maintained by the Natural History Museum of Bern, the members of the editorial board seem all to be academic arachnologists. Looks reliable to me. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 07:39, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

The National (newspaper, Scotland)

The National is a newspaper in Scotland owned by the US media conglomerate, Gannett. It was created for the purpose of proving a news outlet committed to Scottish political independence in a media landscape dominated by news outlets with the opposte editorial policies, and to campaign for independence where this is the main political issue which divides voters in Scotland. It initially had a very small budget. It has been reported that its paid-for circulation is in the low thousands (e.g. 3000 in 2017). It was eventually purchased by Gannett, who also own the Herald newspaper in Scotland. It exists today with a small staff which takes advantage of its link with The Herald in respect of news gatheridng and so forth. It is written in good-faith for the independence supporting community (around half of the Scottish population is pro-independence). However, this means that its stories are often highly nuanced in favour of independence and its approach to stories lead to statements and presentation of facts which can be unreliable in respect of a readership which goes beyond it's core political support base. Notably, this is not an editorial line - these can change as newspapers come across new political conditions - it is the newspaper's raison d'etre. Should The National be regarded as a partially deprecated, or evern fully-depredated source? My own instinct is that it should be deprecated for the purpose of anything policial, but taken on a case by case basis for anything else. https://www.thenational.scot https://www.heraldscotland.com. All the best, Emmentalist (talk) 11:23, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

  • Well, it certainly shouldn't be fully deprecated - a swift perusal of the newspaper shows that it carries many stories that are irrelevant to Scottish independence, whether they be international stories or ones that are irrelevant to politics. And even political stories (i.e. this) are often simply ones that have been covered by every other newspaper. Obviously one needs to be careful, but unless there is a history of The National actually printing severely biased or untrue stories, I don't think it's an issue. Black Kite (talk) 11:40, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
    It seems to me that particularly in respect of political stories which involve independence, a newspaper created to campaign for independence with a paid circulation of a few thousand independence supporters may well be best regarded as a part deprecated source on a case by case basis. In respect of other stories, since they come from The Herald directly in many cases, they are quite likely entirely legit. Emmentalist (talk) 12:54, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Unless there is some evidence of unreliable reporting beyond that which is typical of the British mainstream press, then The National should be considered reliable on all topics. All British newspapers have strong political positions, The Times and Telegraph are pro-Tory and pro-union, The Guardian is centrist to social-democratic and pro-EU and pro-Union for example.
The "unreliable presentation of facts" argument applies to all of these newspapers, it is ALWAYS necessary for editors to be aware of this and attribute where necessary. As it stands, the National should be considered a mainstream reliable source, however, if the original user wishes to see it downgraded an RfC would be one way to present these arguments. Boynamedsue (talk) 13:12, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment. No evidence has been presented here substantiating the claims/problem being articulated by Emmentalist. I would think we would need to see evidence of unreliable reporting to even discuss this problem. Given that we do accept Gannett's other publications as reliable mainstream RS; I am not seeing any reason to divert from that practice with this particular publication at present.4meter4 (talk) 22:04, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
I agree. This is a typical WP: NEWSORG. Every newspaper has an editorial POV of one kind of another; having an editorial policy favoring Scottish independence just happens to be theirs. It doesn't render their news reporting unreliable. Banks Irk (talk) 23:47, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for all the comments. It does seem clear that the newspaper shouldn't be deprecated and it's been a useful education for me too. All the best, Emmentalist (talk) 07:43, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Is Stack Exchange a reliable source

(non-admin closure) Closing as this has become unproductive. User-generated content is not reliable, no matter how good it is or how good its moderation is. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:22, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

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

Stack Exchange is a popular community-driven question-and-answer website where users can post questions and receive answers from other community members. Stack Exchange has certain measures in place to maintain quality and accuracy, such as community moderation, peer-review, and voting system to help identify reliable answers. Starship 24 (talk) 22:44, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Absolutely not. USERG even with the moderation aspects. Masem (t) 22:46, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
Interesting that it isnt listed on the example despite 30 million users. @Masem Starship 24 (talk) 22:52, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
Masem is correct - user generated content (WP:UGC) is not made reliable by moderation, be that by community volunteers or paid staff. It is unreliable for any assertion. Girth Summit (blether) 22:51, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
Why? @Girth Summit Starship 24 (talk) 22:53, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
You can trust us on this, it is not reliable, no matter how big of a fan you are of it. SeeWP:USERG Banks Irk (talk) 23:14, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
But why isnt it reliable @Banks Irk Starship 24 (talk) 23:32, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
Which part of WP:USERG don't you understand? And stop pinging editors in your replies. It's annoying and unnecessary. Banks Irk (talk) 23:38, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
The reason that constant moderation and deletion of wrong posts isnt considered something that makes it reliable Starship 24 (talk) 23:40, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
Quick reversions of obvious spam by volunteer moderators does not equate with an editorial staff or professional fact checking. Wikipedia itself has constant moderation and reversion of vandalism, but we don't regard ourselves as a reliable source either. MrOllie (talk) 23:49, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
Stack Exchange sites tend to have a lot of professionals on them @MrOllie Starship 24 (talk) 23:52, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
"Tend" but not "required to". There's no assurance that a marked correct answer, reviewed by a moderator, has been thoroughly checked in the same manner that a peer-reviewed paper has been checked. Some of the right answers are those that happen to work for the question-asker, but do not really give right information. Masem (t) 00:11, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
There is no perfect assurance of anything @Masem Starship 24 (talk) 00:17, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
Yes, but processes like peer review or journalist editorial control are signs that the material we use can generally be considered accurate and reliable. User-based moderation is not that. Masem (t) 00:27, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
Also keep in mind that SE answers are usually referenced @Masem Starship 24 (talk) 00:29, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
You're bludgeoning the discussion and every editor has told you the same thing. This isn't a close call. The bar on user-generated content is thorough, long-standing, and uncontroversial. If an acknowledged expert published something on StackExchange then that post might be usable under WP:SPS, but that entire scenario is far-fetched at best. Mackensen (talk) 01:11, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
I like it, I post there, it's mission-critical for people working in IT, and no, it is not reliable. Sorry. Mackensen (talk) 23:22, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
Spam is generally deleted within a few hours max and low-quality or wrong post in a few days max@Mackensen Starship 24 (talk) 23:33, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

OurtimeBD

Saw this publication used in several Wikipedia pages. I cannot find anything on the website that lists editorial standards and the homepage URL says "beta" which leads me to believe this is just a blog. Hoping to get another set of eyes in case I am missing something as I do not see it as a reliable sources. CNMall41 (talk) 22:19, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

I found the name Nayeemul Islam Khan on the website as its editor. There is a page for Nayeemul Islam Khan who is a journalist and likely the same person who is named on the website. That page is now at AfD as I don't believe he is notable based on the available sourcing. Would still like anyone's feedback about OurtimeBD. Unless someone is able to tell me it is realiable, there is nothing indicating that it is. --CNMall41 (talk) 04:06, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
OurtimeBD seems to be the online edition of an English language newspaper from Bangladesh. I think it is the same as the Daily Our Time listed here with a circulation of 39,998. I found no further information about the quality or reliability of the paper. I assume that the "beta" in the URL refers to the version of the homepage. They may be testing a new design. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 11:56, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. I am still leaning as it being non-reliable. I cannot locate any editorial standards at all. I also cannot see a connection between the publications. They look possibly connected but then again it could be someone creating a blog to make it seem like they are connected to a more notable publication. --CNMall41 (talk) 07:02, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
I have found the person listed as the editor mentioned as the editor of the Daily Our Time, e.g. here and here. The lack of further information about editorial policy or relevant information that you would expect any reputable WP:NEWSORG to display does not inspire confidence. Looking around on the page I found that most of the content seems to be taken from other sources (including The Guardian and cnn). Even a lot of the specifically Bangladeshi content is taken from other Bangladeshi news sources. There are some articles that are attributed to "correspondents". All in all it seems to be a very small publication. Given that they take a lot of content from other sources some of the references on Wikipedia may be salvageable by digging for the original sources. I seriously doubt that any of the site's original reporting contains notable information that cannot be found in better sources. So I see no reason not to err on the safe side and regard it as non-reliable. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 12:57, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
Probably best. I will take a look at them all this afternoon and see if they can be replaced. --CNMall41 (talk) 16:16, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
I replaced those I could, removed the statements where there were no other source, and tagged the rest as needed citations. Should take care of it. --CNMall41 (talk) 03:45, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Southwest Voices

Can Southwest Voices be used in Minneapolis#Education? Specific sentences are... in more than fifty schools, divided between community and magnet and Students enter a lottery to be enrolled in a magnet school.. Ms. Whitler gives the best overview[1] I have found, maybe because the school district is redesigning their website. Sadly, the pandemic killed two reliable local papers (Southwest Journal and City Pages). I'd like to include as many of the new attempts as possible (this noticeboard already cleared Racket for non-controversial reporting, thank you).

  • There are a lot of these community-based local news organizations that are basically replacing local newspapers. Southwest Voices and Racket are both part of Twin Cities Media Group [9]. It has an editor and a staff of reporters, so it is not user-generated. This particular reporter specializes in education issues, so the referenced article is in her wheelhouse. I think that, like Racket, it is fine for non-controversial, local news. Banks Irk (talk) 19:02, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Whitler, Melissa (April 11, 2022). "What is the Comprehensive District Design?". Southwest Voices. Retrieved February 20, 2023.

SusanLesch (talk) 18:43, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Sourcing summaries of non-fiction texts (in articles on those texts)

This is a general question about articles on non-fiction texts, in particular philosophical texts. How should the section summarizing the text be sourced? I can find no guideline on this.

I have looked at several articles on notable philosophical texts, and in each case the summary of the text is sourced directly to the original text (and that often sparsely). This includes all the articles in the list below. Is there clear guidance on this?

By comparison: For non-fiction there is a clear guideline, WP:PLOTSOURCE, which states: "The plot summary for a work, on a page about that work, does not need to be sourced with in-line citations, as it is generally assumed that the work itself is the primary source for the plot summary. However, editors are encouraged to add sourcing if possible, as this helps discourage original research." Butterfly or Chuang Tzu? (talk) 11:08, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Examples of articles on philosophical texts

The following articles on philosophical texts cite directly to the primary text (or do not cite at all) when summarizing:

Butterfly or Chuang Tzu? (talk) 11:08, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

There is WP:RSPRIMARY. Beyond that I don't know whether there are any recommendations. Personally I would say that the more controversial the interpretation of a text is the more you should use secondary sources. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 11:24, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
I disagree, Quotes should be quotes, interpretation we always leave up to RS, if RS do not say it neither can we. Slatersteven (talk) 11:26, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
Who interprets the interpretation? There are philosophical texts where summarising the content does not require more interpretation than summarising a secondary source. An example would be J. L. Austin's How to Do Things with Words. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 11:35, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
wp:rs via wp:v, if RS say it so can we, if RS do not then we cannot. Slatersteven (talk) 11:37, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
And a book can actually be a reliable source on what is written in that book. Otherwise you'd have to get rid of WP:PLOTSOURCE and the idea that it is possible to understand a text (admittedly there are people in the Hermeneutics tradition, not to mention Postmodernists who would underwrite that). Random person no 362478479 (talk) 11:46, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
Yes of course hence why I said "Quotes should be quotes". Slatersteven (talk) 11:51, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the above, productive feedback. My question was general, not particular to any particular article. It seems that there is a gap in the guidelines, where an equivalent of WP:PLOTSOURCE needs to be formulated for articles on non-fiction texts. Butterfly or Chuang Tzu? (talk) 16:05, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Butterfly or Chuang Tzu? should have notified me of this thread. It is about my efforts to edit The Philosophy of Freedom.
The editors of The Philosophy of Freedom seemed to be content with an article which did not WP:CITE any WP:FRIND source. The citation to Rawls is original research. Just show me that Rawls wrote a single line of text about Rudolf Steiner. One line of text would be enough for WP:V purposes. Otherwise Rawls isn't WP:RS for The Philosophy of Freedom. Just because Steiner used the words "moral intuition", it by no means follows that he was an adept of moral intuitionism.
Hitler's art wasn't ugly, but it was 18th century art, not 20th century art. Same can be said about Rudolf Steiner's philosophy: he did not belong to 20th century philosophy, but his home was in 18th century German Idealism. And moral intuitionism is a 20th century ethics. Hint: moral intuitionism could also mean deontology, but Steiner was a declared adversary of deontology. Non-deontological ethical intuitionism is a 20th century ethics.
If citing Rawls is on the table, then citing Marco Pasi's book about Aleister Crowley is also on the table. You can't have one without another. Otherwise it's "rules for thee, but not for me".
So, yes, if the Anthroposophists are allowed to WP:CITE Rawls, although there is no evidence that Rawls ever read Steiner, then I should be also allowed to WP:CITE Pasi's book (the difference being that Pasi did read Steiner to some extent).
It is a shame that the first WP:FRIND source has been introduced only in 2023. That is, the article waited more than 17 years for a WP:FRIND source. tgeorgescu (talk) 06:55, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

The problems are clear: violations of years-old wikipedic consensus. You might be amazed that it was the creator of that article himself who told me about such consensus.

I did not invent such consensus, but I'm thinking coherently what it entails, instead of "rules for thee, but not for me." The reason for the consensus was cogently explained to me at [10]. But of course, it only applies to my edits, not to his edits. Kindergarten morality.

Who decided that when the pro-Steiner faction cites Rudolf Steiner, it isn't controversial, but when I call it "Law of Thelema" it is highly controversial? Since both are WP:OR.

Even more clearly expressed at [11]. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:33, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Rawls and Pasi

The pro-Steiner editors will have to decide: either they allow me to WP:CITE Marco Pasi's book about Aleister Crowley inside The Philosophy of Freedom article, or the citation to Rawls gets deleted.

So, either Rawls and Pasi are both allowed, or they are both disallowed. Citing only one of them is a textbook case of a double standard. Since if citing Pasi is original research, by the very same standard citing Rawls is original research. And there is no overarching policy applicable, such as WP:PSCI dictating that the scientific orthodoxy gets explained through a bit of WP:OR in order to situate the pseudoscientific view in the context of mainstream scientific thought. tgeorgescu (talk) 07:02, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Rudolf Steiner's writings

The consensus during the WP:ARBCOM case (now rescinded) and afterwards is that Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophists do not write WP:RS. The argument for it is that their works are extremely difficult to interpret, so their interpretation should be left to mainstream academics and to debunkers of pseudoscience. Has such consensus changed? tgeorgescu (talk) 16:41, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

The sheer idea of treating Steiner and Anthroposophists as reliable sources is a bit of a howler. It's a bit like using L. Ron Hubbard and his disciples as reliable sources for an article on Scientology. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 17:10, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
Yup, as shown above, the discussed article violates the very same standards which the creator of that article preached unto other Wikipedians. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:34, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
I would hope that nobody would seriously suggest using Steiner or any organ of the anthroposophy/Steiner-Waldorf walled garden, as a source for anything, even the colour of the sky. Guy (help! - typo?) 10:41, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

@Butterfly or Chuang Tzu? and Thewikibeagles: It is manifest that this RSN topic is about Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophists. They are a special case, unlike Kant and Hegel. tgeorgescu (talk) 16:47, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Hegel is pretty hard to interpret, too. Sennalen (talk) 17:39, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
I think that Steiner's ethics, aka the Law of Thelema, is a valuable contribution to philosophy. While I reject his spiritual idealism from the book, I approve of his ethics.
Unfortunately, here at Wikipedia it never is about my personal opinion, but about what Wikipedians consensually consider as WP:RS. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:22, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
According to the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wooloomooloo, Immanuel Kant was a real piss-ant, and David Hume could out-consume Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel. I'm not sure if Bruce et al counts as a reliable source, though. Guy (help! - typo?) 10:45, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Discussion about the reliability of a chess magazine

Greetings, all. A magazine that is little known outside the chess world, Kingpin, is of primarily satirical nature, yet regularly contains reportage that is both exceptional and entirely accurate, as well as game analysis. (It also offers reviews of chess books, interviews with chess players, game analysis, etc, just as most chess publications.) I'm bringing forth a proposal to consider it as a trustworthy source.

1. It is written by chess Grandmasters who, as writers, are considered reliable when reporting events and facts, i.e. Stuart Conquest, James Plaskett, Nigel Davies, Jonathan Rowson, Aaron Summerscale, Glenn Flear, Chris Ward, Anthony Kosten, and others.

2. It is used as a reliable source by chess writer Edward Winter, a famous stickler for accuracy (e.g. see "Edward Winter’s Chess Notes"). E.g. "Korchnoi’s name deleted from a match book?"; "Black Plays ...Qh2 mate"; "Tony Miles (1955-2001)"; "World Champion Combinations"; "Capablanca’s Simultaneous Displays"; "Chess and the House of Commons"; etc.

3. Satire and serious reporting are clearly distinct, in the same manner as in publications such as Private Eye.

Official website: Kingpin. - The Gnome (talk) 07:35, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

  • As stated at the top of this page, it is necessary to specify what a source is being cited for. And since The Gnome has failed to comply, I shall do so. Specifically, it relates to our article on Brian Eley, a former British Chess Champion who apparently fled the country back in 1991, after being released on bail while facing charges relating to allegations of sexual offences against underage boys. The Gnome wishes to cite this page [12] on the Kingpin website, for a date of death. A page with no editorial content at all, beyond a raw statement of the date, followed by a link to a rather offensive joke about Eley, a link to the Wikipedia biography, and a link to an article on Patreon by Fiona Pitt-Kethley the wife of one of Eley's alleged victims. It should be noted that the biography already cites an article by Pitt-Kethley [13] for Eley's death, despite less-than-enthusiastic support for the source in a WP:RSN discussion [14] - mainstream reliable sources seem not to have reported on the matter at all. Given their scant coverage, I really can't see how Kingpins brief comment adds anything of merit to the article. It may possibly be a 'reliable source' for chess reporting, but for the death of a fugitive from the police? If it had anything of significance to say on the subject, surely it would have reported it? The citation looks like padding, serving no useful purpose beyond adding credibility to a claim about a death which really needs better sourcing. AndyTheGrump (talk) 08:34, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for that summary. I would not use that source for that content. I would be wary of using anything other than top-notch sources for any content relating to his flight or possible death. Guy (help! - typo?) 10:37, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
I would use the Pitt-Kethley article to support "it has been reported that he died ...". And I wouldn't touch that note on Kingpin. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 11:05, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
  • It looks like Kingpin would be generally reliable for chess related matters, for subjects outside of that (and for contentious topics) a better source would be advisable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 09:32, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment. (Thanks, AndyTheGrump, for the summary, which I'd omitted.) About Kingpin: The periodical is akin to a Private Eye of the chess world. We regularly cite the Eye for its reportage, irrespective of the fact that the prose is often commingled with sarcasm and jokes - some which some people will surely find "offensive." For instance, the Eye has brought to the fore important matters about the British royal family; that the late Queen was often called "Brenda" in its pages did not affect its reliability in the slightest.
Kingpin is not just a chess mag but also an investigative publication. It has scored various coups over the years, such as the exclusive interview of Ronald Biggs, of Great Train Robbery fame. For the death of Brian Eley we may or may not use the magazine as a source but I believe it would be quite unwise to consider it as unreliable. Everything seriously reported in it has been seriously accurate. -The Gnome (talk) 16:59, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
P.S.: AndyTheGrump demanded I provide "evidence that Kingpin has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". Is that how it works? I'd think it's much easier and far more practical to show a source is unreliable. When, for example, we assess Newsweek to be a reliable source, we do not produce "evidence" for that - and I wonder what kind of "evidence" that would be. On the other hand, showing that the Daily Mail is unreliable is a piece of cake, what with all the specific evidence available. A good reputation is incrementally built but can be destroyed (deprecated) rather quickly. -The Gnome (talk) 17:11, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
The article you link isn't an interview of Biggs. And nor is it investigative journalism. It is a first-hand account from someone who contacted Biggs with the intention of writing a biography, for profit. Evidence of reliability for a publication is generally best demonstrated through evidence that it has been cited by other reputable sources. Do other publications discuss Kingpins 'investigative journalism' anywhere? AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:19, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
Every investigative journalist does their work for compensation, or "profit", as you put it. The interview was an investigative coup. Note that Kingpin is already cited in the Wikipedia article about Ronnie Biggs. But check out the chesshistory.com website of arch-chess historian Edward Winter, renown for his accuracy and reliability, and search for Kingpin citations; there are a-plenty for a variety of subjects. -The Gnome (talk) 17:44, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
What 'interview' are you referring to? And I asked for evidence that Kingpin was being cited for investigative journalism, not for chess history. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:50, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
I have no sources where it is "cited for investigative journalism" in so many words. Yet, Kingpin is cited routinely (and by eminent historians, such as Winter) for historical matters, which proves they are reliable about historical matters. Now, if you want us to ignore the fact that Kingpin is provenly reliable on chess history when the discussion is precisely about the history of a chess player, then I certainly have no idea what this discussion is about. Oh, and the interview was with the train robber himself, while he was, like Brian Eley, a fugitive from justice. But perhaps this too is irrelevant. -The Gnome (talk) 20:52, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
The URL you provided does not link to an interview with Ronnie Biggs. It is David Levy's account of his interactions with Biggs, resulting from Levy's decision to try to write a biography of Biggs. It explicitly states this in the firsts few paragraphs. Levy clearly wasn't engaged in 'investigative journalism' for Kingpin when he set off to find Biggs. The title of the piece - How I Saved Ronnie Biggs - wouldn't be remotely appropriate for 'investigative journalism'. Or for 'historical matters' Or for anything except a nice little tale having nothing to do with chess beyond the fact that it was written by a chess player. Trying to spin that into evidence for credibility for a one-line comment as a serious historical record for the (as-yet still-questionably-confirmed) death of Brian Eley is quite frankly ridiculous. If Kingpin were engaging in actual 'investigative journalism' in regard to a fugitive from justice, do you seriously think they would have left it at that? No explanation of how they came by the information. No details about Eley's past life. Nothing about a cause of death. Nada. Zilch. Zero. We have absolutely no reason to think that Kingpin weren't simply reporting the same unverified claims already going around the chess forums. There is no reason whatsoever to see this as WP:RS. None at all. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:36, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
No one is trying to "spin" something here. Keep away from ad homimens, please. The discussion, so far, has been progressing quite politely. I repeat, the basis of my argument about Kingpin being a reliable source is not its investigative journalism, but the established fact that in chess matters it is absolutely reliable. So, when it comes to the matter of a chess champion's death, it can most certainly be trusted. End of story. And you can keep on focusing on the "investigative" part all you want. (The Briggs story was a serious coup. Dispute that, if you want. I won't dwell on it, since it was but a mere additive to the main argument about chess facts.) Enough is enough. -The Gnome (talk) 10:28, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
The only thing that appears to have been established here is that nobody else supports citing Kingpin for the death of Brian Eley. AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:01, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
I have no opinion whether or not is the most reliable source about chess under the sun or complete rubbish. But I don't think that's even relevant here. What we have is a single sentence "Eley died in Amsterdam on 6 April 2022" that looks like a blog post. No details, no source, nothing. I don't think that can be called an article in the Kingpin magazine. It's merely a note on the Kingpin homepage. And that in my opinion is not at all sufficient. The article from Pitt-Kethley doesn't scream "reliable source" either, but it seems to me infinitely better than the simple note on Kingpin. Here we have at least a clear hearsay source "the pastor who buried him" including information about the sermon from the funeral. It also includes information on the cause of death and how he was found dead. That all gives a much more reliable impression. That doesn't impact the question of whether Kingpin is reliable when it comes to its articles and reporting. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 16:17, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Can't say I've heard of Kingpin (which is a little surprising -- the chess publishing world isn't all that big), but that specific page doesn't exactly have the hallmarks of a reliable source (a context-free factoid about his death published on a "satirical" website with no obit, no useful information, etc.). Considering the only other source I can find about this is this page, which casts some doubt on the death, and a few places which just point to Wikipedia and/or Kingpin, I'd say omit. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 01:25, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Kirkus reviews

On KirkusReviews, our Perennial Sources page says: "Most content by Kirkus Reviews is considered to be generally reliable. Kirkus Indie is a pay for review program for independent authors, its content is considered to be questionable and to not count towards notability, in part because the author can choose whether or not the review is published."

Kirkus' own site is more explicit about the indie reviews, and I wanted to repeat it here in case anyone forgot...

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/indie-reviews/

"As an unpublished or self-published author, it can be a relentless struggle to attract a significant amount of attention to your book or manuscript. By purchasing a Kirkus indie review, authors can have the opportunity to build some name recognition and get noticed by agents, publishers and other industry influencers. ... While we do not guarantee positive reviews, unfavorable reviews can be taken as valuable feedback for improvements and ultimately do not have to be published on our site. With our most popular review option priced at $450, ..."

It ends with this:

"KEEP YOUR REVIEW PRIVATE OR PUBLISH IT FOR FREE ON KIRKUS.COM

You may choose to publish your review on KirkusReviews.com where it can be discovered by industry influencers, agents, publishers and consumers. If it is a negative review, you can request that it never see the light of day by simply not publishing it on our site." [Emphasis added]

How does an editor know if a review is from Indie Reviews or from the "regular" Kirkus Reviews? Do all editors know the difference? This "indie" practice by Kirkus seems kind of shady, and the difference with the Indie reviews seems easy to overlook.

Thoughts? David10244 (talk) 20:02, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

From looking at the site, once an Indie review is chosen to be "published" by the book author, it appears to join the non-paid-for reviews and become indistinguishable. But I can't tell for sure. David10244 (talk) 20:09, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
I don't think it matters. The process that Kirkus describes is for a way for an author from an obscure or self-published imprint to get someone to review their book. They can pay Kirkus to do a review, which then Kirkus will have its staff perform independently. There is no reason to suppose that a paid review is going to be any less dispassionate than one Kirkus decides to do on their own (actually I can think of reasons why I'd be much more enthusiastic about reviewing a book I wanted the read than one I'm reviewing because somebody had to pay me to review it.) The author can then decide whether they want Kirkus to print the review or not. Obviously, if Kirkus does a favorable review, the author should want to publish it. If the review is unfavorable, the author probably won't want it published. A "paid" review is no more or less reliable than an "unpaid" review. But, because authors can pay to have a review done, having a review on Kirkus doesn't establish notability. Banks Irk (talk) 20:19, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
There's a very obvious incentive for reviewers to be more generous when they are paid to review something – if they give a good review, the person paying them is more likely to pay them to review more things in future, and more likely to recommend the service to others. That's exactly why ethical reviewers disclose when a review is compensated in any way. If we can't tell which reviews are paid-for, we should absolutely consider Kirkus' reviews as a whole to be less reliable.
That said, it looks like at the moment reviews published through the "Kirkus Indie" program are marked as such – e.g. this review has "Review Program: Kirkus Indie" at the bottom of the page, with a link to their explanation of what the Kirkus Indie program entails. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:32, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
And for WP:N? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:16, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
@Gråbergs Gråa Sång Are you asking if these reviews contribute to notability? I would lean to the "no" side, but I'm still thinking. If a truly impartial reviewer gives a book a good review, that might count for something. My brain is dithering... David10244 (talk) 06:37, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
@Banks Irk If the "bad" reviews are not published, and the "good" ones are, does that devalue the good reviews? I'm honestly not sure. David10244 (talk) 06:29, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
IMO, it makes them not independent, and not-WP:N relevant. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:36, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
@Banks Irk Excellent points. David10244 (talk) 06:38, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
@David10244, this [15] is marked "Review Program: KIRKUS INDIE", this [16] is not. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:15, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
@Gråbergs Gråa Sång I see that now. Not very prominent. People won't realize that it's from the "good half" of the paid-for reviews. Better than nothing, I suppose. David10244 (talk) 06:34, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, as the writer of the RSP entry, the way that the disclosure is discreetly placed at the bottom of the article reminds me of the way that Forbes tried to make it more difficult to tell their contributors from their reliable staff at a glance by making their urls formatted the same way. It's quite shady, but there's no doubt about the reliablity of Kirkus's normal reviews, much like those of Forbes staff. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:43, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
Taking Kirkus at its word, individual reviews can still be reliable as the critic has still had the choice to review positively or negatively and given honest feedback. However, I am disappointed to read this as I have been treating Kirkus as an iron-clad go-to source that always counts towards notability. If most negative reviews are suppressed then it does undermine reputation, though at least the site reports which reviews are paid for. The signs were there—I've found negative reviews on the site to be few and far between. I think the RSP entry is fine at present in providing the information about the Indie programme and still declaring the source to be generally reliable. — Bilorv (talk) 20:36, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
Kirkus Indie reviews are not independent, because they are generated by a cash payment from the author, and in my view, have no place on Wikipedia. I consider this an unethical pay to play scheme. Cullen328 (talk) 19:00, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Hollywood Stock Exchange

Yes, I know typing in Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX) in here tells you this is a game. But not until today I did that, and I remembered I saw the Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken article use HSX as a source. Further research reveals that HSX is listed as a source in the articles for The Empty Man and its film adaptation, List of DreamWorks Animation productions and 12 Rounds (film). An animation-focused account on Twitter frequently uses HSX to report updates on upcoming films, so I guess that's how HSX ended up in the Ruby Gillman and Dreamworks Animation list articles.

In a related case, the same site reported the cast for the upcoming film Migration (draft here); the announcement was sourced to a in-site forum post about test screenings for the film, to which I would assume the author reported what they saw, and would make the site effectively user-generated -Gouleg🛋️ harass/hound (she/her) 22:06, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Preferred college ranking

What is the best source we can use for rankings for the University of Minnesota in the Minneapolis article?

What we have now: College rankings for 2023 place the school in a range of 44th to 185th (2021) for academics worldwide.[1][2][3] QS found a decline over a decade.[3] Shanghai finds excellence in ecology, business management, library & information science, and biotechnology.[1]

I used what Wikipedia calls the three "most influential and widely observed university rankings" college ranking orgs, but got a question on them. Now I'm wondering if somebody puffed up those three articles? I have looked through the archives here, Wikipedia:WikiProject Higher education, Wikipedia:College and university article advice, a B-class article according to the WikiProject: College and university rankings. Also looked at Boston and Cleveland, neither of which seems to follow a standard. Boston cites the Carnegie Classification and membership in the Association of American Universities. Cleveland cites US News & World Report. WP:RSP says US News & World Report is generally considered reliable. So I am tempted to go back to it despite the new WP:USCITIES guideline. -SusanLesch (talk) 23:01, 10 April 2023 (UTC) SusanLesch (talk) 23:01, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

  • Thank you. Question was answered at the WikiProject under the subject "Preferred college ranking". The three used in Minneapolis are all fine, and, we already knew, so is US News & World Report. -SusanLesch (talk) 23:44, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ a b "University of Minnesota, Twin Cities". ShanghaiRanking. 2022. Retrieved February 19, 2023.
  2. ^ "University of Minnesota". Times Higher Education. 2023. Retrieved February 19, 2023.
  3. ^ a b "University of Minnesota Twin Cities". QS Quacquarelli Symonds. 2022. Retrieved February 19, 2023.

Concern regarding independence of an editorializing reporter

A discussion is underway regarding the use of reports by a specific freelance reporter, Steven Monacelli, whose primary claim to fame is that he runs a Twitter parody account of Greg Abbott, https://twitter.com/stevanzetti (his identity is noted on the linktree posted therefrom, with about a half dozen links soliciting donations.

Monacelli was sued over his coverage of Monty Bennett, a conservative commercial real estate figure who bought the "Dallas Express" website from another conservative figure, Brian Timpone. Outrage at Timpone's use of the name Dallas Express (previously the name of a black-owned newspaper that ceased publication in 1970) was expressed in an editorial by D Magazine (which found it "maddening to see what has now landed at the URL"). Bennett acquired the website, and Monacelli directed similar editorializing his way. Bennett sued D Magazine and Monacelli for defamation and prevailed in the trial court, but was overturned on appeal, specifically because the various statements objected to were defended as Monacelli's opinions, not factual reporting.

An editor in the discussion noted in defense of this content that a footnote at WP:V was removed in 2020, said footnote relating to the proposition that "material (including but not limited to news reports, books, articles and other publications) involved in or struck down by litigation in any country, or released by parties involved in litigation against other involved parties, during, before or after the litigation" constituted a "conflicted source". That discussion was not a determination, however, that such litigation can never be considered as an issue. This case goes beyond content being litigated; WP:RSEDITORIAL notes that editorials "are rarely reliable for statements of fact", and editorializing dressed as journalism should be treated as editorializing, including where an editorializing reporter publishes his opinions in multiple outlets (in this case, Monacelli later wrote a similar criticism of the website in The Texas Observer also cited as a source in the article).

I note that other entirely unproblematic sources exist that can be used to source contentions about the website bought by Bennett. My concern is solely directed at the use in a BLP of editorial writing by a subject of litigation, whose defense to that litigation was that their assertions about the BLP subject were not factual. BD2412 T 22:57, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Looks like an off-Wiki argument between the two parties which doesn't need to be litigated on Wikipedia. The parody account shows bias although I am not sure it would disqualify him as a source per se. However, the fact that he was personally involved in the lawsuit and is now using his journalism as a way to editorialize it would indeed fall under WP:RSEDITORIAL imho. --CNMall41 (talk) 04:17, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
On a separate note, Brian Timpone page looks like a heavy WP:COAT.--CNMall41 (talk) 04:20, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
My concern about the parody account (and the "donate to me" links) is not so much about bias as it is about the individual appearing to be a rather self-promoting opportunist, rather than a serious journalist; which, in turn, raises questions about the quality of the the rather low-level local venues that publish his work. BD2412 T 15:48, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
Is he used here? Slatersteven (talk) 15:51, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
Yes, with pieces in two local papers (as is a straight-up editorial by another writer from one of the same papers). Monacelli's parody Twitter account is actually cited as a source in List of 2021 Women's March locations (for the number of people attending the Dallas rally), which I have called out on that talk page. They are cited as a source in about a half dozen other articles. BD2412 T 16:04, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
Surley fails wp:sps? Slatersteven (talk) 16:07, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
I would think so, yes. BD2412 T 16:54, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
Apparently, Monacelli was fired from the Dallas Observer over either careless or false reporting. I would consider this as putting the nail in the coffin of accepting the reliability of reporting by this person. BD2412 T 23:44, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
The link from Othersidedallas.com has the original article from the Dallas Observer. The correction at the top adds "this article has also been edited to remove a reference to and characterization of the Dallas Express." I am unsure of how we can see his current reporting on the topic accurate or factual. --CNMall41 (talk) 06:59, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
I looked at the parody account previously when you flagged it, but just went back to have a more in-depth look now and it was directed to Monacelli's actual Twitter account. --CNMall41 (talk) 04:41, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
That is frankly not surprising. This is not exactly a secret forum. BD2412 T 13:35, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

I think it's pretty clear from the above discussion that this reporter should, at the least, not be the preferred source for this subject matter. I will note this on the article talk page accordingly. BD2412 T 23:50, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Are Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought and [17] reliable sources for a BLP?

The BLP is Bill Warner (writer). The Institute source is [18]. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 13:52, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Cuban elections page cites Freedom House

Freedom house is an unreliable and biased source because as they say on their website, they receive direct funding from the US state department. This is an obvious conflict of interest as the US government has very publicly tried to destabilize and spread propaganda about Cuba. Would it be acceptable to cite an organization funded by the Russian government on corruption in elections within the US? I would appreciate help in improving this page. Thetatertotgod (talk) 19:12, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

In Cuba the news sources are either going to be from foreign based institutions like freedom house, or straight from the mouth of the Cuban Communist Party. Either way there is going to be a conflict of interest. As long as the statements seem factually correct I'd use them with a minimal weight to the overall article, as long as they're talking about results or general conduct (ie: no opinion). Also I wouldn't go so far as to call the Freedom House an unreliable and biased source. NPR gets public funding and they're counted as a reliable source, and Freedom House is a think tank that supports human rights and democracy. Scu ba (talk) 19:57, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
There's plenty of peer-reviewed scholarly works on elections in Cuba available through Google Scholar that should be more impartial than think tank output, although such coverage will be less up-to-the-minute (i.e. there may not be adequate coverage currently available of the most recent round of elections this year) signed, Rosguill talk 20:04, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
yes, correct, I should've been more clear that I had assumed the article in question here is the 2023 Cuban parliamentary election. Scu ba (talk) 20:05, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
I was referencing the Elections in Cuba Thetatertotgod (talk) 23:37, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
Freedom House is a reputable organization that's widely cited by reliable sources. As an advocacy group, an article shouldn't be over-reliant on it, and all opinion should be attributed. But that doesn't mean it's not a WP:Reliable source. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:16, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

RfC on The Boston Globe

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Closing this early since there is no real dispute that, as a WP:NEWSORG, Boston Globe is a reliable source in general. Questions about whether it should be cited in particular cases should be addressed through discussion on the relevant talk-pages or on this (or other relevant) board without expending valuable editorial resources on month-long RFCs. Abecedare (talk) 17:02, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

The Boston Globe is a rather large newspaper that, as its name suggests, is located in Boston. It is the city's most popular local newspaper by readership and has a long history. Winning 27 Pulitzer prizes, having a daily subscription of 68,000 print copies and 226,000 subscribers on their website. They report on national issues, where one of the first newspapers to speak out against the Vietnam war, and broke the catholic church sex abuse scandal in 2002. There has been prior discussions on the reputability of the source in WP:RSN Archive 283. I propose adding the source to the list of Generally Reliable sources, and if not, for Wikipedia to reach a consensus on how to classify the source. Scu ba (talk) 03:33, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Is anyone saying it isn't reliable? Why do we need to have an RfC regarding whether the Boston Globe is a reliable source? Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 08:42, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
I had a conversation in a talk page that the source isn't reliable since it is a "small regional newspaper" Scu ba (talk) 12:37, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Could we please get a diff for context? On its face, that's a strange assertion. Mackensen (talk) 13:22, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Sure the conversation was in Talk:2024 Republican Party presidential primaries, the exact quote was: "only been including articles that have a consensus. The Boston Globe looks like a local source so it may not meet the criteria for "national source." Scu ba (talk) 16:46, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Per WP:RSPMISSING, this seems unnecessary. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:41, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Bad RfC. I guess the talk page is Republican Party presidential primaries. It's sensible to ask whether for a particular purpose any specific item is okay, but no newspaper is always okay, this sort of RfC should be discouraged. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:35, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
  • No need to list it at RSP. That is a list of sources that have been repeatedly discussed (the “perennial” part of RSP)… and this does not rise to that level.
That said: Yes, the Globe is generally reliable (with the caveat that, like all media sources, a specific report can contain errors - and when that happens, that specific report might be deemed unreliable - to be discussed on a case by case basis. And we need to distinguish opinion journalism from straight news reporting). Blueboar (talk) 13:37, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
The globe has been talked about before in the forum as I linked above, but I suppose it isn't "perennially" referenced to. Sorry for the confusion. Scu ba (talk) 16:48, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
The idea that the Globe is “local” is a red herring (that restriction really refers to small town papers). The Globe is at least “regional” in scope and circulation, and possibly “national” (although perhaps not as national as say the WAPO or NYT) Blueboar (talk) 14:49, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Okay, thanks for the clarification. Scu ba (talk) 16:47, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Filmdaily.co

This source came up in an earlier discussion, but that ended up getting shifted over to WP:COI. This source popped up in a recent AfD, and several editors there thought it would make sense to bring it here. It looks to me like it's a site that dresses up paid posts to make them appear more credible. If the site is to be believed, William Anderson, the "author" who supposedly wrote the articles referenced in that AfD, has also "written" articles in the past couple weeks on everything from "D*Face's Artwork Skyrockets in Value as Global Demand Soars" to "Enchanting Karnataka: A Perfect Destination for Your Dream Wedding", to "6 Advantages of Getting Your BMW Tuned." The fact that the homepage includes "Buy Instagram followers cheap" right next to "About Us" doesn't exactly generate further confidence. The site doesn't appear to have any connection to The Film Daily, which was a legit movie industry trade publication, but shut down in 1970. Thoughts? BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 19:33, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Bingewatch allows content creators to showcase their talent and get paid. User generated content, WP:SPS could apply if the author is published elsewhere. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:53, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

RfC: Article in Business Insider

Business Insider published this article a few weeks ago. The article appeared in a recent AfD, and it was mentioned to bring up sources here on Wikipedia:Reliable_sources. The article seems normal and includes a mix of original research and quotes from a related party (son of the owners of the property). From what I can tell, the facts listed can be sourced to other newspapers in-print or court records so the facts listed in the article are not really in question. Thoughts on whether it could be used as a source? Editchecker123 (talk) 07:49, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

For some context, BI (now "Insider") leases its name out for use by other publications. Business Insider Africa was leased by Media24 according to this. --CNMall41 (talk) 07:58, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
The article in Media24 mentions a partnership between Insider and Media24 for South Africa (the linked article from CNMall41 doesn’t mention Insider leasing its name). Sounds similar to MSNBC a few decades ago being a partnership between Microsoft and NBC. Editchecker123 (talk) 08:56, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
The international divisions are operated under other media companies outside of BI ownership. For instance, Business Insider India is operated by Times Internet Limited who is responsible for generating the content for that division. "Lease" was not the best term to use. To be more specific, I do not believe the editorial guidelines of Insider apply to each international division since different media companies are producing its content. We would need to look at the editorial guidelines of the specific companies Insider partners with to do so.--CNMall41 (talk) 03:57, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Business Insider South Africa was a (now terminated) collaboration between Insider and News24. Afaict, there is no indication that Business Insider Africa is anything but a regional subsidiary of Insider. So the News24 connection issue might be moot.

Now coming to the article itself: It reads okay but several points give me pause:

  • Like Buzzfeed the quality of articles on Insider can vary widely.
  • The fact that this article about a long-demolished LA mansion was published in BI Africa and does not seem to be published on the main Insider site
  • The lack of a byline beyond the generic "BI Africa"
  • The only source cited is Jeff Chasan, the son of the owners of so-called Chasan Villa. Most of the article is "analysis" but lack of a byline means that we don't know who is doing the analysis or what expertise they have with regards to LA city history etc.
  • The article takes some effort to obscure its sources, such as "In 1982, a prominent Los Angeles publication showed the magnificence and stature of the estate having just been completed..." (emphasis added), which makes it harder to verify its statements.

For the above reasons, I consider the article to be at best a low-quality source that can be used for non-controversial claims but not for anything disputed or self-serving wrt the Chasan family/Villa. Abecedare (talk) 21:46, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Business Insider Africa is a brand that has been licensed to a company called 'Pulse Africa' - it is not run by the main Insider organization. Head to https://pulse.africa/services/ and click on the 'Pulse Network' button. MrOllie (talk) 21:56, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
Thank you, MrOllie for that info! I have struck one sentence from my original post in light of what you pointed out.
I don't know and haven't researched the reputation of 'Pulse Africa' to form an opinion about the general reliability of articles published under the rubric of Business Insider Africa. But the, now verified, lack of an LA or even US connection (when writing about a 40-year old LA mansion) further strengthens my opinion that if the article's information is factual and noteworthy, better sources should be findable. Abecedare (talk) 22:09, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Asharq News

Is Asharq News a reliable source? Uwdwadafsainainawinfi (talk) 00:37, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

No, you can't use their Twitter posts as a source.But, again, you have to tell us what article, what statement, what the source says to support that statement. And, no, I can't read Arabic, but that's irrelevant to the questions. Banks Irk (talk) 01:18, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
I just wanted to ask if Asharq News is considered a reliable source so I can also use their twitter posts as they always come out faster then any articles.
This is specifically about the confirmed losses in the 2023 Sudanese clashes. Uwdwadafsainainawinfi (talk) 01:24, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a news outlet, up to the minute details aren't needed. Waiting for confirmed details is probably best. As to reliability they are generally reliable but care should be taken with any reporting around Saudi Arabia (or it's concerns) as they are owned by SRMG, which has close ties to the government of Saudi Arabia. They are also have a bias in regard to Palestine/Israel, but no moresome than news outlets on the other side. To this specific issue I'd err on the side of caution, tweets of breaking news may have errors that are corrected later and in full articles. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 12:22, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Agree with the above. Because this is an encyclopedia, not a news service, citing Twitter feed, or even a newspaper, for yesterday's casualty count, no matter how accurate, isn't really appropriate here. Banks Irk (talk) 00:03, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Can sources that state that religious miracles actually occurred be reliable sources?

General consensus is that answering such questions at the general level are difficult. Unless we have some specific Wikipedia text, alongside a specific source being used as a reference, it is hard to say what is or is not appropriate. WP:CONTEXTMATTERS.--Jayron32 16:01, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

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

For example, if a book states that any of the following are factual, rather than stating that the following are believed by some to be true:

  1. That Jesus resurrected Lazarus
  2. That a galactic tyrant called Xenu murdered billions with hydrogen bombs
  3. That Jesus was resurrected and then visited the America's
  4. That people are born into a caste as a consequence of the karma they earned in their past life
  5. That Muhammad flew on a winged steed from Mecca to Jerusalem in a single night, and then up to heaven
  6. That there was a global flood

Should we consider it an unreliable source? Alternatively, should we consider it a primary source for the beliefs of a given faith? BilledMammal (talk) 13:21, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

We judge each source based on its reputation, not what it says. So without seeing what sources you are talking about it's hard to say. But bear in mind wp:fringe WP:MEDRS and wp:npov and wp:primary. Slatersteven (talk) 13:27, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
For example, Sultan of Hearts: Prophet Muhammad, which says describes the Isra' and Mi'raj journey as a miracle that is deemed true and solid by all scholars. The messenger of Allah went on this journey with his body and soul.
However, I am hoping to have a general discussion on whether sources that make exceptional claims of a religious nature, where the claims are not supported by non-religious scholarship, can be reliable and non-primary. BilledMammal (talk) 13:35, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
Exceptional claims need exceptional sources, not ones with a blatant POV or COI bias. So not, on those grounds, they fail RS, they are not third party. Slatersteven (talk) 13:37, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
I think context is important here, as any source can only be judged reliable in relation to a specific statement. No source is likely to be reliable for any of the six claims listed above, but a source that makes one of those statements as fact might well be reliable for other, less controversial statements, such as statements about what various authors have written, how those writings are interpteted within a specific tradition, and even biographical statements about non-polarizing figures (e.g., not including biographical hagiography or its opposite). The answer to your question really depends on the source and the statement, from the perspective of WP:RS and WP:V.
This is even more true, by the way, in relation to WP:PRIMARY and WP:SECONDARY. The same publication can be a primary source for the beliefs of its author and a secondary source for the statements of prior authors it discusses. This is as true in the case of religious as other scholarship. Newimpartial (talk) 14:14, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
No source is likely to be reliable for any of the six claims listed above, but a source that makes one of those statements as fact might well be reliable for other, less controversial statements, such as statements about what various authors have written, how those writings are interpteted within a specific tradition, and even biographical statements about non-polarizing figures (e.g., not including biographical hagiography or its opposite).
I'm not convinced of that; if a source indulges fringe theories in one area how can we trust the other content it includes? It's possible that the other content is true, but it is also possible, perhaps even likely, that the other content also includes fringe theories but which are harder to identify.
I don't think we can, which aligns with how we treat other sources that push fringe theories; we assume they are generally unreliable. BilledMammal (talk) 14:26, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
I get that you may not be convinced, but it seems to me that our sourcing policies are not global in the sense that you imply.
Imagine that editors are writing an article about Pentecostal theology. Two secondary sources are at hand for the discussion of what prior authors have said within that specific topic, and one of them makes a statement in passing that treats Young earth creationism as fact, while the other makes no similar statements that align with FRINGE theories. Is it necessarily the case that the first source is less reliable for statements about prior Pentecostal theologians' views?
I would think that our usual sourcing policies would apply in such a case, rather than being trumped by WP:FRINGE. In fact, I'm not sure in what sense FRINGE can be taken to apply to sources at all - it is the "theories" and related claims to which these attributes apply, not the sources themselves, and regular sourcing criteria seem to apply for statements made by the same source concerning other domains to which FRINGE does not apply. Newimpartial (talk) 14:49, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
Well, this does seem a misbegotten effort to eliminate any knowledge or expertise held by those who happen to be religious. If I happen to have a religious belief that the ghost of Sacajawea visited Alcie B. Toklas and gave her a recipe for brownies, it doesn't mean that I'm not a citable expert on the history of the publication of Snoopy books. Our "reliable source" system is not this binary thing where a source is either reliable in all contexts or none; there are things that the Journal of the American Medical Association is "reliable" but the New York Times is not... and vice versa. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:48, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
But that is not the question the question would be "can you be cited as a source for "ghost of Sacajawea visited Alcie B. Toklas and gave her a recipe for brownies"", which it can't. It might be citable for the fact you believe it, not for it being true. Slatersteven (talk) 15:00, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
No, the question being raised by the OP, in the message I was responding to, was "if a source indulges fringe theories in one area how can we trust the other content it includes?" So it's "if Nat posts about the Sacajawea thing, how can we trust him about Peanuts books?" The poster appears to be trying to wipe out the use of any source that expresses any religious faith for anything (and the beliefs he is using are not fringe as beliefs; they are standards in various religions.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 21:23, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
I would have to agree with Nat Gertler and Newimpartial here. A source which states a belief in a supernatural event may well be completely reliable in its comments on mundane events. This is a pretty blatant attempt to disqualify all scholarship from religious individuals, and seems to be at the point where atheism would actually step over the line into bigotry. Saying this as an atheist myself, btw. --Boynamedsue (talk) 10:29, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
That is a good point; I didn't consider them writing things unrelated to their fringe beliefs. Even if you included in your work a statement that the ghost of Sacajawea visited Alcie B. Toklas and gave her a recipe for brownies, it wouldn't make your work about the history of the publication of Snoopy books. I also didn't intend this to apply to people who held those beliefs, only if they express them in their work; a Catholic theologian can write about the historicity of Jesus and be a reliable source even if they also believe that Jesus resurrected Lazarus, so long as they can separate their personal beliefs from their work.
My overall question is if a source makes exceptional claims by saying that Jesus resurrected Lazarus, can we consider it a reliable source for a statement that says that the Massacre of the Innocents took place. Another one, taken from the old discussion that prompted this, can we consider Sultan of Hearts: Prophet Muhammad to be a reliable and non-primary source for the religious figure Addas, given that it makes exceptional claims by describing the Isra' and Mi'raj journey as a miracle that is deemed true and solid by all scholars. The messenger of Allah went on this journey with his body and soul? BilledMammal (talk) 06:26, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for clarifying that. I'm sure you can see that the question placed as broadly as it was had worrisome implications... but it all gets down to the problem of fuzzy questions. Is there a claim that is so fringe and so central to what is being said that it casts large doubt on adjacent claims? Sure. Is it possible to have a faith-based statement in a work that is otherwise perfectly reliable? Yup. Is there some magic formula we can devise that would make a bright line between the two, regardless of context? Well.. if I said that such magic was possible, then I would be making a fringe claim and you couldn't trust the rest of this answer, could you? So I'll say no. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:48, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure Wikipedia is the right place to determine if major religious events really happened or not. If the books author is a real person with knowledge and background in the field, published by a trustworthy publisher, than why should it not count as a reliable source if it makes a claim in favor of a religion? Wikipedia judges notability based on these overall reliability arguments, if it passes that than its content should be included, as long as it is given a due weight in relation to other sources. Scu ba (talk) 03:03, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, as opposed to wp:RS this noticeboard tends to judge actual reliability and that requires the context-specific info listed at the top. North8000 (talk) 13:36, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

  • Echoing others; it totally depends on how the source is used. For example, I would say a source that says there was a great global flood would could be a reliable source for a statement such as "Adherants of X religion believe that there was a great global flood," or one such as "[Author X] believes there was a great global flood." ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 14:59, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
I would advise some caution for that sort of use, since it is using it as a WP:PRIMARY source. It can be done, but it could easily lead to people concocting their own WP:OR interpretation of what people believe out of primary sources. Imagine someone choosing the most salacious parts of a religious text, for instance, or choosing the most controversial statements by a faith's most controversial adherents, and using that to say "this is what these people actually believe." It's the sort of thing that is better cited to secondary sources. --Aquillion (talk) 21:05, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
Hence why I changed my wording from would to could. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 14:37, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
Agreed with everyone else: details matter here and a source including one false or dubious claim generally does not by itself disqualify that source as reliable. Loki (talk) 17:18, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Trying to judge a source's reliability based solely on what it says leads to problems. It can lead to circular arguments along the lines of: "We cannot state X in the article voice; it's obviously false." "Well, here are three sources saying X." "All of those sources are unreliable, because they state X, which is clearly false." Now, there is a caveat, which you've identified - if something is clearly identifiable as WP:FRINGE when you examine high-quality coverage overall, then that places limitations on the use of individual sources for that thing. But stating one fringe perspective does not, all on its own, render an entire source unreliable. For a concrete example, even if a normally WP:RS magazine published a credulous article on faith healing, we could not use that to suggest that faith healing might actually work, because overall coverage makes it clear that faith healing actually working is a fringe perspective; and I'd argue against using that magazine on anything even tangentially related to that topic in the future. But that wouldn't, on its own, render the magazine totally unreliable in every context; it would just mean we'd want to be cautious about using it in contexts where it is advancing a fringe perspective. --Aquillion (talk) 21:02, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
    @Aquillion: Sorry, I should have been clearer; I intended to consider whether they could be reliable on topics related to their expressed fringe beliefs, not on topics unrelated to it. BilledMammal (talk) 06:26, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
  • I am not sure if this discussion is worth having. This seems like a really philosophical question, with "Philosophical" in the derogatory sense, as in doesn't really lead to anything productive. A source that claims X or Y god caused Z magical event is obviously a WP:PRIMARY source with regards to whatever religion it points to, but I don't think we need to have a whole RFC to point that out. Besides, the central idea of this RFC immediately falls apart if you look beyond roughly the last century. William Buckland, one of the pioneers of early geology, believed the biblical flood literally happened, and so did almost all of his contemporaries and predecessors in the field. Accepting the statement "any source that literally claims biblical events are true is automatically unreliable" would force us to throw out a vast majority of historical sources. I don't think that's a very good idea. ----Licks-rocks (talk) 21:42, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
    • Other important and respected twentieth century geologists believed in the Expanding Earth theory, and continental drift wasn't solidly accepted until the 1960s. It's science, we throw the wrong stuff out as it's shown to be wrong. And any source that literally claims biblical events are true is automatically unreliable - David Gerard (talk) 22:10, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
      William Buckland was eighteenth century. But the actual time frame doesn't matter that much. William Buckland is a reliable (albeit primary) source when it comes to research from that era. I think it's a laughable suggestion that the entirety of any work of his that mentions his beliefs should be considered as unreliable on every topic just because he happens to have been a pious man in an era and place where being a pious man was the only thing you reasonably could be. But that's just my point: This entire discussion is deeply dependent on the timeframe and location you are looking at. It's overgeneralisation at its finest. --Licks-rocks (talk) 18:47, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
    • @Licks-rocks: I don't believe WP:FRINGE applies retroactively; if a belief is mainstream when a source is published then it isn't pushing fringe beliefs, even if a source published today saying the same thing would be. In the case of Buckland, the great flood was a mainstream belief in his time, and so his belief and presumed advocacy for it wouldn't affect his reliability. 06:26, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Like others have said, we do NOT judge a source by what it says necessarily, we judge it by sourcing criteria per the wikipedia policy WP:RS. Pretty much if a source has editorial over sight like peer review or editorial oversight then it is considered a reliable source. The statement you make on wikipedia however, can be WP:ATTRIBUTE if you think that the claims in the reliable source are not obvious or are not generally held by other sources. This situation comes up constantly in religion, political (presidential legacies), and historical (issues like slavery, war, conquest, oppressions) articles. Sometimes it is best to put the opinion in the voice of the source instead of wikipedia's voice, especially if other sources disagree. Try to limit use of primary sources since it can lead to WP:OR or WP:SYN. Should try to use WP:SECONDARY sources, which make interpretations of primary sources, more. So to take your examples, here are some possible variations:
  1. That Jesus resurrected Lazarus - According scholar X, the New Testament states that Jesus resurrected Lazarus.
  2. That a galactic tyrant called Xenu murdered billions with hydrogen bombs - According to scholar X, Scientology teaches that a galactic tyrant called Xenu murdered billions with hydrogen bombs.
  3. That people are born into a caste as a consequence of the karma they earned in their past life - According to scholars of Hinduism, people are born into a caste as a consequence of the karma they earned in their past life.
  4. That Muhammad flew on a winged steed from Mecca to Jerusalem in a single night, and then up to heaven - According to Islamic sources (or scholar X), Muhammad flew on a winged steed from Mecca to Jerusalem in a single night, and then up to heaven.
I agree that without attribution, many religion, politics, and history articles would not be possible. Hope this helps. Ramos1990 (talk) 16:34, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Loretta: A miracle!? This is modern times, there ain’t supposed to be miracles no more.
Rose: Well I guess it ain’t modern times in Sicily!
Can we report that Johnny Cammareri's mother was on her deathbed in Palermo, then suddenly recovered, citing Moonstruck? Banks Irk (talk) 17:16, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
I would never used Moonstruck as a reliable source. It says it stars Nicholas Cage, but it might be John Travolta. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:35, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
Snap outa it! Is there really any circumstance or situation in which a citation to Moonstruck is not pertinent and reliable? Banks Irk (talk) 19:01, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
  • It really depends on the context, there is a world of difference between "X believes Y happened" or "Holy Text says that Legendary Figure built City" and "Y happened on a Wednesday in June" or "Legendary Figure built City in three days and four nights" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:24, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
The permutations are endless, which is why the advice above is correct on how to formulate a request at RFN. What article, what text, what reference to support the text. If I take this question in the narrowest context, if X source says that Y "miracle" happened, we can say in article Z that X source says that Y miracle happened, not Y miracle happened. If it is reliably reported by other sources that Y happened, but X source says Y was a miracle, again we can say in Z article that Y happened. X says it was a miracle, not Y miracle happened. Whether or not X is reliable for anything else is a completely separate question, depending on the specific context. Banks Irk (talk) 18:50, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
Again, depends entirely on context. If I may analogize, if a six-year old believes in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny, they may still be reliable about who their family members and pets are, where they live and go to school, and even what Santa,TF, and EB brought them. What they saw walking home on Mulberry Street, however, might be subject to some skepticism. But, young children who are capable of understanding and taking the oath can and do testify in court. You can't categorically dismiss everything they say just because of the belief in those midnight visitors. Banks Irk (talk) 12:15, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
+1 -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 15:56, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
  • I tend to agree with the above statements - that context matters, that a source can be unreliable in one area yet reliable in another, and that proper attribution of opinion matters, etc. However, this raises a question: how does this jibe with our practice of deprecating news sources? Shouldn’t we take a similar (nuanced) approach to these sources? Or are political/societal “beliefs” somehow different from religious ones? Blueboar (talk) 13:19, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
Yes, another example of overgeneralizing something that is situation and context specific. We should ditch the concept of overall deprecating news sources. :-) North8000 (talk) 14:32, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
As other editors have said, each case must be weighed on its merits. Certainly a biography about a religious figure that treats his miracles as facts would not be reliable. But that source is also unreliable because it dramatizes Mohammed's life, which requires literary licence.
OTOH references to religion form part of everyday language. Someone might say for example that it was the best comeback since Lazurus, whom Jesus supposedly brought back from the dead. Or a writer might criticize Communism for its godlessness, implying that God actually exists. But that doesn't mean the book itself is not rs.
As with everything, common sense applies.
TFD (talk) 15:53, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Cambridge Stanford Books

If you need a kind of desperate chuckle... 6 Articles used one or another book published by "Cambridge Stanford Books". These are very badly machine translated works (probably from Wikipedias in other languages, or from other unknown sources), with "authors" with no other credentials at all, producing really terrible results. As an example, I present to you "Life in the Middle Ages" by "Martin Bakers"[19], section "Caroline (sic!) Europe"

  • "The seventh century was a period of turmoil between Australia and New Stella"
  • Today, the small kingdoms of Wales and Scotland continue to be controlled by the British and the elves"

Perhaps this publisher can somehow be blacklisted? If not, at least keeping an eye out for the rubbish they produce may be useful. Fram (talk) 07:58, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

It is poorly machine translated from sources including zh:中世纪, with no acknowledgment that I could see. Yes, blacklist. —Kusma (talk) 08:43, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
Apparently "medieval" means "medium size Kimchi". -- GreenC 13:19, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
Don't tell the Scots and Welsh about the elves, that's meant to be a secret alliance. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 16:37, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
No need to blacklist if it's only 6 articles. Just remove them on sight and carry on. There's no need for pre-approval before removing blatantly bad sources. Just remove them. --Jayron32 17:17, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

beernet.com

beernet.com / Beer Business Daily, is an industry specific news agency for beer and beer related topics. From what I could gather most of the reporting is done by one man or a small team. The source is included in several beer related articles around Wikipedia, should they be considered a reliable source? or do they fail to pass WP:RSSELF? Scu ba (talk) 23:53, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't see any editorial guidelines so unsure who writes the articles and what type of oversight they have with regards to running corrections or verifying facts. Their security team looks pretty good though. --CNMall41 (talk) 00:03, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Most if not all of their articles are written by their owner, Harry Schuhmacher, but then edited by 4 editors (2 for beer, 1 for spirits and wines, and 1 general editor), the company's other 3 employees are for marketing and distribution. Scu ba (talk) 00:26, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
We have people listed as editors but I do not see editorial standards listed. --CNMall41 (talk) 07:53, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
I'm about as cynical as they come with small press these days, but it seems like a legit trade publication with a fairly long history (and at least one eccentric industry expert). Feels like there's an implied editorial oversight process provided by a small team. My terminal career goal has now shifted to "Senior Beer Editor". Sam Kuru (talk) 01:56, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Looks like a small but legitimate trade publication. The publisher has registered a business for the publication. (@Sam Kuru that career goal could indeed be terminal.[Humour]) Random person no 362478479 (talk) 02:13, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Per all of the above, it seems it is has some reputation as a legitimate trade publication; it is cited frequently by news sources on beer industry news: as this google news search shows, I can find them being cited by numerous reliable news sources like the Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, CNBC, Crain's, Fortune, etc. --Jayron32 17:35, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

TaxProf Blog

This was previously discussed [20] but I'm bringing it back up due to limited participation. (Pinging User:TulsaPoliticsFan who commented last time.) Is TaxProf Blog a WP:RS to support statements related to United States tax law, tax policy, the business of law, the profession of tax preparation and tax law, and news related to the aforementioned?

  • Yes The site is reliable to support statements related to United States tax law, tax policy, the business of law, the profession of tax preparation and tax law, and news related to the aforementioned:
(A) The site is recognized as an authority by sources that are unambiguously RS. It has been cited in peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Legal Education [21], Columbia Law Review [22], Tax Lawyer ([23]), etc.; popular press such as The New York Times [24]. etc.; and reliable legal sites like law.com [25]. The ABA Journal called it "a heavily hit online source for news, updates, and informative articles on tax policy and legislation" ([26]) Universities regularly highlight articles written on the site, including Santa Clara University ([27]) and the University of California Davis ([28]). Benjamin H. Barton called it a vital resource on the topic of tax law.
(B) The site has a clear gatekeeping process and editorial controls with an editor (Paul Canon) and individual writers. Each writer is a professor of law at an accredited university.
(C) It has a long (19 year) track record of publication for evaluation, is owned by a network of 21 legal sites and has a physical presence by which it can be held liable for what it publishes. A search on factcheck.org, Poynter, USA Today, and Politifact finds no instances where it's been negatively fact-checked.
Though the word "blog" is incorporated in its name, it is clearly not a "mere blog" as we use the term but, at bare minimum, an WP:SPS, though the presence of a gatekeeping process and editorial controls and its wide recognition as a citable source in the mainstream and academic press would — in my estimation — even eclipse that minimum by a longshot.
Chetsford (talk) 20:03, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
No, I disagree with its application to an assertion about a living person.[29] It is a group blog with most entries written by Paul Caron with the occasional guest blogger. Who gatekeeps or edits his posts? Even if the writer is indeed an expert on tax matters, they shouldn't be used to write about other people per WP:RS/SPS. Morbidthoughts (talk) 20:23, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
I think TulsaPoliticsFan got it exactly right in the previous discussion: TaxProf Blog is a self-published source written by tax-experts, which can usually be considered reliable on (technical) matters of tax-law etc within the respective author's expertise. But if the question is whether a post on the blog can be used to call a living person a "a sleazy tax accountant who regularly gave really bad tax advice" that would be a bright-line violation of WP:BLP, WP:RS and (probably) WP:DUE. Abecedare (talk) 20:42, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
"TaxProf Blog is a self-published source" A self-published source would seem to imply the absence of a gatekeeping process or any form of editorial control, wouldn't it? Chetsford (talk) 20:46, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
@Chetsford: Not necessarily. In a technical sense a guest-post on a substack has passed the substack owner's "gate-keeping"; ditto for group-blogs with (say) Andrew Sullivan 'gate-keeping' what got published on The Dish; or, any moderated comment section, say at NYT, where all posted comments are pre-screened by a 'gate-keeper'. Prof Caron having complete control over what gets published on his site, does not suddenly make guest-posts on his web-site non-SPS (as the term is used in practice, including on wikipedia). That is why WP:SELFPUB specifically talks about "personal or group blogs". Abecedare (talk) 21:22, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
Makes sense to me! Thanks, Abecedare. Chetsford (talk) 22:37, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Agree with the analysis above. This site can be reliable for tax law and accounting issues on the expert exception to SPS, but that exception does not permit use of a SPS in a third-person BLP. Banks Irk (talk) 21:35, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
  • In point of clarification, neither I nor anyone in the discussion was suggesting we "label" the subject of the article as a "tax accountant who gives really bad tax advice", which would clearly be a BLP violation. The question was whether or not WP can acknowledge the incontrovertible fact that the subject of the article has been described as such by RS. That's probably neither here nor there for the purposes of this more narrow thread on the subject of the reliability of TPB, but I want to make clear — before we get carried away — that the implication there was ever anyone who suggested using "tax accountant who gives really bad tax advice" as an objective descriptor in the body of the text is false. Chetsford (talk) 23:34, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
    OK to be clear the source is not reliable for typifies Peterson's character of "a sleazy tax accountant who regularly gave really bad tax advice", it's just labeling with extra steps. This is a BLP issue, and shouldn't be included unless there are multiple high quality sources to back it up. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 11:57, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
    Not on the basis of TaxProf saying so. I don't think TaxProf is WP:RS on the question of whether or not someone is "sleazy". And I don't think sleaziness, or lack thereof, is within its area of expertise. Adoring nanny (talk) 20:11, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
  • I definitely agree that it can't be used to label a BLP as a "sleazy tax accountant." Not sure if I agree that it is WP:RS for tax policy matters or not. Paul Caron is both the editor and also the author of a significant percentage of the posts. I'm unclear on how we are supposed to look at that from a policy standpoint. I do think we can use it with attribution in its area of expertise. Regardless of whether or not we consider it a WP:RS, it should not be considered a top tier source. Adoring nanny (talk) 22:23, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Suggested close - I don't want to artificially terminate the discussion before there's been a thorough chance for everyone to weigh in, however, in the interest of keeping the noticeboard tidy, I'd suggest the discussion has achieved an early consensus that the site is a SPS for tax law and accounting issues but not for specific claims about a living person. Chetsford (talk) 22:37, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

RfC: Public Offering Prospectuses (Form S-1, Form S-3, etc...)

This has not been discussed based on a search of the noticeboard archive. Public Offering Prospectuses (e.g. Form S-1s and Form S-3s) are used throughout Wikipedia as sources (often can be found using the keyword "Edgar" as that is the name of the SEC's website that holds the archived documents, e.g.: Robinhood's S-1 IPO Prospectus). Another editor has raised the possibility that prospectuses should not be used as sources because prospectuses are primary sources and that better sources should be used; however, it would seem that the prospectuses would be the reliable source of truth for statements relating to a company, its investors, or its securities offerings / corporate events discussed within. How do other editors view this? Editchecker123 (talk) 20:25, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

  • They are clearly primary sources, and although there is strict liability under §10b-5 of the Exchange Act and §17(a)(1) of the Securities Act, companies do sometimes make false or misleading statements in those filings. I could see citing one on with attribution that "company X stated Y in Z SEC filing". Banks Irk (talk) 21:12, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
    Thanks. How about when citing ownership in the Principal and Selling Stockholders sections? It would seem that this source could be used to make a statement akin to "Scott Sandell was an early backer of Robinhood" and then cite the table on page 245 which showed him as a pre-IPO stockholder significant enough to be named in the prospectus (where this is nearly impossible to be a false or misleading statement given it is stock that was sold and allocated to other buyers i.e. the shares successfully changed hands so if they were not owned in the way indicated on the prospectus, the buyer could not have received the shares as noted in the prospectus) Editchecker123 (talk) 00:01, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
    Unfortunately, public documents aren't always accurate and mistaken identity happens. WP:PRIMARY and WP:SPS cover the limited situations where we can use sources like these—and reading through those policies, you'll probably understand how public documents can be abused. (Everything it says not to do is there because people have.) When it comes to claims about living persons, WP:BLPPRIMARY, WP:BLPSPS, WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE, and WP:BLPPRIVACY are important as well. (Again, policies are policies because of past abuse.) Ultimately, it's not up to us, as editors, to dig through these sources. That's why we summarize the findings of reliable, secondary sources. Woodroar (talk) 00:26, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
    Agree on every point. Banks Irk (talk) 00:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
    Makes sense, thanks. Thinking about this within the context of a living person (i.e. for corporations and non-living people), it would seem that an S-1 or S-3 prospectus wouldn't likely fall under WP:SPS as it is prepared by experts (the authors are listed on the front cover) and given the liability point mentioned by @Banks Irk, it is not in the same category as a self-published book, blog post, forum / social media post. It would make sense that if there were no question as to mistaken identity and the prospectus listed the investor on the company's capitalization table, that the S-1 or S-3 prospectus could be used to state uninterpreted facts: i.e. "Index Ventures was a backer of Robinhood before its IPO"? Editchecker123 (talk) 01:47, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
    We would still consider that a self-published source because one person (or a group of people) submitted the document outside of any meaningful editorial process. It is largely this process that makes a reliable source reliable, with a r. This is why WP:REPUTABLE calls for reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. An accountant or lawyer submitting documents to the SEC is no different, from an editorial process perspective, than publishing something on Wordpress or Facebook. They can make mistakes, and they can refer to an "Index Ventures" that's different than the Index Ventures that we're thinking of. Reliable, secondary sources need to fact-check or analyze those details and connect the dots for us. Woodroar (talk) 02:29, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
    Enh, we're moving beyond the rule, here. After all, rules are a blunt instrument. Vetting sources is hard and tricky, (and I get that we're often too busy to to do it as well as we would like). And sure, WP:REPUTABLE etc. is a great guideline if you don't have the time to drill down, good place to start. But we are drilling down, here, so we can get a little more flexibility and nuance. So let's use our wits here rather than the rulebook.
So, let's see.. expanding on what an editor above said, a lawyer submitting a legal/financial document like this is going to very careful that there aren't any significant errors. She has the expertise and very much the motive to do that, because she doesn't want to get a bad rep, get sued, or get disbarred. In a legal document a "may" instead of a "shall" can cost you millions of dollars. So they're careful. Give me an expert going over her own work very carefully with her professional pride and the threat of professional extinction in play, rather than a summer intern proofreader.
So in this instance and for these statements the documents are reliable to the degree we require, I think. Herostratus (talk) 03:17, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
Public Offering Prospectuses are primary sources, but that doesn't mean they can't be used... It would be correct to say that better sources should be used but thats kind of a truism, better sources should always be used if identified. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:07, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
A prospectus for an SEC-registered public offering has a pretty high level of reliability, since the issuer is strictly liable for any misstatements under Sections 11 and 12(a)(2) of the Securities Act of 1933. They are prepared by counsel for the issuer, reviewed by counsel for the underwriter (which also faces potential liability), and often reviewed by the Securities and Exchange Commission as well. This is a much higher standard than the ordinary risk of corporate liability under Rule 10b-5. On the other hand, it is a primary source, with all the limitations that implies, and as a selling document it necessarily has a degree of bias embedded. In addition, much of the discussion is likely to be technical and easy to misunderstand, so a prospectus should be used with caution. As a WP:PRIMARYSOURCE it may be used only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. Textual attribution should be considered but may not be necessary for uncontroversial statements about the issuer itself. The source document should be linked if possible, but this may not be practical for historical prospectuses from the pre-EDGAR era. John M Baker (talk) 22:09, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
As for citing something based on the Principal and Selling Stockholders section: That may sound straightforward, but actually the information in that section is very very much in the realm of information that is likely to be technical and easy to misunderstand. In addition, while a prospectus is not really a self-published source in the ordinary sense, since it is reviewed by third parties with concrete standards for accuracy, any statements about individuals are subject to WP:BLP, including WP:BLPPRIMARY, which basically says this kind of information should not be used. I also note that the prospectus actually says that Sandell disclaims beneficial ownership of shares, except for some unspecified amount of pecuniary interest. John M Baker (talk) 22:42, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
I endorse this wholeheartedly. No offense intended, but reading SEC filings is not for amateurs, which is why they always caution to consult a professional. Banks Irk (talk) 22:51, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
Makes sense and also explains why a secondary source is important here because then a professional has gone ahead and done the interpretation for the reader, and that interpretation if from a reliable source, could then be used for the purpose of including it in an article on Wikipedia. Editchecker123 (talk) 03:02, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
I've lost count of how many of these I've vetted over the past 45 years prior to filing and how many times I've been listed as counsel. I still wouldn't recommend using them as a source. To the question actually posed after inquiry by the OP, unless some reputable, reliable second party sources say "X was an early investor/supporter/booster of Y company" and the S-1/prospectus is all you've got as a source, it's not notable enough to include in an article. Banks Irk (talk) 22:37, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
Agree on this point, thanks for the extended analysis on this Editchecker123 (talk) 03:02, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Hold up. Editchecker123, how exactly do you want to use this source? You've given a hypothetical situation above but your actual use seems to be very different—at least according to this and this. In those diffs, you're using related EDGAR sources to support the statement In the 1990s, Chasan and his wife Roslyn were backers of eMusic, the first digital media streaming platform, which was founded by their son Mark Chasan in the article on Fred Chasan. Mark Chasan is a living person, and Roslyn Chasan died only 2 months ago, recently enough to fall under BLP considerations. WP:BLPPRIMARY is very much an issue here. The document you're linking doesn't actually mention the Chasans at all; readers would have to know enough about EDGAR to click on the "0001012870-99-003644.txt" link on that page. This also reveals the fundamental flaw with editors using primary sources, that you're mining for data to include rather than letting reliable, secondary sources highlight what's important. Plenty of other people are mentioned in these documents, and it's likely that Fred and Roslyn Chasan were investors of plenty of other companies. So why should we throw aside our BLP policies to include this specific fact? Woodroar (talk) 22:57, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
    Agree with the foregoing analysis. Banks Irk (talk) 23:42, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
    Thanks for the extended discussion on this. I had made the change before the points above were made and given the above, I agree with the removal of the statement in the article unless a reliable secondary source is cited. Editchecker123 (talk) 03:00, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Thank: Just wanted to thank the community for the extended discussion here, I'm surprised that this case had not come up before and it is an important type of source to unpack given the complex nature of how documents of this type are categorized. Editchecker123 (talk) 03:05, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

The Art Story

This has not been discussed to my knowledge, although I've seen The Art Story (https://www.theartstory.org) used in WP:WPVA articles and I'd like to get more consensus. My take, as an art historian, is "generally unreliable" because the editorial process is unclear, the names of authors are not included in articles, and articles lack publication dates.

The organization is a non-profit and the About Us section describes the process as: We start with material produced by brilliant academics who are also great writers. Our writers either have PhDs or are experts in their fields. This does not fill me with confidence. What is the process following the "start"? Why use the term "brilliant" or "great writers"? And how does one verify the expertise of those without PhDs? It lacks a coherent structure and this kind of description of a source would eliminate it at the outset from even undergraduate papers. While there is a list of editors, it is not clear how things are factchecked or how literature is used.

I am not saying that the information included there is not factual--it's actually a useful reference, but I do not believe we should be relying on The Art Story for serious art historical articles. I think that there are numerous alternatives (https://www.smarthistory.org is one such website and it is helpful to compare their peer review process) of scholarly and reliable content. Ppt91talk 17:44, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

It's new to me. But I would completely agree with the majority of what you say, based on what The Art Story says about themselves. It seems to have originated as an online venture by a graduate, to create a dumbed-down and easily navigable art website / encylopedia. One thing I notice is, if you click on the "Cite me" button at the bottom of each page, it tells you who the author was and whether the editor has amended it. Strangely, the authors of the two articles/pages I looked at, weren't listed on the website's list of contributors. I'd say it's a handy resource for a high school project, but for Wikipedia we'd prefer better quality sources. Sionk (talk) 20:36, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
Thank you, @Sionk , I appreciate your input! It's interesting you were able to find specific authors for some articles, as the ones I looked at mention "The Art Story Contributors" when I click the citation button. I guess that only makes it harder to verify. Either way, I was glad to see you share my reservations regarding quality. Ppt91talk 21:21, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
The "about us" you quote does not fill me with confidence either, not because some writers do not have PhDs, but because they wave PhDs as a reliability indication. As the early years of Wikipedia vs. Britannica demonstrate, the editorial process is a better guarantee of reliability than the credentials of the writers.
It’s certainly not at the level of scholarly sources (article papers, museum notices etc.), but on the other hand, on its face, it’s not trash either. By default I would say as reliable as articles from the non-specialized press can be. TigraanClick here for my talk page ("private" contact) 09:45, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

The People's Daily RfC

So I was reading the article on Hotmail (which is now called outlook) and I noticed that The People's Daily was being cited as a source, as can be seen here.

Given that the People's Daily is official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, I feel that we should have a discussion about marking The People's Daily as a Deprecated Source. Maurice Oly (talk) 00:26, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Reliability of the Better Business Bureau for Company Status

Howdy! I'm basically re-writing the article for Playphone, and in doing so discovered that the Better Business Bureau has listed the company as being out of business. Given the empty website n' no social media activity since 2021, I'm inclined to believe that, but of course I'd need a reliable source to say it when puttin' that information in the article.

There've been a couple of discussions about the reliability of the BBB before, but they seemed to all be about ratings, which isn't what I'm lookin' for, and it isn't featured on the Perennial Sources page.

The site says that it gathered this information from "files" that the organization has, but I can't find any specification of what or where these files are. So my question here is: is the BBB a reliable source on the operating status of a company? Thanks in advance!

(P.S. I'm about to head to bed, so sorry if I can't give a lot of other info right away.) ~Judy (job requests) 02:37, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

If BBB is the only source, to that's a problem. I'd note that the company is still listed at various Sec of State Business Entity sites. Banks Irk (talk) 02:57, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
That makes sense. I turned to government sites after reading this, and I actually think I know where the BBB got tripped up. It looks like Playphone set up a second company or another branch, incorporated it using a company in Delaware, and merged the two branches together into one, closing the one that wasn't incorporated in Delaware. As a result, it's listed twice on both a business tax search through San José and California's Sec State search, with one of 'em being listed as "closed" and "merged out," respectively. Ain't that nifty...anyway, thanks! I guess that answers the question, haha. ~Judy (job requests) 17:40, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

RfC: WION

Hatted for WP:DENY of disruptive sockpuppet editor. This does not preclude a good-faith editor starting a separate discussion if one is seen as needed - David Gerard (talk) 12:23, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

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

Following these previous discussions from Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 335#WION News, and Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 315#Is WION a reliable source?, what is the reliability of WION (wionnews.com HTTPS links HTTP links)?

  • Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
  • Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
  • Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
  • Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated as in the 2017 RfC of the Daily Mail?

Surveyor Mount 04:25, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Survey

Option 3 I looked at the comments on the two links you provided and they seem to be advocating that it's unreliable due to it's political connection to India, and the evidence they gave seems to back it up. I took a peek and it doesn't look too bad (I mean, about the recent North Korean nuclear missile over Hokkaido thing, it seemed to be stating mostly true stuff, although I did notice a lot of articles about India, Pakistan, and that kind of stuff. I'd say option 3, although I am open to changing my vote to option 2 if new evidence suggests the source's reliability. interstatefive  01:26, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 3 for now, without prejudice to a new RfC in a year or so. If independent experts appear on WION, I see no problem using them, with attribution. They do separate news and opinion. I could not find a corrections policy. I could not find any evidence that a wrong article had been corrected. I spot checked a few articles and did not see anything that was obviously wrong. I looked around for WP:USEBYOTHERS and found very very little, though they are referenced by [30], which itself lacks much of a footprint. I don't see evidence that they have a reputation for fact checking, accuracy, lack of fact checking, or inaccuracy. I don't think they meet WP:NEWSORG yet. But they seem to be newish, so I think it would make sense to check back in a year or so. If this gets listed at WP:RSP, I request that the temporary nature of this assessment be noted. Furthermore, it is possible that input from a user who has a high degree of familiarity with India might change this assessment. Adoring nanny (talk) 19:59, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 3 maybe 4, although the latter is probably not necessary at this time. The news channel isn't too new, it was established around 2015-16 as an international channel by Zee Media (which also runs Zee News, its various derivatives and the websites India.com and DNA India; all of which have a very poor reputation). The channel just hasn't managed to get sufficient traction with their intended international audience and the company in general is faltering, so secondary coverage on their reporting will be somewhat sparse. In terms of its content, it isn't too different from its sister outlets, only the target audience, area of coverage and presentation is different.
I had commented on it in the previous two discussions back in 2020-21 and I'll more or less stand by my comments that it is generally and quite thoroughly unreliable. Although I wouldn't use the exact terms I had used back then, I'll still say that they are linked to the ruling party (the chairman of their parent company is Subhash Chandra) and they very closely toe the government line, making them functionally non-independent. I had also provided examples for unreliability back then and I'd just add to that with a few more points below:
  • During the Covid-19 pandemic, in reaction to the coverage by international news outlets on government response and the extent and impact of the pandemic in India, they made allegations of "media bias" and "targeting", while claiming that the "western media" was censoring coverage of the pandemic in their home countries to the point that there was "nothing on the news wires" and that only WION was bringing the coverage in these countries as "everyone else has chosen not to" which we know is patently false. This is in line with their general MO and they frequently make similar retorts to reporting by the international press on the deteriorating state of affairs in India on matters such as political repression, press freedom, etc. This kind of behaviour doesn't align with them being a journalistic enterprise.
  • They had once falsely announced that they were in a partnership with Deutsche Welle. This brings into question whether even its claims about itself can be relied on.
  • With respect to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, there also seems to be a subtle alignment with Russian propaganda as well. For example, they had quoted a ABC News-Washington Post poll which included views of Americans on the Russian state but they re-interpreted it as "Russophobia", a term that wasn't used in the original source at all and is a charge of prejudice against Russians frequently used by the Russian state and its propaganda apparatus.[1][2][3]
Tayi Arajakate Talk 22:12, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
Gravitas is clearly a pundit-based opinion show, making it unreliable, regardless of how one views the underlying outlet. Adoring nanny (talk) 16:02, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
It looks like that but it isn't; Gravitas is identified as a news programme (see PR source; the website section of it describes itself as "Gravitas news") and the host mentioned in the specific episode above was an executive editor (not a pundit or talk show host) at that time. It's more of a feature/exclusive news segment where they break stories (such as in the example) or report on the biggest story of the day.
In fact, Indian news channels don't really have a concept of "pundit-based opinion shows", instead there are "debate shows" which fills a similar space. Tayi Arajakate Talk 18:24, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Burrett, Tina (2021). "Putin, partisanship and the press". In Morrison, James; Birks, Jen; Berry, Mike (eds.). The Routledge Companion to Political Journalism. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780429284571-16. ISBN 978-0-367-24822-2.
  2. ^ Darczewska, Jolanta; Żochowsky, Piotr (October 2015). "Russophobia in the Kremlin's strategy: A weapon of mass destruction" (PDF). Point of View (56). OSW Centre for Eastern Studies. ISBN 978-83-62936-72-4.
  3. ^ Robinson, Neil (2019). ""Russophobia" in Official Russian Political Discourse". De Europa. 2 (2). doi:10.13135/2611-853X/3384. ISSN 2611-853X.

Discussion

@Surveyor Mount you have not formatted this to be a formal Request for Comments. If you want to do that take a look at the help page here: WP:RFC. Also pinging contributors from the two earlier discussions: @Morgengave @Tayi Arajakate @Thucydides411 @Horse Eye's Back Random person no 362478479 (talk) 20:31, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
Okay, I changed this link to wionnews.com, but wion.com what I requested is incorrect. Surveyor Mount 22:53, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
Both the links are wrong, the correct one is wionews.com HTTPS links HTTP links. Wion.com is someone's blog it seems, unrelated to this and wionnews.com is only a redirected link. I'll leave a comment on this news publisher in a while though I'm curious, what prompted this RfC? Tayi Arajakate Talk 22:29, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
FYI, Surveyor Mount has since been blocked as a sockpuppet of SwissArmyGuy :3 F4U (they/it) 12:01, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

ArabiaGIS and UNDP

I am thinking of create a bot request to automate some coordinate addition to lebanese towns articles. See this TH discussion for more info. The source for the coordinates is listed as UNDP/Arabia GIS. I was wondering if this is a reliable source for the coords of all LB towns. I'd say the UNDP is reliable but not sure about Arabia GIS. Their website went offline in 2011. Here's the last archive before that.

Edit:Seems they actually recreated their website but it has since gone offline again. See this PalauanReich (talk) 17:30, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Does this book support the claim that USSR joined the Allies not after Barbarossa, but almost a month later?

This book [1] says

"He [Cripps] replied on July 10 that Stalin had accepted 'an agreement for joint action between His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and the government of the U.S.S.R. in the war against Germany."

Does this source support the claims that

  • USSR joined the Allies as a result of signing Cripps-Molotow declaration
  • The Cripps-Molotow declaration was a military alliance
  • The USSR could not be considered the Ally until it signed a military alliance with Britain?

Sincerely, --Paul Siebert (talk) 01:25, 17 April 2023 (UTC) Paul Siebert (talk) 01:25, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

No. Because it doesn't say any of that. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:23, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
I would think there are more-explanatory and more-recent sources for those questions, rather than extrapolating from a single sentence in a government doc from 1962. - GreenC 02:23, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
Does it support the claims? Probably slightly, and obliquely at that, but it has got to be far down the totem pole of sources in the general area. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:46, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
There might be more in that source which better supports those three claims, but that sentence alone definitely isn't sufficient to source any of those three claims. The source supports something along the lines of "the UK and the USSR signed an agreement for joint action in the war on July 12th" and nothing significantly broader. Loki (talk) 02:55, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
Per Loki, the source can only be used as a source for what it actually says, which in this case is that Crips stated that Stalin accepted an agreement for joint action between His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and the government of the U.S.S.R. in the war against Germany on 10 July and that said agreement was signed on 12 July. It cannot be used for any interpretation about what that means, and all of the statements the OP asks about cannot be sourced to that sentence because doing so would be a violation of WP:FOLLOWSOURCE, to wit, "Take care not to go beyond what the sources express or to use them in ways inconsistent with the intention of the source" The source doesn't state what the three statements say, so it cannot be used to support those three statements. --Jayron32 17:26, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
I don't think their email was as good back then, Paul. It sometimes took a while for paperwork to get sorted out. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:03, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
...and they were rather busy at the time. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:12, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Thank you. Actually, I fully agree with what you say. This my question was caused by the dispute with one user, who believes that this source does support these claims. Paul Siebert (talk) 13:21, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Woodward, Llewellyn (1962). British Foreign Policy in the Second World War. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. pp. 162–3. He [Cripps] replied on July 10 that Stalin had accepted 'an agreement for joint action between His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and the government of the U.S.S.R. in the war against Germany.' ...The agreement was signed on July 12.

Votesmart.com

Is votesmart.com a reliable source? I need information on a former AR state legsitlaure member Nelda Speaks and they have a lot of info on her. GameOfAwesome (talk) 22:22, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

@GameOfAwesome do you mean votesmart.org/Vote Smart? Here's a discussion from 2016: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_214#Vote_Smart Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:03, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
Looking at the earlier discussion, I concur with the first response there by Only in Death... Per WP:FOLLOWSOURCE, one needs to be very careful when using the source to ascribe things like political positions to a BLP article, even by implication. It seems to be an essentially reliable source for voting record (which bills a person voted on, and how they voted), however, to state (or even imply) that a person feels a certain way, or holds a particular political position, or believes in something or other, because they voted a specific way on some specific legislation is a bridge to far, and care needs to be avoided. I'd even be careful characterizing the vote beyond anything than "So-and-so voted nay on H.B. 202-35" or whatever, and NOT say things like "So-and-so voted against legalizing marijuana", because that requires additional sourcing to a source that states that explicitly. --Jayron32 11:55, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
Sounds about right. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:46, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
Votesmart is one of the parameters in {{CongLinks}} and I use it that way, as an external link. I don't personally believe I've encountered any errors in it. It's a useful research tool I don't cite inline. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:50, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
A separate but related issue is that sentences like So-and-so voted nay on H.B. 202-35 are often problematic from the point of view of WP:DUE and WP:SYNTH. --JBL (talk) 21:09, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Should AccuWeather be deprecated?

Should AccuWeather be deprecated for being inconsistent, as claimed in this edit? 69.119.89.11 (talk) 23:01, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Note – This is a likely IP sock of User:Andrew5. It has proven frustrating at the numerous instances of this user being reported to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Andrew5 because the problem isn't being adequately addressed. The user being allowed to edit freely despite being a sockpuppet mocks the system. The user may try to act like a different person, but gives it away very easily by editing the same exact content and be the location of the IP address. United States Man (talk) 23:17, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Tornado outbreak of December 10–11, 2021 has an RFC

Tornado outbreak of December 10–11, 2021 has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Elijahandskip (talk) 02:15, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

See List of material published by WikiLeaks. Lots of links to WikiLeaks and archived copies. All of Wikipedia should be searched for such links.

Doesn't linking to WikiLeaks violate our policies? We are not allowed to link to any website known to host copyright violations or stolen documents, and linking to an archived copy doesn't help the situation. That's why the Steele dossier article does not link directly to the website that hosts the dossier. We had to settle that matter when the article was first created. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:28, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Wikileaks can be used as a primary source for backing up secondary sources, for instance about Wikileaks organization or denials or suchlike. But yes that page should not have links to Wikileaks for information about specific leaks, only to secondary sources. NadVolum (talk) 23:24, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Yes. ABOUTSELF allows linking to the main index page and About page, but WikiLeaks hosts lots of illegally obtained content, and I believe we are not allowed to link to such URLs. That list links to many such pages. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:29, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Hmm, that's rather strange. The main injuction seems to be against linking to copyright work that has been stolen. Isn't there some rule about government works in the US being public domain? It would still need a secondary source and I can't see there would ever be a good reason to link to the primary leaked source in that article. NadVolum (talk) 23:36, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Classified documents aren't in the public domain... -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:05, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Works by the US federal government are often public domain from a copyright perspective; see Copyright status of works by the federal government of the United States. Not sure if we have a policy on linking to hacked/leaked materials. The reason we don't link to the Steele dossier is because it's a major BLP violation. Therapyisgood (talk) 05:07, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Classified US Federal government documents are, by law, in the public domain. You may find this instance of an FBI agent attempting to copyright classified torture documents interesting. You'll find another example at ANT catalog. :3 F4U (they/it) 12:06, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
That's ...really quite amusing. Thanks! NadVolum (talk) 12:25, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Amusing or not, the Mother Jones article does not verify Classified US Federal government documents are, by law, in the public domain. SPECIFICO talk 12:58, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
I'd have thought along with Copyright status of works by the federal government of the United States article the Mother Jones quote was enough to go by

Julian Sanchez, a fellow with the libertarian Cato Institute who has studied copyright policy, was harsher: “Do they not cover this in orientation? [Sensitive] documents should not be placed in public repositories—and, by the way, aren’t copyrightable. How do you even get a clearance without knowing this stuff?”

. NadVolum (talk) 14:09, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Let's be clear about this - is it the case that having such links is problematic from the legal point of view and makes it possible to sue Wiki(m/p)edia in the US where the servers are located? If that's the argument, we need someone qualified to confirm that.
On the other hand, the mere fact that the documents were obtained not in a legal way is not a good reason to remove the links. Consider the Pentagon papers article - do you propose to remove the links to the actual papers from it too? Alaexis¿question? 05:54, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
This is a long discussion. See this inconclusive RfC from 2021. There's two questions, one is whether it's public domain, and usually we deal with copyright, whether than national security classification. The other is, whether it's reliable. In all cases, a federal government is a primary document, but the question is, can we assume it's a primary government document? Generally Wikileaks is known for authenticating its sources, but it should neutrally be noted, that it's a Wikileaks host of documents, not directly claim it's some NSA document that was declassified in a FOIA request. All that said, if newspapers report on it, or they're used in public court proceedings, I'd have no issue with linking to direct Wikileak document in question. It's an unresolved question. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:12, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Yes, such documents should definitely be attributed, I don't think anyone would argue with that. Alaexis¿question? 19:00, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
  • AFAIK, reading documents post-leak is not illegal in the U.S., New York Times Co. v. United States, organizations such as both Wikileaks and Wikipedia are protected under First Amendment guidelines regarding freedom of speech and of the press. To wit "Any system of prior restraints of expression [bears] a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity", which is to say that the burden of establishing prior restraint lies with the government, and there is a presumption against its wide applicability in the absence of specific liability. Which is to say, there is no legal ramifications on Wikipedia (or likely Wikileaks) to worry about. The copyright issue is a red herring as well, as far as I am concerned, and smacks of throwing anything against the wall and seeing what sticks. --Jayron32 18:21, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

This particular article has a huge number of proportion of primary sources. If the material in the list is noteworthy, there'd be secondary sources showing it. It's not our job to be a portal to Wikileaks. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:22, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

I count roughly 25 references to WikiLeaks, out of 288 references, which isn't "a huge proportion". Some of these references are to Twitter posts by WikiLeaks, some to their website. Many are used in the standard way we usually use primary sources, i.e. to support statements like WikiLeaks claimed, etc.
Besides that, I wholeheartedly concur with Jayron32 that the copyright or legality arguments are red-herrings. WikiLeaks's tweets fall under WP:ABOUTSELF. The documents, however, don't fall under ABOUTSELF, since they are not original work self-published by WikiLeaks, but the works of others republished by them. Those documents count as bog-standard primary sources, to be used conservatively for descriptive statements of facts, not avoided altogether. DFlhb (talk) 18:04, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Pinging @Diannaa: as the resident expert to see whether such links represent a copyright issue. Cambial — foliar❧ 11:51, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Ian Stevenson

At Argument from authority we currently use a paper by Ian Stevenson to support the claim that "authority has no place in science". However, the paper we are using to source this - which does make that claim - is the 1989 Flora Levy Lecture in the Humanities [31], in which Stevenson is primarily describing his belief in reincarnation, making it a decidly fringe paper, in which he makes the claim to say that we shouldn't trust what other people tell us about reincarnation. So, can we use a paper arguing for a fringe claim as support for a statement about the scientific process? - Bilby (talk) 03:27, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

I would not use it. For the reason you have stated, plus it sounds like his opinion or philosophical statement devoid of context (i.e. he made asserted "authority has no place in science", but did not explain his reasoning). -Location (talk) 03:48, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Are these reliable sources for Moorthy Muthuswamy

Which seems to have been written by a fan. [32] - saveindia.com. Definitely doesn't seem to meet our criteria. Citation 4 leads to [33] and what I can see there (not all 4 are working) don't seem to meet RS either. Puzzling are these, cites 10 and 11 which lead to this journal which looks ok on the surface but when you click on the menu the pages aren't there. So I can't tell if it's this or not. That one lists a respectable editorial board but again the top links don't work, at least for me. The external link called review leads to [34] (one of the ones at citation 4) which looks like some sort of Islamophobic personal site. Doug Weller talk 10:36, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

The article was created (in 2017) by MoorthyM, which sounds like a version of the subject's name. They last edited it four months ago, and have made no other edits to the encyclopedia. I've given them a uw-autobiography warning. Bishonen | tålk 11:26, 24 April 2023 (UTC).
Update: I misspoke; the article creator was User:Koala34, another redlinked account that hasn't edited since 2017. Anyway, I have prodded the article. Bishonen | tålk 16:03, 24 April 2023 (UTC).

911Truth.org and consortiumnews.com

Source. https://911truth.org, specifically https://911truth.org/tag/ray-mcgovern/

911Truth.org as a source has been previously discussed or mentioned: [35], [36]

Source. https://consortiumnews.com, specifically https://consortiumnews.com/tag/ray-mcgovern/

Consortium News as a source has been previously discussed or mentioned: [37], [38], [39], [40]

Article. Ray McGovern

Content. Are they appropriate for inclusion in Ray McGovern#External links?

WP:LINKSTOAVOID (#2) states that we "should generally avoid providing external links to"..."any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research, except to a limited extent in articles about the viewpoints that the site is presenting." As noted above, various discussions about https://911truth.org and https://consortiumnews.com have found them to be generally unreliable sources of information, however, the "External links" section of Ray McGovern contains links to articles in in which his name has been tagged. Are those links appropriate for inclusion or should they be removed? (I understand that this is not about any particular text in the article, but I'm not sure there is a better forum for the question.) Thanks! -Location (talk) 16:37, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

  • As bare links with no context, no, we should not link them. WP:ELYES is a fairly short list, and in practice is restricted mostly to either a) official websites of the subject b) reliable sources which discuss the subject, but which are not being used directly as inline citations. This is neither of those. Kill with fire. --Jayron32 18:05, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
I've deleted 911truth as it's clearly highly inappropriate. The McGovern page there was made up of stuff reposted from elsewhere (often Consortium) plus some fringe content that mentions him. The Consortium page might fit ELYES if that was the main outlet for his writings, but I don't think it is. The external links section on that article is severely bloated and I'd support cutting a lot of it out. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:04, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
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