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PinkNews AKA Pink News

PinkNews was last discussed at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 47#Pink News. It came to my attention recently when it was used as a source for claims that Anne Frank was bisexual.

URL: [ https://www.pinknews.co.uk/ ].

It is currently linked to (including talk pages) 2143 times.[1]

It is cited 714 times.[2] Many of the pages cited are BLPs and in many cases PinkNews is used to support a claim that someone is gay or homophobic.

Does everyone still agree with the conclusion of the previous RSNB discussion?

Under what circumstances should statements cited only to PinkNews be removed? BLPs only? All articles?

Under what circumstances should citations to PinkNews be replaced with Citation Needed but the claim retained? BLPs only? All articles?

--Guy Macon (talk) 17:16, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

• Additional considerations apply I wouldn't use it on a BLP except for reporting direct quotes from a notable person. For instance it's reliable for quotes from Ian McKellen here, but not reliable for its own statements on a living person. It's also useful for some aspects of LGBT history that might otherwise be difficult to cover without OR, for instance quoting older newspapers. I wouldn't remove it wholesale without evidence that it gets stuff wrong. Homophobia is a label without any accepted definition, and being called that by PinkNews probably lacks due weight, but can't be factually incorrect by definition. There are a lot better sources on Anne Frank specifically. buidhe 18:05, 21 April 2020 (UTC) Not generally reliable per gnu57's comment below. Anything that hasn't been reported by other outlets is likely WP:UNDUE. buidhe 21:15, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
• Generally reliable, though I'd use attribution since it's specialist press - but it's a good paper that is generally careful to get things right and not wrong, especially as it's working in a socially charged area - David Gerard (talk) 18:20, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
• Huh. I have no specific reason to distrust it, but the sudden recent determination by a WP:SPA to label Anne Frank as bisexual seems to me to be highly questionable. I would not accept Pink News as a source for someone being gay unless it's in their own words. A notable person gives them an interview describing coming out? Sure. Someone quote-mines the sources and decides to claim a historical figure? Not so much. Guy (help!) 18:26, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

*Generally reliable. Has editorial oversight and is an important source for LGBT news. It should not be used for Frank's sexuality, as this is a topic that has significant academic writing.--Eostrix (talk) 06:43, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

• Struck in light of the evidence below, which shows some pushing of boundaries. I am unconvinced on Anne Frank (as this is covered in the scholarship well before Pink News), but other items give me pause. I do think Pink News has some higher quality items, but I am uncertain how to separate the wheat from the chaff, this varies by section on their website.--Eostrix (talk) 06:28, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

• Take consideration I wouldn't use it as the sole source for something, especially when it is, by its nature, leaning towards one viewpoint. I think if they assert someone as being homosexual, I'd look for sources elsewhere to see if it is reliable. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 07:14, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

  What they appear to specialize in is having an army of readers who comb through primary sources, look for any evidence supporting the person being LGBT, and having PinkNews publish it, at which point the army or readers add the allegation that X is LGBT along with a link to the primary source to multiple discussion groups and social networking pages -- and sometimes to Wikipedia. In many cases PinkNews is the only secondary source that commented on the persons sexuality or on the particular bit of primary material. Example from Anne Frank[3] and Jacqueline van Maarsen.[4] Sometimes the primary source is a direct quote from someone who is self-identifying, but sometimes PinkNews appears to be outing people who have not openly declared their sexual preferences based on obscure primary material. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:37, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

  • To be honest if its citing Wikipedia, then surely that would automatically make it an unreliable source under WP:WINRS? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 07:43, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

    Hardly the only source examining Anne Frank's sexuality in light of the passages suppressed in the original version. For instance: this JTA piece touches on it, and page 156 of this book discusses "oscillating love objects" between homoerotic and heterosexual.--Eostrix (talk) 08:06, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

• In this particular WP:CONTEXT: use in-text attribution and do not put it into the lead. For the topic of Anne Frank there are high quality biographies, peer-reviewed papers in history journals, etc. If these sources do not include the claim about bisexuality, then per WP:DUE and WP:BALANCE, the stated view should be represented in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. And if the view is represented only in a PinkNews article and not in the numerous biographies and peer-reviewed papers, then it is a view of extremely low prominence. --MarioGom (talk) 08:21, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

For other cases: I don't think this would be usable for a WP:BLP. For other cases, I think my comment above applies: consider its weight and use in-text attribution. Note there is a trend of claiming that historical figures or fictional characters are, actually, LGBT. All relevant policies and guidelines should be applied on a case-by-case basis (WP:DUE, WP:BALANCE, WP:EXTRAORDINARY; WP:FRINGE too in a few of them, not all). --MarioGom (talk) 08:29, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

• Not reliable I'm aware of two recent fake news articles they ran: one claiming that Joanna Cherry was being investigated for homophobia (retracted following legal intervention[5][6]), the other claiming that the Israeli health minister had called the coronavirus "divine punishment for homosexuality" (apparently cribbed from a Pakistani news site; retracted following complaints by Israeli media watchdog groups[7]). See also Ad Fontes Media's criticism of their clickbait article "Bill O'Reilly caught in $32 million Fox News gay adult films scandal" [8], and Seventeen's coverage of their photoshopped and clickbait social media promotions.[9][10]. On the other hand, I am not aware of their having outed living people/falsely claimed that living people are LGBT; but they do tend to speculate about celebrity dating rumours and about the sexuality of historical figures. Cheers, gnu57 17:40, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
• Generally unreliable. I was undecided about this, but I just followed the links that gnu57 posted above, and then I spent over an hour doing my own research. (The claim about the Israeli health minister was widely cut and pasted on various social media sites. Just google the phrase "speaking about the origins of COVID-19, the health minister said" to find multiple copies the original claim.) I would like to ask David Gerard, and Eostrix to re-examine their conclusions based on this new evidence.

Here is what I concluded from my own research:

• If someone like the the Israeli health minister is already known to be anti-LGBT, PinkNews will gladly publish additional "evidence" from dodgy sources such as [ nayadaur.tv ], which published things like "15-Year-Old Christian Transgender Raped To Death In Faisalabad" sourced to a facebook post by an activist.
• Another example of a dodgy source is at is [11]. where the claim "Queer-coding has affected many fictional villains. These evil characters are generally either shown as flamboyant and overly dramatic, like Disney characters Scar and Hades, or written as having a deep fixation on the main character, like Jafar, Kim Possible villain Shego and Catra from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. In the past few decades, Disney fans have seen Governor Ratcliffe and Professor Ratigan—as well as Scar, Jafar and Hades—being portrayed as queer characters." The source for this claim? A Twitter tweet by "Jay, a self-described 'transmasc enby' who uses they/he pronouns".
• If there is evidence from primary sources like the Dairy of Anne Frank that could conceivably be used as evidence that they are LGBT, PinkNews will report it even if no other source does. This is a WP:WEIGHT problem.
• Or consider this article,[12] with the breathless headline "Star Trek: Picard season finale sees iconic character finally come out as queer, inspiring a million new fan fictions. The Star Trek: Picard season finale has confirmed a same-sex romance for iconic character Seven of Nine, and fans are thrilled." The evidence? Two characters holding hands. In a series that already had more than one openly gay couple and thus no real reason to be ambiguous.

So my conclusion is:

Generally unreliable except when quoting living people who have self-identified their sexual preferences. If PinkNews gives a source for a claim, use that source. If PinkNews makes a claim that is in another source, use that other source. If the other source does not meet Wikipedia's reliability standards, remove the claim. If the claim is found only in PinkNews remove the claim. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:13, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

--Guy Macon (talk) 17:13, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

After reading through this, I think that's a good conclusion. I generally thought of it as HuffPo level RS, but the evidence shown by gnu above makes me reconsider. I'd also say PinkNews could likely be used as a general source for lgbtq terminology and neologisms. EvergreenFir (talk) 06:38, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Not really. Like any other advocacy organisation PinkNews regularly weaponises language to further its own goals. This isnt in itself a criticism, its standard practice for many organisations. But you wouldnt use PinkNews as a RS for anything involving 'TERF' for example. It also has a long and squalid history of publishing rubbish because it follows their line. The only thing it is reliable for is its own opinion, or where it directly interviews someone, what they say. They have not yet graduated to the Daily Mail level of manufacturing interviews afaik. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:58, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Peer-reviewed journal R&I articles as WP:PRIMARY?

Dlthewave has removed passages from the race and intelligence article (9 February and 24 February) with the rationale that they are primary sources. Now he tagged another passage with the primary source inline template (27 April). Grayfell reverted my removal of the primary tag, so the interpretation clearly is controversial.

There were a few other sources that were claimed to be primary sources, but this one was in all three edits:

• Rushton, J. Philippe; Jensen, Arthur R (2005). "Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability" (PDF). Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. 11 (2): 246–8. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.186.102. doi:10.1037/1076-8971.11.2.235. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-11-03. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Is this a WP:PRIMARY source?

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law is a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Psychological Association. A scientific review article released in such a journal, even if authored by controversial authors like Jensen and Rushton, isn't a primary source. The name of the article, Thirty Years of Research..., already reveals the nature of it. They are reviewing research on the topic and then offering their own conclusions, like a normal article in such a journal. Wikipedia then attributes their conclusion on the research and cites the article.

WP:PRIMARY only states that something like this is a primary source: a scientific paper documenting a new experiment conducted by the author is a primary source on the outcome of that experiment. However, in the discussion on Dlthewave's talkpage, he cited WP:ALLPRIMARY which states that A peer-reviewed journal article may begin by summarizing a careful selection of previously published works to place the new work in context (which is secondary material) before proceeding into a description of a novel idea (which is primary material). WP:ALLPRIMARY is titled "All sources are primary for something". Then what's the point of the primary source tagging if every source is a primary source in some way? Are you allowed to remove any peer-reviewed journal article on this basis?

With the recent race and intelligence RfC determining some race and intelligence authors as WP:FRINGE, like Jensen and Rushton, editors should be even more careful here. The policy has an extensive section on sourcing which is of use here: Wikipedia:Fringe theories#Sourcing. --Pudeo (talk) 07:08, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, in context – Even Rushton & Jensen's 2005 30-year review is a primary source for some content, although it is mostly secondary-source content. The point of primary source tagging if every source is a primary source is to tag article content that is sourced to a primary source, not to tag an entire source as "primary". Rarely are sources purely primary or purely secondary; almost all of them are a mix of both. In the current case, the content at issue is Jensen and Rushton argued that the existence of biological group differences does not rule out, but raises questions about the worthiness of policies such as affirmative action or placing a premium on diversity. They also argued for the importance of teaching people not to overgeneralize or stereotype individuals based on average group differences, because of the significant overlap of people with varying intelligence between different races., which is cited to R&J 2005. This specific content is talking about Rushton and Jensen's views, and that's cited to Rushton and Jensen's paper expressing their views. R&J are primary sources for their own opinion. But, I think all that misses the point a bit. The problem is that the primary source doesn't establish neutrality – i.e., that inclusion of R&J's opinion is WP:DUE. If R&J's opinion were WP:DUE, we should be able to source it to someone else describing R&J's opinion (a secondary source). So I think an {{undue}} tag is better than a {{primary}} tag personally, but either way, I agree the content isn't properly sourced in accordance with WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 07:26, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks for the explanation. That does make sense, to a degree, although it is rare that journal articles treated this way. Usually WP:attribution is enough and then editors just cover views represented in reliable sources. If Wikipedia was to limit coverage only to sources that describe someone else's views (nearing the border between WP:SECONDARY and WP:TERTIARY), it would have a massive impact, especially in non-historical topics. In history, it's obviously more common to have sources that describe what some historical figure thought. But perhaps this is justified with the WP:FRINGE situation, and it boils down to editor judgment. --Pudeo (talk) 10:46, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• Levivich is correct. The source is primary for the authors' opinion, so the tag is not inappropriate. buidhe 09:11, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
• The issue here is that these are essentially fringe views, and we should not include a fringe view based solely on an exposition of that fringe view - we should use secondary sources that analyse and describe the fringe view and its status and level of acceptance. Guy (help!) 11:02, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
• Yes To be clear, the passage in question is "Jensen and Rushton argued that the existence of biological group differences does not rule out, but raises questions about the worthiness of policies such as affirmative action or placing a premium on diversity. They also argued for the importance of teaching people not to overgeneralize or stereotype individuals based on average group differences, because of the significant overlap of people with varying intelligence between different races." which is sourced to Rushton and Jensen (free access available here courtesy of Linda Gottfredson).

According to WP:ALLPRIMARY, "A peer-reviewed journal article may begin by summarizing a careful selection of previously published works to place the new work in context (which is secondary material) before proceeding into a description of a novel idea (which is primary material)." In this case, Rushton and Jensen's paper consists mainly of a secondary review of previous research, but it also includes their own views such as "Still other policy issues (e.g., affirmative action, the value of diversity) might merit reconsideration based on the degree to which heredity as opposed to culture turns out to be the causal agent" which is a primary source for the authors' views. As others have pointed out, the real concern here is that a primary-source opinion does not necessarily meet WP:DUE WEIGHT which is based on secondary coverage, so perhaps an "undue" tag would have been more appropriate. –dlthewave ☎ 12:31, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• There's a current related discussion on similar issues, in the FA context, at Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates#What_constitutes_a_reliable_source? Johnbod (talk) 12:59, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
• This case illustrates for the 1000th time that the primary/secondary aspect of the reliable sourcing rules does more harm than good and should be expunged expect in the very few cases where it actually makes sense. Zero^talk 02:53, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Should this one be added as RS?

I don't know how or when to add a source to the list, but as it was recently challenged by a new editor, would like it to be considered for inclusion so that it can be easily referenced. It is Creative Spirits, a resource for matters relating to Indigenous peoples in Australia. Although I was initially a bit cautious because it is a self-published source (created by Jens Korff), I always check sources, and have found his material to be pretty meticulously sourced. (This means that I have often also gone to the original source, if available.) I have also found him cited in other sources upon occasion. As he says on the page I've linked to "Some of my content, both articles and images, have also been published in other works around the world", including a Year 10 textbook. The National Library of Australia catalogue entry is here, and that also leads to their archiving of the website here. He is quoted on the Victorian education website here - History: Aboriginal Australia and on Austlit and there's an article on Artshub (paywall). It's cited in an article in Aboriginal History (journal) and others here, here, here, and others. Can someone please advise if/how this can be recorded as an RS, or does it need to be posted elsewhere for debate? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 03:20, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

• I would be cautious about using about using this source: certainly not BLPs or anything controversial and most info can and should be sourced to better quality sources. As you can see by searching uses of the source many of its uses on Wikipedia do not follow this rule. buidhe 08:25, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Tough one, it seems to fit SPS but the Australia's web archive thought it “to be an important component of the national documentary heritage” (assuming of course this is not a lie). The best I can say is it might be, but there needs to be a bit more evidence he is an acknowledged expert than one Ozzie government database.Slatersteven (talk) 09:28, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Buidhe and Slatersteven. I share your hesitation, and would not use it for anything controversial or BLP myself; hence wondering about adding it as "generally reliable", with added qualifiers. Pandora (the NLA archive) is overseen by librarians and (as a former one of those in a past life) I trust their judgement on the whole, and it does have specific criteria for inclusion. I usually check out Korff's sources and add them either instead or as well, but on the whole his info checks out, and I've rarely found anything that I couldn't dig up somewhere else. I just feel that it is better mentioned on this page than not at all, so that editors have something to refer to if they encounter it. It's pretty useful for having a lot of content in one place. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 10:37, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

This is really too specialized and limited in the number of allowable uses to go on the RSP list, which is really for sources of wide usage. buidhe 11:01, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

• Note... we don’t actually maintain a list of “generally reliable“ sources (here are too many for such a list to be feasible)... instead we maintain a much much shorter list of generally UNRELIABLE sources. To make THAT list, a source has to be pretty bad. Blueboar (talk) 17:00, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for your advice, Buidhe and Blueboar. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 06:48, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

HITC source for Darren Barnet

Is HITC news piece "Never Have I Ever: Who is Darren Barnet? Explore the age, Instagram and previous roles of Paxton actor" a reliable source for the Darren Barnet article? Specifically for his DOB. Other sources state his birthday is April 27 but not the year. An IP user keeps adding it back to the article. TJMSmith (talk) 15:08, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

This is a reliable source "[13]" written by Metro, which can conclude has born circa 1991. You can change it back, because IP user 2600:1700:5040:3cf0:4195:535c:1a77:be2d keeps deleting it. It is clear Metro spoke to the actor. Factchecking139 (talk) 08:04, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

TJMSmith I cannot see anything in either the HITC or the metro source that mentions either a birthdate, or a way to calculate his birth year, unless I am missing something?. Curdle (talk) 13:55, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

TJMSmith :Curdle There are more websites that state his birthdate and birth year. I only can not add to the page now. A few clicks and you have many sources, if someone wants to add to the page? Factcheck2020 (talk) 18:33, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

You need to be sure it's widely known if you want to add full dob. See WP:DOB. Doug Weller talk 19:03, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Cyntoia Brown

Hello. There is some disagreement about the Cyntoia Brown article.

People removed the references to court documents that I added. They are claiming that the article should not use primary sources, such as court documents because they could be misinterpreted or taken out of context. I disagree and would like for the Cyntioa Brown article to cite court documents, along with secondary sources.

Below is a list of quotes from the Brown article. For each quote, I copied and pasted the exact expert in the court document that it references. All of the article text that cites court documents is completely supported by those court documents. On top of that, I referenced specific page numbers so that Wikipedia readers who click on the documents know exactly where to look. There is absolutely no way these documents could be misinterpreted or taken out of context. 

I will also point out that court documents are far more reliable than opinion pieces and news articles. A judge writing an opinion is much less likely to make a mistake than a journalist. Additionally, many other articles about crimes and people convicted of crimes (including cases for more controversial than the Brown one) cite court documents. I believe that primary sources should be allowed in the Brown article.

ARREST AND TRIAL SECTION
    
    Example 1. 
    
    Article text
    
     "Based on the position in which Allen's body was discovered, investigators believed that Allen may have been asleep when he was shot. Forensics noted that, postmortem, Allen was laying ... and his  fingers interlocked." 
              
      Document text 
      
      "Based upon the nature of the victim’s wound and the lividity of his body, the medical examiner concluded that, when the petitioner fired the gun, the victim was lying in his bed in the same manner as he was later found, on his right side and stomach and with his fingers partially interlocked."
      
        The court doc does not say he was asleep. But several other secondary soruces cited do. 
      
      Example 2.
      
      Article text
      
      "A forensic pathologist testified at trial that, due to the nature of Allen's injury, he would not have been able to make any voluntary movements after being shot. Thus, in her opinion, Allen's hands were clasped at the time of his death."
         
       Document text
         
         "She (Dr. McMaster, the forensic pathologist) added, 'Because of the nature of the wound, I would not expect [the victim] to have any type of voluntary movement or to be able to move his extremities or his body in any way' after being shot. Thus, Dr. McMaster said that in her professional opinion, the victim's hands were clasped at the time of his death, as they were in the crime scene photographs taken by police after the incident."
        
        Example 3.
   
        Article text
   
   "Allen's gunshot wound had characteristics of those fired at close range. Additionally, gunshot residue from Allen's pillowcase showed that the gun was three to six inches away when fired."
            
         Document text
            
            "Although the medical examiner classified this as an indeterminate range wound, the stellate lacerations around the entrance wound are “typically” seen with “close range fire,” within “a couple inches or less, a few inches.” (Trial Testimony, R.E. 14-14, PageID# 1973; Trial Testimony, R.E. 14- 15, PageID# 1993, 2005-2007.) Gunshot residue from one of the victim’s pillowcases indicated that the gun was three to six inches from the pillowcase when the gun discharged. (Trial Testimony, R.E. 14-12, PageID# 1550-1552, 1563-1564.)" 
           
         Example 4.
           
         Article text 
          
           "On August 14, Brown was taken to the Western Mental Health Institute for an evaluation. According to court documents, Brown attacked and threatened a nurse at the Mental Health Institute after the nurse did not allow her to call her adoptive mother. Brown jumped over the nurse's desk, grabbed her hair and face, and hit her, giving her several bruises and abrasions. During the attack, Brown allegedly told the nurse 'I shot that man in the back of the head one time, bitch, I’m gonna shoot you in the back of the head three times. I’d love to hear your blood splatter on the wall.' The nurse, along with another Western Mental Health Institute employee who witnessed the incident testified at trial." 
                   
            
          Document text
                 
                 Source 4. Sixth Circuit. "On August 14, 2004, while a patient at Western Mental Health Institute in Bolivar, the petitioner demanded to make a phone call to her mother, but the nurse, Kathy Franz, told her that she could not use the phone. (Trial Testimony, R.E. 14-12, PageID# 1479-1480, 1483, 1527-1528, 1530.) The petitioner “got angry” and attacked Ms. Franz. (Trial Testimony, R.E. 14-12, PageID# 1528.) She jumped over the nurses’ desk, grabbed Ms. Franz by the hair and face, and hit her. (Trial Testimony, R.E. 14-12, PageID# 1480, 1485, 1528.) They both struggled onto the floor, and Ms. Franz received abrasions and bruises from the attack. (Trial Testimony, R.E. 14-12, PageID# 1485, 1528.) The petitioner threatened Ms. Franz’s life, saying: I’m going to do you like I did him, but I’m not going to shoot you once in the back of the head. I’m going to shoot you three times and listen while your blood splatters on the wall.' (Trial Testimony, R.E. 14-12, PageID# 1481, 1528-1529.)" 
                 
                Source 2. Court of Criminal Appeals. "Kathy Franz testified that on August 14, 2004, she worked as a nurse at a facility[4] at which she encountered the defendant. Franz said that one day, the defendant asked her to use the telephone. Franz told the defendant that she could not use the telephone, at which point the defendant grabbed her by the hair and by the face; after that, the two women struggled and "both wound up [on] the floor." According to Franz, the defendant told her, "I'm going to do you like I did him, but I'm not going to shoot you once in the back of the head. I'm going to shoot you three times and listen while your blood splatters on the wall." Eventually, four or five of the facility's staff physically restrained the defendant. Another of the facility's employees, Sheila Campbell, witnessed this episode and testified about it at trial. The substance of Campbell's testimony largely mirrored that of Franz's, although Campbell added that the defendant asked permission to phone her mother before the incident and that the incident left Franz with bruises and abrasions."        
   
          Example 5
                 
          Article text
                 
                 "A recording of a phone call Brown made to her adoptive mother while in jail was presented as further evidence against her, as in the conversation she said, referring to Johnny Allen, 'I executed him.'"
                               
          Document text
                 
                 "During a recorded telephone conversation on October 29, 2005, between the petitioner and her adoptive mother, Ellenette Washington, the petitioner stated to Ms. Washington, “I killed somebody. . . . I executed him.” (Telephone Recording, R.E. 14-6, PageID# 715; Trial Testimony, R.E. 14-14, PageID# 1915; Trial Testimony, R.E. 14-15, PageID# 2041-2044.)" 

          Example 6
                   
          Article text
                   
                   "Brown also spoke to several jail cellmates about the crime, and confessed to killing Allen "just to see how it felt to kill somebody.""
                   
          Document text
                    
                    Source 6. Sixth Circuit. "In November 2004, while confined in Davidson County, the petitioner discussed the murder with three other detainees, including Shayla Bryant, who heard the petitioner give the following explanation for her criminal charges: She basically . . . said this guy that she was talking to used to send her out to prostitute. And she was mad at him. And the man tried to rape her, so she shot him. (Trial Testimony, R.E. 14-13, PageID# 1655-1656.) Ms. Bryant did not believe the petitioner because the story 'just seemed too perfect.' (Trial Testimony, R.E. 14-13, PageID# 1656.) Ms. Bryant told the petitioner that she was lying, at which point the petitioner started laughing. (Trial Testimony, R.E. 14-13, PageID# 1656.) The petitioner then confided that she shot the victim 'just to see how it fe[lt] to kill somebody.'” 
                 
                    
                   Source 2. Court of Criminal Appeals. "Shayla Bryant testified that in November 2004, while in jail, the defendant spoke to her and two other inmates, Lashonda Williamson and Sheila Washington, about the victim's death. The defendant told Bryant about the charges she was facing, and Bryant overheard a conversation between the defendant and Williamson in which the defendant 'basically said this guy that she was talking to used to send her out to prostitute. And she was mad at him. And the man tried to rape her, so she shot him.' Bryant told the defendant that she did not believe the defendant's account because the story 'just seemed too perfect.' Bryant testified that the defendant then 'started laughing.' Through notes, the defendant 'basically said she shot the man just to see how it feel[s] to kill somebody.' Bryant said that the defendant appeared 'as jolly as she wanted to be' while discussing the victim's death. Bryant added, 'it didn't look like she had any remorse. She didn't cry. . . . She was just there.'"
                    
           Example 7
                   
           Article text
                    
                    "The cellmate later gave police a note Brown had given her which said 'everything is the truth, I swear it on my life except for ‘I thought he was getting a gun’ and the feeling of nervousness.' At trial, a forensic document examiner testified that the note was written by Brown. The cellmate whom Brown had given the note to and spoken with also testified at trial."
                                      
           Document text
                    
                    Source 2. 2008 Court of Criminal Appeals. "Shayla Bryant testified that in November 2004, while in jail, the defendant spoke to her and two other inmates, Lashonda Williamson and Sheila Washington, about the victim's death...Bryant said that she and the defendant passed notes to each other through a hole in the wall between their cells. On cross-examination, she said that she flushed most of the defendant's notes down the toilet but that she kept one of the notes, which she eventually gave to police. The note read: 'Everything is the truth, I swear on my life, except for `I thought he was getting a gun' and the feelings of nervousness.'"
                    
                   Source 6.  Sixth Circuit."Like other detainees, Ms. Bryant and the petitioner routinely passed notes, and Ms. Brown retained and disclosed one note in which the petitioner wrote, 'Everything is the truth, I swear on my life except for ‘I thought he was getting a gun’ and the feelings of nervousness.” (Handwritten Note, R.E. 14-5, PageID# 600; Trial Testimony, R.E. 14-13, PageID# 1656-1658, 1683-1684, 1788-1789, 1797-1798; Trial Testimony, R.E. 14-14, PageID# 1868-1869, 1894-1896.) 
           
          MURDER OF ALLEN SECTION
            
          Example 8
            
          Article text
            
            On August 7, Brown had a neighbor drive her to the Walmart where she had left Allen's truck. She asked the neighbor to drive her back to Allen's house so that she could steal more items but he refused. Brown told him that she “shot somebody in the head for fifty thousand dollars and some guns.” 
                
           Document text
                                      
              "Later that day, around 5:00 p.m., the petitioner knocked on the door at the InTown Suites of roommates Richard Reed and Samuel Humphrey. (Trial Testimony, R.E. 14-11, PageID# 1331.) Mr. Reed answered the door, and the petitioner asked him to drive her to Wal-Mart, which he agreed to do. (Trial Testimony R.E. 14-11, PageID# 1331-1334.)."
                 En route back to the hotel, the petitioner asked Mr. Reed for a ride to a nearby house. (Trial Testimony, R.E. 14-11, PageID# 1336-1337.) She explained that she “shot somebody in the head for fifty thousand dollars and some guns,” and she wanted Mr. Reed “to go over there and help her clean it out.” (Trial Testimony, R.E. 14-11, PageID# 1337.) Mr. Reed did not believe her, and he refused to drive her to the house. (Trial Testimony, R.E. 14-11, PageID# 1336-1339.)
                 Gingerbreadhouse97 (talk) 17:00, 27 April 2020 (UTC)Gingerbreadhouse97

Well here is one problem, you link to a number of documents one of which says "which led the police to conclude that the victim was asleep when he was shot. "Slatersteven (talk) 17:39, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Slatersteven You said one of the documents says he was asleep when shot. Did you mean none of the documents say he was asleep when shot? The court docs don't directly say he was asleep when shot but many secondary sources we cited do. Gingerbreadhouse97 (talk) 18:58, 27 April 2020 (UTC)Gingerbreadhouse97

The you need to make it clear which sources you want to use, as the quote is from "STATE OF TENNESSEE v. CYNTOIA DENISE BROWN No. M2007-00427-CCA-R3-CD." Which I thought was the second source you wished to use. I also suggest you read wp:or, no matter how many sources do not say it the sea is wet.Slatersteven (talk) 19:08, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

References

I have collapsed the references from this section, they were appearing in other sections. TheAwesomeHwyh 19:35, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I refereed to STATE OF TENNESSEE v. CYNTOIA DENISE BROWN as the Court of Criminal Appeals doc because it is an opinion from Tennessee's Court of Criminal Appeals. That doc talks about the forensic pathologist saying Allen's hands were clasped when he died. That's what the text says. Other secondary sources back up the claim that investigators believe he was asleep.

There is no original research or interpretations of the documents. The article says what the docs (and other sources used) state. I truly do not see why this should not be allowed. Gingerbreadhouse97 (talk) 19:54, 27 April 2020 (UTC)Ginegrbreadhouse97

If source A says the sea and blue and source B says the sea if blue that dos not mean source B is saying the sea is not wet.Slatersteven (talk) 20:04, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Slatersteven I'm not following you. Can you explain what you mean? Gingerbreadhouse97 (talk) 20:33, 27 April 2020 (UTC)Gingerbreadhouse97

We have sources (including the STATE OF TENNESSEE v. CYNTOIA DENISE BROWN No. M2007-00427-CCA-R3-CD which says " "which led the police to conclude that the victim was asleep when he was shot." that say investigators thought he was shot in his sleep. A source not saying that does not mean that source supports the conclusion he was not. A source has to say (in words) something. It is OR to draw a conclusion from what a source does not say. wp:v is clear a source must say it.Slatersteven (talk) 20:56, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

The secondary sources do say he was asleep when shot in words. And the court docs talk about the position his body was found. If you want, I will use the court docs only after the text about how he was found. And I will only use the secondary sources for the claim that police believe he was asleep when shot. It will read like this

"Based on the position in which Allen's body was discovered, investigators believed that Allen may have been asleep when he was shot.Secondary sources Forensics noted that, postmortem, Allen was laying ... and his fingers interlocked. Primary sources" Gingerbreadhouse97 (talk) 21:16, 27 April 2020 (UTC)Gingerbreadhouse97

Why?Slatersteven (talk) 21:26, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Reference

Again, I've collapsed that reference. TheAwesomeHwyh 21:28, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

So that each claim has a specific source.

Can we use primary court documents or not?Gingerbreadhouse97 (talk) 22:02, 27 April 2020 (UTC)Gingerbreadhouse97

No, not really, we are advised against using them.Slatersteven (talk) 22:24, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

We are advised not to use them? But does that mean we are completely banned form using them? Or just that we should do so sparingly? I and other editors have used court documents in many crime articles and moderators never took them out. May I add some of the Brown court documents back?Slatersteven Gingerbreadhouse97 (talk) 22:57, 27 April 2020 (UTC)Gingerbreadhouse97

@Gingerbreadhouse97: In the case of assertions about living person, which appears to apply here since the linked article is about a living person and this seems to concern what she may or may not have done, then do not use them as the sole source per WP:BLPPRIMARY which says "Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person."

As for "I and other editors have used court documents in many crime articles and moderators never took them out", well firstly there is no such thing as a moderator here. Second, see WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. Third when the issue comes to the attention of BLP experienced editors, the end result is nearly always the removal of the information sourced solely to court documents. This often results in complaints, even though BLP policy clearly says not to do it.

So basically all you and your fellow crime article editors are doing is creating more work for everyone, and creating ill-feeling when the inevitable happens. Yes sometimes such additions skate by for years before someone notices them, but that's still not helping anything. Instead, you need to write articles which comply with our policies and guidelines, such as using reliable secondary sources, so that someone else doesn't have to fix things for you. It may be okay to add the primary sources in addition to the secondary sources but make sure that all assertions you make are supported exclusively by the secondary sources.

If you do so, the end result is a better article (from the POV of what we consider a good article) and less time wasted by editors adding stuff which is going to be removed, and editors needing to remove the stuff which should never have been added, and needless discussion on the removal of such additions. If you cannot find secondary sources discussing some aspect you feel is important, the unfortunate conclusion is it's probably not as important as you think it is.

Nil Einne (talk) 15:58, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Some questions.

What if the text cites court docs alongside secondary sources and is not completely based on court docs?

Can we cite court docs when writing articles about events rather than people?

What if the court doc is the only source available for a specific piece of information? In some cases there are no secondary sources to cite and only court docs.

Why can't we use court docs in articles about living people? Court docs are much more objective than news articles or opinion pieces. A judge writing a legal opinion is far less likely to get the facts wrong than a columnist writing a biased op-ed to promote political opinions.

Thanks Gingerbreadhouse97 (talk) 16:17, 2 May 2020 (UTC)Gingerbreadhouse97

Events (especially legal ones) involve people. Thus a crime (for example) is still a wp:blp as it must talk about both victims and perps.Slatersteven (talk) 16:27, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

What if the perp is not alive? Gingerbreadhouse97 (talk) 19:32, 2 May 2020 (UTC)Gingerbreadhouse97

The Canary

• Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 274 § Seeking acceptance of reliability of UK progressive online only news sites - The Canary, Evolve Politics and Skwawkbox
• Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 245 § Is the Canary a reliable source?

Some other passing mentions as well. As far as I can tell The Canary (website) is often but not universally regarded as unreliable. It's being used on Julian Assange (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), twice, both for opinion not fact, pretty much in its area of maximum bias. I'm hardly a renowned right-winger but there's no way I would ever use this site as a source. Their "mission" is "A free and fair society where we nurture people and planet." Nothing to do with accurate reporting. Guy (help!) 23:15, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

No consensus/Generally unreliable per prior discussion. May be useful for the positions of left wing politicians and groups on certain issues, but not generally reliable. buidhe 07:35, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Generally reliable: attribute opinion. "I'm hardly a renowned left-winger" but I use The Canary frequently. I have never had a problem with it. Its "About" page describes the efforts it makes to ensure its reports are rigorous: "Each article goes through a rigorous editorial process in which it is checked and amended by at least two editors (a section editor and a copy editor). Complex investigations are edited by at least three, including an investigations editor". It has received a favourable report from NewsGuard. Media Bias/Fact Check said: "Overall, we rate The Canary Left biased based on story selection that typically favours the left and High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a clean fact check record".[14] It is regulated by IMPRESS which is "fully compliant with the recommendations of the Leveson Inquiry". It also has its own Code of Practice, which lays out the standards and ethical principles that guide its writers and editors. Editor Jontel wrote in a recent discussion: "On NewsGuard standards, they rate The Canary 8/9, Evolve 8/9 and Skwawkbox 9/9. On Impress complaints unheld in whole or in part over three years, The Canary has two, Evolve one and Skawkbox five. A 2019 survey by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that The Canary was trusted by its readers more than publications such as Buzzfeed News, the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, HuffPost, The Independent, Sun and regional press, and almost equal to the Daily Telegraph". In previous discussions there has been a lot of opinion but a seeming lack of examples of the unreliability of The Canary. Burrobert (talk) 14:47, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Per Newslinger and WP:MBFC, MBFC is an unreliable source and should not be used to justify arguments like this. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:49, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I checked the Reuters study and found that the above is not very accurate. Here is a better summary: A 2018 study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism described The Canary as "a left-wing partisan site" and an example of "alternative and partisan brands" (along with Breitbart and Infowars) which have "a political or ideological agenda and their user base tends to passionately share these views". The Institute's survey found The Canary to be used by 2% of the UK news audience, its readers to be among the furthest to the left on the political spectrum, and the publication to be more trusted than the Daily Mail, Buzzfeed News and The Sun, but one of less trusted news sites in the UK, with a trust rating of 4.69 where 10 is fully trusted.[15] BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:57, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

• Comment From the same study, it is as trusted by its readers as the mainstream media is by its readers and it has huge usership considering its tiny resources and relative youth. Jontel (talk) 21:27, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Here is some more information from various reports put out by the Reuters Institute in 2018 and 2019. Firstly, the reports aren’t especially relevant to the question we are discussing as they do not examine "reliability". A lot of the discussion here so far has been able the partisanship of The Canary. The unanimous opinion seems to be that The Canary has a left wing slant. Excellent, let’s now discuss reliability. Anyway, some editors may still find this information useful.

• Reuters define alternative or partisan sites as those which have “a political or ideological agenda and their user base tends to passionately share these views".
• The list of alternative partisan UK sites which it has studied is: The Canary, Breitbart, Sputnik, Westmonster, Skwawkbox, Novara Media, Evolve Politics.
• The list of alternative partisan US sites which it has studied is: Breitbart, Daily Caller, The Blaze, Occupy Democrats, Infowars, Being Liberal, Talking Points Memo, The Intercept, Addicting Info.
• It says “The Canary publishes political news and ‘campaigning journalism’ from a broadly left-wing perspective.
• It says "the ambitions of the digital-born media highlighted here do not end with building sustainable online news businesses. A strong sense of mission has been prevalent from the start". In the case of The Canary this includes influencing the public conversation and "the creation of an investigative journalism fund".
• Reuters does provide some data on readership. Its 2019 survey showed that 14% of participants had head of The Canary and 2% had used the site in the last week.
• Regarding "trust", Reuters’ 2018 report provided two "trust" numbers, one that comes from survey participants who had heard of the site (but who may not have actually used it) and one that comes from users of the site. The number 4.69 is the one from people who had heard of the site. It is the 12th highest rating out of the 15 sites surveyed. Actual uses of the site gave The Canary a trust rating of 6.65 which is the 8th highest rating out of 15 sites. What does this mean for reliability?
• I haven’t been able to find any reference to the statement that “its readers [are] among the furthest to the left on the political spectrum”. A 2018 report states “In the UK, the Another Angry Voice blog and the Canary website are placed further to the left of the map, because a high proportion of their users self-identify on the left”. This seems to suggest that The Canary has a lot of left wing readers, not that their views are further to the left.

Burrobert (talk) 11:52, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Burrobert, you know that Fox News is highly trusted by its audience, right? As were Pravda and the Volkischer Beobachter? Forty billion flies can't be wrong... Guy (help!) 22:48, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

This isn't the place to compare the BBC and Channel 4 to those sources. What is the relevance to The Canary? Burrobert (talk) 10:12, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

References

Not reliable Like Guy put it They have a clear agenda and even someone want to quote for opinion its clearly WP:UNDUE --Shrike (talk) 15:55, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Attribute If you don't like left wing stuff, you won't like Canary (or Evolve or Skwawk), these sites are useful on occasion but use with caution.Selfstudier (talk) 11:12, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Absolutely not reliable As almost all the contributors to the last discussion here, this website is not at all reliable, regardless of what it might itself say. It is highly partisan, publishes information out of context in a very skewed way and has been shown regularly to publish inaccurate stories. Please see the talk page of Iain McNicol‎, where The Canary is being used as the source for a very sensitive BLP issue. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:52, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

• Comment The final point is not the case. The article makes clear that McNicol was being named in a legal suit because he was Gen. Sec. of the LP; it was not about him personally. Jontel (talk) 21:24, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
• Not reliable. Highly partisan blog or website. OK for attributed opinion only.--Hippeus (talk) 12:41, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

The Canary is not a blog. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 13:14, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

• Generally Reliable As per Burrobert favourable reports from NewsGuard, Media Bias/Fact Check and Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism regarding its Reliability. We all know that the 'news' media is impartial. 99% of all news media outlets are definitely skewed by a partisan political outlook, 90% of the time that skew is to the centre right or further to the Right, the Canary is one of the very few sources that has a left centre viewpoint. Its a very small counter weight against the overwhelming majority of the more right wing media. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 13:09, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

We are going completely off subject, this board is not about political positions of news outlets, its about Reliability. We should not mistake having a different political viewpoint for whether a source's factual reliability is good or bad (that is irrelevant). The Canary does not hide their left of centre bias but it has a clean factual record and they always source their information to credible media outlets such as Forbes, BBC, The Guardian and Huffington Post etc. Perhaps opposing editors could present concrete evidence of unreliability rather than say its unreliable just because of its political viewpoint. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 13:09, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

• Generally reliable:attribute opinion It certainly has a political viewpoint, selects stories to suit its agenda and can seek to be sensational. The same can be said for most or all of the mainstream British press. However, there are very few examples of it being inaccurate. Its readers trust it about as much as readers of other publications trust those. Again, many of the mainstream publications have had to withdraw or amend articles for inaccuracy from time to time. There is a left wing viewpoint: Labour gets around one third of the vote and Labour's 600,000 members elected Corbyn twice. This viewpoint is rarely reflected fully in the mainstream media: banning use of the Canary will prevent a full expression of the range of significant views. Finally, significant progressive stories may only be covered in The Canary in detail, so this information will be inaccessible to editors if its use is banned. Jontel (talk) 16:04, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Bodney, indeed. I rate The Canary as unreliable because it lists its mission in terms of ideology not fact, and because its writing reflects that. It was the most complained about IMPRESS regulated journal of 2017/18 [16], it has published false claims about Laura Kuenssberg, and blames Teh Jews for its problems [17].

Seriously, it's crap. Guy (help!) 17:24, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

• Comment Yes, the Canary published an incorrect headline about Kuenssberg. The story was correct and the headline was quickly corrected. And yes, Rachel Riley and others, who have chosen to remain anonymous, are trying to shut down the Canary by claiming it is antisemitic and pushing advertisers to boycott the site. Jontel (talk) 21:36, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

• You are confusingly mixing your reply with personal opinion. Regarding Laura Kuenssberg, one accusation ...Ian Middleton in The Huffington Post wrote the accusations of abuse "may have been part of an orchestrated campaign on behalf of those looking to discredit the petition itself". The Canary published a headline that "(Kuenssberg's) listed as a speaker at the Tory Party conference". She had indeed been invited to speak at a fringe event, but this was cancelled and Impress faulted the Canary for not correcting the information with due prominence. Another... check her own page Laura Kuenssberg#Bias allegations "In January 2017 the BBC Trust ruled that a report in November 2015 by Kuenssberg broke the broadcaster's impartiality and accuracy guidelines" ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 10:50, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• It should also be noted that IMPRESS though independent, is not the main press regulator in the UK, that honour goes to the self regulator IPSO, where most of the other press are regulated and where you will find lots more similar complaints against various mainstream media. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 13:37, 29 April 2020 (UTC).

Claiming that The Canary blames “Teh Jews for its problems” is to accuse it of anti-semitism. You seem to making this serious accusation on the basis of no evidence. The only mention of Jewry in the article is in the quote from The Canary: "Despite clearly being against the actions of the state, not against Jewish people as an ethnic group, we’ve been smeared with accusations of anti-Semitism by those who’ve weaponised the term for political ends". Burrobert (talk) 15:07, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Those of us with some real-world experience recognize the term "political Zionists" applied to non-Israelis for what it is - a convenient euphemism for 'Jews'. It is the equivalent of the infamous Soviet Rootless cosmopolitan JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 22:37, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

"Those of us with some real-world experience" - WP:Puffery. The attempt to conflate criticism of the state of Israel and anti-Zionism with anti-semitism has a long history. It serves the interests of the Israeli state by silencing criticism of Israel’s actions and policies but there is no reason why the rest of us need to accept what has been called "an intellectually and morally disreputable position". Abba Eban, the Foreign Minister of Israel, wrote in 1973: "One of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all". Political Zionism is a real thing not connected to anti-semitism. Burrobert (talk) 11:23, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

There was no criticism of the State in the piece published by the Canary, just a reference to some anonymous "Political Zionists" who are trying to harm them. As I wrote , people with real world experience know what this is a reference to [18]. And I suspect that when similar dog whistles are used by Trump vs. Muslims or Hispanics , or racists vs blacks etc.. - you recognize them too. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 13:52, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

"People with real world experience know what this is a reference to" - more WP: Puffery. The intended meaning of "political Zionist" and who it refers to seems clear enough from the article. "Despite clearly being against the actions of the state, not against Jewish people as an ethnic group, we’ve been smeared with accusations of anti-Semitism by those who’ve weaponised the term for political ends ". "And people who don’t like our politics have encouraged our advertisers to blacklist us". This type of attack has been described as "part of a Stalinist-style technique to silence critics of the holy state and therefore the truth is entirely irrelevant, you just tell as many lies as you can and hope that some of the mud will stick". The allegations aimed at Jeremy Corbyn over the period of his leadership is a good example of this technique. A recently leaked Labour Party report shows how antisemitism was used by officials of the party to undermine Corbyn’s leadership. The Canary itself published the article Allegations of antisemitism are being used as a 'tool to stifle debate on Palestine', says Israeli historian [19] in 2019, which included the following:

Israeli scholar Ilan Pappé has pushed-backed against what he characterises as the 'weaponisation' of antisemitism allegations. … [T]he historian, known for his work on Zionism and the destruction of Palestine, says this is being done in order to suppress debate and discussion on Palestine. ... Pappé says antisemitism allegations are "a tool to stifle the debate on Palestine, but it also, it kind of weaponises the allegation of antisemitism against the promotion to positions of power of people that Israel and it’s supporters do not want to be in those positions".

It is uncontroversial that The Canary has been critical of Israel’s policies and actions including its influence on British politics through the pro-Israel lobby group Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) and its representative . Here is a list of articles published by The Canary about Israel this year:

• Keir Starmer received £50,000 donation from pro-Israel lobbyist in leadership bid [20] (17/4/20)
• A new Israeli atrocity in Gaza was carried out with the help of a multinational corporation [21] (26/2/20)
• Israeli anarchist released despite refusing to ‘play by the rules of a system that is rigged against justice’ [22] (20/2/20)
• Professor says ‘popular organizing’ is key to opposing the ‘entrenchment of apartheid’ in Israel [23] (17/2/20)
• Trump’s ‘peace plan’ gives the go-ahead to Israel’s biggest land grab in decades [24] (31/1/20)
• Charges dropped against activists who occupied Israeli arms factory for two days [25] (23/1/20)

Burrobert (talk) 15:39, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

"The intended meaning of "political Zionist" and who it refers to seems clear enough from the article. " - Indeed. It mean Jews, just like Rootless cosmopolitans. Unless you think the Canary was trying to blame Theodor Hertzl or Max Nordau for their financial troubles. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 15:56, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Not all Jews: that would not make any sense. The Canary mean Rachel Riley and her campaign Stop Funding Fake News which is entirely open about trying to put The Canary out of business. Jontel (talk) 20:42, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

They used the plural, so they were obviously thinking about more than just her. But let's talk about her, for a second. She may or may not be a Zionist - but what makes you think she is? OTOH, as our Rachel Riley article makes clear, she clearly identifies as Jewish. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 21:14, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Can we close and put an end to what may well turn into antisemtism and gets users banned?Slatersteven (talk) 15:59, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable. As with all such hyper-partisan media (regardless of political leaning), if the story is significant enough that Wikipedia will be interested, there's invariably going to be a non-contentious publication covering the same story, which will always be preferable as a source. The sole exception is the case of a handful of ultra-left figures, who may use the site to make media announcements in which case it's acceptable as a primary source for their comments. These instances should be few and far between, as such people are almost certainly going to choose sympathetic media with a broader circulation (such as The Guardian) for such statements; policitians are generally interested in spreading their message to a wider audience, not in preaching to the converted. ‑ Iridescent 12:31, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

• Comment We are going completely off subject, this board is not about political positions of news outlets, its about Reliability. All the News media sources are partisan, the question is the Canary a Reliable Source. Can someone who thinks it is not PLEASE provide actual evidence that shows that the Canary is unreliable. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 16:11, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

  Bodney, excellent example of reversal of the burden of proof there. On Wikipedia, the editors seeking to include a source must show that it's reliable. they have run a campaign against Kuenssberg, including false accusations; they have said that opposition is caused by "political Zionists"; they are an active campaigning organisation; they have published literal fake news. I read the fucking Guardian and even I think The Canary is crap. Come on. Guy (help!) 20:49, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

  One false headline about Kuenssberg, quickly corrected, and they are perfectly entitled to criticise her. How would you describe Rachel Riley and others who are trying to shut them down? They have a political viewpoint; are you saying that the Times and the Telegraph does not? It is called campaigning journalism and mainstream papers run campaigns, too. And make mistakes. Your examples are few and weak. Also, WP:PROFANEDISCUSSIONS Jontel (talk) 20:51, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

References

Off-topic thread

OT; Can someone please explain me why User:JzG sometime tag as Guy (as here) and sometimes as JzG (as on Julian Assange)? this is not fine.. i think is wrong; JzG, please stay always on your tag JzG "User:JzG" without change on Guy "User:JzG|Guy" when you want! --5.171.8.64 (talk) 21:30, 28 April 2020 (UTC) That's a bit rich coming from someone editing from an IP GirthSummit (blether) 21:36, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Instead your answer is totally useless, and (al)so a little hostile; writing from IP is correct (and IPs can do right things too!), and also ask registered users not to use tag-alias-mutants. One registred user, one only tag; otherwise it can edit as IP! ;-) Anyway, i'm still waiting for reply. Thanks. --5.171.8.64 (talk) 21:56, 28 April 2020 (UTC) The answer is pretty simple. My real-world name is Guy, and my original username was Just zis Guy, you know?, a reference to the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and also my Usenet handle for a long time. I shortened it to reduce the byte-count in my sig and to make it easier for people to type, and to remove the "?", whihc of course is rendered as %3F in URIs. It's been that way for a looooong time. I can't remember when I adopted the current signature, but I don't think I have ever signed simply as "JzG". Guy (help!) 22:29, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Thank you for reply. In really i was not interested for the reason of your choice to change to Guy, but for why is possible to have a tag signature different from username. This made confusion; it seems that is in the history page - any - that you appear (always) as JzG, instead than "Guy". I think is better if none publish a tag different from the real username. P.s. I know the Douglas Adams books, but in this time i can't remember the quote you like; too much years from when i've read the books... and as my name is not Guy, and i've not read the book on english language.. it's very hard for me to remember this thing. So long, and thanks for.. --5.171.8.64 (talk) 23:07, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Gag Halfrunt, Zaphod's personal braincare specialist, is ordering Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz to destroy the Heart Of Gold, with Zaphod on board, in order to kill Arthur Dent. When Jeltz queries him about killing his most profitable patient, Halfrunt replies "Vell, Zaphod's just zis guy, you know?" Guy (help!) 23:28, 28 April 2020 (UTC) To add to the reply. He is definitely not a sock puppet, his signature is Guy ([user:JzG|Guy]) but times when folks reply to him they write @user:JzG' and the edit history of an article always will drops the nickname Guy, so it looks like a different tag. My own tag is ~ BOD ~ but my username is Bodney, similarly in the history of an article it drops my nickname BOD and gives my full name Bodney. ~ BOD ~ TALK 22:50, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Thanks for the reply; yes, I had noticed that the dual user name problem arose from the history pages. Like I said, I think it would be better if there were no such differences. --5.171.8.64 (talk) 23:11, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Is Global News generally a reliable source for news and current affairs coverage?

There is a clear consensus that Global News is a generally reliable source including for news and current affairs coverage.

Cunard (talk) 00:00, 3 May 2020 (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.

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Is Global News [26] a generally reliable source for news and current affairs coverage? --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 17:56, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

• Current usage:[27]

Generally reliable a well regarded mainstream news source from a country with high press freedom. Reliable for both Canadian and international news. They made a minor error in misattributing three seconds of footage, but nothing to indicate a systematic issue (according to Columbia Journalism Review) since they apologized + issued a correction. buidhe 20:46, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

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A normal news site as far as I know. Per instructions at the top of the page "Please be sure to include examples of editing disputes that show why you are seeking comment on the source: how did you come to consider it worth questioning? - David Gerard (talk) 19:41, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

• Hi TheSandDoctor, I'm doing noticeboard maintenance and noticed that this discussion is pinned and labeled as an RfC, but does not use the {{rfc}} tag. Would you like to upgrade this discussion into a request for comment, or would you prefer to unpin the discussion so that it could be archived? I note that Global News, as a well-established news organization, is considered generally reliable by default under the WP:NEWSORG guideline unless there is substantial evidence to the contrary. — Newslinger talk 03:34, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

@Newslinger: Unpinned --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 03:36, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Yup....second most international awarded news network in Canada.--Moxy 🍁 03:40, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable It is part of one of Canada's three major broadcast networks. TFD (talk) 15:16, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable. Mainstream Canadian broadcaster. Reliability not in dispute. El_C 15:23, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable major network, with no flagged issues, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 21:52, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

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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.

That dreaded Daily Mail

Is using this Daily Mail article as a source for a quote acceptable? I used this on an article I created, Anthony Joshua vs. Éric Molina. The author of the Daily Mail article, Eddie Hearn (it states above the article "by Eddie Hearn for the Daily Mail"), is Anthony Joshua's promoter/matchmaker. The quote used is Hearn revealing his shortlist of potential opponents for Joshua's 10 December 2016 bout. It's not a random journalist's opinion or a second hand quote, it's the man himself stating who he has in mind for the bout. The 'Background' section in boxing event articles details potential opponents, the decision making process and negotiations leading up to the event itself.

I know the Daily Mail is deemed "generally unreliable", and since finding Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, I've always checked and based which sources I use off this list. But does the above usage come under the "The Daily Mail may be used in rare cases in an about-self fashion." aspect? – ².O.^Boxing 14:11, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Squared.Circle.Boxing, no, because the DM has been known to make up quotes from sources. buidhe 14:28, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Buidhe I understand that, but the article isn't an interview/piece written by a journalist. There are no quotes in the article. There are no possible sources to be misquoted (or fabricated). It's Eddie Hearn himself (the person I was quoting) writing for the Daily Mail, revealing his own decision making process in his own words. He can't exactly misquote (or fabricate) his own words. Or are the Daily Mail known for lying about the authors of the articles they publish? If this isn't a prime example of, "The Daily Mail may be used in rare cases in an about-self fashion.", then would somebody mind explaining what is? – ².O.^Boxing 14:56, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

We don't know if Hearn actually wrote the article or if it appears as written. And if no reliable sources have found the comments important enough to mention, they lack weight for inclusion. TFD (talk) 15:29, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Given the other things we have caught TDM doing (completely fabricating a story -- including direct quotes -- that never happened, plagiarizing a story from another source, adding a few false details to make it better click-bait, and publishing it under the name of a DM writer who may not exist), we have no particular reason to believe that someone else didn't completely make up the entire thing and say Eddie Hearn wrote it, and we have no reason to believe that if he did write it that they didn't edit it to make it better clickbait. Yes, the DM really is that unreliable. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:07, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Squared.Circle.Boxing, I advise you to completely stop reading The Daily Mail. Not because Wikipedia forbids reading it -- we don't -- but because your life will be better without it. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:07, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Have we had a case where an article with the byline of non-staffer be proven out to be changed significantly from what that person actually wrote? I know we have cases of a person quoted by the DM to have had their statement significantly altered (not just taken out of context) as a reason to not trust even a quoted statement in the DM, but here, we're talking the text attributed directly to the byline author. There may be, I may have missed it, and this is justified, but I want to make sure we're clear on that. (That said, with what's already in the article on WP here, I don't think we'd be losing anything if this DM article can't be included). --Masem (t) 17:29, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

One we have determined that they are willing to fabricate stories for events that never happened and interviews that never happened, we don't need to demonstrate that they are willing to fabricate an article with the byline of a non-staffer. The burden of proof is on whoever claims that they somehow know that The Daily Mail does not lie in a particular situation or under certain conditions. --The Real Donald Trump --(talk) 03:14, 19 January 2038 (UTC)

(BTW, The "byline" and posting date you just read was a lie. That was me.) --Guy Macon (talk) 23:30, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

If this is the case, then what is the actual point of, "The Daily Mail may be used in rare cases in an about-self fashion." It appears that, in the absence of somebody making a public statement declaring they wrote an article that has been published exactly how they wrote it (how often does that happen, if ever?), then it cannot be applied in any instance.

I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just trying to understand. – ².O.^Boxing 16:34, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

WP:ABOUTSELF is the corresponding policy here. For example, a person's description of their own life or opinions can be used in their own biography (subject to restrictions), even if it is published in an unreliable source, as long as we are reasonably certain that they are the author. Uncontroversial self-descriptions are unlikely to pass the due weight test in articles other than the biography of the author. — Newslinger talk 22:45, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Emphasis on "as long as we are reasonably certain that they are the author". In the case of The Daily Mail, we are never reasonably certain that they are the author. They have stolen copyrighted works and published them under the name of an author who didn't write them far too many times. Some say "but they wouldn't dare doing that to [famous person]]." Yes. They would dare. Some say "well if the person is a paid DM author the words must be his" Pay a person enough and he will allow you to publish whatever you want under his name.

In the case of The Daily Mail, WP:ABOUTSELF means that we can use it for a source about The Daily Mail. Now that we know that they routinely publish things that were not written by the author they credit we cannot apply ABOUTSELF to the author. Similarly, now that we know that they routinely publish direct quotes that are fabricated, we cannot treat them the way we treat direct quotes in pretty much any other source. It really is that bad. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:13, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

• In this case, the work in question is a PRIMARY source for Hearn’s opinion. There are limited situations in which it is appropriate to cite primary sources. Add to that the fact that the DM is a less than reliable publisher, and we should probably not include it. Blueboar (talk) 17:14, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

  Maybe it is a primary source for Hearn’s opinion. And maybe not. It is possible that the words did not come from Hearn. I have yet to see a shed of evidence supporting the oft-repeated assertion that "we know The Daily Mail regularly lies about A and B but surely they can't be lying about C and D". Even when they get sued, they make more money out of the story than they lose in the lawsuit. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:13, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

• I originally removed the quote and cite, and Squared.Circle.Boxing asked if it might be a suitable case for permissible SPS. I doubted it personally, but said to bring it here, 'cos it's a fair question. I think it's not an unreasonable question, though I'm inclined to say not to put it in - I'm not convinced such quotes add enough to add the DM; it strikes me as more just adding a bit of colour and past WP:CRYSTAL than something that would be actually important for the article. (I can see plausibility for the argument it might be a useful addition.) I do wonder, though, if Hearn said this somewhere else we could use - David Gerard (talk) 18:09, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

  I think that the usage in this case was acceptable in that we don't seem to have any experience where a piece claimed to be by an outside author who is a real and relatively well-known figure was fabricated. In other words, the "about self exception" Squared Circle was referring to does apply. That said, the quote adds nothing useful to the article and is more like tabloid fodder than encyclopedic content. It is also an example of recentism bias in that Hearn's quote will have extremely doubtful relevance in a year, much less ten. The article loses nothing by its removal. This is normal collaborative editing to improve an article and shouldn't be weighed down by DM sourcing issues. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:41, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I completely agree that the comments I quoted weren't essential and the article loses nothing from having it removed. I just figured it was a somewhat useful addition into the insight of the opponent picking process. I wasn't necessarily opposed to the removal, just wondered if the self exception aspect applied. After doing more searching for the quote I can only find this instance where it's been used, so it appears the initial shortlist Hearn mentioned didn't receive much attention. No worries. Thanks for the patience and the helpful comments, much appreciated folks. – ².O.^Boxing 19:07, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

":Re: "The usage in this case was acceptable in that we don't seem to have any experience where a piece claimed to be by an outside author who is a real and relatively well-known figure was fabricated", on what basis are you making that decision? They have been shown to fabricate entire interviews by real and relatively well-known figures. They have been shown to lie about who wrote a story. If I look out my front door and see that it is pouring rain, do I say "better check out the back door"? You don't have to catch a serial liar lying in every conceivable situation. The burden of proof is on the person who claims that known liars are truth-tellers in situations where we haven't caught them lying yet. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:27, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

At this point, it does not matter whether our assessment of the Daily Mail is correct, the result of the RfC was that it should not be used as a source. It's in the same league as an anonymous website. TFD (talk) 04:12, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Except... in cases like this, Hearn is the source, and the DM is more the PUBLISHER. I don’t think the RFC considered situations like this. Blueboar (talk) 13:58, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

• Extremely Weak OK This is not a publication from Joseph Goebbels. Yes they have a dicey track record but the idea that they would fabricate an article and or falsely put someone's name on it who is not the author is risible. No paper would do that because it would be instantly denounced and the paper would lose whatever credibility it had left, as well as face potentially devastating legal repercussions. Some of the comments above seem to be divorced from the plane of reality that most people inhabit. All of which said, the DM is a terrible paper and I really would look for almost anything else in preference for sourcing. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:27, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
• OK per ABOUTSELF. As above, the idea he didn't write it is risible. --GRuban (talk) 00:00, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

NYT Tara Reade coverage

Related discussion

The New York Times has admitted to removing facts editing their article about alleged sexual assault by Joe Biden at the request of his campaign.*, * Are there any limitations on how this piece can be used in his BLP? For instance, would the edited passage be allowed?

Before: No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting, nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade’s allegation. The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable.*

After: No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting, nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade’s allegation. The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden.*

Thank you, petrarchan47คุก 03:02, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Petrarchan47, I'm largely ignorant of the topic as a whole. I'll just note that the removal of the sentence itself is now the subject of wide coverage: The New York Times (RSP entry), Fox News (RSP entry), Vanity Fair (RSP entry), The Hill (RSP entry). MarioGom (talk) 11:40, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

MarioGom Thank you.

• No one is arguing that the paragraph in question was in fact not a product of independent journalism, and all sources agree it was edited on behalf of the Biden campaign, per Dean Baquet. At the Joe Biden page, we are mirroring the edited version without alerting the readers to the conflict of interest behind it. Today's version of the page has: The New York Times reported that "No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting, nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade’s allegation. The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden." (links to NYT) petrarchan47คุก 00:29, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

• Given the admission from the NYT that they were influenced to “correct” their text by the Biden campaign, I would say that we should NOT use this particular NYT article as a source in WP (except possibly as a primary source in our New York Times article itself). The admission indicates that they were not independent on this subject. Note: This does not mean we need to deprecate the NYT as a whole... just that we should not use this specific piece. Blueboar (talk) 13:52, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Blueboar The piece is being used in the Lede at Joe Biden sexual assault allegation, it turns out. (Actually, I've just skimmed the entire article and it's mainly a summary of the NYT piece.) I think it's worth mentioning with regard to depreciation of the NYT, there is troubling precedent. The Times included an outright lie that both smeared Epstein's most prominent accuser, and cleared Bill Clinton. They said that in court documents, the accuser admits to lying about seeing Clinton on Epstein's island. Newslinger informed the Times of the need for a correction, and they never responded nor made any change to the piece. petrarchan47คุก 05:23, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

• Have you read the entire Times article? The words that were removed are not relevant to the vastly larger scope and content of the article. Moreover, since the "other" women described feeling uncomfortable about non-sexual touching, it's hard to see why the removal of those words -- juxtaposed in a way that makes it sound like that other touching constituted "sexual" misconduct -- is problematic. SPECIFICO talk 15:00, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

There are other sources that can be used... no need to use one that has been tainted. Blueboar (talk) 15:05, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

That is circular. We are discussing whether it's been tainted. Please re-read the entire Times article and consider my comment and reply if you believe that I'm mistaken in saying that the minimal factual correction does not disqualify what's by far the most extensive and deep reporting on the allegation. SPECIFICO talk 15:25, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Blueboar, I agree.  First we should decide which widely covered information we want to include, and if there is any disagreement over the NYTimes we can use another source.  No need to evaluate whether the NYTs has been tainted, at least for this piece of information.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Kolya Butternut (talk • contribs)

That is not how we work. First we evaluate the sources then we derive information and article content. We do not decide on "information" we like and then find whatever source might onfirm it. SPECIFICO talk 22:33, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that is what "widely covered information" means. When RS widely cover information, that is when we decide if that information is appropriate to include. But your response ignores the point of my comment. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:05, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

The NYT article is perfectly fine as a source. They clarified that the "hugs, kisses and touching" are not sexual misconduct. The previous wording was bad, so they fixed it. That's exactly what one would expect from a high-quality source. - MrX 🖋 20:31, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

MrX hugs, kisses, and touching, that multiple women said made them uncomfortable, typically are considered sexual misconduct. In any case, the NYT saying that they did not find a pattern of misconduct (after they redefine misconduct) has no relevance on how we should address Reade's accusation. As per the Slate article. ResultingConstant (talk) 20:52, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Considered by whom? The women who were touched? Biden? I think it's casting a broad net to describe these incidents as "sexual misconduct", and apparently the New York Times agrees. Slate may disagree, but that doesn't make Slate right and the New York Times wrong. Show me an objective definition of "sexual misconduct" that is widely accepted, and then we can discuss the possibility of the New York Times "removing facts". - MrX 🖋 21:13, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Did any of the women describe their discomfort as "sexual misconduct"? I have seen some say it was not sexual misconduct, but I am not familiar with all the sources on the matter. SPECIFICO talk 22:29, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

• The latter. It's a succinct explanation of why the incident was not covered earlier. There's another piece in the NYT (an interview with the editor linked above) that debunks the right-wing talking point that minor rephrasing means that the Biden campaign somehow controls the content (they noted that the wording was awkward and thus gave rise to ambiguity, which the Times acknowledged). When a RS corrects an article, we reflect the corrected content, not the original. Guy (help!) 22:14, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

• It's not clear whether this is a right wing narrative. There are also other groups with a dedicated opposition to Biden and dedicated promotion of this incident for other reasons. I would say WP:FRINGE is the better category, but that will become clearer with time. The editing around this reminds me of the Murder of Seth Rich article in its early days, where there were coatrack anti-Hillary theories, including offers of a "reward" and insinuations by Julian Assange. That article is in good shape now, but it was not in good shape during the 2016 campaign. SPECIFICO talk 22:27, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

• OVerall this is why when allegations of things like sexual misconduct which there's only "he said she said"-type evidence to go after, RECENTISM and NOT#NEWS very much applies and we should only be including after the dust of the initial allegations have settled. Ask if the allegations have affected the career path of the person at the center in any way, or in the case of Biden here, as they are coming up in the midst of the campaign, affected the campaign. If they haven't, and those investigating the allegations find no evidence to support, then we should only cover the minimally if at all. The rush to include them with instant sources that can change down the road (including the NYTimes) is not healthy for WP and leads to problems like this. --Masem (t) 22:40, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

• With reference to NYTimes being reliable in the context of Biden's sexual-assault allegation and Reade, no it is not. Their credibility has been waning for some time now...CJR nails some of the reasons why. Press Think pressed hard on the Time's disconnect. Cornell hit straight on about opinion and news bias. Of late, some of our high profile WP articles are very close to being mirrors of the NYTimes, WaPo and like-minded sources that are consistently chosen by like-minded editors. I'll quote an interesting statement I read in a Bloomberg article: ”The encyclopedia’s reliance on outside sources, primarily newspapers, means it will be only as diverse as the rest of the media—which is to say, not very.” Not very is right - especially if we become overly reliant on and less cautious about the biased opinions published in today's clickbait media. As Dylan wrote..."The Times, They Are-a Changin". ^Atsme _Talk 📧 03:32, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

  Atsme, yep, it's funny how certain guys here bend over backwards to justify the bias here, yet are the first to try to throw out reputable sources that just may have a rightwing bias. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 13:45, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

• The initial NYT reporting on the Tara Reade allegation should not be used on Wikipedia, at least without the caveat that notes that their coverage was altered to please the Biden campaign. When I tried to add this context to the lead paragraphs, I was overruled by an administrator who defended the NYT coverage with the incorrect reasoning that the removal was a "Standard journalistic correction," rather than because "the [Biden] campaign thought the phrasing was awkward".[28] I want to also say that victims don't have to use the phrase "sexual misconduct" in order for sexual misconduct to be considered sexual misconduct. The "hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable” line that the NYT deleted (again, at the request of the Biden campaign) is cut-and-dry. Those are sexual misconduct allegations. Non-consensual kissing and hair-sniffing is sexual in nature. — Sockpuppet comment of a community banned user
• One should try to avoid this source, but I wouldn't suggest an outright ban. As a general matter, one should always prefer sources that are independent of the subject. The NYT's statement that it changed the article at the behest of the campaign tends to call their independence into question, but one imagines significant independence still exists. Hence my opinion above. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:31, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
• There are are two stories here... first there is the story of Biden’s alleged sexual misconduct. Both sides of that story have been covered by other outlets, and so there is no NEED to use the NYT piece. Then there is the story of how the NYT changed the language of an article at the behest of the Biden campaign. For this, we can use the NYT piece (in both iterations) as a PRIMARY source for the language, but we should mostly use independent sourcing for fact. Blueboar (talk) 01:21, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
• The New York Times "did not remove "facts" from the article. This information, "Last year, Ms. Reade and seven other women came forward to accuse Mr. Biden of kissing, hugging or touching them in ways that made them feel uncomfortable." is still noted in the article.  What they did was correct a somewhat ambiguous statement that could be interpreted to mean that there are other cases of misconduct,  which was not what their reporting found. There has been some justifiable criticism of the Times for not including an edit notice with the correction. According to Times executive editor Dean Baquet “We didn’t think it was a factual mistake. I thought it was an awkward phrasing issue that could be read different ways and that it wasn’t something factual we were correcting,” Baquet said. It is not unusual for a subject of an article, or anyone else for that matter, to request a clarification. We expect reliable sources to correct statements which could easily be misinterpreted. Making a correction does not invalidate a source. The corrected statement reflects a summary of their reporting and could be included although whether it should be is a different issue.  CBS527^Talk 05:33, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
• I agree with Blueboar. Also, the NYTs did not merely clarify awkward phrasing. If they were to merely clarify without removing meaning, they could have said: "No other allegation about sexual assault or sexual misconduct surfaced in the course of reporting, nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade’s allegation. The Times found no pattern of physical boundary violations by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable." By removing the text about inappropriate touching, the NYTs is further separating those behaviors from sexual misconduct. But regardless, the statement as a whole is problematic because it inaccurately states that staff could not corroborate details, when in the same article they write than two interns remember Reade abruptly stopped supervising them in April 1993. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:27, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

• Of course they changed the meaning. The meaning was ambiguous, possibly misleading for some readers, and inconsistent with their reporting. This happens all the time in reliable journalistic reporting. It really is irrelevant what you would have written if you worked at the NY Times. SPECIFICO talk 21:27, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

• You're misinterpreting what I'm saying about the change in meaning, and not commenting on the intention of my example. Kolya Butternut (talk) 01:11, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• Avoid using this source per the OP.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 11:00, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
• At Joe Biden sexual assault allegation this NYT quotation is featured in the Lede The New York Times reported about the allegation some weeks after several other publications; it stated that "[n]o other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting, nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade’s allegation. The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden". How should this be handled? Should it stand as is, without a note that the phrasing includes some editing advice from the subject of the "investigation"? petrarchan47คุก 05:14, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
• I'm inclined to avoid using this source. It's not like Joe Biden is an obscure individual. Surely, there must be other sources, right? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 06:55, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Regarding the scandal article... the controversy about the Times changing its language at the behest of the Biden campaign is discussed in a subsequent section on media coverage. I don’t think it belongs in the lead, so I have edited the article accordingly. Blueboar (talk) 13:38, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Blueboar I was shocked and remain concerned about the amount of space the NYT article is given at the Joe Biden sexual assault allegation page. I am leaning towards siding with those who say the piece should not be used at all. I wanted to ask those with more experience whether such a determination requires a formal RfC, or if this thread is sufficient. petrarchan47คุก 19:46, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Best to use a formal RFC, in order to ensure a neutral presentation of the question at issue, since this RFC-like RSN Noticeboard thread did not present the question properly. The way the question was proposed at the very start of this thread was "The New York Times has admitted to removing facts from their article about alleged sexual assault by Joe Biden at the request of his campaign." The fact at issue therein is the text "beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable." which was removed from the paragraph that begins with "No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting..." after the article was first published.

However, two paragraphs up, the Times article included those facts in the paragraph that reads "Last year, Ms. Reade and seven other women came forward to accuse Mr. Biden of kissing, hugging or touching them in ways that made them feel uncomfortable." This means that despite the Times decision to modify the later paragraph over the stated concerns about what it was implying with the term "sexual misconduct," the fact that Biden had been accused of kissing, hugging or touching other women in ways that made them feel uncomfortable was never removed and has remained in the published rticle at all times. As a result, this RFC-like thread subtly began with a falsehood when it claimed that the Times had admitted to "removing facts". A more neutrally worded RFC (with input from editors on both sides as to how to properly frame the RFC question) would fix this. Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 20:40, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Blueboar (Sorry for the double ping) Your fix was undone. petrarchan47คุก 19:49, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

• Avoid using this source -- any time an outlet admits that a campaign changed its coverage, that coverage should be treated with skepticism. If it needs to be cited, the controversy sparked (covered by RS's) must also be cited. --MaximumIdeas (talk) 18:43, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

• Comment This is standard practice in respectable news reporting. After the article was published, Biden's staff complained about the wording and the New York Times editors agreed and made changes. The original wording could be read as implying that Biden's unwanted touching was sexual misconduct, which is a matter of dispute. TFD (talk) 16:07, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
• The New York Times did reliable reporting here I read the original version of the article, and I have read the revised version. They both said essentially the same thing, and the correction merely fixed some awkward wording. Just because something is a viral meme among a small, loud-mouth minority does not make it something which should change Wikipedia’s long standing consensus that the New York Times is one of the world’s most reliable sources. Samboy (talk) 03:21, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

This really isn't a question of how editors feel about the revised version or the justification given for it, but rather if an article that includes substantive editing from one of the two subjects of an "investigation" can be used in the encyclopedia, and if so, whether readers should be informed of the controversy behind the edited section. Right now we are using the Biden version in the Joe Biden article without any note. The NYT went to great lengths to explain that the reason their reporting took 19 days to produce is that they worked very diligently on it. Therefore it is only right to assume their original statement went through intense scrutiny by journalists and editors before publication and was not lighthearted nor a mistake. So while the NYT reporting may be reliable, we cannot assume the same for the Biden campaign and their opinion. This is no less than the removal of a disclaimer about a pattern of sexual misconduct on behalf of the accused. If it said "essentially the same thing", there would have been no reason for the edit at all. In fact, it was a major change considering context (an endeavor that is sadly undervalued at WP). petrarchan47คุก 14:22, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Since we’re at RSN here, an editor’s subjective impressions about a source and why they feel the source is reliable is very much a welcome discussion. The question being asked here is “Is The New York Times reliable even though they changed that one sentence in that one article?”, and my answer is an unqualified yes, based on my reading of the article both before and after it was changed. Reliable sources respond and sometimes revise their articles based on feedback, especially when the feedback brings up WP:BLP issues. Samboy (talk) 16:39, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

The question being asked here is: "Are there any limitations on how this piece can be used in his BLP?". as Petrarchan said, the NYTs made a correction (which removes context) in response to representatives of the accused party and without noting the correction. That should create some limitations. For some more subjective perspectives on the Times and others sources, listen to the journalists who first reported the story after Grim.[29] NYTs is discussed at 45:20. Kolya Butternut (talk) 07:16, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Kolya Butternut The next step is to hold a straw poll about having an RfC to formalize a decision from the community regarding how this NYT piece can be used. I see the Biden-edited version is quoted at Biden's BLP as we speak. This cannot stand in an encyclopedia. The story surrounding the change, and coverage of the controversy, would be encyclopedic, but how it's being used presently violates our core principles. Please consider taking the reigns on this, RL is preventing me from helping. petrarchan47คุก 04:32, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

The NYTs text should be removed from Biden's bio before any RfC as there is no consensus to include it. The heading for the section should also be changed back to the last consensus version. Kolya Butternut (talk) 10:33, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• As per Specifico, MrX, TFD, CBS527 and Samboy, I believe the NYT correction shows why it is a reliable source and should be used. They clarified their reporting to make it more robust. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:33, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Quoting Blueboar above, "The admission indicates that they were not independent on this subject." The 'correction' was based on the opinion of the accused. Yes, it's robust all right. But this is not the DNC's blog. petrarchan47คุก 21:38, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Any suggestion that the NYT is not a reliable source is basically trolling. The fringe (from the far-right AND the far-left these days) talking point of "the Biden campaign dictated content removal" has been thoroughly debunked. Zaathras (talk) 00:44, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

The above claim by Zaathras appears to be factually untrue. The Hill is considered generally reliable for American politics (see entry at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources), and reported "The New York Times is facing blowback after its executive editor admitted to removing a controversial passage in a story focusing on a 1993 sexual assault allegation against presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden." "Times executive editor Dean Baquet told the news organization’s media columnist Ben Smith that the edit was made because the Biden campaign argued..." --Guy Macon (talk) 18:43, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

• Avoid The NYT reported on itself about this article, “The Times Took 19 Days to Report an Accusation Against Biden. Here’s Why,” and reception about that editing at the Biden campaign request was noted, e.g. The Hill "NY Times faces blowback for removal of controversial passage on Biden sexual assault allegation". Meh. I'd suggest the NYT has some questions in the political arena but for the BLP level what specifically the NYT has as a view about Tara Reade is UNDUE for a mention, and I had deleted it along with other details. I think *any* specific single source is UNDUE for quoting out at the BLP level -- none of them have WEIGHT of being noted by other media and no quote from any of them has a particular BLP enduring impact to justify inclusion. If NYT stays deleted, then questions about their POV being done in cooperation with the Biden campaign are moot. And given this specific NYT article is somewhat a flap, I suggest any return o Tara Reade details should avoid that now-dated and now-decried article as just not BESTSOURCES. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 07:53, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Straw poll: New York Times/ Biden campaign statement

Should the following text be used in any Wikipedia article:

• ("No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting,) (a) nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade’s allegation. (b) The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden."*

The sentence was changed from The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable. This change was made, per the NYT, after the Biden campaign complained that the "phrasing was awkward".*, * The edited statement is currently live on the Joe Biden BLP without noting the campaign's involvement. petrarchan47คุก 14:48, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Courtesy pings: Zaathras, SPECIFICO, MarioGom, Blueboar, Kolya Butternut, MrX, ResultingConstant, JzG, Masem, Atsme, Sir Joseph, Adoring nanny, Cbs527, SharabSalam, A Quest For Knowledge, AzureCitizen, MaximumIdeas, The Four Deuces, Samboy, Bobfrombrockley, Zaathras

Discussion.

This is a poll on whether to have an official poll on a settled matter? ANS: NO. I don't see any significant argument here to deprecate the NY Times. SPECIFICO talk 14:59, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I sought advice from Newslinger here, and this was the course of action s/he advised. This is a question about a specific sentence, not about depreciating the NYT as whole. petrarchan47คุก 15:06, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

• Rather than a poll on whether to have an RfC, maybe we should have a straw poll on whether to include the text, and that poll will inform whether we need an RfC. I am opposed to the last 2/3 of that text because it is disputed by other sources. The sentence: "No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting" is not problematic, but is perhaps undue. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:33, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Petrarchan47, you may want to ping editors who had only disscussed this at Talk:Joe Biden. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:35, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I have changed the straw poll question per your words above. petrarchan47คุก 15:45, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

• A few points:

• As far as I see, the way the change is described accounts for the "hugs, kisses..." being removed, but we're not citing it for that.
• The hugs, kisses, etc. are already in our article.
• Wouldn't it be great if every source we considered reliable were transparent enough to draw attention to when a change was made after consulting with a campaign? That seems like a feature here. This isn't a "gotcha"; it's the Times publishing about its own editorial process.
• So yes, reliable. As for how it's presented in the article, that's for the article talk page. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:40, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

• No

• (a) This text should not be used without context. The fact that Biden's campaign is behind the removal of a crucial caveat originally printed by the NYT should be included if the final sentence is mentioned.
• (b) The NYT's claim that they found no evidence to support any part of Reade's claim is false, and should not be included unless accompanied by a rebuttal. "Two interns the Times interviewed corroborated Reade’s allegation that she was removed of her duties supervising them"*. petrarchan47คุก 16:03, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

  Petrarchan47, they are not "behind" it. They pointed out an ambiguity. This happens all the time. Guy (help!) 18:44, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

• No, this text should not be used because the Times changed it due to the Biden campaign complaining that wording was "awkward". While NY Times is RS, certain reports of theirs may not be RS if the outlet admits to working with a political campaign on the phrasing. If this source must be used, the context behind the wording change must be stated (which can be sourced to many RS's that reported on this.) --MaximumIdeas (talk) 16:17, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

So if a newspaper writes something, and someone points out a factual inaccuracy, and they correct it, we should still use the inaccurate version? Why would we do that? The Biden campaign have zero editorial control, this was a decision by the NYT, explained in detail by their editorial staff. I understand that you would prefer the published version not to exonerate him quite so emphatically, but that is really not our problem to fix. Guy (help!) 18:43, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

• No, at this point (this point being, we are only still dealing with accusations, and there is no hard action yet taken against Biden). Assuming that nothing else changes about this situation, that the accusations only remain accusations that never are proven out and have no additional bearing on Biden in the future, then there's no point in making a big deal about the Times' correction. Should the situation change: that the accusations are found to have validity, or something more severe, such that the Times changing their story is part of the larger story, then the issue the change can be added. But right now, adding anything about the correction is currently unnecessary since we currently are treating Biden innocent of any of the actions he was accused of doing at the current state per BLP. --Masem (t) 16:12, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
• No, nothing will be gained from holding a formal RFC. The discussions here are enough to determine consensus. That said, I still maintain that highlighting the NYT report (by quoting it) is WP:UNDUE. There are lots of reliable sources that cover the allegations, and Biden’s response. We can (and should) use these other sources. Blueboar (talk) 16:38, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
• Why is this here? The source is reliable. This is a question for the article's talk page. Or did you not get the answer you wanted there? Guy (help!) 18:41, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

• The fact that Biden's campaign is behind the removal of a crucial caveat... is a misleading and bad-faith statement. Zaathras (talk) 18:45, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree. Suggesting "the campaign's involvement" is misleading. Journalism happens with reporters talking to subjects, and the subjects can try to correct the record. It seems that the NYT went to the Biden campaign before publishing the article, the Biden campaign made a few points, and the NYT agreed with them. This is standard operating procedure. The NYT comments are valid. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:53, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
    • Except that’s not what happened. The chain of events was: 1) The Times publishes an article. 2) The Biden campaign contacts the editor and complains about the language of said article, 3) the Times then changes the article text due to that call. This is what people call a “stealth edit”. In the days of physical paper journalism, this could not have been done. The paper would have been printed with the “objectionable” sentence included. Sure, the Biden campaign might have complained... but by that time it would be too late. The most the Times could have done was issue a “correction” in the next day’s paper. Blueboar (talk) 23:39, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

• What is this? - It was a straw poll about whether we should have an RfC, and then, after people started commenting, the question was changed to be about whether text from a particular source should be used "in any article" (??). That's certainly an unusual way to use this board. Typically it's either asking for opinions about whether a particular source is reliable or whether a particular source is reliable for a particular claim in a particular article. The "in any article" is bizarre, as is the pre-RfC/non-RfC business. The underlying question concerns an objection to using a quote in a specific article, and not "in any article," and the issue taken with the quote is more to do with using the full quote rather than its reliability (a matter for the article talk page, not RSN). If the question is whether being transparent about a common step in the journalistic process renders a highly reliable sources unreliable, the answer is no. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:27, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

"The Times report was soundly criticized after the paper opted to stealth-edit—i.e., make a change to an article that’s not disclosed in an update or correction".[30] Kolya Butternut (talk) 21:05, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Ohhhhh I get the hubbub now. Thanks for the link. Somehow misread the timeline of other links. Ok, so yeah, they understandably caught some flack for making a revision without being clear why up front. I still don't think that translates to "this is not a reliable source". If they had been transparent from the beginning, if the edit hadn't been made after talking with the campaign, etc. would it still be controversial? It seems like a typical step in the journalistic process (for better or worse) that should've just been handled before publication. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 01:26, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, I don't think we're evaluating whether the NYTimes is generally an unreliable source for the story, just whether the NYTimes is not reliable for the specific text quoted for this poll. They've been criticized for stating that no "former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade’s allegation", when in the same story they report that two interns corroborated that Reade was abruptly removed from supervising them in April 1993. Kolya Butternut (talk) 08:23, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

It's also weird that the NYTimes wording "corroborate" is considered reliably sourced, but WaPo's use of the word is not: Talk:Joe Biden#Reade's story corroborators. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:38, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

• Isn't this a BLP violation against Tara Reade to include such information which gives no WP:BLPBALANCE without also including information about Reade's corroborators? At this point this may require a BLP Noticeboard discussion if this is not immediately removed. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:58, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

I would support this idea. It doesn't appear anything is going to happen "immediately" if at all, on the current route. petrarchan47คุก 16:33, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• Avoid this text - there's no good reason to state 'the NY Times reports' in Biden BLP, their particular article is just not noteworthy in WEIGHT of mentions for that nor shown BLP impact. It might get a small mention in the allegation article, along with small note that article has a story about coverage being slow and that response was a flap re the Biden campaign influenced the wording. That would seem a part of the theme that the allegation story has gotten slow or muted #metoo responses. But really the even there the particular text said (or deleted) by the NYT seems UNDUE to quote out - the flap is over the slowness and that the Biden campaign influenced wording. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 08:24, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
• Of course use the text. It's the New York Times, pretty much the Gold Standard of reliable sources, and this looks like nothing more than a stealth FUD campaign to slant the article. --Calton | Talk 11:03, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Zirikli

Is al-Aʻlām by Khayr al-Din al-Zirikli reliable for the ethnicity of Al-Tahawi? I know that it's a tertiary source (a tarajim: biographies), but I don't know its reliability. Regards -TheseusHeLl (talk) 00:09, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I recommend to use some newer work, if available. I would assume good faith (even though this author is described as a "Syrian nationalist"), so this source may be useable, but with a caution. It could be used for basic uncontroversial facts, but certainly not for possibly controversial informations (eg. ethnicity). Pavlor (talk) 06:21, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

TheseusHeLl, according to The Encyclopaedia of Islam[31], he is an Azdi, meaning he is an Arab.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 02:13, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

The 1619 Project and the World Socialist Web Site

The critical views/criticism language of The 1619 Project -- other than the bits of reflexive conservative anklebiting -- is almost completely sourced to the World Socialist Web Site. This does NOT look kosher to me. --Calton | Talk 09:47, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Its run by the NYT, so I will actually need to see something that says this is crap.Slatersteven (talk) 10:03, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

The World Socialist Web Site is run by the New York Times? Buh? --Calton | Talk 10:14, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

No the 1619 Project is. If you had made this about one single source my response would have been clear.Slatersteven (talk) 10:15, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I think WSWS might be reliable as a source for opinions it publishes, but not as a secondary source on anyone else's opinions. It's hard to disentangle what falls into those two brackets in this particular article. This is not an issue for this noticeboard, but I'd also question the noteworthyness of the material: the historians' views might be noteworthy, but the views of one fringe website aren't - see WP:DUE. So if the historians' views are only published by WSWS then not worth including in the article.BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:33, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

WSWS is a resource site, not an RS as Wikipedia uses the term. I'd expect reprints of third-party sources would be fidelitous. Opinion pieces on the site would be blog posts, and would need to be expert SPSes or similar I'd expect - David Gerard (talk) 17:05, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

What exactly is the RS question here?--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 03:39, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

postcard.news and tfipost.com

Both sites have issues of their own - postcard has oftentimes posted fake news and at one point its founder was arrested for that ( https://www.indiatoday.in/fyi/story/postcard-news-editor-mahesh-hegde-booked-for-spreading-fake-news-arrested-in-bengaluru-1201009-2018-03-30 ). On the other hand, tfipost seems to at least post true stuff, though it still cherrypicks news from what I understand. So, are both of these sources any good in reporting political news (which is about 90% of what they post)? RedBulbBlueBlood9911 (talk) 07:04, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi RedBulbBlueBlood9911. Postcardnews has come up a few times on the boards here..take a look at archive 248 [32] which discusses it along with several other Indian news sites. The consensus seems to be no, definitely not reliable for anything. I don't think I've heard of tfipost, and a quick search of the boards doesnt bring up anything. Looking at the website is not encouraging- they seem to be setting themselves up as a glorified blog? I clicked on "meet the contributors" and they list 241 "columnists" complete with social media style profiles who post what appear to be opinion pieces. The about us page confirms this -" a platform for coming together and exchanging perspectives. The mainstream media narrative of India is highly tilted towards the left. Hence an average news reader of India gets to read news with “liberal” doses of “left-arm” spin. TFIPOST was created to provide an alternate Center-Right narrative. We are very new and already one of the most read and appreciated blogging platforms." Its just people's opinions, not WP:RS in any way. Curdle (talk) 13:09, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable. Both Postcard News (a.k.a. Post Card News and postcard.news) and tfipost.com (formerly known as The Frustrated Indian, TFI, and rightlog.in) are less popular equivalents of the propaganda site OpIndia (RSP entry). Postcard News was removed from Facebook after repeatedly publishing fake news reports. TFIPost is already on the spam blacklist for participating in the same doxing incident described in the OpIndia and Swarajya discussion. If editors continue to add links to postcard.news   inappropriately, the domain should be blacklisted as well. — Newslinger talk 16:08, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics. — Newslinger talk 16:10, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

:* Hi @Newslinger:, and thanks for your advice. I noticed that you’d started the discussion about getting OpIndia and Swarajya deprecated, and it interested me (yes, I know that it’s 2 months old). But since the sources weren’t deprecated due to lack of an RfC, I’d like to know if it would be a sensible idea to create a new discussion in the RfC area regarding the sources. RedBulbBlueBlood9911 (talk) 11:21, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

• @Newslinger:, I checked MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist and tfipost isn’t blocked. Are you sure? RedBulbBlueBlood9911 (talk) 06:41, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Never mind what I posted above, I was looking at the Deprecated Sources list instead, so I didn’t see the sources blacklisted. But in what case would it be necessary to blacklist or deprecate any site? Does it have to be linked on Wikipedia repeatedly or is a discussion concluding that the source is absolutely useless enough? RedBulbBlueBlood9911 (talk) 09:29, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi RedBulbBlueBlood9911, tfipost.com is currently on the spam blacklist (MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist), while Postcard News is not. Neither website is deprecated. Also, while there was consensus to deprecate OpIndia and Swarajya (RSP entry), neither publication is deprecated because the discussion was not a formal RfC; however, both OpIndia and Swarajya are on the spam blacklist, and there is no benefit to deprecating sites that are already blacklisted. Generally, websites become candidates for the spam blacklist when editors repeatedly add external links to the site in an inappropriate manner, and only if the blacklisting would not prevent appropriate uses of the site to a significant extent.

Since tfipost.com is already on the spam blacklist, it would be unnecessary to deprecate it. Postcard News is not yet on the spam blacklist, but since it is a fake news website, I recommend removing the current citations   and then requesting blacklisting if editors continue to add this domain into articles after the existing citations are removed. An RfC is not required for this. — Newslinger talk 10:03, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

• Definitely unreliable And in this case we don't even need to assess the content ourselves since there are externals sources that have done the work. In addition to the links above, see, [33], [34], [35], [36], [37] etc. PS: for future reference I should note that arrests/FIRs for spreading fake-news (or rather, hurting religious sentiment etc) in India should not be taken at face-value, but in this instance, all other indicators of unreliability match up. Abecedare (talk) 16:27, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

  My above comment and links are about Postcard News. Haven't researched tfipost myself, yet. Abecedare (talk) 16:30, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• Both are definitely unreliable. In the case of Postcard News, not just fake news but communal hate-mongering posts. In the case of TFIPost its a lower level of the same, but primarily misrepresentation of facts, omission of key facts, and giving a slant to any post. The total absence of impartial, referenced truthful reporting is a hallmark feature of both these sources. I second the views of Abecedare and Newslinger. AshLin (talk) 07:15, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
• definitely unreliable: fake, political, communal stuffs. ❯❯❯ S A H A 11:48, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Verywell

I would like to ask the community to review the ban on Verywell. Verywell is a family of four websites: Verywell Health, Verywell Mind, Verywell Fit, and Verywell Family. They deliver short articles on very basic topics, written in simple, plain language. Generally, they don't offer much content that can't be found in better, more professional sources. However, outright banning the Verywell sites is excessive. They don't seem to be unreliable. They just offer high-school level content, written in simple language, aimed at a wide audience. As a tertiary source, it may be of use in certain situations. Recently, I tried to cite a Verywell Mind article at ICD-11 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), but it turned out to be on the spam-blacklist. I bypassed this by using links from Google and archive.today, but instead of skirting the rules, I'd rather see the ban lifted.

Verywell is part of Dotdash, the successor of About.com, which closed down in 2017. Dotdash and its websites are currently listed at WP:RSPSOURCES with a mark. The entry claims that the Verywell sites are on there "[d]ue to persistent violations of WP:MEDRS". No source is given for this claim. The entry lists 16 threads. 15 of them discuss the now defunct About.com. Only one of them, from December 2018, is about Verywell, but it wasn't really a discussion. I found no actual debate on Verywell anywhere on Wikipedia, although I did find two LinkReports regarding verywell.com, a domain which now redirects to verywellhealth.com, and verywellmind.com (search).

Each Verywell site has a team of reviewers consisting of board-certified physicians and other professionals, who approve articles before they are posted (see here: Verywell Health, Verywell Mind, Verywell Fit, Verywell Family). Also, each Verywell site has a certificate from the Health On the Net Foundation, which should assure some degree of quality (see here: Verywell Health, Verywell Mind, Verywell Fit, Verywell Family).

Also listed in the Dotdash entry at WP:RSPSOURCES are: The Balance, Lifewire, The Spruce, ThoughtCo, and TripSavvy. I think each should have their own entry and explanation, similar to Investopedia, which is also owned by Dotdash, but has its own entry. Furthermore, I wonder if Dotdash itself should be on the WP:RSPSOURCES list, because the website dotdash.com is in itself not a source.

I suggest the Verywell websites be marked as , with an explanation that they are tertiary references, should be used with caution, and only as ancillary sources.

Thanks for reading, Manifestation (talk) 18:12, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Standards at WP:MEDRS are high for a reason, and not all content written by certified professions meets the reliability standard; see WP:MEDORG. Although you would use the source in a limited and responsible way, other users might not. buidhe 21:51, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I get that, but the Verywell websites have an editorial board of certified professionals. The sites are not unreliable, just simplified medical resources written for the average Joe or Jane. They should be used with caution, but I can't see why they were put on the banlist. They are not spam sites.
I should note that I have encountered two situations on Wikipedia in which I wanted to cite a Verywell page, but couldn't. The first was on the article Remission (medicine), in which I added a bit about NED (No Evidence of Disease), a term used in cancer treatment. There's an article at Verywell Health about NED, and it's the only web article I could find that specifically discusses it. Alas, I couldn't use it, so I cited other refs instead which discuss remission more broadly.
The second situation was on the article ICD-11, which I wrote from scratch. I've cited a Verywell Health article as an additional overview ref of the mental disorders chapter of the ICD-11. As I mentioned above, I bypassed the blacklist this time. Cheers, Manifestation (talk) 18:41, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd never heard of Verywell before today, but I just spent a bit of time perusing verywellhealth.com, primarily the material on vaccines, infectious diseases, etc. (which is more up my alley). It all looked fine. No one is suggesting that this is the highest quality source around, but I see no reason why it should be banned. Does anyone see examples of very poor material on the site (or recall why it was banned in the first place, I can't find an older discussion on the matter)? Ajpolino (talk) 22:59, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Ajpolino, these sites were added to the spam blacklist by User:JzG after this request from Jytdog in November 2018.

Manifestation also had a discussion at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/April 2020#Verywell (the spam blacklist's usual page for such requests) with User:Praxidicae about three weeks ago. I believe that User:Beetstra, User:Kuru, and User:GermanJoe are currently active on the spam blacklist and might be able to evaluate this situation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:08, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

As clear from the blacklisting requests and the reports that COIBot saved, this was blacklisted because it was spammed, and rather clear COPYVIO violations. That some organisation is well respected, or that a site is regarded to be a reliable source does not exclude that said organisation is participating in aggressive SEO activities. It is unlikely to be unbanned until the spamming has stopped. Whitelisting is your way forward for the material you really need. Seen the multitude of IPs (there are IPs in a couple of ranges who have been adding this) and editors (there is a sockpuppetry case) this is better controlled through whitelisting (no, 1 year is generally not enough).

Note: do not evade the ban, you are violating policies. Get what you really need whitelisted. —Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 04:34, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi Beetstra. I would love to see evidence of the Verywell sites being spammed. I looked at the sockpuppet investigation you referred to, which is the only piece of evidence cited in the previous thread on Verywell at Spam-blacklist. It is a very small case, consisting of 1 master, 2 socks, and 1 IP sock. What happened was:

• 19 November 2018: Mservi68 (talk · contribs) adds a few urls to Choking game;
• 30 November 2018: Dulanji Perera (talk · contribs) makes a few meaningless edits to Social anxiety disorder;
• 1 December 2018: 192.248.16.125 (talk), a shared L.E.A.R.N. IP, probably from a high school in Sri Lanka, makes two edits to Social anxiety disorder;
• 1 December 2018: sockpuppet Dulanji P (talk · contribs) is created, and makes one edit to Social anxiety disorder with the es: "added the citations";
• 1 December 2018: Jytdog reverts the edits as a copyright violation, see page history;
• 2 December 2018: Spam-blacklist thread created by Jytdog, who writes that the Verywell sites are "being added to pages by students and people new to editing about health. It would be better if people didn't use them... but that is not what this list is for".
• 2 December 2018: Dulanji Perera reappears, and seems to re-add the reverted content to Social anxiety disorder;
• 2 December 2018: SPI instigated, all accounts blocked;
• 2 December 2018: Three of the four Verywell sites are blacklisted.

Unfortunately, Sphilbrick felt they had to revdelete the edits, destroying the evidence (see log). What is obvious, however, is that this wasn't a big case. Certainly not enough to blacklist three sites over.

I've looked at LinkReports/verywell.com and checked all the listed IP edits: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (deleted), 7 (possibly spam), 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. Only the 7th edit, from 58.120.109.240 (talk), appears to be spam. All of the other edits were likely done in good faith. Is there more evidence of spamming? Cheers, Manifestation (talk) 12:20, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Pinging JzG here, who originally added the sites to the banlist. JzG, I know this is 1.5 years ago, but do you remember anything of this? Thanks, Manifestation (talk) 12:23, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Manifestation, spam blacklisting and reliability are different. If a site is reliable but spammed, then we can whitelist links where there is clear consensus on talk for their use. This was definitely spammed.

Also revdel does not "destroy" evidence. It's a necessary protection legally, and the edits are still visible to us admins. Guy (help!) 13:05, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

@JzG:
"This was definitely spammed."
Do you happen to remember where it was spammed? As in, on what article(s)? Maybe I can plow through the history and locate the edits and IPs as evidence.
"Also revdel does not "destroy" evidence. It's a necessary protection legally, and the edits are still visible to us admins."
Ah ok, thanks for clarifying. Cheers, Manifestation (talk) 13:16, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Manifestation, various sockpuppets are identified above. Look at their contributions. Guy (help!) 13:49, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

That wasn't a spammer. That was a student from Sri Lanka who copy-pasted text from Verywell into Social anxiety disorder. She created Dulanji Perera and Dulanji P. She may also have been Mservi68, but I'm not sure, because the IP address is shared among students, and Mservi68 did not edit Social anxiety disorder. It is possible she made the addition in good faith, clumsily creating two accounts while also editing while logged out. (I am assuming she's female, because Dulanji Perera is a feminine name.) - Manifestation (talk) 14:40, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Manifestation, then I suggest you go to WT:SBL and ask for delisting. I do not remember anything of it.

Note though that sites like this are likely to be considered on a par with Livestrong, and removed as failing WP:MEDRS for most claims they are likely to be used to support. Guy (help!) 14:51, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Manifestation, ‘destroying the evidence’? No, those are clear copyright violations which are hidden from public view for good reason. They are visible to admins.

This discussion has no place here. Even if you get the consensus that this is a reliable source, it is blacklisted based on the basis of copyright violations and spamming. The original request did only list a few accounts (though enough seen the copyvio), the reports show more, like 13 IPs in a short range which, seen their attempts, are very likely related to a couple of other IPs who tried to add the links Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:52, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

@JzG:
"then I suggest you go to WT:SBL and ask for delisting".
I did, but Praxidicae cited WP:RSP, so I thought I had to go here.

@Beetstra:
"This discussion has no place here."
Yes it has, because Verywell is at WP:RSPSOURCES, which claims that it is on the banlist due to repeated violations of WP:MEDRS, while providing no evidence of this. I do not believe Verywell is unreliable.
"it is blacklisted based on the basis of copyright violations and spamming."
A copyright violation is not a reason to blacklist a site. Also, I have not found evidence of spamming yet. Cheers, Manifestation (talk) 17:22, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

1. RSP and SBL are completely separate processes. If you want RSP changed, you can ask here. If you want the spam blacklist changed, you should ask there.
2. We do blacklist for WP:LINKVIOs and other forms of copyright violations. We have done this for approximately forever. It's not the first choice, but it does happen.
3. If you want to use this site for something specific, then go to WT:WHITELIST and follow the directions. The anti-spam folks are pretty generous about such requests. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:47, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I just discovered something that could be misunderstood as evidence. At LinkReports/verywellmind.com, if you search for "Video game addiction", you will see that several dynamic IPs *attempted 35 times* to add one particular Verywell Mind article to Video game addiction. Attempted, because the edits were kept being blocked. These attempts were made in January and February 2019, after Verywell was added to the blacklist. I believed for a minute that this was a not-so-smart bot. However, after checking the other edits made from these IPs, I now believe this was in fact someone from Ethiopia who repeatedly tried to insert the link, somehow incapable of accepting that it didn't work. Again, I still haven't seen evidence of spamming. Cheers, Manifestation (talk) 17:25, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Manifestation, yes, we monitor for hits after blacklisting. And multiple hits is attempted spamming and considered evidence for retaining a blacklist item. We recently cleared out those with no hits in several years. Guy (help!) 18:38, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: Verywell is a popular family of websites, with articles on a wide variety of topics. Logically, someone tries to add one every now and then, triggering the blacklist. That isn't spamming. It happened to me too; see my comment on No Evidence of Disease above. As for that Ethiopian person: he/she just stubbornly tried to add the url to Video game addiction, refusing to give up for some reason. Again, not spamming. Spamming is done to multiple articles, massively, usually with an automated script. If repeated triggering of the blacklist is a reason for retaining the website on the blacklist, this would be some kind of closed loop paradox. Cheers, Manifestation (talk) 19:10, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Manifestation, you have a complete misunderstanding of spamming. There are no automated scripts needed. Hammering is certainly a reason to retain it (especially since you again focus on the Ethiopian IP (really!!), and ignore the FR proxy doing the same. If the only attempted additions are by a couple of well established editors then that could be a reason to not maintain it (if nothing else is giving a reason). Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:18, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Manifestation,” ... I now believe this was in fact a mentally challenged person ... perhaps autistic?” ... are you a psychic? And that person is then so mentally challenged that they remember to continue 3 weeks later ... and then yet another month later he is on an open proxy in France. And seen how highly dynamic the IPs were, I doubt that any of the other edits are by the person working from these IPs. Well, let me be a psychic as well. Perhaps this was in fact a spammer and the spam blacklist stopped it. Or it was a spambot. Your guess is as good as mine.

We are however still diverging. We are at RSN, we should be discussing reliability of the site here. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:15, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

For the record: I withdrew the "mentally challenged" and "autistic" parts of my comment after being challenged about it on my talk page. I didn't mean it as an insult. Cheers, Manifestation (talk) 21:11, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

• Support - Manifestation wrote (above), "I suggest the Verywell websites be marked as , with an explanation that they are tertiary references, should be used with caution, and only as ancillary sources." Keeping in mind that this is the RELIABLE SOURCES noticeboard, I have not seen any evidence in this discussion, or in my experience with several different Dotdash sites, of consistently inaccurate, misleading, or unscientific articles.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 19:02, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: I have left a message at Newslinger's talkpage. He added to the WP:RSPSOURCES table that Verywell was blacklisted due to "persistent abuse", subsequently changed to "persistent violations of WP:MEDRS". I wonder what his opinion is on this matter. - Manifestation (talk) 21:05, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

  I've changed the entry for Verywell/Dotdash (RSP entry) back from "persistent violations of WP:MEDRS" to the generic phrase "persistent abuse" in Special:Diff/954810043, as the rationale for blacklisting was spam-related. As I explained in my talk page response at Special:Permalink/954816151 § Verywell, my mention of WP:MEDRS was a misinterpretation of the comments in MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/December 2018 § verywellmind.com and I apologize for the mistake.

  As for my personal opinion, I think Verywell's reliability is similar to the reliability of Dotdash's other websites (marginally reliable), although WP:MEDRS – which emphasizes the importance of high-quality academic sources and warns against the use of popular press sources including Verywell for "scientific and medical information" (in WP:MEDPOP) – should be taken into account. — Newslinger talk 12:48, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Newslinger. I agree with the marginally reliable marking. Verywell is certainly not the best source ever, and not academic, but it could be used as an ancillary reference. As for the spamming: there is no proof this happened. I've started a new thread here at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist in which I request the unbanning of Verywell. Cheers, Manifestation (talk) 18:31, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

To answer the last bit of your inital comment in this discussion, entries on the perennial sources list are generally only combined for parent companies and their subsidiaries, and only if the subsidiaries do not have different reliability classifications or substantially different descriptions. Beyond Dotdash, examples include RhythmOne (RSP entry) and Vice Media (RSP entry). Before splitting an entry, each new entry would need to meet the inclusion criteria and be different enough to merit a separate entry. I can see the justification for splitting Verywell into a separate entry if it remains on the spam blacklist. However, I would consider merging Investopedia (RSP entry) into the Dotdash entry as the consensus on Investopedia is not substantially different from that of Dotdash's other sites. — Newslinger talk 15:31, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

NPR

Very surprised to see NPR listed as "No consensus" on WP:RSP. On discussions on this noticeboard it seems fairly unanimously accepted as a reliable source ([38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48] etc); this is the closest I can find to a centralised discussion. Of the two listed in the perennial sources summary, neither seems to discuss the points mentioned (for example, that it is "generally considered a partisan source for the purposes of American politics") or give any evaluation of the organisation's accuracy as a whole (the first not at all, the second discusses a possible mistake in what is supposedly an NPR report).

NPR has clear and extremely detailed guidelines on ethics including accuracy, impartiality, transparency and so on, one of the highest trust-to-distrust ratios among major media outlets, beaten only by the Economist and the BBC, and its listeners have been found on more than one occasion to be the most informed and least likely to believe misinformation.

(Also, since I'm here, PBS used to be listed on WP:RSP and I'm unsure how to find out where/why it's gone?)

Thanks. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 11:58, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

References

• Both NPR and PBS have a good reputation for fact checking and accuracy.--Eostrix (talk) 12:05, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
• As it says its just because it is an old discussion, yes NPR seems to be at least a gold plated standard.Slatersteven (talk) 12:29, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
• I say we should turn the NPR entry green. Are there any legitimate cautions we should put in the text? I don't see anything in NPR controversies that needs to be highlighted. For example, the first "controversy" says "An outside expert was appointed to perform quarterly self-reviews of its Israel-Palestine coverage from 2003 to 2013, finding "lack of completeness but strong factual accuracy and no systematic bias" --Guy Macon (talk) 13:15, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

• Guy Macon, I agree. They have a very solid reputation. Not error free (who is?) but with a decent commitment to factual accuracy. Guy (help!) 14:13, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

• Both are generally reliable (assuming you mean their news programs) with reputation for fact checking and accuracy. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:27, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
• Just All Things Considered and Morning Edition, the news produced by NPR right? The 'no consensus' bit in RSP seems to cover all NPR programming. fiveby(zero) 14:50, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm presuming we mean factual content, yeah. e.g., how opinion columns in NYT are noteworthy (they're NYT!) but attributed - David Gerard (talk) 14:53, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
• Yeah, these should both be green-rated. They're not perfect, but neither is the NYT. They're quite normally reliable journalistic sources for factual content - David Gerard (talk) 14:51, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
• NPR includes Morning Edition but also e.g. Ask Me Another (which is great, but not something I'd expect to see as a source). As such we should have a green entry for "NPR news programs" or the like. I don't know why we'd be including very brief discussions about a source in RSP, like the two that are there currently, just for the sake of having an entry. It's misleading. And, revisiting something I've brought up before, it's hard to consider two brief threads "perennial". Some sources don't come up here because nobody wastes time challenging them. So yes, the entirety of the current entry should be removed. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:00, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
  • That's a reasonable action too, of course - David Gerard (talk) 15:06, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
    • Removal is fine with me. I have some free time. Does anyone think it would be worthwhile to go though the perennial source list and start a discussion here about any others that have no had a lot of discussions about them? --Guy Macon (talk) 17:24, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
      • To be clear, I meant that the entirety of the current entry should be removed [and, if anything, be replaced with a "generally reliable" for the news programs] (i.e. I'm not opposed to that). But yeah, I think something should only be included on that list if there's either an RfC or at least two substantial discussions (which is subjective, so maybe we say "with at least 4 participants or a very clear consensus" or something like that). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 00:35, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
        • I would think a catchall statement for RS/P about reliability of networks as a whole, and the distinction between news, opinion, and entertainment "shows" to a network otherwise considered RS, might be helpful. We don't need to spell out every show (this become an endless tail to chase) but enough advise that talk page discussions on individual articles should be reasonable. We'd only need to highlight individual shows when the network itself is not normally reliable (read: The Daily Show relative to Comedy Central). --Masem (t) 16:54, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
• Generally reliable for all news content. Additional considerations apply for opinion and commentary. buidhe 18:23, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
• Yes, I would absolutely boost NPR's status to green, generally reliable for news content. Book and film reviews, opinion and commentary pieces, interviews, etc. would of course all be subject to the separate policies and guidelines governing the use/citation of those types of content. Neutrality^talk 18:14, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
• I noticed the same thing the other day and was thinking about making this nom before I realized you already had. Yes, absolutely, turn it green. I disagree with the current text that calls it a partisan source — it's not much different than the NYT or WaPo in terms of bias. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:37, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Many years ago I was working late on an engineering project and one of my coworkers said "hey, the election results should be in. Let's turn on NPR and see what they have to say." We did and heard:

• Hourly news reports about Reagan winning with multiple "man on the street" interviews about how disappointed people were. A common refrain (in the news section of the broadcast) was that Reagan planned on defunding public TV and public radio, with the implied assumption that this was the most important issue of the election.
• The commentators wailing and gnashing their teeth as they lamented the end of western civilization.

On the other hand, they are far less obvious about it now, and I have found NPR's science reporting to be consistently good. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:57, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• I did production for PBS affiliates (long since retired) so can I provide input or does that make me subject to COI despite retirement? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 02:12, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  Hi Atsme, feel free to comment here. Since you've disclosed the (former) conflict of interest, others will see your comments in the correct context. — Newslinger talk 09:56, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• The reliability of any source depends on context. When a network (or channel) is involved, be it radio or television, it depends on the program so we cannot/should not attempt to generalize or pigeonhole an entire network, and the same applies to printed & online publications. With print, sensational covers/front pages sell magazines/papers, whereas online, it's all about clickbait. There is no doubt that sensational headlines attract readers and shock value keeps them coming back. The first thing editors should do is determine if the author/program host is credible/reliable and if they are providing opinion or reporting verifiable facts. Example (respectively): Trump performed his typical rant at the 2020 National Prayer Breakfast vs Trump spoke at the 2020 National Prayer Breakfast. A quick way to determine the bias of a particular author/host is to gage it by your own bias, and if you agree with what's said, look closer to determine why...and then write for the opposition by reading other sources that don't necessarily agree with you - better yet, you can't go wrong by choosing sources that publish all substantial views pragmatically. In summary, NPR is a generally reliable source for reporting verifiable facts, and when it's opinion reporting, we should strictly adhere to RECENTISM, NEWSORG, REDFLAG, and BLP. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 16:47, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
• Generally reliable for news content per User:Neutrality. starship.paint (talk) 04:20, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

• Mmm maybe should review the points of evaluation was

"Some consider NPR reliable for attributed statements of opinion. Others argue that NPR is generally reliable under WP:NEWSORG, albeit with due consideration for their political leanings. NPR is generally considered a partisan source for the purposes of American politics. Since there have also been a number of notable controversies in the past, editors should check whether an NPR broadcast constitutes due weight before citing it in an article." Cheers Markbassett (talk) 08:36, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Suggestions for wording 1

There appear to be a broad consensus to turn the NPR entry at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources green. I would like to discuss the wording, Here is my first shot:

There is consensus that NPR is generally reliable for news and statements of fact. NPRs's opinion pieces should only be used with attribution. Some editors believe that NPR is a partisan source concerning US politics.

Feel free to suggest other wording. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:57, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I proposed an alternative wording which I believe is supported by the consensus so far below. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:54, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Re:"Some editors believe..." – I guess it doesn't matter that much but so far I actually haven't quite found enough people on this noticeboard to necessarily make that wording necessary: There's Hobit who says NPR is perhaps the closest to the leftward spin, but one gets the sense they try to not be biased. and XavierItzm who says because we westerners are marinated in the echo chamber of... BBC, ARD, NPR, etc., we no longer notice its bias!. All sources have some kind of editorial perspective (NPR less than most) and even though every source will have people who consider it biased, I guess I'm just wondering if we're eventually going to end up sticking this on every entry. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 12:23, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Agreed with ReconditeRodent. Some editors believe the NYT is a partisan source concerning U.S. politics, but we don't include that in its listing. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 09:31, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree with ReconditeRodent as well for the same reason. Neutrality^talk 15:34, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

• Approve the proposed wording with a slight modification to the last sentence which could be joined with the preceding sentence as follows: NPR's opinion pieces should only be used with attribution as opinions may reflect a partisan bias concerning US politics. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:00, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose As I am not sure we need anything about political bias.Slatersteven (talk) 17:04, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
• Concur with ^Atsme's view. Additionally, it should be noted that NPR is funded by the U.S. government. While American editors may take that for granted, it should be stated. --MaximumIdeas (talk) 18:48, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Funded in part indirectly through competitive grants, but it wouldn't hurt to state that they have received small competitive grants from government agencies. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:00, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

The fast majority of NPR's funding comes from private donations. -Indy beetle (talk) 19:00, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose as written. How about something like this: "There is consensus that NPR is generally reliable for news and statements of fact. As is the case for all media outlets, NPR opinion pieces should be used only with attribution." (Note the slight copy edit - the adverb "only" should be placed as close as possible to the word or phrase it modifies, which in this case is "with attribution".)   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 04:25, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
• First two sentences fine, no need for final sentence on being "partisan". I like Mark Wothern's cleaner alternative immediately above. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:45, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
• I understand GM included that last sentence. NPR does lean left and the commentary shows are clearly left. Still, NPR is generally good. If I could think of something between GM's suggestion and Mark's suggestion I would be happier. I guess I would be OK with either suggestion. Springee (talk) 17:15, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Suggestions for wording 2

There appears to be a broad consensus to turn the NPR entry at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources green. I believe that those responding to the suggestion above supported the following wording instead of my my first shot:

There is consensus that NPR is generally reliable for news and statements of fact. NPRs's opinion pieces should only be used with attribution.

Do we agree on the above wording? and on turning the entry green? --Guy Macon (talk) 18:54, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Looks like that is the consensus above. I think this can be closed now. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:03, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

• Agree Atlantic306 (talk) 19:25, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

[49] --Guy Macon (talk) 22:04, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Looks good, although I think that second sentence is a bit redundant as it applied equally to every single RS which also publishes opinion peices. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:19, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

How'd we get here?

I just looked at the Wikipedia entry for NPR at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources -- assuming the chart's description is based on those two short discussions, the current wording of the Wikipedia chart entry is a complete misrepresentation of those two discussions. How does that happen? Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:36, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

It was initially added as "generally reliable" in Special:Diff/938336958, but then immediately adjusted to "no consensus..." in Special:Diff/938337050. ToThAc, would you like to comment here? — Newslinger talk 09:47, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Newslinger, Really? Apart form the misrepresentation, are you saying it was just added to the chart in 2020, based on those two short very old discussions? Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:30, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

​Yes, it was added in January of this year based on these two discussions. The entry appeared as Special:Permalink/938336958#PBS, with the "Stale discussions" hourglass in the "Last" column. While most controversial entries are noticed and disputed immediately, this one slipped through the cracks. I intend to publish a changelog of the list in the future, maintained by bot, but it will take some time to implement this. If you would like to dispute any other entries on the list, please raise the issue at WT:RSP or here. — Newslinger talk 11:28, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

It looks like someone now changed the description from what it was when I commented earlier about the misleading nature, which is ok, but I think I would have just taken out the listing entirely. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:52, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Better Business Bureau

Is the BBB a reliable source for this statement at Genesis Communications Network?

"Anderson created the network in 1998 "as a way to promote his company, Midas Resources, a precious metals firm which as of September 11, 2015, Theodore Anderson's bullion coin representative registration. No. 40389579, was revoked. Further, Theodore Anderson was prohibited from being an owner, officer, member, or shareholder of any entity that holds a bullion coin dealer registration in the State of Minnesota for two years. "

I've underlined the text in question, the promotion bit is from the other source. Note that the " before 'as a way' has no concluding ". Doug Weller talk 14:32, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

While the BBB is not a proper legal venue, I would consider the conclusions they make about a business the equivalent of primary court records and the like when presented on the example page. BBB's investigations are reliable (after they have processed the complaints from users) to determine where a business has been in legal trouble or other similar business, but I would not be pulling them in unless I had already existing sourcing that puts their business status in question. --Masem (t) 14:44, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

• I wouldn't use BBB as a source for its own material (e.g. their ratings for a business), but I can't think of a good reason not to include this as it appears to be a statement of fact that would carry legal penalties if it were stated in anything other than good faith, backed by primary sources. Guy (help!) 18:38, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

References

Ethiopian Journal of Biological Sciences

Is this a reliable source? I wanted to use it to source a sentence about vegetation changes in Ethiopia during the African humid period, but I know nothing about this publication. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 15:56, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:Africa-related regional notice board, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Africa. — Newslinger talk 16:45, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Looking at editorial team, all of them are from Addis Ababa University (AAU) which I believe has some prestige in Ethiopia. University associated journals have lower prestige than international journals, but the team there is composed of experts.--Bob not snob (talk) 05:55, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes. Its in to the top 30 universities in Africa, at 16 position. These universities will cover topics specific to areas and countries they serve. Conlinp (talk) 10:44, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll apply it then. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 20:11, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Ancestry of Andrija Zmajević

Article Andrija Zmajević, section Biography, sentence Zmajević was born to a Serbian family in Perast, in the Bay of Kotor, at the time part of the Republic of Venice (now Montenegro) in late July 1628.

Are the following sources reliable for the claim "to a Serbian family"?

1. "Kako je Matija Zmajević postao znameniti Hrvat". www.dan.co.me. Retrieved 2019-09-05.
   U svom literarnom radu ispoljavao je višestruko interesovanje prema istoriji, kulturi i narodu "kraljevstva Srbije". Održavao je prijateljske veze sa najistaknutijim srpskim prvacima svog doba, s hercegovačkim mitropolitom Vasilijem Jovanovićem (Sveti Vasilije Ostroški) i s patrijarhom Arsenijem III Čarnojevićem. O patrijarhu je pisao da je "po starini zemljak naš, drag prijatelj" (ovo se može videti u ilustraciji iz njegovog kapitalnog dela "Ljetopis crkovni").
   ZNAO je crkvenoslovenski jezik i ćirilicu i tim pismom, o kojem je primetio da se njime "služi čitava naša nacija", pisao je. Za sebe je govorio da je "vatreni katolik i vatreni Srbin".
   Od Zmajevićevih velikih književnih dela sačuvana su dva. Spev "Slovinska Dubrava" i "Ljetopis crkovni". To je istorija svetskih ideja, od postanja do epohe baroka, pisana dvostubačno - sleva na našem narodnom jeziku i ćirilicom, zdesna na latinskom, na 1.000 stranica. Jedna verzija nalazi se u Splitu a druga, kompletnija, na ćirilici, čuva se - prvi deo u Vatikanu, drugi u Padovi. Tu su ušle mnoge narodne legende i predanja, narodna istorija, epsko viđenje događaja i autorov lični doživljaj prošlosti i savremenosti.
   Andrija Zmajević je bio rođeni stric Matije Zmajevića, ruskog admirala i svakako jednog od najzapaženijih izdanaka peraške familije.
   English translation provided by a fellow editor:
   In his literary work, he expressed multiple interest in history, culture and people of the "Kingdom of Serbia". He maintained friendly relations with the most prominent Serbian notable personalities of his day, with the Metropolitan of Herzegovina Vasili Jovanovic (Saint Basil of Ostrog) and with Patriarch Arsenije III Crnojević. He wrote about the patriarch as "our old countryman, dear friend," (this can be seen in the illustration from his capital work "Chronicle of the Church").
   He knew the Church Slavonic language language and the Cyrillic alphabet and that letter, for which he noted was "used by our entire nation," he wrote. He used to say that he was a "fierce Catholic and fierce Serb".
   Two of Zmajevic's great literary works have been preserved. The song "Slovinska Dubrava" and "Chronicle of the Year". It's a history of world ideas, from the beggining to the Baroque era, the whole work is written in two paragraphs - left in our national language and in Cyrillic, right in Latin, 1,000 pages long. One version is in Split and the other, more complete, in Cyrillic, is kept - the first part in the Vatican, the second in Padua. Many folk legends and traditions, folk history, epic perceptions of events and the author's personal experience of the past and present have entered into it.
   Andrija Zmajevic was the born uncle of Matija Zmajevic, a Russian admiral and certainly one of the most notable members of the Perast family.
2. "Hrvati otimaju našu baštinu". www.novosti.rs (in Serbian (Latin script)). Retrieved 2019-09-05.
   Za svoju tvrdnju da je Matija Zmajević sebe smatrao Hrvatom, Denis Krnić ne može naći nijedan istorijski izvor. Stoga, vjerovatno nije slučajno zašto dotični zaobilazi relevantne istorijske izvore, koji nedvosmisleno ukazuju da su Zmajevići bili srpska porodica katoličke vjere.
   English translation provided by a fellow editor:
   For his claim that Matija Zmajevic considered himself to be Croat, Denis Krnic can't find a single historical source. Therefore, it most probably isn't a coincidence that he is bypassing relevant historical sources, which unequivocally indicate that the Zmajevics were a Serb family of the Catholic faith.

Regards, --T*U (talk) 20:25, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Otherwise, we can see this information in the second article: "Papa Sikst V bio je Srbin iz Boke" "Pope Sixtus V was a Serb from Boka Kotorska" Pope Sixtus V.[50] Mikola22 (talk) 15:42, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

In the first article talk Vasko Kostić. As far as I can see this Vasko Kostić has some book on the internet and the chapters are (Kroatizovanje srbo-katolika, Croatizing of Catholic Serbs), (Sistematsko kroatizovanje svetosavske Boke, Systematic Croatization of(Serbian, Orthodox) Boka Kotorska), (Da li je sv. Tripun hrvatski svetac, Is St. Tripun Croatian saint), (Da li Boka uopšte ima hrvatskih svetaca, Does Boka Kotorska have Croatian saints at all), etc. Editor Sadko knows why he supports such sources. Mikola22 (talk) 16:01, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

• I would not usually consider internet portals RS for contested questions of ethnic identies. Zmajevic is profiled in a university press book titled When Ethnicity Did Not Matter in the Balkans, which describes his family as coming from Montenegro and does not call him a Serb. Another RS book describes his chronicle as "Slavic" rather than Serbian. buidhe 21:58, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
• Croatian paper, I quote: "Zahvaljujući brojnim uradcima historiografije, prilično su nam dobro poznati osnovni podaci iz životopisa Andrije Zmajevića. Njegovi su se preci doselili početkom XVI. stoljeća s Njeguša, iz sela Vrbe, u grad Kotor. Predanje o podrijetlu iz Crne Gore iznosi i sam Zmajević u svom »Crkvenom ljetopisu«, "Thanks to numerous works by historiographers, we are quite well aware of the basic data from the biography of Andrija Zmajevic. His ancestors settled in the early 16th century from Njeguš, from the village of Vrba, to the town of Kotor. The story of origin from Montenegro is stated by Zmajevic himself in his "Church Chronicle". Serbian family is not mentioned. Mikola22 (talk) 15:24, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
• Concur with Buidhe. Both sources are a garbage for this kind of controversial information. Best solution: remove the phrase (and both sources) altogether. Pavlor (talk) 04:50, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

  Agree. Retconning a modern Balkan ethnicity back to the 17th century is fraught with peril.--Bob not snob (talk) 08:05, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

• Just to clarify for those unfamiliar with the sources, Dan is a high-circulation, relatively independent and right-leaning daily newspaper in Montenegro. The first reference is just from their online edition. Večernje novosti is a Serbian daily with a history of alignment with the right-wing Serbian Progressive Party. The second reference is just to the online edition. Neither is an awesomely reliable source for a matter of this type, and both are prone to ethno-centric claims. For such contentious matters, we should rely on academic literature and biographical pieces. I think the clearly reliable sources above (Fine, Trencsényi & Zászkaliczky, and the Croatian Institute of History-affiliated Čoralić's article in Croatica Christiana periodica) indicate his family should be described as being from Montenegro. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:38, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
• Just noting that the Dan source actually says nothing about the family background. Describing yourself as a fierce Serb does not necessarily mean "Serb family". --T*U (talk) 16:39, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

References