Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 425

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Unreliable source used in article in Mridul Wadhwa

The following was copied from Talk:Mridul Wadhwa#Tidying up some of the mess.

The article makes some significant allegations which don't seem to be supported by verifiable facts ie: "After comedian and writer Graham Linehan published part of Wadhwa's home address, Wadhwa said that for the first time she feared for her life" but the source reference article used to verify this claim seems to use just a quote from Mridul Wadhwa themself to back it up and is therefore not well-sourced at all, it basically amounts to the subject of the article making unverified claims which are being reported as facts. That seems to be against the ethos of Wikipedia. Has any reputable Wikipedia editor verified that claim from Mridul Wadhwa without using the quote from the subject as a source? It seems like that allegation about Graham Linehan should be removed from the article until it has been properly sourced. Acoustamatix (talk) 01:50, 21 January 2024 (UTC) Acoustamatix (talk) 02:23, 21 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

If you believe that the source cited https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/trans-scotland-mridul-wadhwa-for-women-scotland/ is not reliable for its claim But the first time Wadhwa says she truly feared for her life was when Linehan published part of her home address. I suggest you bring the question to the reliable sources noticeboard for broader community input. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 02:38, 21 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

End of section copies from talk page

The source reference article cites an allegation that the subject Mridul Wadhwa has made themselves but dies not provide any factual evidence for the allegation. Is it normal for Wikipedia articles to use un-evidenced claims made by the subject as evidence for significant allegations made within articles? Acoustamatix (talk) 03:00, 21 January 2024 (UTC)Reply Acoustamatix (talk) 03:08, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

If you wish to discuss the SPI case do so on the page for that case. This noticeboard is for the discussion of the reliability of sources.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Pretty sure that this is a sockpuppet of recently blocked editor User:Anna Lertreader. I am in the process of putting together an SPI. Also, pinging @ScottishFinnishRadish: as they are mentioned above. --DanielRigal (talk) 03:27, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I think it's more likely meat, but an SPI will let us know for sure. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 03:29, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence for your unfounded allegation? Please provide evidence at your soonest convenience or remove the allegation post haste. Acoustamatix (talk) 03:41, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Anna Lertreader --DanielRigal (talk) 03:43, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence for your unfounded allegation? Please provide evidence at your soonest convenience or remove the allegation post haste. Acoustamatix (talk) 04:00, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Details of an SPI case shouldn't be added to this noticeboard. This board is for discussing the reliability of sources. If you wish to see or discuss the sockpuppet allegations follow the link posted by DanielRigal directly above your post. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:52, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

i am confused as to why a post from @ScottishFinnishRadish alleging SPI has been posted here if you are saying details of an SPI case shouldn't be added to this noticeboard. This seems most irregular.

Also, I'm fairly sure that evidence must be produced immediately on request if any such allegation is made. And yet @ScottishFinnishRadish has posted their unfounded allegation in this inappropriate location and has provided no evidence & refuses to remove the post. Very poor form. Acoustamatix (talk) 15:07, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

They’re on here because the account you’ve been accused of being a sock of was blocked for disruptive behavior on the article that you seem to have taken an interest in here. It’s worth questioning your interest as a result. The Kip 15:21, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it definitely seems that witch-hunting has become more important than accurate & fair reporting in relation to this article. Very strange behaviour. Acoustamatix (talk) 15:35, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

As to the specific question of reliability the source is reliable for the subject saying they feared for their life. If the Wikipedia article said that her life was threatened it would be different, it's doesn't claim Linehan threatened her life it is instead an attributed statement that that's how the subject felt (a subject is reliable for statements of their own opinion). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:04, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks ActivelyDisinterested. The real question is whether the source is reliable for a wiki-voice statement that Linehan once revealed part of Wadhwa's home address. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:14, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Ah! in that case the answer is no. This is the subject making a claim against a BLP, so stating that claim in wikivoice would be inappropriate. Find a reliable source that states it occured (shouldn't be hard), or switch the claim so it's attributed to the subject. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:31, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

The article makes a very specific and publicly disputed allegation of doxxing against a living person which is unverifiable and is evidenced simply by a quote in the referenced source article which is attributed to the subject of the article. This is a circular reference and is clearly unreliable especially as the allegation has been publicly disputed by the accused living person. The Wikipedia article therefore shows inappropriate bias towards the subject of the article and is allowing a publicly disputed and very serious allegation against a living person to stand, without any factual evidence to support it. This unverifiable statement should clearly be amended & qualified or removed entirely, in the interests of accuracy and fairness. Acoustamatix (talk) 15:24, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

For reference this isn't a circular reference as that term is used on Wikipedia, that's commonly understood to mean using Wikipedia as a reference. Nor is Wikipedia interested in fairness, justice or truth. Articles should be built using secondary independent reliable sources, if in an editors opinion those sources are unfair, unjust or untruthful it doesn't matter. Only that Wikipedia correctly reflects those sources.
WP:PRIMARY sources, for instance a statement by the subject of an article can be used, but with certain qualifications (attribution for instance). Denials of claims are not always appropriate, see WP:MANDY for an explanation of why. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:38, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

By allowing the article to remain as it is, Wikipedia would be knowingly displaying unverifiable libelous material which has been publicly disputed, using a comment from the subject of the article as evidence. This clearly goes against the principles of Wikipedia for information to be verifiable and for unfounded libelous material to be removed wherever it has been identified. Acoustamatix (talk) 15:57, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Avoid using terms such as libelous it causes a chilling effect on discussions and can be seen as going against WP:NLT. If you read my reply to Firefangledfeathers above you'll see I don't believe the subjects claim can be used to state the allegations in wikivoice (as fact) but could be used to make a attributed statement (the subject claims that.. ). If the allegations is going to be used in wikivoice it needs an independent reliable source that states it as fact -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:03, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Again this board is only for the discussion of reliability, anything else should be handled elsewhere

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

What is having a chilling effect is the baffling & immediate recourse to a frivolous witch-hunt in the form of an unfounded & unnecessary SPI instead of the necessary rational discussion & consideration of all the evidence available to improve the article in the interests of fairness & accuracy which seems currently to be at best a secondary consideration. Acoustamatix (talk) 17:05, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Sourcing Discography

Hello there.

I wanted to seek this group's inputs on sourcing a discography -- Lewis Pragasam. Specifically, I am looking to use Last.fm. Per this RFC Last.fm is unreliable for biographies on musicians/bands, and I agree. However, for discography there is a link to the actual songs / albums here. One can actually click on the songs / albums on Last.fm and listen to them. In this case is it alright to use this as a source for the discography?

Alternately, per this RfC [1] it seems like Discogs was not deprecated -- hence, can I use this source link?

Copying @Vladimir.copic as an FYI. Much appreciate the guidance. Ktin (talk) 02:03, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Last.FM's biographies are UGC, and its discographical information is commercial, so like iTunes or Amazon, I don't think we have general reason to doubt it, but it's not very good source material. However...albums and singles are published works. There's no need to exhaustively source (i.e., linkspam) a discography with tons of links to commercial websites, because the released album is a reliable source about itself, just like in a bibliography. Chubbles (talk) 23:24, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

This is a very interesting take. Firstly, I will agree with you that Last.FM biographies are not to be sourced. Re: the other albums, if I understand you right they are self-referential in the sense that one need not source them separately to commercial websites (including Last.FM). Instead, similar to plot summaries that are sourced to book itself, here albums are sourced to themselves? cc @Vladimir.copic Ktin (talk) 06:00, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

The albums are analogous to a list of books in an author's bibliography. We don't need a third-party source confirming that the book exists. The book was published; it proves that it, itself, exists. So, too, with a released album; it proves its own existence. The track list, similarly, is like volume or chapter information on the book; the book is a - in fact, the best - reliable source for its own sections. So, yes, plot works more or less the same, but chapters/volumes are a little more seamless an analogy. Chubbles (talk) 22:55, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

My understanding is that items of a discography are generated automatically when a user scrobbles a track, and other information is filled in by users the same as the artist bios are. I don't imagine there's much of anything on that site which isn't USERG (I'm not familiar enough with their features section to say regarding that), and that you'd be better off just going straight to Spotify, iTunes, or wherever else the music is found to get the info directly from there. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 00:07, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I personally, in this case at least do not care much about biographies or the features section. However, need guidance on referencing the albums. I do not believe those albums are USERG. I am happy to go to Spotify or iTunes. But, I am being told those are not allowed as well. Need some assistance here. Thanks. Ktin (talk) 06:02, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I guess the Spotify discussion you are referring to is this one. It seems to be focused on concerns about the reliability of the biographical information rather than the discography. A possible advantage of Spotify (at scale) is that they have an API (e.g. get-an-album) which I suppose could, in principal, be used to auto-generate and/or verify discographies. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:09, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

It's a discography. Like a bibliography or filmography, you don't need to source it. If there's a dispute, consider searching for that release on the record label's website or perhaps a news story about its release. Personally, I think Spotify/iTunes/Amazon are the worst types of "sources" because they're still storefronts/streaming services and Wikipedia shouldn't be seen as endorsing one place to "buy" the album over any other. Woodroar (talk) 23:04, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Are there guidelines saying that we don't need to source it? I frequently see things turned down at ITN/Recent Deaths for unsourced lists of works. I can understand saying this for blue-linked entries but for the article in question none of the albums have articles. Vladimir.copic (talk) 00:07, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I should have said that secondary sources aren't necessary, because the releases are primary sources. I've never looked up policies/guidelines on this because I almost never see disc/film/bibliographies with sources—which suggests the community is generally fine with this. Looking it up now, I see that Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works, Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians/Article guidelines, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Discographies/style really only discusses in-line references in terms of disputed content, surprising/contentious content, chart performance, and so on.

I'm surprised that ITN/Recent Deaths would decline articles for this reason. I checked a dozen or more Featured Article music bios and none of them had sources outside of chart performance. Woodroar (talk) 00:42, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Yeah I've looked through those guidelines and they are not too informative. The discussions at ITN are what made me think sourcing was a requirement but you're completely right about the featured articles. It looks like they are mostly list of works with blue-linked items and a source is present for those items that don't have articles. This gets a little bit harder for musicians within groups and jazz musicians as the sideman tradition often means recordings are not released under their own names so a source may be required to confirm they actually played on the the recording. It would be great to have a decent set of guidelines for sourcing lists of works. In the Pragasam article none of the albums have blue-links so I would imagine we need sourcing which gets us back to what are appropriate sources. Vladimir.copic (talk) 01:09, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with @QuietHere that Last.FM is likely user generated and therefore shouldn't be used - I would put Discogs into that category too. My issue is that Lewis Pragasam uses Spotify, Deezer and Apple Music as sources for the discography. I personally find that the older or more obscure the artist the more likely there are to be mistakes on streaming platforms. Often two or three artists with the same name will be grouped together, its not clear if the release year is the original release or a reissue, and sometimes there are just plain errors. For example, Spotify gives the Max Roach album Members, Don't Git Weary the name Members Don't Get Weary [2] despite me submitting a correction to them a couple of years ago. I understand that we can be more lax on so sourcing for lists of works but we need to be at least sure that we can rely on the information being correct. I often struggle with sourcing and what is required when generating discographies or bibliographies so some better guidelines or clarity on this would be great. In the case of Lewis Pragasam, it will be possible to source each individual album through looking at books and older periodicals - the downside it will not be as quick as finding one webpage that has it all listed. I am looking at this for a DYK nomination so my understanding is we need everything to be sourced. Vladimir.copic (talk) 23:57, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

@Vladimir.copic: I agree with many things you say. However, you are conflating two fundamental things here. a) Biographies and artist information on sites like Last.FM are known to be user generated content and they should not be used. This is consistent with the RFC. No one is making a case against that. b) The RFC, to the best I can tell, did not speak about actual albums on the site. The albums are available for an user to click and listen to. All we are sourcing are the albums that are clickable, and playable on those sites. Need to understand what is user generated about those albums that we can not use them for discography. It is another matter that errors might creep into any source, including RSes to be fair. My understanding is that no RFC has brought a discussion against Last.fm or Spotify or Apple Music that due to the prevalence of errors / high error rate, they should be considered unreliable. In that absence, we should be able to use those links to actual albums as a source for discographies. Ktin (talk) 00:16, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
I do think that to a certain degree LastFM's album and track listings are user generated especially after looking through some artists' discographies (eg these two entries [3] [4] for Diana Ross which, as far as I can tell, do not exist). I'm in fundamental disagreement with you about the reliability of streaming services particularly for older or more obscure artists. See this article in Slate from 2021 which shows some of the errors that can happen in artists' discographies. I'm sure that these issues get fixed up quickly for high profile artists but probably linger or go unresolved for others. Vladimir.copic (talk) 02:35, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
I think there are again two parts to this. a) Do we know that Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, or Last.FM albums on their webplayers (note albums not biographies / artist profiles) are user generated? Nothing presented so far indicates that those are user generated. b) Them having errors are not the same as them being user generated content. As far as I have been able to see it is only that user generated content portions i.e. biographies and artist profiles that are covered under the RfCs that have been linked so far. Ktin (talk) 04:25, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Knewz's non-aggregated content

Apart from their news aggregation with AI, Knewz (originally started by News Corp) features original reporting that's used by good sources. This page lists their original content from experienced writers/editors, who seem to have had positions at known reliable websites.

I don't have a specific use case, but I see that their non-aggregated content is often used for Wikipedia articles. TLA (talk) 00:31, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Has someone questioned the reliability of the source, or is there a need for a discussion because of certain issues? Editors are expected to use editorial discretion and their own good judgement on sources. This board is for finding additional advice if you're unsure, or something has been questioned by another editor and you're looking for a third opinion, or similar. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 04:42, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Sources in Gonzalo Lira#Career

An editor has challenged two sources used in Gonzalo Lira#Career for which I'd like to seek a wider consensus. See related Talk Page discussion: Talk:Gonzalo Lira#Sourcing for "Career".

For the statement Released in January 1998, Counterparts follows the exploits of a fierce female Federal Bureau of Investigationagent and her "counterpart", an ambitious Central Intelligence Agency operative, is this Kirkus Reviews review a reliable source: [5]
For the statement For Newsday, Jane Goldman wrote that it was "far-fetched and heartless... as arrogant and clever as its hero" is that review a reliable source: [6]

Jfire (talk) 15:33, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

The last discussion for Kirkus appears to be this one Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 402#Kirkus reviews from March last year. The issue there appears to be that authors can pay to have their work reviewed, and if the review is negative stop it from being published. They are certainly not independent for claims of notability, and may not be due in an article (if you pay someone for a review does that make it relevant for your Wikipedia article?).

Newsday looks reliable, but I don't haveuch knowledge of it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:43, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I think it is important to establish when Kirkus starting doing this. I’ve made many articles for authors who published in the 90s and 2000s. Kirkus reviews from that time often read like Publisher's Weekly, which offers short but decent reviews. Thriley (talk) 23:06, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Kirkus Indie began in 2005: [7]. The review in question is from 1998. So no concerns in this case about pay to play. Jfire (talk) 00:35, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

’’Newsday’’, notwithstanding its tabloid format, is a respected newspaper that ordinarily would be completely acceptable as a reliable source. Here, the statement is opinion, not fact, see WP:RSOPINION. Since the opinion is properly cited, and a review in one of the 10 largest newspapers in the United States appropriately contributes to notability, it should be fine. John M Baker (talk) 23:54, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Sigh. As I have already told the OPs, nobody is disputing that Newsday is a great source. For Long Island. T

oard. The OP (checks notes) forgot to mention that this is a discretionary sanctions case, and the reviews are an attempt to establish notability for a "writer"-"director-journalist"-"life coach" according to a plethora of iffy sources. It's unnecessary to use tabloids and review mills since he might already be notable for signal boosting the Kremlin and being being glorified by Tucker Calson as.a martyr to free speech. More comment to follow probably, since I need to check a few things, but the man himself made a video describing prison violence, which he said was directed. I don't think there's a way to prove that either way but in Tucker Carson's hands that became torture. Apparently he was also murdered by the "murderous" Zelenskyy régime, though it was other people who said that, I think. He telegraphed his "attempt to flee" on YouTube every step of the way. There are also red flags in the article history.

Just in case anyone thinks I am just being mean.

Apparently he is notable because of his YouTube viewss also, and non-notability is a ridiculous reason for an AfD about his bestselling book. We know it is a bestseller because he is said to have gotten a big advance. I'm still looking at the sourcing for that; it's a scanned paper clipping in Spanish, but it might be legit. There are several articles like this btw. This is a pattern. Elinruby (talk) 10:26, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure what about a novel review requires a specific geographic location for the paper. Your random sneers about being from Long Island is ducking the fact that this is a paper with 19 Pulitzers to its name, including for international coverage and for criticism. You're now shrugging off reviews from other sources because they specialize in reviews. It will be hard to take any of your sourcing complaints seriously if they are buried among frivolous ones like these. I suggest you rethink your strategy. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 14:54, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

there you go casting aspersions again.

FYI

I do not have a "strategy". I am challenging accuracy for the sake of accuracy believe it or not
I am not sneering at anything and specifically not at Newsday for crying out loud. Please process this as I have said it several times now
Nor am I randomly anything. I'm very well versed on sourcing the Ukrainian war in Ukraine and have been involved in several articles about big events in journalism. You can always continue to consider me a bubblehead if you wish, but you would still be wrong.

With that said, the article is improving slowly, perhaps. There is still at least one very dubious source, Times of India. The review question is less nit-picking than it may seem; it goes to whether he should be described as a novelist collaborator or a filmmaker collaborator. I have not looked into the other editor's issues with the Daily Beast but they mention that the father had not been in touch for some years. Are we considering that reliable, and what does this mean in terms of weight to the father's statements after his death? Elinruby (talk) 13:34, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the replies. The same editor has placed similar tags on Acrobat (novel), a novel by Lira. What do we think about the sourcing for these statements?

Publishers Weekly stated it has a "perfectly twisted ending the most jaded reader won't see coming." cited to that review: [8]
Kirkus Reviews calls the characters "interesting" cited to that review: [9]
In their starred review, Booklist called the prose style "thrilling" cited to that review: [10] (full text available via WP:LIBRARY): [11]. Jfire (talk) 00:21, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Booklist is the book review publication of the American Library Association, relied on librarians across the nation for building their collection. Really, this list seems to be talking about three of the top 10, probably even of a shorter list than that, for reviews in the US. So, no problems with the sources. However, the chosen excerpts feel more like someone is making back-cover copy for the book, and only emphasizing the positive. Publishers Weekly also says the book's "the flabby, juvenile prose leaves much to be desired" and "the self-consciously "hip" tone usually falls flat and will probably alienate audiences on either side of the age divide", so merely quoting the portion of the final sentence is not giving a sense of the review. The Kirkus review is more uniformly positive, but pulling one word from the midst doesn't tell us much. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 00:49, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the text cited to these sources is in need of expansion to better reflect the balance of the reviews. I'll do so. Jfire (talk) 01:03, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I should also note that an editor that is willing to cherry pick positive quotes from reviews may also have been cherry-picking reviews as a base; it may be worth it to check if you can find other review sources, as you may find that negative ones that wre skipped. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 03:37, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I am pretty sure one of the reviews at least is explicitly cited to a book cover. Let me see if I can find that. I haven't examined the SF Examiner reference but it's a local alternative paper which likely does have a manosphere beat, and definitely would report on gender issues. Assuming it verifies ok, I would consider that an example of a good source for a review.

I just think the reviews are undue. But hey, Louis-Ferdinand Céline managed to be both a collaborator and a well-known literary novelist, so I guess anything is possible.

Elinruby (talk) 10:41, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

George Van Driem's Source for Maghrebi Mint Tea History

Hi there! I'm here because my edit on Maghrebi mint tea got undone. The reason given by the user was that the source's author, George Van Driem, is a linguist, not a historian. However, considering George's specialization in historical linguistics and his book "The Tale of Tea: A Comprehensive History of Tea from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day" delving into tea's history from prehistoric times, should his source still be excluded from the history section? Thanks! MoroccanTeaEnjoyer (talk) 21:49, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

From what I'm seeing The Tale of Tea: A Comprehensive History of Tea from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day is an academic book published by the respected press Brill in 2019. If anything, I would consider this a gold standard source for the topic of tea. Far from it being a problem that Van Driem has a position as a historical linguistics professor, I would point out that interdisciplinary scholarship is considered a mark of excellence in the humanities. There does not seem to be any particular reason for reverting this source solely because Van Driem is a historical linguist. I would agree with the assessment user Cullen328 already made on the article's talk page.

By way of aside, I'd still encourage you to, as an evidently new user, try to take some time to get the hang of Wikipedia. Make some smaller edits on pages to learn the mechanics and norms. Citing that very large paragraph to a single page was a bit much, and maybe (only maybe, since I don't have the book myself to confirm) risks too closely paraphrasing the content. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 22:07, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, P-Makoto, for your input. I share your opinion. While I agree that the author's specialization is an important factor, I believe it's essential to independently analyze the source before forming judgments. Personally, I find the source reliable and worthy of citation. I'll follow your advice to make small edits gradually and learn Wikipedia basics and norms. I have a question though, is it common for users to undo edits without explanations even when asked? This situation recently occurred to me. MoroccanTeaEnjoyer (talk) 15:53, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

I was just typing something very similar to P-Makoto, but I would also add you edit appears to add a lot of content that is seemingly not directly related to the subject. Only a summary of the details is needed. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:13, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

@P-Makoto: that's the Teahouse, not the article talk page (though an understandable mistake in context :) ). For the ease of everyone else: the article is Maghrebi mint tea, the original edit is this, and the second version (after feedback here) is this. I am not impressed with the reverts by either M.Bitton or Skitash, and especially not by this response to a good-faith query. (I for one have no idea what Skitash objects to in that edit!) 100.36.106.199 (talk) 15:51, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

States Times

Can State Times be used as a reliable source In an article, because one editor removed a tangible content in an article deeming the source unreliable. Yotrages (talk) 16:59, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

No source is always reliable, the best it ever gets is generally reliable. The specific details of what content in which Wikipedia article is being sourced to what article from State Times would help immensely. There is an issue with undisclosed advertorials in Indian media, see WP:NEWSORGINDIA. So some articles won't necessarily be as reliable as others. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:01, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Sports Illustrated...

...seems to be in the process of laying off all of its staff. Might be something worth noting going forward as it comes to sourcing in sports articles. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:43, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

There was already a recent discussion on how they’ve resorted to using AI-generated authors for articles, should definitely keep an eye on them lest they go the way of CNET. The Kip 18:42, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

It was Arena group, who look to be about to loose the rights to publish SI, that was caught using AI generated content. Arena are now laying off all their staff, as Authentic (who own the rights to SI) looks to find another company to publish SI. If someone else takes other the publication of SI with completely new staff it would be a good idea to keep a close eye on it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:33, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I think a lot of publications eventually reach the point of just being brand names that get bought and sold to arbitrary companies with no relationship to anything. jp×g 🗯️ 09:48, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Red Ventures angling to sell CNET(?)

https://www.axios.com/2024/01/16/red-ventures-cnet-sale-talks

Per earlier discussion, since this has been mentioned a lot: much to pay attention to. jp×g 🗯️ 06:18, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Die Red Vultures or Red Vampires or whatever it is you're called, Die. Anyway having got that off my chest, what is the question for the noticeboard? Presumably if CNET starts getting reputable again a discusson will be started here about another revsion of their status on WP:RSP. NadVolum (talk) 10:15, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Is Social Blade a reliable source for YouTube statistics?

Currently the article Gonzalo Lira has the following text He published over 500 videos, gaining 324,000 subscribers and around 2 million views.^[1] Is Social Blade considered a reliable source to include statics like that?--Ermenrich (talk) 16:17, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

References

^ "Social Blade statistics for Coach Red Pill YouTube channel". Social Blade. 2022-04-24. Archived from the original on 2022-04-26. Retrieved 2022-04-24.

Ermenrich (talk) 16:17, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I'll note that there was a discussion about this last year but it seems somewhat inconclusive [12].--Ermenrich (talk) 18:55, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

For total subscribers, video views, and when the channel started maybe. The social blade 'rankings' are likely not notable, and I would avoid the estimated earnings (their explanation of how they are calculated do not fill me with confidence). There's nothing there that's useful that can't be found on the YouTube channel itself.
I would certainly agree with editors in the last discussion that said it wouldn't count towards notability. The site lists ever YouTube channel created, so appear on the site is no more notable than creating a YouTube channel (something anyone can do). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:24, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

My general opinion is basically with AD above: it can be used as if it was a WP:PRIMARY source for objective numbers, but not for things like rankings that require analysis, and not for notability either. Loki (talk) 23:46, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Foreword Reviews

Is Foreword Reviews reliable enough to contribute to notability? The reliability of this book review of The God Who Riots was briefly questioned in this diff. TipsyElephant (talk) 01:17, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Foreword Reviews are a pay for review service, they mention this in there about us page.[13] You can't pay for a good review, but having a review by them just means someone paid to have it done. So it wouldn't count towards notability. I don't see why it wouldn't be reliable, but reliability and notability are two different questions. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 02:21, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested: it looks like the review contains a disclosure at the bottom that says No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. The Get Your Book Reviewed page indicates that paid reviews are available for a $549 fee. All paid reviews appear to include a "Clarion Rating" at the top and a disclosure of payment at the bottom. I found this article on their website explaining the process. TipsyElephant (talk) 11:49, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks that's useful information for anyone who searches the archives later on. With the pay for review issue cleared up, I don't see why this shouldn't be considered considered a reliable source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:26, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I also see no reason for considering Foreword unreliable, and I see good reasons for considering it reliable.

The university press Wayne State University Press, considers having their books become finalists for book awards from Foreword Reviews noteworthy and worth celebrating, indicating they value the judgment and assessments of Foreword Reviews.
Online literary magazine Women Writers, Women's Books has published an interview of Foreword Reviews founder Victoria Sutherland whose overall tone indicates respect for Foreword Reviews.

Overall, I think Foreword Reviews is reliable. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 03:09, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

World Socialist Web Site

I've come across a recent article from the WSWS which, to me, appears to be highly opinionated and places its opinions as facts.

The article describes the current New Zealand government as "far-right", with two widely despised far-right parties, ACT and New Zealand First. I've looked up mentions of these parties as "far-right" and have only found this article describing it this way, so this is simply not factual. It also says New Zealand is a minor imperialist power. It also says None of the three parties has any significant popular support which is simply wrong. One of these parties (National) got the most votes in the 2023 election - 38%, and combined they got over 50% of the vote. —Panamitsu (talk) 01:56, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Based on the previous assessment of the WSWS you could consider the article as "reliable for the attributed opinions of its authors". You would need to assess whether these opinions held due weight, which would mean balancing them against other descriptions of the current NZ government. In other words, the WSWS' opinion should not be used unless there are other more reliable sources describing the government and parties as "far right" or NZ as a "minor imperialist power". Regarding the phrase "significant popular support", the full quote from the article is "None of the three parties has any significant popular support. The National Party only got 38 percent of the votes, while ACT received 8.6 percent and NZ First just 6 percent. Taking account of roughly one million eligible adults—one quarter—who did not vote for anyone, National’s support falls to 28 percent". So the WSWS does explain what it means by the phrase. Whether it is a reasonable description of the situation is again a matter of opinion, but presumably the figures are accurate. Burrobert (talk) 02:26, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

I mean, the World Socialist Website is clearly a WP:BIASED source, you can tell that just by its name (and also its everything else.) So it requires attribution anyway. The question at that point is mostly one of WP:DUE weight. There are contexts where the opinion of the International Committee of the Fourth International matters (eg. articles about socialism), but it's certainly not a situation where you'd automatically assume it is worth including their opinion on every subject they've commented on. --Aquillion (talk) 02:46, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
On the matter of characterizing the parties, I would add that the newspaper Le Monde refers to ACT New Zealand and New Zealand First as "radical parties" and says with them in government, New Zealand's government "veers hard right" (Isabelle Dellerba, "New Zealand's Government Veers Hard Right", Le Monde, January 16, 2024). WSWS's use of the term "far right" seems comparable to these descriptions of ACT and First from Le Monde.

As for describing New Zealand "minor imperialist power", which you brought up, in academic scholarship, I've seen this considered a valid way to understand and characterize New Zealand, especially within the context of its history as a part of the British Empire and ongoing effects and networks from that legacy and its place in the Commonwealth. An inexhaustive gathering of such studies follows:

Tony Ballantyne, Webs of Empire: Locating New Zealand's Colonial Past (Bridget Williams Books, 2012)
Catharine Coleborne, New Zealand's Empire, Studies in Imperialism (Manchester University Press, 2016)
Peter Hoar, "Jamming Imperialism: Māori Radio and Postcolonial New Zealand", Journal for Media History 22, no. 2 (December 2019): 43–60

Overall, I would not consider this specific article from WSWS on its own a reason for alarm. Of course, as ever, this board asks that we ask about reliability of sources in context. Is there some particular article where this article is being cited in a way that concerns you? P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 02:53, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification about the imperialism, that makes a lot of sense. And no, I was actually looking for a source for Socialism in New Zealand for modern socialism and this article appeared on Google, so there isn't really any context. —Panamitsu (talk) 05:55, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

There isn't really much in the way of modern socialism in NZ anyway. There are probably plenty of usable biographies of the main architects of 20th century socialism in NZ (Holland, Savage, Lee, Nash, etc.) but little has been published on its dismantling (the first example I could think of is Alister Barry's film doco "Someone Else's Country"). Daveosaurus (talk) 06:28, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

The characterisation as a "minor imperialist power" may refer to NZ's attempt to set up a Pacific island empire last century (including, at various times, Niue, Tokelau, Samoa and Rarotonga). As to the character of the various parties in the governing coalition, I'd describe National as market capitalist, ACT as hard-right and NZF as Trumpian populist. Now, where abouts on Wikipedia is this article being used as a source? Daveosaurus (talk) 05:48, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Bing AI chat/Copilot as an LLM tertiary source

Guidelines regarding ChatGPT and LLMs in general; ChatGPT is trained in a vast number of data but there's an obvious limit on how current these data are, plus its tendecy to hallucinate. I believe, however, that different rules must apply for Bing/Copilot and other such chatbots, such as Perplexity, You.com. Here's what I propose for Bing AI/Copilot:

Samme terms that apply for WP:LLM also apply on Copilot. Use is discouraged, except certain circumstances (copyediting, summarization, paraphrasing). However, since Copilot is connected to the internet and Bing search, it might be considered a tertiary source of information, that cites its claims with sources.
Creative mode, although using GPT-4, is meant for creating original content (that don't need research) and thus it is more prone to hallucinate, even if it actually searches.
Precise mode is generally the most accurate; from personal experience I noticed that it makes a much more extensive research than Balanced mode, and takes longer time to generate results. Personally I think this takes some time to review the sources (if it does) and, according to Ars Technica, it actually skips some potentially unsafe results. This is by far the most beneficial mode when it comes to research.
Balanced mode is Precise and Creative mode combined and thus less suitable for research than Precise.
Being a tertiary source, it can't be used to cited directly to articles, pretty much like Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica do (both tertiary sources), but its sources might be useful. Yet, human examination is still recommended, as I do recall cases that it recommended unreliable seources. There have been also instances of citing malicious sites.
Deep search performs from what it seems more comprehensive research and might have access to more sources. I have yet to try it to be 100% sure.

Please feel free to express your thoughts.Μητσίκας (talk) 13:16, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

RS are based upon having a reputation for accuracy, I doubt any AI has that. Moreover (and arguably) AI texts are SPS (they are written by and published by the AI) as such (per wp:sps) they (not the source they use) have to be recognized experts in the field. Slatersteven (talk) 13:19, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

The fact it's connected to the internet doesn't make it automatically more accurate, a bing search wouldn't be a reliable source and chatbot using those results is no more reliable. If a chatbot manages to be published by other reliable sources that consider the chatbot a reliable source, then maybe it would be time to reconsider. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:40, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Compared to ChatGPT, it's far more likely to be accurate, as it doesn't have a knowledge cutoff. I don't think reliability has to do about what other rs think, they might be some unknown sources that are reliable. Μητσίκας (talk) 14:24, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

That looks like wp:or do RS say it is more accurate? Slatersteven (talk) 14:51, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

It's original research but it's good advice if you want to do background research on a topic using a large-language model. I've been on Bing GPT for more than a year now and the footnote ability makes it a killer app. It's very good at surfacing content compared to a pure Bing or Google search.

I think the OP is misunderstanding the LLM policy, since using Bing to find better sources to my knowledge is completely in-bounds and is better than pure ChatGPT. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 17:09, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Except WP:USEBYOTHERS is a thing. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:16, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Nobody is questioning using AI tools to assist in off-wiki research for writing, editing, and verifying articles -- we are far past that point. (The discussions on the WP:Village pump (idea lab) are now about generating article content itself with editor oversight.) There's no purpose to invent some guideline text about what should or should not be used as a tool for background research, especially in a time where those tools will be changing extremely quickly. SamuelRiv (talk) 18:07, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

We could not enforce it anyway, how the hell does Wikipedia know where I went (or how I went about) to get sources? All that matters is the sources we actually use in articles, not how we found them. Slatersteven (talk) 18:13, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

State Times (2)

Can State Times be considered a reliable outlet for an article. Yotrages (talk) 18:08, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Is there a reason you're asking the exact same question again? You asked the same question in WP:RSN#States Times. Again advertorials are a problem within Indian media (see WP:NEWSORGINDIA) so some caution should be taken with overly promotional articles. Also reliability is about context, it would help if you supplied details of what content you want to add, which article it relates to, and what exact source you want to use. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:25, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Schoolshooters.info, and quotations from manifestos that are not noted in secondary sources

This relates to this discussion. There's a dispute over whether https://schoolshooters.info/ is a WP:RS, and (presuming we can school shooter manifestos hosted there as WP:PRIMARY sources) whether it is appropriate to take quotes from a manifesto as a primary source in order to illustrate things about the shooter. In this case, I believe that two quotes with no coverage (that I can find) in secondary sources are being pulled out to support the assertion that the perpetrator of the 2015 Umpqua Community College shooting is a Satanist and was motivated by Satanism, something all available secondary sources are extremely cautious about and / or give little weight. There are two other sources that are notionally usable when it comes to this aspect of the topic, a People magazine piece that attributes everything to an unnamed source and says little in its article voice, and an Oregon Live piece that describes the manifesto but places virtually no emphasis on the Satanism aspect; however, neither of these mention the quotes in question. I mention these sources mostly because there's a related WP:HEADLINES issue in that the headline of the Oregon Live places emphasis on that aspect while the body of the article does not. --Aquillion (talk) 14:30, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

schoolshooters.info seems to be self-published by Peter F. Langman, who is apparently an expert on the psychology of school shooters. So it's maybe an WP:EXPERTSPS? That said, it's still a self-published source, and school shootings are a contentious enough topic that I would be really cautious about using self-published sources, no matter how expert the author.

As for quoting from the manifestos of shooters, assuming we are confident of their authenticity then yes, the manifesto is a reliable source for its own text, just as any source is reliable for its own text. WP:DUE is another matter entirely. In the discussion you link to, it looks as though we do have independent sources discussing Mercer's motives, so if those sources don't discuss something which he mentioned in his manifesto then we probably shouldn't either. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 16:52, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

On a basic level the site is self-published and Langman appears to meet the requirements of WP:SPS in that he is an expert who has previously been published by independent reliable sources. Whether certain details are due is beyond the purpose of this board, but I personally I think Caeciliusinhorto-public makes some good points. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:02, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Focusing on the purpose of this board, I agree with Caeciliusinhorto-public and ActivelyDisinterested. As Langman has been published on the topic in other reliable sources (including the academic publishers Palgrave Macmillan and Rowman & Littlefield), per WP:EXPERTSPS his website SchoolShooters.info is a reliable source. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 05:06, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

This article seems to go into a lot of intricate detail on seemingly irrelevant aspects of an event which is not that notable. There's uncited stuff in there ten years out of date (i.e. "Kaney is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran with 23 years on the Roseburg Police Department while Spingath is a U.S. Air Force veteran with 16 years on the Roseburg Police Department"). So some WP:DUE questions are raised by the whole thing.

I think that if the only source we have to talk about the blog posts made by some murderer are a tabloid magazine and a copy of the blog post on some guy's random fansite for mass murderers, we don't really need to be writing about them. This is doubly true if the tabloid magazine is just incorrect about what the murderer's blog posts said. jp×g 🗯️ 04:34, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

For the sake of clarity, I'll note that calling SchoolShooters.info a random fansite for mass murderers is an egregious mischaracterization. Langman's editorial purpose is explicit and on the site's front page: This site is a compendium of documents relating to a wide range of active shooter incidents in educational settings. The purpose of the site is to help prevent school shootings and to provide insight into the perpetrators of large-scale school violence. The information and materials on this site are relevant for professionals in education, mental health, and law enforcement. This is not a "fansite" for mass murder. I would call it digital social science put together by a trained psychologist interested in providing insight into the phenomenon for other professionals in education, mental health, and law enforcement. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 05:04, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps we are the fansite. Whatever the intention, this website is being used to write not only an article about the shooting that mentions the guy by name thirty-six times, but also a seven-paragraph article-within-an-article biography of the murderer (including a long quotation specifically about how he thought it was really awesome that you people would make you famous and write mountains of words about how cool you were if you committed mass murder, after which we immediately go back to doing that).

If we have to cite the primary source to correct blatant factual errors in the only secondary source, because the only secondary source is a supermarket tabloid, it casts serious doubt on the notability of the material. jp×g 🗯️ 13:42, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Why would you call it "digital social science" when it doesn't appear to be from that field? IMO it seems like regular social science without a reliance on digital tools or data. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:57, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

The format is digital; it's published as a website, rather than as a print book. In the social sciences, "digital" can be used to refer to a project's format/medium, speaking from my experience as having been an employee of a digital social science project. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 16:13, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

From my experience as an academic thats incorrect... If its format/medium then there hasn't been anything published outside of digital social science in a decade or more. So either the term is completely meaningless or its not being used right by you... Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:25, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

First, I am surprised and confused by your incorrect implication that zero print books or print journals in the social sciences have been published in over a decade. Those remain the primary venues for gold-standard academic publishing in fields of the social sciences and humanities. Expressing a belief that there hasn't been anything published in non-digital formats in a decade or more would suggest a substantial deficit of understanding of the field of academic publishing.

Second, Digital Methods for Social Science: An Interdisciplinary Guide to Research Innovation, eds. Helene Snee, Christine Hine, Yvette Morey, Steven Roberts, and Hayley Watson (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) states in its introduction that "Our concern is not only with research that explores online phenomena, but also with a broader interest in using digital methods to engage with all aspects of social life" (bolding added).

As the humanities are related to the social sciences, this definition from M. Kirschenbaum's "What Is Digital Humanities and What's It Doing in English departments?' in Defining Digital Humanities: A Reader, eds. Melissa Terras, Julianne Nyhan, and Edward Vanhoutte (Ashgate, 2013) is also useful: "It involves investigation, analysis, synthesis, and presentation of information in electronic form" (bolding added). P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 17:33, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

You appear to be making a straw man of my argument. I must have missed where the author uses digital methods, IMO they appear to be using traditional methods. The conflation of digital social science with the digital humanities because they are "related" isn't worth responding to. You are free to disagree but I think you've pushed a line further than it can go. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:55, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Self published by a recognized expert so *usable with attribution* but as you've noted simply hosting a primary document wouldn't add any weight to the content of that primary document meaning that the quote pull and anything based on it is almost certainly undue. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:57, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

History Beat column from the Carmel Pine Cone

Numerous articles auxiliary to Carmel-by-the-Sea have contents fleshed out significant based. An individual known as Neal Hotelling runs that column in a local weekly newspaper called the Carmel Pine Cone. I have concerns that deriving significant amount of information from a one-man column to extensively write contents would be significant due weight issue and if the individual is not a formally recognized, regularly cited historian, they would not qualify as WP:EXPERTSPS. Examples:

Carmel Highlands, California
Carmel Art Association, a hyper local art group and the column is used to assert notability of members.
Pine Inn hyper-local building and uses five different columns from the same columnist's weekly column in the same publication.

Graywalls (talk) 13:32, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

The only linked article with more than one citation to a source authored by Neal Hotelling is the Pine Inn; the rest have only one citation to Hotelling's "History Beat" column, or in the CAA article case a citation used twice. I wouldn't characterize these articles as being "significant[ly] based" on his history column.

As you have raised this question on the reliable sources noticeboard, and as questions about reliability are always to be asked in context, is there some reason you think the cited sources are not reliable for these Wikipedia pages? Has the accuracy of content been in dispute? Hotelling's qualifications seem to come from his professional life. On what one grants is his personal website, he reports having been a business archivist for the Pebble Beach Company, interviewed by CNN and CBS, and appointed a President of the Monterey Heritage Society and 2005 Preservationist of the Year by the Alliance of Monterey Area Preservationists. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 23:44, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

None of those are qualifications which would appear to count on wikipedia, what makes you think they do? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:33, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

having been a business archivist: Hotelling has professional experience in a historical profession
interviewed by CNN and CBS: Hotelling as a historian fulfills WP:USEBYOTHERS
appointed a President of the Monterey Heritage Society and 2005 Preservationist of the Year by the Alliance of Monterey Area Preservationists: These are honors from two different historical and preservation societies, given to recognize qualified, able practitioners of the historians craft. As someone who has membership in multiple historical societies, I assure you that we don't appoint people president when we think they are unqualified historians; the very opposite.

I am left to ask, why do you think these qualifications don't count? P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 16:35, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Professional experience is not part of the notability requirement, if you want it to be you will need to get consensus for that. Two loose uses by mass media does not appear to fulfill WP:USEBYOTHERS. Leadership positions in hobbyist organizations don't count towards anything, again if you want them to you need to get consensus for that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:31, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Neal Hotelling looks like a respectable local historian. He has published books about the area of Carmel/Monterey, written for Carmel Magazine, and he was praised by the Carmel Mission Foundation.[14] His column in the newspaper is definitely not self-published. I would be happy to see his work cited, whether it be in a book, a magazine, or in the newspaper column.

I would worry more about the Carmel Pine Cone editor who has been Paul Miller since 1997. Miller is vindictive and has abandoned journalistic neutrality. Hotelling's column is one of the few journalistic highlights of the Pine Cone. Binksternet (talk) 00:07, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

None of those books appear to have been published by reputable presses. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:30, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

It should be treated as an opinion column therefore treated as if it where self published, however the author does not appear to meet WP:EXPERTSPS so its basically unusable on wikipedia. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:30, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Why should it be treated as an opinion column when it is a history column? P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 16:30, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

History is the subject but its an opinion column. Thats in general how newspaper columns work. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:31, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

How do we define "reliable" anyways? One way to look at it is factual accuracy, but another way to look at this. Is it a reliable representation of general prevalence of coverage on this matter or is it extra super hyper local intricate details of interest to only a small audience? Graywalls (talk) 19:54, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

A question about the prevalence of coverage on this matter seems to pertain to WP:GNG, which is different from WP:RS. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 20:00, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

To me it builds on the WP:USEBYOTHERS claim. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:16, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Consistency with prevailing general viewpoint pertain to WP:DUE. One could go on about individual ingredient used and their origin, who invented it and who owns the factory of the ingredients about the the wine bottle label, but factual reliability does not mean inclusion of these intricate details reliably represent balanced viewpoint. Graywalls (talk) 00:43, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Impactus and Learning Mind

Are Impactus (https://www.impactus.org/) and Learning Mind (https://www.learning-mind.com/) reliable sources? I am using them as citations for Joy for information on the distinction between "happiness" and "joy." Specifically, I am using these pages:

Finding citations for benefits of joy was fairly easy. Finding citations for "joy vs. happiness" turned out to be a lot harder.

I searched for "impactus" on Wikipedia and found that Mark Scheifele contains a link to an article titled "Power of Prayer" on Impactus. No other article had a link to that site. Can someone please review Learning Mind and Impactus to see if they are reliable? Thanks. Seckends (talk) 14:35, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

This sounds a lot like content that would fall under WP:MEDRS. The Learning-Mind article was written by Sherrie Hurd, who has an Associates in Marketing (per their about us page[15]. I doubt it's reliable for any physical or psychological benefit. Impactus is a Christian advocacy website[16], again not a good source for such information. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:23, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

NDTV still RS?

Ravish Kumar left NDTV and turns YouTuber. NDTV becomes Godi media and relentlessly broadcasting Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha. NDTV still reliable? BlackOrchidd (talk) 06:10, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

World Journal

Is World Journal an RS, especially for BLp claims? Slatersteven (talk) 16:49, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Wall of Sound website and possible Promotion

I have a problem with Wall of Sound website at https://wallofsoundau.com

The site appears to be user-generated for WP:PROMOTION and has been used on various wp articles (see search results). I first encountered the website at Amy Shark at diff (see also discussion at Talk:Amy Shark) in October 2020. I was alerted by the user name being very similar to writer of the article at Wall of Sound. I request a discussion as to whether this site should be described as unacceptable and hence removed from Wikipedia articles. shaidar cuebiyar (talk) 05:47, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

I note that the editors you mention has been blocked for spam/promo[17], and the site has been mentioned in a few spam reports, but I'm unsure of the sites reliability. I've left a message on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music asking for some input from editors in the topic area. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:05, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Meenakshi Jain on the Ayodhya dispute

The Ayodhya dispute currently extensively cites the 2013 Meenakshi Jain book Rama and Ayodhya. However, looking at her Wikipedia bio, she looks like someone who writes from a strongly Hindu nationalist perspective, and therefore someone who would be unreliable for this topic area. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:54, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Based on the comments at Meenakshi_Jain#Others, caution seems advisable. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:38, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Geek Girl Authority

Is Geek Girl Authority (geekgirlauthority.com) reliable? I mainly edit articles about podcasts and regularly come across the website. It mostly seems like a blog. It has a list of staff [18], but pretty much everyone is a WP:CONTRIBUTOR. None of them have profiles on the website, but Googling the editors shows that both have BAs in Theatre/Performing Arts. I don't see any editorial policies and it doesn't look like they're selective about who they let contribute. In this diff I removed this review from Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast because it claimed that the host of the show was a star wars character, which appears to be completely incorrect. I thought maybe they meant it was the same voice actor, but I can't find anything to back that up. The author of this particular article isn't listed among the staff on the about page. Personally, I think the website is basically a WP:BLOG with a few contributors, but I was curious what others thought. Perhaps articles by the two editors are more reliable? TipsyElephant (talk) 02:47, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

I would say not, unless it can be shown they are recognized experts in tier field. Slatersteven (talk) 13:09, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Indian Supreme court rulings for archaeological claims regarding Babri Masjid

Is the 1000+ page Indian Supreme Court ruling regarding the Babri Masjid a reliable source for archeological claims made about the site? @Wikidrifterr: is using the ruling to make sweeping statements asserting the conclusions of the Archaeological Survey of India report as fact when these conclusions have been contested by other archaeologists (see [19]). Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:09, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Another paper questioning the ASI report: [20]. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:14, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Sweeping statements made by me and added to the page

Archaeological surgery found remains of Hindu spiritual structure (Mentioned clearly in the conclusion section of the official Supreme Court of India ruling)
I can provide 30-40 other credible / notable article covering the official ruling

Also I only added facts, if you can not add Supreme Court of India ruling on the page then what can you add

Also It makes one suspicious about your intentions and you have been editing atleast 4-5 different pages. Where you mostly have been removing facts and adding commentary that seems to be politically motivated to cover only one side.

One can also argue that it is vandalism and also bullying since you have been also reverting changes and also have been constantly editing pages without providing edit summary too. Wikidrifterr (talk) 21:19, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Also if you can answer

What is more reliable source than an official ruling of Supreme Court of a democracy ?
If there exist any commentary as a journal over the internet that disputes the ruling should that be trusted as source / fact ?
If there exist any commentary as a journal over the internet that disputes the ruling then I think it should be added to relevant page but without removing the official ruling of Supreme Court of India

It seems that your sole objective here is not present both sides of history but only to provide your preferred side of history without including the other. Which is why you have been constantly editing/removing content several pages and not even providing any “edit descriptions” too. Wikidrifterr (talk) 21:25, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Also there can not be any other archaeological source other than the Archaeological Survey on India which was presented to Supreme Court of a democracy. Since no one else have done any other archaeological survey on the site.

Should we consider the Open Journal blog written by anonymous person on the internet as archaeological proof ? Wikidrifterr (talk) 21:29, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

The Supreme court ruling is a reliable source for the ruling itself and precisely nothing else. Court rulings do not meet our definition of what reliable sources are for contentious material. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:29, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
Thanks, for purpose of covering history of the page isn’t it important to add what Supreme Court ruled? Wikidrifterr (talk) 21:32, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but the significance of a legal ruling is generally complex and requires interpretation and analysis to say anything meaningful about. Even just quoting bits of the ruling might inadvertently have WP:OR implications. If the ruling is important, it's going to have WP:SECONDARY coverage, so we can just use that and rely on what they say, what they highlight as important, and so on. --Aquillion (talk) 03:04, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

For more on this see (and help improve) WP:RSLAW. SamuelRiv (talk) 16:51, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The document is a primary source. Since the content it is being cited for presumably isn't within the scope of WP:BLP, which states that such documents cannot be cited for 'assertions about a living person', we could thus use it for statements concerning what the court ruled. Taking a ruling as undisputed fact, if the facts have subsequently been disputed by relevant specialist academic sources would seem on the face of it to be very questionable however. Wikipedia NPOV policy requires that we represent proportionately ... all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. There is absolutely nothing in Wikipedia policy that states that rulings from the courts of India (or anywhere else) determine which sources are 'reliable', or 'significant' for us. We do that for ourselves. And doing that per policy probably requires going into more detail as to what the court rulings are being cited for, and what other pertinent sources have to say on the subject. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:39, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

I would agree with AndyTheGrump, it could be used for statements of what the court rules but those rulings have no bearing on Wikipedia. Any article should be based on the best academic sources as decided by Wikipedia policy. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 02:12, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia: As an uninvolved and also ignorant editor about the situation, I wanted to ask: does the ruling include the position of subject matter experts? If archeologists are cited, they could be cited with attribution, but only if it is relevant and proper for the article. However, it is still a primary source, and if the same people are cited by an independent source, then it is a better alternative. --NoonIcarus (talk) 20:27, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

The user pushing the source is indef blocked now, so this is dispute is now mostly irrelevant. The Supreme court ruling references the report, but I assume that it would be better to cite the original ASI report if one could find it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:37, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

I understand. In that case, I totally agree with you. Having the original report is better if available. --NoonIcarus (talk) 23:35, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Editing using unreliable sources

A user Arind8 (previously Arind7) is using so many unreliable sources in these articles Homosexuality in India, LGBT rights in India, Marriage in Hinduism, Hinduism and LGBT topics. Timovinga (talk) 02:37, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

This noticeboard is only for discussing the reliability of sources, not user behaviour. For disputes with other users see WP:Dispute resolution. If you have a question about a source and it's use you will need to supply some details. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:43, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

According to user Arind8 tamilculture.com is a reliable source. Your opinion regarding this source would be necessary at Talk:Marriage in Hinduism Timovinga (talk) 17:04, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Another user is using these sources as citations in Hinduism and LGBT topics. Timovinga (talk) 17:09, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

User Arind8 is also using non scholarly sources like these which are not reliable as per guidelines. A 3O would be appreciated. Timovinga (talk) 17:16, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Again, this board is solely for discussing the reliability of sources - if you’re asserting that the sources used are unreliable, you might want to provide a concisive argument. Otherwise, this just seems like a content dispute, which this is the wrong place for. The Kip 17:32, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

It is regarding the reliability of these sources. These sources has been used to discuss history related information. As per WP:HISTRS these sources are not reliable. Timovinga (talk) 19:18, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

These sources are failing WP:HISTRS and have been used in Hinduism and LGBT topics article

Some opinions from editors regarding the reliability of these sources are needed, thanks. Timovinga (talk) 04:03, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

The short version of my opinion is that from your edit you are correct to remove these sources. The general ideas of WP:HISTRS sourcing applies when one starts making broad historical connections to the present, even (but especially) if it's culture or philosophy. I'll review the sources individually in the article Talk page. SamuelRiv (talk) 06:29, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Great, thanks- Timovinga (talk) 06:36, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Can you explain why the Time and Times of India sources are unreliable. I’d need convincing. BobFromBrockley (talk) 03:21, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

The Time article is not scholarly, unreliable under WP:HISTRS and The Times of India is generally considered unreliable, WP:TOI. Timovinga (talk) 08:46, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Candles

Is https://auracyprus.com/blogs/news/auras-candles-rapeseed-wax-vs-beeswax-embracing-eco-friendly-illumination a reliable source? @Aurasworkshop made a edit request and provided this link as a source. I feel like it is most likely not reliable considering their username and the link both start with the word Aura. Shadow311 (talk) 16:14, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Its a blog. Slatersteven (talk) 16:15, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

It's a promotional blog for a commercial website, whatever they write should be taken as little more than an advert. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:22, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Henry Gannett

You may have heard this one before, but the USGS has published dodgy gazetteers. Henry Gannett, erstwhile Chief Geographer of the USGS and credited as a forerunner of the GNIS in the forewords to the printed-on-paper versions of the GNIS published in the 1980s, was doing the same thing in the 1880s. I've started a discussion, hyperlinked above, about the unreliability of Gannett's gazetteer, since I've just hit the 3rd AFD discussion this year where Gannett's gazetteer either made a demonstrable error or claimed something that no historical or local sources agree with. Uncle G (talk) 10:02, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor

I'm not confident in the reliability and neutrality of Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, a self-proclaimed "independent, nonprofit organization that advocates for the human rights of all persons across Europe and the MENA region, particularly those who live under occupation, in the throes of war or political unrest and/ or have been displaced due to persecution or armed conflict" which is currently used in ~100 articles, most of them related to the 2023 Israel–Hamas war (Special:LinkSearch/euromedmonitor.org). Their website is an odd mixture of Op-Eds, infographic posters, press releases, and articles, all of which riddled with inflammatory wording. Their about page says they are "inspired by the people's will to rebel against tyranny and oppression that swept through the Arab region in 2011 and continues to percolate everywhere". The press releases do not seem to be corroborated by reliable sources; there's one article I found that only exists in the Arabic version (most of their releases are in both English and Arabic), which I could only otherwise find in palinfo.com and Middle East Eye who are of the same condition. DatGuy^Talk_Contribs 15:02, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

the reliability and neutrality We can assess reliability, no sources are neutral ie all are biased to some degree, unless the assertion is that the bias is so severe as to make a source unusable. It's an NGO, so should be attributed for its opinions, is there actual evidence of unreliability? Selfstudier (talk) 15:10, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

no sources are neutral ie all are biased to some degree – sure, but there's a reason WP:RSPANI is not treated the same as the New York Times. As for the reliability, as said previously their releases are not corroborated by any newspapers of record. With the most recent article, for example, searching "Al-Rashid Street 11 January" only returns the EuroMed page, a Middle East Eye article, and two other (Yahoo and palinfo) citing the Monitor with no independent reporting. The articles are clearly sourced from the same person but each alleges it to be independent reporting: the Euro-Med article states the quotes from multiple distinct individuals, which are very close paraphrasings to the Middle East Eye article, were told [to] the Euro-Med Monitor team while the Middle East Eye says eyewitnesses have told Middle East Eye. DatGuy^Talk_Contribs 15:37, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

there's a reason WP:RSPANI is not treated the same as the New York Times As I said, the NGO should be attributed for its opinions, not treated as if those were facts. If the only evidence of unreliability is your own OR, that's not evidence.Selfstudier (talk) 15:48, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

So, there a multiple potential resolutions here:

1. Best case: Wikipedia:Biased and Wikipedia:RSEDITORIAL, and should therefore be marked as such when required and only used insofar as they comply with the restrictions and policies set forth above.

2. Worst Case (which is possible, but requires some further elaboration): the source is unreliable and may even be the subject to depreciation in the future if it continues to be an issue.

In this case, I would most likely consider it to be unreliable (at least with a cursory overview). Exceptions can be made in cases of subject-matter experts and Wikipedia:Aboutself.

I would strongly recommend against using it for anything related to the Israel-Palestine conflict, anything related to BLP and in cases where there is insufficient corroboration from reliable sources. FortunateSons (talk) 16:48, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

No evidence there either. Selfstudier (talk) 16:53, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

@Selfstudier I elaborated on some of the issues of bias and reliability below, does that answer your question or is something else missing? FortunateSons (talk) 17:21, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Also, there a two pretty concerning affiliations, so the reliability of sourcing from them should be very carefully considered.

Per their (and other) wiki pages:

A. We Are Not Numbers

Cooperations with individuals who

1. have a history of writing for less than reliable sources, such as Ben Norton, whose name redirects to The Grayzone, which is depreciated (WP:Grayzone)

2. Individuals with a history of potential antisemitism and other questionable public statements, such as Susan Abulhawa, who was also in support of the terrorist attacks on 10.07.

B. Founder Ramy Abdu

According to his Wiki Page, he „ was the assistant director and Palestine Office Manager for Council for European Palestinian Relations. According to the Independent, it is „a Belgian non-profit organisation that lobbies on behalf of the Hamas-led Gaza Government“ FortunateSons (talk) 17:15, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

OR and still no evidence. Selfstudier (talk) 17:25, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Is it possible that you are misunderstanding Wikipedia:No original research? It is generally not applied in the way you are doing right now, and this style of providing evidence on this noticeboard is generally done like that, which you can see in most discussions linked on the perennial sources. Additionally, the evidence for all relevant claims is cited on their Wikipedia pages, and I provided a direct link when quoting. FortunateSons (talk) 17:31, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Where is the evidence of unreliability (ie not just vague connections to other things)? Selfstudier (talk) 17:32, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

There are issues with the quality of reporting (as shown above by @DatGuy) as well as repeated platforming of people with fringe views which may be considered criminal in some countries (as shown by me).

There are beyond any any reasonable doubt issues with bias and editorials, where I have cited the relevant policy (you seem to agree, based on your comment from 15:48, 17 January 2024 (UTC)).

Insofar as I can find citations by other sources, it is often cited side by side with other unreliable sources, such as [1], [2], [3](citations from same sources that cite Electronic Intifada, and therefore have a different or lower standard than Wikipedia).

There is also some overlap regarding the authors and other associated people with depreciated publications, such as [1] and the people I named above (under We are not numbers).

Could you elaborate if (and why) you consider them reliable? FortunateSons (talk) 18:07, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Please read WP:OR, where it very clearly states in the first ~~paragraph~~section "this policy does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources, such as deletion discussions or policy noticeboards." DatGuy^Talk_Contribs 18:07, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Still looking for evidence, I will step back and let others comment. Selfstudier (talk) 18:09, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Much as I agree that an association with Grayzone would be an indicator of reliability, there is no such association here. We Are Not Numbers was sponsored or founded by this NGO but I am not sure it was operated by it. More importantly, the only link is =Ben Norton, who was a mentor for that project (according to Mondoweiss) some time in 2015. Grayzone only launched (as a blog hosted by Alternet) at the very end of that year. In 2015, Norton was just a young blogger. (He got a job with Salon.com in October 2015, and, like Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal, only flipped its politics to pro-Russian conspiracy theories after Blumenthal's trip to Russia in December 2015. Before this point, Norton and Blumenthal were normal left-wing journalists.)[21][22] BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:02, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Op-eds, per policy, should be attributed to authors. But I'm not seeing some sort of systematic unreliability that would justify deprecation. If anything, seeing other news sources quote and cite the EMHR seems like it would indicate that its reporting is regarded as sufficiently reliable to cite with attribution. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 18:26, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, that was poorly phrased by me: the three linked sources are primarily activists, not actually news.

I had a hard time finding reliable sources with non-significant bias citing them; if you can find well-established reliable sources without a high degree of bias regularly citing them and not citing other sources depreciated by us, I would be likely be in agreement with you. Are there any? FortunateSons (talk) 18:59, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Context: The reliability of Middle East Eye is controversial (as visible when searching on the noticeboard ,though I do not know enough to make an accurate judgement without taking a significant amount of time to research, so take this with a few dozen grains of sand).

However, they have cited depreciated sources such as RFC: Electronic Intifada [1] [2] [3] and have some overlap regarding their contributors [1] [2][3] FortunateSons (talk) 19:22, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

In addition to the above, considering the chairman of this organization was assistant director for a Hamas-affiliated organization (see here) and tweeted his elation about the Oct 7 genocidal massacre of Israeli civilians, I would say that this organization should not be given credibility in the Israel-Palestine topic area, at the very least. JM (talk) 22:02, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, and I would strongly encourage not using them for BLP and anyone who is Jewish/Israeli either. This degree of fringe views should also not be used when other sources stating the same ‘facts’ are unusable due to depreciation. FortunateSons (talk) 22:09, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Just to add to u:JM's comment, he also called the October 7-8 clashes in Ofakim amazing (مذهل) [23]. This doesn't inspire confidence in this source. Alaexis_¿question? 22:10, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

What is needed is evidence of bad reporting, not brickbats about the poliics of the person who set up the organization. Is the original poster asserting that the story about people waiting for food trucks being shot at by an Israeli tank and quadcopters is false? Or are there other stories which are false that they've published as fact? NadVolum (talk) 23:50, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Hey, here are a few issues (sorry, I don’t really have the time to sort those, and don’t want to provide them unattributed (see below)):

1. Euromed claims used for (ex post) highly questionable reporting [1]. I couldn’t find a retraction/clarification, but I might have missed it.

2. Accusations (as far as I can tell, still current regarding the spread of misinformation [2] [3](Warning: (highly) biased sources not to be cited without attribution and other measures in compliance with policy)

I am happy to discuss the details, but I believe the accusation to be both not new and not unsubstantiated. Do you disagree? FortunateSons (talk) 00:21, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

What falsehoods are reported as facts there? Both sides put forward false stories about the blast at the hospital, a rocket that Israel said wa from Hamas aimed at Israel was later analysed by the New York Times as a rocked fired by Israel but fell some distance away. It's almost certain it was a Hamas rocket that fell at the hospital but the Israelis wanted a quick believable denial. Why would you take an allegation by one sde as meaning the other is telling falsehoods? The best we can do is just say what each side said with attribution, and they attributed their story. Lots of newspapers got that wrong. Perhaps we can get some actual evidence one way or the other. I don't see the truth of a story about a particular family being killed would stay hidden very long. Is it so unbelievable when they shot some of the captives holding a white flag and shouting in Hebrew? NadVolum (talk) 01:31, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Sure, I can look for some other specific things:

1. This is a pretty concerning statement (but ‘just’ on their twitter, so I hope no reasonable person would use it as a source)

2. This, which appears to be inaccurate and has been considered blood libel by the ADL; this information was repeated (without any further proof) by some media with the same bias and is likely to be misinformation. FortunateSons (talk) 02:07, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Oh, and their view on the Al-Shifa Medical Complex is at least very different from more reliable sources FortunateSons (talk) 02:11, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

If you'd read up on the Israeli cemeteries of numbers you'd know that the statement about finding anything out in the present media glare is hogwash. We don't even know what's happened to the militants killed in the original atrocity. That together with them refusing access by the Red Cross and them having done it before should explain why allegations of organ harvesting are rife, what do you expect if they don't give bodies back and don't let outside observers in?

As to the hospital what would you expect in a hospital that treated some militants that were armed when they came in? And what would you expect in a command centre? The BBC article said what they were shown, it didn't say it was anywhere near convincing evidence and others have said it wasn't. One would expect a decent sized meeting room with refreshments and big table and a place to stick maps on the wall - and access to the tunnel system. As to perhaps having a command centre underneath instead all they have shown is a passageway under a corner of the hospital which they exposed by digging down deep with an excavator. NadVolum (talk) 10:21, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

WaPo seems to disagree; regarding use of the hospital, there is general agreement regarding some military use, and more reliable sources are arguing for at least some command infrastructure. There are also Videos of hostages and armed men inside, so there is certainly cooperation between Hamas and the staff (which is explainable, but not really an indication of “no military use”)

I agree that the current situation leads to unsubstantiated rumours, but that is not reliable according to the standards of Wikipedia, right?

A general distrust of “established” media (first sentence, if I understood it correctly) is also not a good argument for using this source. FortunateSons (talk) 12:12, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

@FortunateSons Really? How is their view different from that of the Washington Post? The Post said, The rooms connected to the tunnel network discovered by IDF troops showed no immediate evidence of military use by Hamas. None of the five hospital buildings identified by Hagari appeared to be connected to the tunnel network. There is no evidence that the tunnels could be accessed from inside hospital wards. And they said: That raises critical questions, legal and humanitarian experts say, about whether the civilian harm caused by Israel’s military operations against the hospital — encircling, besieging and ultimately raiding the facility and the tunnel beneath it — were proportionate to the assessed threat. See also earlier the New York Times report demolishing another part of the Israeli narrative. Andreas JN 466 13:53, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Sure, but they said before “In a new statement released today, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor called for an independent international investigation into Israel’s absurd claims that Palestinian groups were using Al-Shifa Medical Complex and other hospitals in the Gaza Strip for military purposes.” The extent is controversial, use (at this point) really isn’t within most reliable sources. FortunateSons (talk) 19:10, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Israeli claims of a Hamas "command center" at al-Shifa were debunked by many RS, read the relevant article.Selfstudier (talk) 13:32, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Except that isn’t the sources claim FortunateSons (talk) 13:41, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Israel and its supporters have consistently tried to portray Hamas use of al-Shifa as justification for attacking a hospital. Anyone contesting the Israeli narrative is far more likely to be on the right side of this than the wrong. Selfstudier (talk) 13:48, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

The video discussed in the first tweet was also covered by France24 CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 18:25, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Use it with attribution, as should be done for all NGOs and non-profits (and all government bodies in addition). Everything else in this discussion just seems like people trying to push their personal POV against the source because it says things they dislike. Silver seren^C 01:34, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
+1. Andreas JN 466 14:10, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Off-topic bickering. --JBL (talk) 22:02, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

The leader of the organization expressing elation for Hamas' Oct 7 genocidal massacre is quite much more than "saying things someone dislikes". If Wikipedia cites such an organization as a source, it might as well start citing The Daily Stormer and delete WP:NONAZIS. JM (talk) 03:21, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

When was that elation shown, prior to the scale of attacks on civilians becoming apparent or in the early hours when this was not clear? The source is fine to use with attribution just as sources which support the ongoing genocide in Gaza can be used with attribution.Boynamedsue (talk) 09:11, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

The characterization of Israel's war against Hamas as an "ongoing genocide in Gaza" is controversial, contested, and contentious in the global public, unsupported by RS and therefore not an article on Wikipedia as far as I know, and can come off as POV-pushing, so you should avoid stating it as fact in a CTOP. Regardless, it was tweeted at 14:44 UTC, by which time if I recall correctly it was apparent what was occurring. He also left the tweet up and to my knowledge has never issued an apology. JM (talk) 09:22, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

A somewhat ironic comment given you used the word "genocidal" in your above comment to describe the mass murder by Hamas on October the 8th. As far as I am aware this is even more controversial, as no charges of genocide have been brought against the group. Perhaps it is you who should be more circumspect in your language?--Boynamedsue (talk) 09:50, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Not ironic at all when Hamas has declared its genocidal intentions and Oct 7 easily meets the definition of genocidal massacre. I don't think it's a good idea at all for anyone to equate Oct 7 with the invasion of Gaza. So no, I feel no need to be more "circumspect in my language", and your failure to acknowledge that you shouldn't have said what you did is not a great look. JM (talk) 18:57, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Your personal opinions as to what constitute genocide are not relevant. Israel has been taken to the ICJ, which Hamas can't be because its not a state. If Israel recognized the ICC, it could take members of Hamas to the ICC alleging genocide. Selfstudier (talk) 19:02, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I am well aware that my personal opinions on the definition of genocide are not relevant. Neither are anyone else's. That's why I don't think editors should be going around stating as fact that Israel is committing genocide, because Wikipedia doesn't have an article on this alleged genocide, it has an article on genocide allegations, and the reason for that is because RS do not support calling it a genocide.

When it comes to Oct 7, where we know that the goal was to kill as many Jews as possible and we know that civilians and children were targeted, I fail to see how this falls short of the definition of genocidal massacre, which has a lower bar than genocide, which I am not calling it here. JM (talk) 19:15, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it is clear you really want to argue that Hamas committed genocide, this is why you used the word "genocidal" in an attempt to spark an argument about the topic. I foolishly rose to the bait. There are plenty of places you can go for that argument, but drop it here.--Boynamedsue (talk) 19:46, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Let's just say I'm not particularly enthralled about Netenyahu talking about Amalek or the laws restricting free speech. On the same basis we should be deprecating every Israeli publication as well. Who could have thought the friendship song was acceptable? But this noticeboard is about whether sources are actually reliable, not about who might have some influence over them or even about whether they like what they say. So could people stop diverting it by going on about irrelevancies thanks? NadVolum (talk) 11:37, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Not at all. Netanyahu isn't the editor in chief of all Israeli newspapers. Alaexis_¿question? 21:52, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Example of an exceptional claim not supported by other sources

Their modus operandi makes it hard to conclusively prove that they are unreliable, however there are many cases of them publishing exceptional claims not supported by reliable sources. Consider this article. They write After failing to find any evidence of a military presence in [Al-Shifa hospital], the Israeli soldiers went crazy and deliberately carried out a series of executions, eliminating and directly shooting a number of the wounded in cold blood

This is an exceptional claim, and to my knowledge no reliable source has confirmed it. Alaexis_¿question? 08:43, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I have stopped thinking of atrocities by either side in this as exceptional. However I wouldn't use stories like that which didn't have some confirmation by a second source that wasn't just quoting the first. And attribute everything. NadVolum (talk) 10:33, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Sure, but this a regular pattern for them. Accusations of crime, no evidence, then being repeated by media with the same political leaning. And as far as I can tell, they do not retract statements even when they are either proven to be false or when no further evidence can be presented. (See above) FortunateSons (talk) 12:14, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

The same can be said about many other sources sympathetic to the Israeli side. I have lost count of the number of press stories on Hamas atrocities that were later debunked – by Israeli sources (with the vast majority of American and British outlets not having posted corrections to this day). If we wanted to ban all those sources, there'd be almost nothing left. Happy to give examples. Andreas JN 466 14:15, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Then feel free to give them. Although this is what the UN has reported. JM (talk) 20:07, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Recent example. "In an interview on a right-wing Israeli news channel, a senior IDF commander describes two events that he says he witnessed while battling Hamas on October 7, involving murdered babies and the murder of a Holocaust survivor – which never occurred, Kibbutz Be'eri said". Haaretz.

Many more such stories in an earlier piece by Haaretz.

The 12-year-old girl now believed to have been killed by Israeli tank fire in Be'eri along with a dozen other hostages is still being described as having been "burned alive by Hamas" in the JC.

And so it goes. Andreas JN 466 22:21, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I had a look at the BBC site about this Al-Shifa: What we know about Israel's raid on Gaza's main hospital reports a journalist and the director there saying the IDF were in complete control and no shots were fired. It then goes on to say the IDF went checking the hospital they engaged a number of Hamas members and killed them. This could well be the same story. By the way the same story says "But unless Israel has more to reveal, the military's controversial operation inside the hospital did not net a major arsenal of weapons, reports the BBC's Orla Guerin in Jerusalem." which would correspond to the bit about failing to find evidence. NadVolum (talk) 10:46, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Just so we’re clear on that, militants without uniforms inside the hospital are (potentially unlawful) combatants and therefore military targets, right? So there is not direct collaboration of their statements by the BBC, and the BBC has a very different statement from a more reliable source? FortunateSons (talk) 12:17, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

If you read the BBC report you'll see about all men being ordered out of the hospital - but some were left in their beds inside because of being injured or sick. An unknown is how many remained even so who weren't in bed but it said the IDF were in complete control. Is there a requirement for uniforms to be worn while sick in bed? NadVolum (talk) 13:25, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

No, but they weren’t wearing uniforms inside the hospital in the recent past, so I strongly doubt they started once wearing a uniform increases their likelihood of dying FortunateSons (talk) 13:35, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

By the way what is this more reliable source than the BBC you mention? NadVolum (talk) 13:32, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

That was sarcasm, but it’s hard to tell in writing, so that’s on me, sorry FortunateSons (talk) 13:36, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

That does not confirm the story but it certainly makes it a lot more possible. NadVolum (talk) 10:51, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Just to clarify that many of the claims about this source emanate from here ie NGO monitor, whose worth can be judged from their article.Selfstudier (talk) 13:01, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I described them as a highly biased source above and separately sourced any evidence. But you are right to also add it here, in case someone does not read the whole thread FortunateSons (talk) 13:25, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the ie is for. Those are opposites rather than the same. NadVolum (talk) 13:47, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

This was a discussion about the sources of ‘my’ side, not yours, don’t worry :) FortunateSons (talk) 13:52, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Oh I understand now, thanks. NadVolum (talk) 14:15, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

You’re welcome FortunateSons (talk) 14:18, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Here is the Wikipedia article for Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor like the one you gave for NGO monitor. I don't know if they have a similar attack page for NGO monitor! NadVolum (talk) 13:52, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

In the matter of "field executions", a preliminary file covering the period November and December 2023 submitted by Euromed to UN rapporteurs does not appear to mention the al-Shifa claim so that would appear moot at this point. Note that the BBC reported on 19 November that WHO described the scene at al-Shifa as a "death zone" so it seems understandable in the circumstances that witnesses may well have said unverifiable things to Euromed.Selfstudier (talk) 14:01, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I guess they think there's no point including ones where they don't have much chance of some decent evidence. NadVolum (talk) 14:18, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

What I would still like to know is if there are any edits to articles supported by Euromed cites that are actually disputed? Selfstudier (talk) 14:57, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

This is a good question. OP mentioned that EMHRM is cited in a smattering of articles, but which edits are under dispute? Context is important, including the context of the claim it supports. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 16:22, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Rightly removed by @Selfstudier due to violation of the I/P arb rules, summarised and reposted by me (including specific source):

On Jan 13 EuroMedHRM retweeted Maha Hussaini saying "Over 800,000 Palestinians who didn't evacuate Gaza City & the northern areas". This number is in complete contradiction to all western media that says most people in the Gaza Strip have moved to the south. EuroMedHRM's retweet casts doubt on the reliability of their other figures, seeing that their source verification or interpretation is lacking. (Source from cited wiki article, which contradicts the statement)

They also published manipulative or misguiding titles or numbers, like "100,000 Palestinians killed, missing or wounded", grouping it together to get a larger number (clickbait at best, intentionally misguiding at worst) FortunateSons (talk) 22:55, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

At this point I'm definitely not seeing that this source is any better than "Electronic Intifada" which was just downgraded to "deprecated" if I recall correctly. I don't see why this should be treated with any higher regard than that. JM (talk) 22:57, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I think I agree. FortunateSons (talk) 23:35, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Electronic Interfada was deprecated because it went in for denial of the rapes committed by militants in the October 7 attack, when the evidence is pretty clear. You equate that with having some titles that look like clickbait and retweeting something with a stupid mistake when talking about something else? Most of the newspapers around the world would be deprecated on that basis. NadVolum (talk) 00:26, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, the founder and current chairman Ramy Abdu allegedly “retweeted a post denying that Hamas sexually assaulted Israeli women on October 7th, referring to this as “a fabricated lie.” “(Highly biased source) and said this, to be contested by this article from Reuters. Second (but potentially biased) source. So no, not through their official account as far as I can tell, but yes regarding the people who most likely have editorial control. FortunateSons (talk) 00:52, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Could we stick to the actual stories put out by the organisation thanks. This is the reliable source noticeboard, not the I think some evil person might influence it noticeboard. NadVolum (talk) 01:16, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Not all stories are attributable to individuals, and the founder and current chairman is certainly a person with significant sway unless shown otherwise, which is a factor when establishing reliability. We have discussed specific content above, I am just responding to what you specifically asked about. FortunateSons (talk) 01:29, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

So apparently no cites on WP in dispute and all there is is twitter and some insubstantial claims. This is an NGO in good standing at the UN that regularly submits reports there, no reason to go beyond a 2 here. Selfstudier (talk) 12:13, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't think any alleged good standing at the UN trumps their various false claims, exaggerations, failures to issue corrections, and the clearly partisan nature of their leadership as presented by FortunateSons and others. JM (talk) 19:00, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I'd consider it plausible that having good standing at the United Nations could mean that some users' assessments of EMHRM may be taking what amount to occasional missteps and over-extrapolating them into a characterization of the entire source, inadvertently making mountains out of molehills. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 19:20, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Submitting reports isn't the same as being in good standing. Alaexis_¿question? 20:24, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

As in the discussion of Mondoweiss, we find ourselves confronted with a publication that has an agenda, and which is not shy about exhibiting it as indicated in the article cited by Alaexis. We seem to sometimes have a fascination with "breaking news" in the I/P articles, rather than remembering that there is WP:NODEADLINE and we can wait for multipe sources of established reliability rather than flouncing on ahead with extraordinary claims, using "tabloid" sources that make no bones about what side they're on and in fact flaunt it. This publication, like Mondoweiss, should not be used in controversial subject areas. Editors anxious to publish its claims, no matter how outlandish, should wait until those claims are made by reliable sources. We do not have to be in a rush to publish anything. On the contrary, we should be patient. This is an encyclopedia not a newspaper. Capitulating to a desire for unseemly haste will make our readers conclude that Wikipedia has the same agenda as some of the POV-pushing sources editors are anxious to use.Let's not fall into that trap. Coretheapple (talk) 16:23, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
Looking at the Mondoweiss thread further up on this page, I don't think there's yet a consensus for deprecating it for controversial subject areas. Several editors have articulated reasonable justifications for citing it, perhaps with attribution, as with EMHRM. In any case, that is a conversation for a different thread.

It's possible that capitulating to a desire to exclude sources could make some readers conclude that Wikipedia has an agenda explicitly opposed to certain perspectives. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 19:27, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Euro-Med has not gone in for full blown unedited passing on of anti semitic stuff like Mondoweiss. I think it is quite interesting how Mondoweiss is actually run by jews as far as I know. If they can believe the rape denial business then they really are pissed off about and think the worst of Israel! so what are we to think is exceptional? I've given up wondering if an atrocity there is exceptional but I'm happy enough with needing two reasonably independent sources. NadVolum (talk) 19:44, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

"run by jews"'? Coretheapple (talk) 17:25, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the ethnoreligious background of people who run or edit these publications is worth making claims or implications about or trying to dissect. In determining reliability, we focus on the content of sources. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 21:28, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Also using a lower case "J" in "Jew" is considered a slur. I trust it was unintentional. Coretheapple (talk) 21:57, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

It hadn't occurred to me that being called an american or a christian could be taken as slurs. I'm sorry I offended anyone. I was not determining reliability by whether Jews ran it. NadVolum (talk) 22:51, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Actually going back and reading the links in the Mondoweiss discussion more carefully it looks to me like the news and media analysis parts are generally reasonable. The opinion ones would be excluded from Wikipedia anyway as opinion. In fact the media analysis part is I think especially useful, though for Wikipedia's purposes it is easy to dismiss most of that like othe media analysis sources because they disagree with the majority. I have come across so many things in the mainstream media which deliberately ignore important points to push a point of view or spin their phrasing. So I think I'll go there and register a 2. NadVolum (talk) 21:09, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

If this is original reporting, then it is reasonable not to find such claims in other sources. Keep in mind that other sources like Doctors without Borders [24][25] have also made claims of Israel deliberately shooting people at Shifa hospital.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 09:14, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
Not at all. Media outlets don't only publish their own reporters. Organisations like Human Rights Watch are quoted all the time by various outlets.

As to the Hill piece, it's from November 11, so a few days before the November 15 raid. EMHRM were quite specific: they claimed that Israeli soldiers were shooting a number of the wounded in cold blood. your second article was published on December 1 but I don't see any mention of shooting wounded patients in Al-Shifa there either. Alaexis_¿question? 17:49, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
It is worth mentioning that Israel (and Bahrain) have repeatedly delayed the granting of Special Consultative Status to Euromed. These also happen to be two countries frequently critiqued by Euromed. Israel did this three times in 2023. Selfstudier (talk) 18:14, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

What does seem well established though is that shortly thereafter the IDF removed a large number of bodies from Al Shifa hospital. Many were takem from the morgue or dug up. What is concerning in the light of that is I can see no report of them taking away any live patients. NadVolum (talk) 21:24, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't see it in the MSF report you linked and so I can't understand your argument. Alaexis_¿question? 10:23, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I did not link to the MSF report, I think you've misplaced your reply. Here is what the IDF had to say about the removal of bodies [26]. If there were numerous dead bodies of militants at the hospital one would expect a few live militant patients at the start, if the IDF was interested enough to take away the dead bodies of militants you'd expect them to be interested in taking away any live militants who were patients as well. The live people who were reported as being taken away were the director and some staff. NadVolum (talk) 13:07, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I'm sure you realise that there are several assumptions in your reasoning and even if we believe Abu Salmiya that the IDF took out bodies from the hospital, this doesn't support in any way EMHRM's statement that Israeli soldiers were shooting a number of the wounded in cold blood. So my concern that no one has reported on this potentially very significant story remains valid. Alaexis_¿question? 19:49, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Said "concern" says nothing about reliability unless you can prove the negative. It just means we would not use the source unless we had some other sources as well. That would apply to all controversial claims, regardless who made them. Selfstudier (talk) 19:53, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't saying to stick in the story if there wasn't confirmation from a second source. Quite the opposite. What I was saying is it is not extraordinary and it is not evidence that Euro-Med HR was unreliable, in fact there is some actual evidence that it might have happened. However there is so much propaganda from both sides I'd be very careful about taking anyones words at face value. NadVolum (talk) 20:31, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

This [27] from the BBC makes the story altogether very plausible with its shooting of a person paralysed with a spinal injury while asleep in bed. NadVolum (talk) 09:49, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Your article is not really current, this one is better [1]. The relevant context is this: All three were militants/terrorists, at least one was believed to be armed, and there are allegations that they were using the hospital as a place to hide. And not to be pedantic, but this is a joint op, so it’s unclear whether or not it was actually a military member who shot them, as far as I know. FortunateSons (talk) 11:00, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

So Israeli soldiers at the command of their officers go into a hospital and shoot a paralysed militant in cold blood whilst he is in bed. I really do not think the story can be called at all exceptional now. NadVolum (talk) 16:08, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Let’s be careful when claiming unproven information, even here:

1. there is a significant legal and moral difference whether or not it was police or military, and afaik, that is still unclear. Additionally, it is not clear if this was an attempted capture that met resistance and escalated or a targeted elimination.

2. on that note, the legal status of the West Bank is highly complicated and any assertions on legality (which you did not make, I am just clarifying for the reader) are always complicated (and in my opinion, done horribly be newspapers on all ‘sides’ of the conflict, but that is a different issue).

3. cold blood - it is likely that one or more very carrying firearms, and unclear if they attempted to resist. Additionally, it is not clear whether or not they were hiding, receiving treatment or both. Also, if killing a terrorist is unacceptable in your eyes if he is not actively resisting, I have bad news about the conduct of a significant amount of (western and non-western) militaries and police forces for you.

Or, in summary: this is a not a reasonable way to source the claim “the military is shooting people (potentially civilians) in cold blood”. If you want to use it for “Israeli police conducts plain clothes raid and kills terrorists”, be my guest, as long as you can find a place where RS support the weight you consider due. FortunateSons (talk) 22:44, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

The statement that was called exceptional claim was "After failing to find any evidence of a military presence in [Al-Shifa hospital], the Israeli soldiers went crazy and deliberately carried out a series of executions, eliminating and directly shooting a number of the wounded in cold blood" I see no reason to call that exceptional. Your statements are pretty irrelevant to the basic facts here. NadVolum (talk) 00:28, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

You can’t see any significant difference between your quote (alleging random violence) and an armed raid by what was likely a swat team against 3 specific terrorists? FortunateSons (talk) 00:38, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Almost the entirety of this discussion should be hatted per WP:NOTFORUM. nableezy - 00:48, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Technically this is still about the question of a specific claim being potentially wrong (enough) to impact the reliability and is therefore still on topic, but for the purposes of not wikilawyering, I’m not opposed to it FortunateSons (talk) 00:54, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

As far as I can make out your argument is against the soldiers doing it angrily rather than that they'd have been ordered by their commander to do it. I acknowledge someone might misunderstand why they killed the patients in cold blood but that possibility hardly counts towards the source being unreliable - it is more a bias in outlook of an observer. NadVolum (talk) 08:06, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I think we are talking past each other, so I hope you’ll excuse the metaphor: the first story is “British Military kills civilians out of frustration after not finding terrorists”, the second story is more likely to be “Undercover police (MI5?) kill terrorists (either targeted or for resisting arrest) in hiding“. There are legal differences here, but it is also a different place and entirely different unit. You can use „police kills terrorists“ as evidence for the reliability of a source that claims that police used lethal force against terrorist, but you probably shouldn’t use it to show that a different organisation (military vs. police) did a different thing (killing civilians vs. killing terrorists) for different reasons (‚went crazy’ vs planned arrest/killing) in a different place (West Bank vs. Gaza). The only real overlap is the type of place (hospital) and the fact that Israeli use of force took place (and, if the first story is true, use of lethal force against someone who was injured), but that really isn’t enough in my opinion. After all, you wouldn’t really use the actions of US police shooting a terrorist in hospital to argue about the conduct of the US Army when searching for terrorists in the Middle East, right? FortunateSons (talk) 10:58, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Can we can this micro discussion, please? Selfstudier (talk) 11:18, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Well I don't see much point continuing the discussion but I don't see the point in hatting it. NadVolum (talk) 11:59, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Off-topic discussion Alaexis_¿question? 17:40, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I know it is very silly but I actually feel more sorry about the Israeli jews than the Palestinians. I think the charge of genocide is well founded with intent and action - and they went through the holocaust. Their leaders have brought them down to this over decades and the west in particular has supported them. It will be a terrible stain and ammmunition for antisemites for years to come. NadVolum (talk) 11:16, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Worse – such a massacre will have reduced to nil the relative safety of Israeli citizens for many years. Revenge is an extremely powerful motivator for crime, and we see it consistently in ethnic conflicts, with the revenge game often continuing for generations. While getting killed in fair battle in one thing, if your children were murdered in cold blood by soldiers wearing one country's flags, then you'll only wait for an opportunity. Sad state of affairs. — kashmīrī ^TALK 17:02, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Let's stay on topic, K? Selfstudier (talk) 17:16, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Article on source now at AfD

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (2nd nomination). BilledMammal (talk) 05:20, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

There is a proper place for discussing concerns with this notification or AfD, and it isn't RSN.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

This looks like canvassing. See nomination for deletion a couple years ago by the same editor, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor. Selfstudier (talk) 11:42, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Whatever failings the AfD nom may have, a neutrally worded post to a noticeboard where a discussion of the source is happening is hardly canvassing. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:17, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Surely the usability of a source and the quality/worthiness of its page on Wikipedia are unrelated? This is not a noticeboard about pages about sources, but about the reliability of sources. This would reek of an attempt to hail a sympathetic crowd for an AfD even were it not the case that the AfD was the second serving by the same editor (not dropping the stick). Iskandar323 (talk) 20:28, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Except the crowd here is not sympathetic. If it were, the source would have already been deprecated. JM (talk) 08:18, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't see that the editors here are sympathetic to BilledMammal opinion of the source, and as you have said reliability and notability are separate things. I would AGF that editors wouldn't support the deletion of the article because they believe it's unreliable for verification purposes. By this argument we wouldn't have an article for the Daily Mail. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:33, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

I couldn't begin to explain the motives for anyone trying to get a page on a notable organisation deleted (again) - you'd have to ask. But feels pointy. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:23, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

As per my previous comment, whatever failings the AfD nomination has doesn't make the comment here canvassing. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:54, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

even were it not the case that the AfD was the second serving by the same editor (not dropping the stick). Opening a second AFD three years after a previous one closed as "no consensus" is not dropping the stick? On a topic where we have no sources that contribute to notability? - the closest we have to date is an article from NGO Monitor, and the same editor that presented that source as evidence of notability just voted to deprecate that source.

If you think I'm being disruptive with this nomination, take it to WP:AE. Otherwise, stop casting WP:ASPERSIONS. BilledMammal (talk) 00:02, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

DMBAlmanac.com

Bringing this website here [28] because even though this is very clearly not a reliable source (it's basically a fan wiki, thus failing WP:USERG), I removed it from the article Walk Around the Moon today, and I came back to search Wikipedia for its use here, only to find that it is being used on dozens of articles (see uses of the website here. I am posting to RSN to request help with removal of such citations (and potentially the content it supports, if it is the only source supporting certain statements), and prevent future issues. I'm not trying to say that it should automatically be blacklisted or added to XLinkBot, but I do think there should be a way to crack down on the use of this unreliable source. JeffSpaceman (talk) 03:09, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, this seems to be pretty clearly a fansite with no evidence of reliability that I can see. Unless someone is making the case that it is actually reliable somewhere, I would just remove it wherever you come across it. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:43, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Podcasts and YouTube videos

It's been suggested that this discussion be moved here, from the Jimmy Carr page. Re discussing updating policy, to accept podcasts and YouTube as sources

To use Carr as an example - comedians who tour internationally (and probably other artists too) are often in locations (Aus, USA, Asia) where they gig 1 night and then fly several hours to the next location.

This travel/gig lifestyle means that they, nowadays, find it easier to use podcasts - rather than TV/Radio or even print medium interviews - which may have to run to a tight deadline and also mean more travelling get to a studio. I've seen several podcasts where comedians have connected from hotel rooms.

This means that some quotes only exist within a podcast - which is not always only on a streaming service, like Spotify, but some times also has a YouTube video.

This came up for me because there is a particular discussion point that i am certain only exists in podcasts (more than 1) and so I cannot cite a source that is in a format that you currently will accept.

Thank you

@SecretSquirrel9 SecretSquirrel9 (talk) 15:59, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Sources like this are already covered at WP:SPS. I would have thought that in most instances, if an assertion can only be supported by reference to a statement made by the subject of the article in a podcast, it probably doesn't merit a mention in our article about them. Girth Summit _(blether) 16:28, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm a newbie so not sure...If i give you the specific query - someone else's earlier text states that Carr has had depression and cited an article that used the words "mental health", in a vague way. I can cite you several podcasts where he's talked about this and specifically said that people conflate depression and sadness and that he was just sad (as in was bored in his job). Which is not the same thing at all.

I either need to completely wipe the original words....or cite a podcast.

Someone else raised a similar query and it was suggested that something be raised here by @Girth Summit SecretSquirrel9 (talk) 16:48, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Well I am not a newbie and am sure they are covered by SPS. Slatersteven (talk) 16:52, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Bloody hell - that assertion about depression is supported by a citation to the Daily Express. Remove the entire thing. Girth Summit _(blether) 16:54, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

I just removed it! Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 16:56, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

We must have edit conflicted - the history says I did it :P Girth Summit _(blether) 17:11, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Excuse my dumb question - if a comedian (or other artist) says something about themselves in a Podcast...is that acceptable? I've just read SPS and still not clear. SecretSquirrel9 (talk) 17:11, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

"Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the self-published source requirement that they are established experts in the field, so long as:

the material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim; it does not involve claims about third parties; it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source; there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; and the article is not based primarily on such sources. This policy also applies to material published by the source on social networking websites such as Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Reddit, and Facebook."

So yes, if it can be shown it is by them. Slatersteven (talk) 17:18, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

A caveat to that, however: we don't want our articles to turn into semi-autobiographies written by cobbling together things they've said about themselves. Like any article, they should mostly rely on reliable secondary sources. That serves a couple of purposes - assertions made in the voice of the source should have been fact-checked, and the fact that third parties have written about a particular facet of someone's life also helps to establish that the material is WP:DUE. So year, while you can sometimes use self-published sources to support particular assertions, they should be used sparingly and with discretion. Girth Summit _(blether) 17:22, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Bit of guidance then, please. I had some stuff bounced (some I understood, some confused me) and I'd looked at a fair few pages for other comedians the other day, to get a feel for what had been passed already.

Where does this one fall, in your "semi-autobiography", please? Because James hasn't had a quarter of the career Carr has had - but you wouldn't know it going by this James Acaster SecretSquirrel9 (talk) 17:27, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Looking at the James Acaster article, it is mostly referenced to independent secondary sources. You should search for similar sources that mention Carr. If it turns out that secondary sources write about Acaster more than Carr, then that would explain why the Acaster article has more detail.
Per the "unduly self-serving" part of WP:SPS if no secondary sources think it worthwhile mentioning it then it probably shouldn't be in the article. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:33, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Thx - trying to get my head straight on this one, if you can bear with me. The problem i have with trying to add text about Carr is partly around getting my tone right - but also finding sources that match your guidelines.

The sources for news for British comedy are problematic (I think). If you are a more up and coming artist then you may give press interviews - but our press mainly only like to write about "comedian X's Netflix special caused offence". Which means that Carr only gets negative press and so doesn't seem to bother engaging lately (whereas, when on tour in Aus/NZ, he is more likely to speak to mainstream outlets).

The other problem, with all things comedy news, is that sites such as Chortle and BCG are run by volunteers on a shoe string. I looked at the Chortle archive the other day, trying to find a source, and, using Carr as an example again, back in 2006 there were maybe 2-3 stories a month. Now there are not always 2-3 a year - so the number of credible outlets for information is dwindling.

During lockdowns a lot of comedians struggled financially and turned to either writing books or started a podcast. These podcasts tend to be where you find comedy news now as they do favours for each other, doing podcast appearances, and chat about what they are doing.

Another problem I had was, for example, Carr has won 2 Zoo awards - which were a big thing at the time. Unfortunately the time was pre 2010 and so finding a decent source was hard as Zoo has gone bust, older site pages have been archived etc. I can see lots of pages for what I would say are "after dinner speaker" businesses that reference a list of his awards (that include the Zoo ones), but I can't imagine that you would accept them as credible.

This is off the topic of credible sources (so you can ignore this next part) but partly the reason that I picked out Acaster's page was because I had a couple of lines of text rejected for being "informal tone" and yet, to me, his page seems far more informal, despite all the links (James' page actually contains a lot of his jokes / description of his routine). To me - that one reads much more like a fan page and so I'm trying to see where the line is drawn - along with my bigger problem of how do I find citations for things that happened 15-20 years ago. SecretSquirrel9 (talk) 09:31, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I won't comment on tome or such in the Acaster article as it's beyond the scope of this board, but I would say one article with tone problems isn't a reason to have two. Such discussions should be taken up in the articles talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:24, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. The whole discussion started because there are very few "articles" now. I was in Chortle last night and 10 years ago there were sometimes 40-50 articles a year about bigger comedians. Now it's down to a handful a year, as everyone cuts costs. But also as artists lose interest in engaging with print media. Much quicker to do a podcast. SecretSquirrel9 (talk) 17:23, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

reviewit.pk

Source is used 385 times on Wikipedia for film-related pages. Came to my attention a month ago as it was being used by a SOCK to cite film content. When checking pages that have this link, I find a lot which have been edited by film-related sock farms. I cannot find the age of the domain but it appears to be a user-generated blog where anyone can submit content and has no editorial guidelines that I can find. Bylines are posted as "admin" and is likely a paid content farm. Asking opinions on reliability for Wikipedia as well as the possibility of recommending it be blacklisted if found to be unreliable. CNMall41 (talk) 01:41, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

The content is either highly promotional or simply reposting twitter posts. It might be usable for basic facts, and unless it's being spammed I don't see an immediate need for blacklisting. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:31, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Yoga Journal as a Reliable Source

Hi! I am writing to solicit input on the reliability of Yoga Journal. Yoga Journal is a publication focused on Yoga as exercise. Majority of the yoga asana articles on wikipedia reference YJ. From the first 20 asanas on the List of asanas, 18/20 cite Yoga Journal. From my research, YJ appears to be a reliable source because -

Wikipedia:REPUTABLE - Yoga journal is a national digital magazine with 1.3MM+ readers. YJ was initially founded by Rama Jyoti Vernon and Judith Hanson Lasater, a leading reputable yoga instructor and author of many related books. Today, there is a community of editors, experienced in different aspects of yoga, contributing to the magazine.
Wikipedia:RSP - If pop culture & lifestyle magazines such as Entertainment Weekly, People, and Vogue are considered reliable, then YJ would fall into a similar realm of reliability.
Wikipedia:RSCONTEXT - When used to describe an asana or provide generic information in compliance with Wikipedia:MEDRS, YJ should be reliable.

I recently had a brief discussion with an editor who questioned the reliability of YJ stating it was promotional. I wanted to post here to get thoughts from more people.

Thanks! Whitestar12 (talk) 01:38, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure my objection would be that it's promotional so much as it publishes stuff like "A Complete Guide to the Full Moons of 2024, Including What They Mean for You". I'm also seeing articles making medical claims which again we shouldn't be using. But for basic descriptions of yoga poses I'm not immediately seeing any problem with using it. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 09:47, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Might be okay for cautious use to describe some of the in-universe stuff that goes on (Goat yoga[29] anyone?), but for any kind of heavier-weight claim (e.g. about health effects) WP:FRIND would be a consideration and WP:MEDRS would be required, which this magazine certainly isn't. Bon courage (talk) 10:01, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
YJ obviously can't be used for medical claims. On yoga asanas (postures) and on the ethical and professional conduct of yoga schools and teachers, it is authoritative, having from its foundation shouldered the responsibility of reporting accurately, of providing leadership, and of holding people to account. As such it is yoga's journal of record. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:20, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Except it doesn't seem to hold itself to account for the unethical torrent of nonsense and quackery it publishes. So it's basically reliable only for what people like to say to each other within the WP:FRINGE world of yoga. Bon courage (talk) 07:35, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for stating your position. However, I think you are confusing yoga-as-philosophy-or-religion with yoga as exercise, consisting mainly of asanas (yoga poses), which is YJ's specialty. There is nothing remotely fringey about exercise, and YJ is widely considered an authoritative source on modern asanas, as it is not tied to any particular yoga school or style of yoga as exercise. From the start, YJ had scholarly yoga teachers like Judith Hanson Lasater in senior editorial roles, and she served as the (main) editor for many years, just one example of YJ's high standards. There is no doubt that YJ is also a glossy commercial magazine with the usual fluff, but even recently it has boldly championed moving away from the "young, fit, white, slim, affluent and female" depiction of yoga practitioners, so it still has standards: even if, like the rest of us humans, it has to work hard at that. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:12, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Not really, if "yoga as exercise" is promoted for things like unblocking chakras to treat health conditions.[30] then the exercise is just a tad more than "remotely fringey". In fact, looking some more, it seems this magazine is so deep into woo-woo, and so unconnected from reality, I doubt anything it says can be taken as reliable. If RS means we are looking for publications with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, is that really a publications that has stuff that:
uncritically relays somebody's "cure" for breast cancer which includes "integrated plant-based nutrition, Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Kundalini Yoga, and meditation" (while rejecting mainstream treatment).[31]

treats astrology as real.[32]

says yoga can be used to "reset your electromagnetic field" and boost your aura.[33]

I mean come on, this is just bollocks. This is the sort of source we should be blacklisting. Bon courage (talk) 09:54, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia's policies of neutrality of course mean mainspace articles don't adopt the views of religious yoga in Wikipedia's own voice, but calling beliefs bollocks and saying this makes Yoga Journal the sort of source we should be blacklisting comes across as taking the matter further than necessary or quite appropriate. All sorts of reliable periodicals publish astrological content; the Washington Post still has horoscopes, at least in its website version. And claims about something like aura pertain to the spiritual side of yoga that some practitioners participate in and seems to me no more a strike against the periodical overall than recognizing that some contributors to academic journals like Fides et Historia or the Journal of Ecclesiastical History have religious beliefs that Wikipedia wouldn't express in its own voice, like the literal resurrection of Jesus or a God-breathed Bible. As for medical claims, those are covered by WP:MEDRS, and quackery appears in other reliable periodicals too (like the New York Times' on-again-off-again tendency to defy medical consensus on trans affirming medical care). Singling out Yoga Journal as needing blacklisting seems off the mark. Parsing reliability and contextually citing sources is part of contributing on Wikipedia. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 10:21, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Religious people can believe whatever stories they want within their sealed systems. But as soon as that obtrudes into the real worlds of cancer, electromagnetism, or the influence of celestial bodies then we call bollocks. So, pain during intercourse is not caused by a "blocked chakra" as YJ suggests.[34] Also, note that auras are pseudoscientific, as Wikipedia notes at Aura (paranormal). That this magazine does not demarcate between fiction and reality is a bad sign. Why is it trustable for anything? Bon courage (talk) 10:29, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
? It is obvious that a publication can be reliable for some things and not for others. This is particularly obvious in the exercise/nutrition/health nexus, which is full of both pseudoscientific health nonsense and rather straightforward non-health factual questions. E.g. it is obvious that a publication that is not up to the MEDRS standard could be used to source a sentence like "Yoga is thought to have originated in India in the 5th century BCE" or for reporting on names of modern conventional poses. --JBL (talk) 17:27, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Interesting points. Bon courage The intent is for YJ to be used in compliance with Wikipedia:MEDRS, which means not to make claims. And I believe this is how it is currently being used on asana pages. If we are 'blacklisting' articles in the manner you suggested, then I think Vogue, People, and some of the sources marked as 'generally acceptable' under Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources would be up for debate. Whitestar12 (talk) 20:19, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

As ever, Context is important. It may depend on which claims an editor attempts to support using citations to Yoga Journal. For example, descriptions of yoga poses seems fine. Medical claims of course fall under WP:MEDRS. But you seem primarily interested in the poses, which are a matter of relatively straightforwardly describing Yoga exercises. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 10:12, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, it's outside the remit of this NB, but the question then is: why should Wikipedia be talking about "yoga poses" if they receive no attention from reputable sources outside the fringe milieu of yoga? In any case, given the above, why should this publication be trusted for anything? The magazine seems to lack a reality filter. Bon courage (talk) 10:22, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

The word "yoga" can be used both to refer to obviously fringe religious nonsense (exceptional claims about the nature of the universe that would require unusually strong sourcing) with a small number of adherents and to an extremely common family of exercise regimens practiced by tens of millions of people in the US (and presumably other places). Some of your comments seem to be heavily conflating these two things, and that is not conducive to making good determinations about what WP articles about yoga should cover or what sources are appropriate. --JBL (talk) 17:31, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

That something's practised by "tens of millions of people in the US" is not really a counter to it being "obviously fringe religious nonsense", now is it. Bon courage (talk) 17:40, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

It is really hard to see how excising "with a small number of adherents" from the first phrase you quoted could be part of a good-faith exercise in finding consensus. --JBL (talk) 19:10, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Not at all, I think you miss my point that popularity does not mean non-fringeiness. Bon courage (talk) 20:08, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I cannot see how to parse "not at all" as a response to the comment immediately preceding it. I have not missed your point; since you do not seem interested in catching mine, this will be my last response to you in this discussion. --JBL (talk) 20:48, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Yoga as exercise is deeply connected to "wellness culture" pseudoscience/alternative medicine, see [35] [36] [37] [38]. They fundamentally aren't extricable like you're claiming them to be. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:51, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the first sentence and disagee with the second sentence. The factual questions "what are the most common yoga poses in modern practice?", "what physical activity is denoted by the phrase 'mountain pose'?", and "what evidence is there for the continuity of practice of particular yoga poses?", for example, are completely extricable from any wellness culture nonsense, and answerable using sources that would obviously not be acceptable for answering questions like "is 'my chakras are out of alignment' a meaningful phrase?" and "which parts of the practice of yoga have validatable health benefits?" Doubtless there is a gray area (when is there ever not?), but the fact that a magazine publishes some ridiculous things does not mean that one cannot use the non-ridiculous parts for unexceptional claims. --JBL (talk) 19:19, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm inclined toward JBL's perspective on this. Comments objecting to Yoga Journal as a source for yoga poses seem to resort to hostile (unnecessarily so, I think) characterizations of religious aspects of yoga out of context rather than recognizing that OP asked about the context of describing yoga exercise. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 20:28, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Correct, exactly. P-Makoto (she/her) I think context is certainly important to your point - Wikipedia:MEDRS must be adhered to. Whitestar12 (talk) 20:23, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes. The journal is deeply serious in its coverage of yoga poses and other yoga-as-exercise topics. When it describes how to perform a pose or a sequence of poses (with vinyasas), it is careful, accurate, authoritative, and extremely well illustrated. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:37, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

The claim that they are "a publication focused on Yoga as exercise" doesn't withstand scrutiny, if that were true then there wouldn't be major sections of this publication on foundations, (by which they mean philosophy) meditation, lifestyle, and astrology. The focus appears to be on Yoga as lifestyle... Not on Yoga as exercise as the OP so loosely claimed. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 06:41, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Can't we just treat this like we would any other niche trade magazine? Like, Cat Fancy or somesuch? I wouldn't use Cat Fancy to source veterinary claims, but if I wanted to know what cat enthusiasts believed, I could do worse. And I'm sure there are some wacky articles in Cat Fancy that ought not to be used as a sole source for some claim or other. jps (talk) 16:03, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. --JBL (talk) 19:27, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Hear hear. Importantly, a pop or trade magazine is not an academic source, so it is not an RS for statements like (as suggested above) "Yoga is thought to have originated in India in the 5th century BCE", or on Yoga (philosophy) per anything but popular/common philosophy (which has little to do with yoga to begin with, hence why it requires expert sources), or on historical (pre-modern) yoga poses and meditations (that is, unless an article therein is written by an actual historian/expert of such things). SamuelRiv (talk) 17:03, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Just as Cat Fancy can source a lot of information about cat-related events, products, and care practices but isn't the best source for information for veterinary health, so too can Yoga Journal source information about yoga stances, teachers, exercise, etc. but isn't the source Wikipedia should cite for medical claims. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 05:39, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Why would it be reliable for yoga poses, if this involves researching a body of ancient material and then accurately reproducing written poses as diagrams? Doesn't this website actually originate (what westerners today) call their 'yoga poses'? Bon courage (talk) 08:05, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't follow the leap from "reliable for yoga poses" to "involves researching a body of ancient material". Yoga also exists in the present; it's not exclusively an ancient practice. I wouldn't expect an article about competitive wrestling to only cite classicists writing about the Greco-Roman practice in the ancient world. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 08:56, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Where do the 'yoga pose' illustrations come from? If from reliable sources, use those. Why is this particular website meant to be the reliable source? If they're being invented by this source, why are they due coverage? Bon courage (talk) 09:02, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

This is a fair question, but I propose that Yoga Journal might be due coverage simply because there aren't a lot of aggregate sources about this particular fad. Like a lot of fan-based media, Yoga Journal probably is going to be trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator when describing its fads just to encourage its readership. Still, I think it absolutely fair to say that we should attribute any arguable claim directly to the journal/article writer. "Yoga Journal says the child's pose is one of the more common poses used in beginning yoga classes." That sort of thing. What's more, in certain subjects it's completely unreliable and should not be used. "~~Yoga Journal says that proper alignment of your chakras during a yoga session will have positive health benefits for the rest of the day.~~" jps (talk) 01:35, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Thedebrief.org

A new user, @Samir-Tabarrok:, is suggesting that Thedebrief.org is a reliable source, with the suggested use case being for Sean M. Kirkpatrick with a newly released article entitled THE PENTAGON’S FORMER CHIEF UFO HUNTER SPEAKS OUT, BUT SOME OF HIS ARGUMENTS DON’T HIT THE MARK critiquing Sean M. Kirkpatrick recent Op-Ed regarding UFOs. Looking at their articles and about page [39], I'm just not seeing evidence that TheDebrief is a well regarded news outlet. It seems more like a glorified group blog covering science and fringey topics, especially UFOs. Looking at the founder and editor in chief Micah Hanks (who I have not found any significant journalism work prior to founding TheDebrief) personal website [40], Micah describes himself as a longtime advocate for scientific research into unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), more commonly known as UFOs. He is a contributing member of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU), as well as a frequent commentator and writer on the subject. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:26, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Samir-Tabarrok has now been indeffed, but it would be good to get more opinions as we have around 39 citations per Thedebrief.org

. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:32, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

A brief scroll through the articles doesn't raise many concerns imo, as it seems like a normal science/tech news site; however, the fact that two of the three primary writers are also co-founders, and that only five staff are listed, does make me question whether it could be considered a WP:SPS, and if there's any real editorial oversight. Agree with OP that it feels group blog-y. The Kip 22:35, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I think The Debrief can be used as a source when other sources mention things that have been published there. But as a sole source for a claim, it should never be used. I would judge it questionable at best. We now have at least a few reliable sources that call into question the reliability of that source. jps (talk) 22:37, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I would agree Debrief should be added as a reliable source. It is rated as highly credible, least biased, and mostly factual by https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-debrief-bias/ MatthewM (talk) 05:38, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

MBFC is the work of one individual and isn't a reliable source in itself. The Kip 05:39, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that's not a great endorsement. Bon courage (talk) 05:44, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

It is not the work of one individual, but it is notable. Scientific Reports published a study writing "While [Media Bias/Fact Check's] credibility is sometimes questioned, it has been regarded as accurate enough to be used as ground-truth for e.g. media bias classifiers, fake news studies, and automatic fact-checking systems." There hasn't been any convincing argument presented that its assessment of Debrief is wildly off the mark. MatthewM (talk) 06:46, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

See WP:MBFC for the consensus. (Incidentally, Scientific Reports is another dodgy source). Bon courage (talk) 06:51, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Scientific Reports is a megajournal that has published hundreds of thousands of papers, and is not selective (i.e. it will publish almost anything), so having one paper there defend MBFC doesn't really say anything about source reliability. As BC correctly points out, MBFC is not considered a reliable source by Wikipedia. There are better websites that cover the same scientific topics that The Debrief does, and for UFOs, given their close connection to the Grusch testimony they seem like a problematic source. Hemiauchenia (talk) 10:47, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Largely self-published website with a lean towards UFO/alien crankery and sometimes questionable pop science takes (like this[41] piece on anti-aging written by a science fiction novelist). All the topic areas it likes to cover (including: physics / biomedicine / aerospace) are ones where Wikipedia should be looking at the upper end of the sourcing quality scale, not this bottom end. Avoid. Bon courage (talk) 05:58, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Debrief is independent site that is not a blog, social media, user generated, or otherwise fit in self-publish description. The articles are generally of at least similar quality and reliability as currently accepted popular science/technology RS, such as Popular Mechanics. Add. MatthewM (talk) 06:33, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Popular Mechanics is another example of a source that may be acceptable about a car engine, but has also been problematic on this topic. —Paleo Neonate – 09:05, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Popular Mechanics ain't what it used to be, like many legacy publications that have struggled to transition into the digital age. As for its coverage of UFOs, see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_323#Popular_Mechanics_for_UFO_claims Hemiauchenia (talk) 11:21, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

To be fair I just wouldn't use Popular Mechanics, especially for anything defense technology related. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:03, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Per Bon courage, the DeBrief is weighted toward generating sensational clickbait rather than reliably sourced journalism. For example, their "science" articles feature "rare perplexing phenomena", "time reversability", "mysterious noise", etc. and their UFO feature stories ("enigma!", "mysterious!") aren't any better. Not the kind of high quality source we'd prefer. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:54, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Strongly disagree. For example, the second feature you mentioned is published by Böhmer, Till, et al. entitled "Time reversibility during the ageing of materials." in Nature Physics (2024): 1-9. (Debrief also spelled it correctly). As the articles are accurate, provide references, and vetted this fits criteria of RS. MatthewM (talk) 03:40, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Treat it as a group blog / self published source. Among the founders/editors, the main journalistic qualification seems to be a former writer for Popular mechanics, contributing some of those UFO articles mentioned above. Small world! - MrOllie (talk) 16:08, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

ESTNN

I see a few Wikipedia articles have used this source, and I want to use it myself, but nobody here has commented on it's reliability as a source.

They do have this, which makes me think they're probably reliable, but I want a second opinion: https://estnn.com/ethics-standards-and-corrections AKFkrewfamKF1 (talk) 04:38, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

They should be reliable for video games / esports, but I would be cautious with anything BLP related. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:21, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Is Chortle reliable

Is Chortle (chortle.co.uk) reliable enough to contribute to notability. I'm specifically looking at these two reviews [42] [43] for Draft:Dan Nightingale. TipsyElephant (talk) 13:25, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

They seem well respected by the British comedy community, and they've been around since 2000. The reviews are done by staff members not volunteer users. I would think they're reliable enough for the purpose.
The same is not true of tour details and other listings, as these can be added by the comedians themselves.[44] -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:38, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Nigerian sources on paid article

Currently working to clean-up the Ryan Tseko article which has paid contributions (originally undisclosed). I find it rather odd that the article is filled with Nigerian sources when none of the activities described in the article occur anywhere close to Nigeria, and I'm unable to find meaningful coverage in non-Nigerian sources. There are also sources that appear to be more commercial than journalistic. Are these sources reliable? Any assistance or advice would be appreciated. Left guide (talk) 00:52, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Undisclosed advertorials are seemingly common in Nigerian media, see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 414#Vanguard (Nigeria) as a recent example. It's a similar situation to news media in India, WP:NEWSORGINDIA gives some context. All the references appear to follow the same talking points, I suspect there all paid promotions. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 01:44, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, I had that hunch but wanted to be sure since the Nigerian paid news situation doesn't seem to be as well-documented (on Wikipedia at least) as the Indian one. Left guide (talk) 01:52, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I've taken it to AfD, see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ryan_Tseko. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:50, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

The Street Journal

https://thestreetjournal.org/

Can someone help me out in determining what exactly this site is? It looks like a content farm, but the .org choice gives me pause. It is apparently a Nigerian news service but it is published out of Ireland? I am of the impression that it is a scraper/repeater, but if anyone else could give me some indication whether certain articles found there might be considered reliable, would appreciate it.

jps (talk) 12:21, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm bored so I did some digging (I know nothing about news in Nigeria). It appears to be a website published by someone named Mogaji Wole Arisekola, who is a real person and also the president of the Association of Online Media Practitioners of Nigeria. The logo and name look like a ripoff of The Wall Street Journal, I think intentionally, because it looks like he used to call the website the "Wole" Street Journal, after himself. Which is odd. The articles appear on their face legit, but I think at least some of them are plagiarised?

For example take a look at this article. It's a long interview that looks to have originally been conducted by a journalist at This Day: (a newspaper with actually significant readership and an enwiki entry). Street Journal looks to have just copied the interview without attribution, but then also copied the first three non-interview paragraphs of the article with some extremely minor changes; for instance they changed "new year" to "2024", leaving behind the gramatically incorrect phrase "At the dawn of the 2024," and also deleted the name of the journalist and instead just said it was a "recent interview".

So it does smell like a content farm, but it does seem odd that a president of an association for journalists that speaks about raising industry standards would be publishing a content farm, so it's definitely strange either way. Endwise (talk) 13:46, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Sean Jackson (basketball)

Does this blog by Jon Solomon count as a WP:RS?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 13:24, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

As it's an interview with Sean Jackson it's reliable in an WP:ABOUTSELF way for the subject talking about themselves, but not for anything related to a third party. If it wasn't an interview the answer would likely be no, as this is self published and they don't appear to meet the requirements of WP:SPS. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:26, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

So I can not use it as a source for "most three-point field goals made per game?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:03, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Even if the source is considered reliable, it was written in 2005, and thus highly questionable as to whether such a record still stands, so it's probably outdated for that purpose (unless the disclaimer "as of 2005" is added to the article). It might be more usable for basic biographical info. Left guide (talk) 07:41, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

In the lead I distinguish between records I can confirm he set and those I can confirm he held at the beginning of this season. If this is a reliable source for the fact that he set the record, I feel it is encyclopedic to include it whether or not we can confirm he still held the record at the beginning of this season.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 10:00, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

No it wouldn't be reliable for that, as that's a remark but the interviewer. It's self-published and Jon Solomon hasn't been previously published as a subject matter expert by other independent reliable sources (per SPS). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:47, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Thx.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:16, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Can Cureus be trusted enough to be used anywhere?

I came about this[45] when a relative posted it as proof mRNA vaccines are dangerous. A PubPeer extension brought up this[46] User:Bon courage then showed me this.[47] Its Wikipedia article is pretty damning. Here is where we use it.[48] Doug Weller talk 14:12, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

It's non MEDLINE-indexed with a curious 'peer-review' process that probably doesn't count as peer review, and a reputation for being a junk journal. Certainly not WP:MEDRS. Bon courage (talk) 14:17, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

If they wish to rely on "post publication peer review", then we should treat everything they post as we would other pre-prints until external reviews can happen. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:55, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

This is odd. Same authors, same argument more or less, but this time published by Sage. Determinants of COVID-19 vaccine-induced myocarditis Doug Weller talk 15:00, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

And this is why MEDRS exists, I wouldn't trust anything authored by Peter A. McCullough. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:27, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Cureus just retracted more than 50 of their publications, and is a predatory journal. They are not a trusted source. Cortador (talk) 07:11, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

And they published a similar paper.[49] Note that one of the three authors at the Sage paper in the journal Therapeutic Advances in Drug Safety is Nicolas Hulscher who is only a student and an intern at his foundation [50] which we don't mention in his article - shouldn't we? I also notice that Peter A. McCullough mentions his Wellness Foundation, but says nothing about it. See Dr. Peter McCullough’s Libertarian Medical Train Makes a Pit Stop in East Palestine (that's in Ohio, the site of the 2023 Ohio train derailment). We have a pretty useless article on the Therapeutic Advances in Drug Safety saying virtually nothing other than it's a journal. It's pretty worrying that Sage would publish this article. Doug Weller talk 13:58, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

With respect to the mRNA vaccines, I don't think we need to worry about whether the journal is a reliable source, because "source" means three things, including the author, and the article on Peter A. McCullough indicates that we should be very doubtful about this author's reliability.

Additionally, the paper would be unusable because it's a primary source trying to debunk secondary sources. We don't need to go beyond that into peer-review territory (e.g., the limitations of using an notoriously uncontrolled, unverified, and incomplete dataset to "prove" anything); we just need to say "Show me the review article".

(@Cortador, retracting papers and issuing corrections is a sign of a [potentially] reliable source. Admitting embarrassing past mistakes is how a periodical develops "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy".) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:09, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

On the more general subject: Sometimes what's useful to science is not what's useful to Wikipedia. Ideas need to circulate in science, and not just among the people who attend the same conference, work in the same building at the same university, or use the same social media channel. A "bad" paper can spark a good idea or be the impetus for good research. For example, the conclusions in this paper are IMO basically useless in a clinical setting, but they might be useful for suggesting that Further research is needed, and perhaps it will inspire someone to do the study properly (e.g., using the electronic health records in Denmark, because population-wide data created by medical professionals is better than VAERS data).

With this context, I would encourage people to think of this less in terms of "a bad journal" and more in terms of "a journal that might not be particularly useful for our own unusual needs". Some fraction of their papers might be fine; for example, I don't see anything in PMID 38288234 (a systematic review conducted according to PRISMA standards) that concerns me. But even though MEDRS permits the occasional, judicious use of primary sources, I doubt that I would want to use a primary source from this journal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:26, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Sometimes what's useful to science is not what's useful to Wikipedia. ← this, a thousand times this. For normal people not familiar with the milieu, scientific publishing can seem like a source for Words of Truth™ rather than the rather messy bazaar of ideas it often is. It's like dogs watching television. Bon courage (talk) 18:51, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm a wee bit concerned that we are partly relying on one of the authors having a Wikipedia article that trashes his reputation. Surely that wouldn't be typical, and so casting doubt on the author of a paper, in general, might be quite hard and straying into a BLP violation territory. -- Colin°^Talk 08:46, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I think the objection to Cureus is to that particular journal's poor reputation. That one particular article has questionable authors (not just McCullough, but also Stephanie Seneff and Steve Kirsch) in a symptom. There is actually quite a nuanced discussion of Cureus embedded in this[51] piece, but Wikipedia editors aren't really in a position to pick winners in a broadly unreliable journal. There are cases when author name alone is enough of a red flag to call an otherwise reliable-seeming publication into question, but it's quite rare. Bon courage (talk) 09:00, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

@Colin BLP violation? Where? Doug Weller talk 10:17, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Editors can't just go around trashing the reputation of random authors of papers. Unless they are long dead, negative comments on talk pages about any living person need to meet BLP requirements, with solid sources fully backing up any remarks, which need to be relevant appropriate etc. WAID said we can dismiss the "source" as having a reliable reputation, as "source" includes the author's reputation. I think that in general, this would be harder than it is here where the authors even have Wikipedia articles that do the trashing for us. -- Colin°^Talk 19:38, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

@Doug Weller, almost every article we have on journals is sourced exclusively to its own website plus some stats from wherever it's indexed. This is because there is an essay/failed proposal that claims a journal is notable if it has ever been indexed by Scopus or other "selective" indices, regardless of whether there is any secondary independent SIGCOV (or coverage at all). We probably have hundreds or even thousands of articles on terrible/predatory/pseudoscience journals where we can only repeat their own self-description because no other sources exist, but since they were indexed by Scopus for one year or whatever they are AfD-proof. JoelleJay (talk) 19:18, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

I just looked at Wikipedia talk:Notability (academic journals). How about restarting the discussion? Doug Weller talk 19:36, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

We had one recently that went nowhere. Efforts to adapt the essay criteria so that they comply with GNG (and NPOV, and OR) are reverted, but then the main editors also refuse to resubmit it as-is as a formal guideline proposal (and threaten sanctions if anyone else tries to do so, because that would be pointy). So we're left with it being cited at AfD as if it was a real guideline (or, when challenged, as if the criteria predicted/corresponded to GNG at all), and since basically no one besides NJOURNALS editors watches that delsort these articles usually get kept, which then creates precedent and the illusion of consensus. I don't have high hopes that a new discussion would be productive. JoelleJay (talk) 20:06, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

@Doug Weller, prime example here. Maybe we should restart a discussion... JoelleJay (talk) 18:54, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

@JoelleJay Well that was unexpectedly unpleasant. But I agree we need a discussion. Doug Weller talk 19:51, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

The Free Press and Amin Husain

Is this article by The Free Press: https://www.thefp.com/p/nyu-prof-tells-students-hamas-atrocities-untrueu a reliable source? Multiple sources supporting the claim of anit-semenism by Amin Husain on his wikipedia page relied on this source. The claims have been removed due to the reliability of the source being questionable and the article falling under blp. GrayStorm^{Talk Contributions} 23:51, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

I would say no, the Free Press is not a reliable source for this subject. Inaccurate publication from the Free Press has been discovered on other politically charged topics. For an example, see this article from Assigned Media (news site founded by Evan Urquhart, a journalist published by Atlantic, Politico, and Slate) about inaccuracies in a medical journalism piece the Free Press ran and seemingly exercised no editorial oversight over despite other newspapers publishing no corroborating findings (and, often, contradictory findings).

Additionally, the founder of the Free Press, Bari Weiss, cast her publication in contrast to trusted, reliable sources like the New York Times and NPR. In Bari Weiss's words: If you’re someone that used to read the New York Times and listen to NPR in the morning, and now you’re thinking to yourself, ‘I don’t know if I can trust what I hear or read there anymore,’ where do you go? (see same linked article) According to Weiss, she wants such readers to turn to the Free Press. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 00:53, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

A bit of time has passed since the last discussion here about The Free Press, and it looks to me like the organization has become a bit less new in that time. It appears to have some editorial oversight (named editors include Weiss and Savodnik), and a November WSJ piece on the news organization seems to indicate a pro-Israel tilt, but also does indicate that there is some editorial process for these sorts of stories. There are also some of those growing pains that come with new media (a former editor of the Detroit Free Press does say that there are situations of underreporting, and that some content can be opinion-y).
As WP:NEWSORG notes, News reporting from well-established news outlets is generally considered to be reliable for statements of fact (though even the most reputable reporting sometimes contains errors). News reporting from less-established outlets is generally considered less reliable for statements of fact. It's been a little over a year since The Free Press was expanded and rebranded, and it's still maturing as a company, but I don't think it's a self-published source by any means.
As it pertains to the specific article, as WP:SOURCEDEF goes, the actual article content, the author, and the publisher all matter. We've discussed the publisher above, and the journalist who wrote the piece seems to have been a breaking news reporter for The Des Moines Register before joining The Free Press. And the content of the piece itself seems to be largely sourced to video recordings of a professor, which seems credible (other media orgs seem to agree that the video is legitimate).
Taken together, yes, the article looks to be reported in detail by a professional journalist by a maturing news organization that exercises editorial oversight. Subsequent reporting by other news organizations seems to corroborate the core details. As such, the particular article looks more likely like a reliable source than not. As for WP:WEIGHT, that's a question for the article's talk page. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 01:18, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand why reliable sources following up on the Free Post article is a bad thing: indeed, WP:USEBYOTHERS tells us that widespread usage of an outlet's reporting without questioning or undermining the reporting is a positive sign of reliability. Several established news sites (some more partisan than others) have cited the FP without comment: [52][53][54][55][56][57][58]. And, similar to WP:USEBYOTHERS, self-published criticism from minor voices should not outweigh credibility given by more established outlets: Assigned Media (AM) appears to be a daily newsletter predominantly written by the founder, Evan Urquhart. No editorial staff is alluded to besides Urquhart whose name is on the Twitter account, spot checking turns up only one other author in the past two months, and one page asks for donations to "support Evan Urquhart's journalism". So, in this case, AM strongly appears to be a self-published blog (or questionable source at best), from an active participant in politically charged topics. --Animalparty! (talk) 03:01, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
Sources in the vein of the New York Post and National Review may be established as you say, but I don't quite see how they fulfill WP:USEBYOTHERS' requirement of uncritical use by accepted and high-quality reliable sources, especially when NYP is listed in the WP:PRS as "Generally unreliable" (NR is "Additional considerations"). P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 06:25, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

You're conveniently ignoring the other sources that use the FP article, and thus implying that all of them are doing journalism wrong while amateur Wikipedians are the real arbiters of reliability (NB: a recent New York Daily News is now also using the FP reporting uncritically. We are addressing the reliability of one news article (not commentary) published by the FP, that has been used and amplified by other sources and not been questioned or found to contain false claims. Personal opinions of the FP carry little to no weight. --Animalparty! (talk) 18:34, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I pointed out the two sources whose inclusion in your list of established news sites I was perplexed by; I didn't express criticism of the rest because I'm not as familiar with them and didn't see them described in the perennial sources list. I haven't articulated a personal opinion of the Free Press; I have brought up criticism from a journalist with a respected career and the Free Press' self-characterization as being opposed to reliable sources like NPR and the New York Times.

If more reliable sources report the information, perhaps those sources should be cited instead of the article published by the Free Press.

I agree with David Gerard's and Sideswipe9th's comments below. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 18:48, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Other users have summed it up better than I can, but my brief 2¢; while I typically take Weiss/The Free Press with a healthy degree of skepticism regarding I-P issues considering her/their pro-Israel bias, this particular instance has video evidence and has been corroborated/followed up upon by enough other sources that it's fairly difficult to dispute. I don't see its use as problematic here, but I'd be very cautious using TFP for other articles in the same area, if not avoid their non-attributed use entirely. The Kip 04:33, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
I would never cite this source for BLP related content. (t · c) buidhe 19:47, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
TheFP was specifically started in opposition to "mainstream" sources, using culture wars buzzwords. It was created not to be "reliable" in any Wikipedia sense, but to feed the opinions of the sort of conspiracy theorist who uses large words spelt correctly. If TheFP ran that the sky was blue, I'd see if I could find an actually-reliable source and cite that instead. Anything that's in TheFP and nowhere else should almost certainly not be used in Wikipedia - David Gerard (talk) 23:24, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Which claims in the FP article on Husain have been found to be false or conspiracy fodder? And the FP is by no means the only source covering the guy, and other news outlets certainly are not ignoring the FP article, as I've demonstrated above. --Animalparty! (talk) 18:34, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

This is a misrepresentation. The FP was not created with the express purpose of being reflexively contrarian on any given issue, as you seem to be implying. Rather, they attempt to focus on issues that have been under-reported or misreported by mainstream outlets, such as youth transgender medicine. Also, they do have an editorial process, so it's not some sort of anything-goes groupblog. Partofthemachine (talk) 03:46, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

To be honest, I'd describe The FP as generally unreliable, at the very least for any content related to trans issue if not everything. I agree with David Gerard that the publication was started in direct opposition to mainstream media sources, using culture war buzzwords. Their current About Us page states outright that they focus on stories that are ignored or misconstrued in the service of an ideological narrative. The problem with this is that they have their own significant ideological narrative that they don't acknowledge that heavily colours their coverage. A rather favourable profile/interview of Weiss by The Times describes The FP as a site as a publisher of principled anti-woke commentary (plus some rote contrarianism and the odd dodgy voice associated with Covid scepticism), which I hope would set off alarm bells for many on the site's overall reliability.
With respect to what Animalparty has said, while I agree that Assigned Media would count as a self-published source and unsuited for use in an article, I do not agree that we can dismiss their report when assessing the reliability of The Free Press. Evan Urquhart has been a journalist for Slate for over a decade, authoring an extensive library of articles on anti-trans propaganda and extremism. If he says that Weiss has been misleading in the content she's published about trans issues, I would be inclined to believe him, especially as he is citing his sources for his criticism of her work. NY Mag's Intelligencer also published an article criticising The FP on the same date as Assigned and corroborates much of what Urquhart states in his article. Jezebel reported that one of the teens mentioned in The FP's article about the St Louis Children's Hospital described much of the piece as false, and that The FP's writer, Emily Yoffe was not interested in hearing their side of the story, only the teen's mother.
I don't know if The FP's content in other areas, like the article raised by GrayStorm above, as those aren't content areas I'm overly familiar with. But with what I've seen while skimming the site, platforming Covid lockdown and masking scepticists and a climate scientist who claimed he "had to leave the full truth" out of his paper to get published, I suspect it won't be. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:15, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Next Shark

Do Next shark considered reliable for citing wikipedia articles? A leading Asian-American publication. Plz reply. Thanks. Arorapriyansh333 (talk) 07:17, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Additional context and details would be great. I'm assuming this refers to nextshark.com. You cross-posted this to Talk:Teresa Teng, so I'm also assuming you wish to use it for Teresa Tang. Is there a specific publication from the site you wish to use? Is there a specific claim or fact you wish to support? Left guide (talk) 14:40, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

This is the article. Look for the bold lines.

[59] Arorapriyansh333 (talk) 06:26, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

I would say it depends on the article. There appears to be articles by reporters,[60] which might be reliable, but then there are articles by 'contributors'. That second lot contain things like; an article with obvious SEO of someone's name in the text[61], another that seems to explain how to be fraud adjacent in your kickstarter pitches[62], and an article by a contributor named "Buy Nizagara 100mg Online - Sildenafil Citrate".[63] So it's apparent they're don't have any editorial oversite on contributor posts, and they should all be considered unreliable. You can see if they are a contributor or a reporter at the end of the article. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:35, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Here's the article. He claims to be senior reporter though.

[64] Arorapriyansh333 (talk) 06:08, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested Arorapriyansh333 (talk) 06:28, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

It should be reliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:27, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

ok thanks Arorapriyansh333 (talk) 14:35, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Qmunicate (magazine)

See 'about us' at https://qmunicatemagazine.com/about-us/ . I am thinking this is more of a blog than a news site. Thoughts from those with more wisdom and experience in these matters? Thanks. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:18, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Nowhere in the "About Us" or "Contact Us" sections are we given any idea who they are, what their ownership or affiliation is, or why we should heed them. --Orange Mike | Talk 02:28, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Nothing at all to suggest reliability. At best, it's a primary source for information about itself. Deb (talk) 09:42, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Kirkus and Publisher's Weekly

Are these sources sufficient on their own to establish notability? see Counterparts (novel) and Acrobat (novel) Elinruby (talk) 15:31, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Why "on their own"? Both articles cite other reviews as well. Schazjmd (talk) 15:41, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

I'll also point out that this noticeboard is for asking about the reliability of sources in context. If there are concerns about notability, that seems like a separate question. I will say that Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly are two of the best-known, best-reputed, and most reliable book review magazines around, heeded and regarded by libraries, booksellers, and book-buyers. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 16:11, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

As the editor is considering taking the article creator to ANI, it may be that the question is targeted at these articles in their original states, one of which used only those two sources, perhaps as part of building a complaint against said editor. The sources listed are certainly reliable for their own reviews, which addresses any matter for this board; notability is more of an AFD question, and even there the answer would be probably but even if not, irrelevant, as (as Schazjmd points out) neither article depends solely on those sources. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 18:06, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for helpful background, @NatGertler. The same question basically was recently asked on the talk for WP:NBOOK. Even that casual conversation shows that editors have different views on using only Kirkus/PW, so it's certainly not compelling evidence of anything for an ANI report. Schazjmd (talk) 18:15, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

I'd say they both count towards WP:N, but per definition they're not enough on their own. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:05, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Last I looked this is not ANI, and if i did take Dream Focus there it would be a CIR for their hostile reaction to getting a contentious topics notification, and WP:IDHT about what it is.

Not for using Kirkus, for crying out loud. I did say I was thinking about it and I still am. After 17 years you should know the rules, or at least ask without going ballistic. Now that we have that out of the way, these articles. One of them has 12 reviews on Amazon. I am not certain that Acrobat was actually printed; it hadn't when the film rights were sold. I think these articles are puff pieces, sure.

But the actual question, getting back to a discussion of content rather than what certain editors might want to claim my motives might be, is whether Kirkus et al are enough for notability. I get that they are reliable for their own reviews Elinruby (talk) 19:05, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

PS @Gråbergs Gråa Sång: thank you that is about what I was thinking

As has been pointed out to you repeatedly, your "actual question" is not one for this noticeboard. Your musings about whether a book was printed are irrelevant (a work need not have been released to be notable, and we do have articles on unreleased works) and inaccurate (as some basic research will show.) You seem to be wasting people's time in trying to discredit certain articles. May I suggest that you move on from that topic? -- Nat Gertler (talk) 20:44, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

WP:NBOOK#1 explicitly mentions reviews as sources which count towards notability. My understanding is that Kirkus and Publisher's Weekly are both reputable sources, so I would expect that at AfD editors would count them as evidence of notability. Of course the only way to know how an article would do at AfD for sure would be to nominate it for deletion. (Getting increasingly far from the question of reliable sourcing which this board is really intended for, proposing a merge is always an option if you think that a stand-alone page should not exist but a deletion request would not succeed.) Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 16:19, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Ok thanks. That wasn't what I asked, but it's useful information Elinruby (talk) 16:37, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

What you asked is mainly a notability-related issue surrounding interpretations of significant coverage and not necessarily a reliability issue, so there's probably better venues than RSN (which deals with reliability of sources in context). Kirkus is clearly stated to be RS per RSP, except for Kirkus Indie reviews (which are paid reviews that are neither independent nor reliable). Likewise, Publishers Weekly is a longstanding review outlet that discloses much of its policies and guidelines for reviews and submissions, and I would consider that as reliable.

The main area of disagreement IMO is whether Kirkus and PW reviews should fully count as "significant coverage" or constitute a full-length review per NBOOK#1. Many editors would consider Kirkus and Publisher's Weekly SIGCOV based upon a benchmark of around 100-words or 1 long paragraph. But other editors have higher bars for SIGCOV and would argue that Kirkus and PW reviews are essentially capsule reviews that are usually much shorter than a full-length review from a newspaper or online literary site. Accordingly, they would argue that Kirkus and PW reviews wouldn't count or only partially count towards notability. My personal experience would be that if you just have a Kirkus and Publishers Weekly as sources, then the article might survive an AfD most of the times (it will probably be kept or get a NC, but again it depends on who weighs in). For the articles you raised, however, they appear to have been edited already to include more reviews. Thanks. VickKiang (talk) 03:08, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

I'd say no, because so many of the reviews are paid. Deb (talk) 09:54, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Studocu

https://www.studocu.com itself claims the contents is contributed by the students, the documents are usually labeled according to the institutions and courses, the institutions has no authority over the contents upload by the users, WP:USERGENERATED. Ong Kai Jin (talk) 13:33, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Random students study notes don't seem like a reliable source, and if it's not UGC it's very UGC adjacent. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:39, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Not reliable. Deb (talk) 09:59, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Broadjam

What's the reliability of BroadJam? ''Flux55'' (talk) 17:28, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi, can you provide more context for this question, as per the heading above? Broadjam seem to be a wide-ranging site for music-related matters. I cannot tell what part of the site you are referring to. Ca ^{talk to me!} 10:13, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

In the draft Emotep (now deleted), the user who created it used Broadjam for info about the band that was the subject of the draft. I'm asking if BroadJam can be used for those purposes. ''Flux55'' (talk) 12:42, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

a question on the history of Dubrovnik

I'd appreciate some input on Talk:Serb-Catholic movement in Dubrovnik#Harris v. V. A. Fine, we have a reasonably complex issue of how to juxtapose citations to books from two modern-day historians, both of which have some documented criticism leveled against them in the respective articles. --Joy (talk) 14:25, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Toby Keith and Spinning Airwaves

Recently, this country music icon died, and USAToday and NBC claim that his debut single was the most-played-on-the-radio country song of the 1990s. That seems okay at first, but see this analysis by @BigFellow1916. No contemporary sources (and neither BMI nor Billboard (magazine)) can be found that have the fact. Rather, it was added into the article in 2009 and with this 2007 source in 2013, which is from CMT, a TV channel dedicated to country music. The fact doesn't surface until the 2020s, so there is reason to believe that an incident of citogenesis happened. Thoughts? Is there precedent that CMT is a very reliable source? Aaron Liu (talk) 21:52, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

I found an article calling the song "One of the most played tracks of the 1990s." but this is a 2024 revamp of a 2017 article, so could not have been the source of the original CMT misinformation or the original wikipedia confusion.

https://www.billboard.com/lists/best-toby-keith-songs/i-wanna-talk-about-me-2001/

BigFellow1916 (talk) 02:38, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

That isn’t contemporary either, so I wouldn’t say that it’s better than the recent NBC or USAToday ones Aaron Liu (talk) 02:59, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

It was literally refreshed today as part of a feature covering his death.

BigFellow1916 (talk) 03:07, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

By contemporary, I mean contemporary to the 1990s or pretty early 2000s. Sorry for the confusion. Aaron Liu (talk) 03:30, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Ah, copy. I see what you're saying I originally thought that but when you compared it to recent ones it through me off.

In my original note I do cite 2 contemporary articles, including the one that was written about the songs '3 million-air' award.

The relevance of the recent article from billboard is that they say "one of the most played" and I would think billboard, of all places, would know if it was in fact "the most played" and would attribute that to the song if true. BigFellow1916 (talk) 05:13, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

celtalks.com

Is celtalks.com a reliable source for dates of birth? See this edit at Shobha Mohan where celtalks.com/celebs/shobha-mohan?ID=14863 is cited as the source (ignore the faulty cite syntax). — Archer1234 (t·c) 03:40, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

No, that is a blog which are deemed unreliable across the project. — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 07:43, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

International Truth and Justice Project

Can the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) be considered a reliable source, in topics related to the Sri Lankan Civil War? Cossde (talk) 12:14, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

They're headed[65] by Yasmin Sooka a leading human rights lawyer; previously of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Frances Harrison; previously of the BBC, Amnesty International and OHCHR. There certainly look reliable, but reliability is about context is there a specific report that is used to source some specific content that this question relates to? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:46, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Agree, it's a reliable source for matters related to human rights. Yasmin Sooka's expertise is in the field of human rights. A discussion has been opened up in the Sri Lanka Reconciliation project page which deals with vetting these sources: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation/Sources#International Truth and Justice Project, Sri Lanka Oz346 (talk) 22:57, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Some concerns I have regarding ITJP are:

Does ITJP meet WP:RS requirements?
- Yasmin Sooka, was a member of the Secretary-General's Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka which presents a conflict of interests given the role of the ITJP. Hence Sooka's role in the ITJP can not be taken as the singular reason to cite ITJP as a RS. Does it meet WP:INDEPENDENT? At best ITJP represents a WP:BIASEDSOURCES. Hence can it be used to uses as the sole source to maintain WP:NPOV of an article?
- ITJP data appears to be highly WP:PRIMARY and has not been verified or confirmed through peer-review.
- Other RS such as mainstream media and organizations have quoted ITJP in limited forms as with the case with any sources of information, falling short of explicitly citing ITJP as a RS.

Cossde (talk) 02:28, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Let me be clear, I am not questioning Sooka's qualifications, I am sure that it has been verified by the UN Secretary-General. However, given the nature of the work her ITJP does in both data collection and litigation; I quote the following from an ITJP press release:

" The International Truth and Justice Project which she heads has focused on the collection and preservation of evidence pertaining to the final phase of Sri Lanka’s civil war in 2008-9 and post-war torture and sexual violence. It holds one of the most important archives of Sri Lankan testimony covering the last decade (400 case files) meticulously assembled by international human rights investigators, prosecutors and barristers who specialise in sexual violence documentation who have worked in international tribunals and courts. In 2017 the ITJP brought a series of universal jurisdiction cases in Latin America against a Sri Lankan General who was Ambassador there, Jagath Jayasuriya. In 2019 the ITJP assisted eleven torture victims to file a case against Gotabaya Rajapaksa in California under the Torture Victims Protection Act. In 2022, it sent a criminal complaint against Mr Rajapaksa to the Attorney General of Singapore after he fled there briefly, escaping anti-government protests in Sri Lanka calling for his removal as President."

In a similar discussion in this forum the WP:PRIMARY nature of the content and that these have been used by ITJP to execute "universal jurisdiction cases". The use of WP:SECONDARY that have cited ITJP, in my opinion fall under the accepted norms of Wikipedia. Cossde (talk) 03:37, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Although this and the previous discussion would both fall under PRIMARY they are not the same. Citing court records is quite different to using the reports of a human rights organisation. That they were used as evidence in a court case, isn't the same as being a court document. The reports from ITJP should be handle with the care outlined by WP:PRIMARY, but that doesn't make them unreliable.
I don't see how being a member of tue Secretary-General's Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka is in any way a conflict of interest, instead it just shows her qualifications in the area. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:55, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested, on the contrary, the Panel of Experts were appointed for their independency and unbiased expert advice to the Secretary-General. Since her role in this panel, she has taken on a more direct engagement related to Sri Lanka by forming the human rights group ITJP that only focus is the Sri Lankan Civil War as oppose to other human rights organisations that operate on a broader scope and have collaborate with Tamil lobby groups such as the Global Tamil Forum. Therefore, I agree that reports from ITJP should be handled with care, given the highly sensitive nature of the topics these are used and per WP:PRIMARY, these should be used when cited or interpreted by a reliable secondary source. Cossde (talk) 05:00, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

So her role as part of the panel caused her to focus more of something she was deeply involved in, that's not a bad thing. Guilt by association with another group is also a weak argument. I see absolutely no reason they can't be used as a primary source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:03, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

User @Cossde has a pattern of disputing the reliability of reports published by established human rights groups, including the reputable UN, when they are cited to highlight the human rights abuses by the Sri Lankan armed forces or the government. This latest attempt at impugning the reputation of Yasmin Sooka by associating her with Tamil lobbying is the same tactic used by the Sri Lankan government but fortunately for her the UK High Court has upheld her reputation against such slander. This to me looks like motivated by Nationalist editing.

As for ITJP only focusing on the Sri Lankan Civil War, actually majority of its reports are about the post-war human rights abuses in the country. The UTHR was similar such organization that operated during the war but unlike ITJP it was led by a handful of local volunteers who by their own admission had no training in journalism nor human rights. Despite that, UTHR has been universally regarded as a reliable source and is used frequently on Wikipedia.

Therefore, I too would regard ITJP as a reliable source as every other party to this discussion both here and elsewhere has done. --- Petextrodon (talk) 20:20, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested, I disagree with you on Sooka's role, however I mentioned before in this thread that I don't her qualifications and that I agree on that ITJP primary source and should be treated with the care outlined by WP:PRIMARY. That said I need to highlight this type of personal attacks by Petextrodon and another anti-SL Government editors who has repeatedly engaged in personal attacks against me [66] and refused to engaged in public discussion when sources they have cited are called out, instead have resorted to personal attacks [67], NPOV rhetoric [68] and stone walling [69], [70], [71] thus making me to take these topics to forums such as these. Cossde (talk) 13:48, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Sorry RSN is only for the discussion of the reliability of sources, and their behaviour doesn't affect how a reliable a source is. If you have problems with other editors WP:Dispute resolution explains how to deal with the situation. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:41, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

As with other advocacy groups… caution is needed. Statements by advocacy groups are WP:PRIMARY sources… certainly reliable for verifying that they take a given stance on an issue, but not necessarily de-facto reliable for the accuracy of the background material used to take that stance. For anything even remotely controversial, We should present their stance with in text attribution - as opinion and not as accepted fact. Blueboar (talk) 16:08, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

I can agree with this.Cossde (talk) 13:01, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

[1] "Social Blade statistics for Coach Red Pill YouTube channel". Social Blade. 2022-04-24. Archived from the original on 2022-04-26. Retrieved 2022-04-24.

[1]

Unreliable source used in article in Mridul Wadhwa

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Knewz's non-aggregated content

Sources in Gonzalo Lira#Career

George Van Driem's Source for Maghrebi Mint Tea History

States Times

Sports Illustrated...

Red Ventures angling to sell CNET(?)

Is Social Blade a reliable source for YouTube statistics?

Foreword Reviews

World Socialist Web Site

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State Times (2)

Schoolshooters.info, and quotations from manifestos that are not noted in secondary sources

History Beat column from the Carmel Pine Cone

Impactus and Learning Mind

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World Journal

Wall of Sound website and possible Promotion

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Geek Girl Authority

Indian Supreme court rulings for archaeological claims regarding Babri Masjid

Editing using unreliable sources

Candles

Henry Gannett

Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor

Example of an exceptional claim not supported by other sources

Article on source now at AfD

DMBAlmanac.com

Podcasts and YouTube videos

reviewit.pk

Yoga Journal as a Reliable Source

Thedebrief.org

ESTNN

Is Chortle reliable

Nigerian sources on paid article

The Street Journal

Sean Jackson (basketball)

Can Cureus be trusted enough to be used anywhere?

The Free Press and Amin Husain

Next Shark

Qmunicate (magazine)

Kirkus and Publisher's Weekly

Studocu

Broadjam

a question on the history of Dubrovnik

Toby Keith and Spinning Airwaves

celtalks.com

International Truth and Justice Project

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