Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 21:37, 11 August 2016

Before posting, check the archives and list of perennial sources for prior discussions. Context is important: supply the source, the article it is used in, and the claim it supports.

Sections older than 5 days archived by lowercase sigmabot III.

Additional notes:

• WP:RSN
• WP:RS/N
• WP:V/N

• RFCs for deprecation, blacklisting, or other classification should not be opened unless the source is widely used and has been repeatedly discussed. Consensus is assessed based on the weight of policy-based arguments.
• While the consensus of several editors can generally be relied upon, answers are not policy.
• This page is not a forum for general discussions unrelated to the reliability of sources.

Age of Consent template: primary vs. secondary sources

The Template:Age of consent pages discussion header states (after clicking on "show"):

In the interest of accuracy and quality it was decided by consensus to hold these pages to a high standard of verification and to avoid ambiguity through the use of prose (not dot points) discussing the relevant statutes, case law or other authorities.

My concern is specifically with case law, which is in the form of the actual judicial opinions (ordinarily rendered by an appellate court), serving to clarify how specific statutes are to be interpreted.

My question is whether the judicial opinion may be cited in preference to an article in a mass media publication, presuming that the judicial opinion (at least if read carefully) can be interpreted without any specialized training? Or is the judicial opinion itself to be avoided because it's a primary source? Fabrickator (talk) 14:07, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

In my experience, judgments require a degree of expertise to read, and we should instead use secondary sources, which explain what the judgments meant. In particular, readers need to distinguish between ratio decidendi and obiter dicta. In a case of breach of contract for example, a judge could say that a minor could not be sued because the age of consent was 18 and then say that applies to any form of consent. But the case would only be a precedent for contract law. Also, a court could decide that there was more than one decisive issue. A minor could for example plead that a oontract was void because it was not properly witnessed and he was too young to enter into a contract. If the court believed both, it would not set a precedent because if it had not been properly witnessed, the plaintiff could not win on appeal, regardless of whether the court was right on the age of majority. TFD (talk) 19:53, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Make sure also to distinguish between age of majority and age of consent as they generally are not the same thing or number.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:43, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

It looks like Template:Age of consent pages discussion header only applies to articles about the Age of consent for sexual activity, so I'm not sure these responses are getting at OP's question. The purpose of the template is to remind editors to only use the highest quality sources since these articles involve laws related to child sexual abuse and this is how it defines high quality sources: "Where writing about legislation or other law, the appropriate statutes and similar must be cited." (my emphasis). But as Fabrickator said, citing the actual legal code can be misleading, either because the wording might be ambiguous or because it differs in important ways from the case law, the actual authority for how the law is interpreted in the US (and plenty of other places, but I can't speak to them). I can think of a lot of potential issues with regularly citing the judicial opinion too though, like it might be hard for editors to determine the most recent, relevant case, especially when there's been more than one ruling about different aspects of the same legislation. Also, some precedents are still on the books that were set in the 1800s, which comes with its own host of problems.

Are there usually academic sources covering the judicial opinion in precedential cases? Because if it's reasonable to expect the majority of these laws will have been covered by academic sources, IMO, those would be the highest quality sources, not the actual statutes or court records. —PermStrump(talk) 21:53, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

TFD ... you say that secondary sources should be used because reading judicial opinions may require expertise, though the same may be said about the statutes themselves, yet the "age of consent" pages (e.g. for United States) liberally cite and quote from statutes. The difficulty of interpreting statutes is at least one reason that appellate courts wind up overturning decisions of lower courts. Requiring secondary sources instead of the statutes themselves is seemingly problematic ... because even if one finds a "reliable" mass media publication that covers this (and attempting to use sources other than mass media has its own problems), the articles in mass media publications simply are unlikely to meet the necessary quality requirements. Now the advantage of judicial opinions (at least in some cases) is that the judge has the opportunity to elaborate, and elaborate they do, because they are not limited to a certain number of column-inches. Fabrickator (talk) 15:39, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

The best sources are legal text books, which meet the test of reliable secondary sources. While it may seem paradoxical, generally statutes do not need expertise, or very much expertise, to be read, since legislators generally do not deliberately write ambiguity into them. But legal precedents become necessary when there is ambiguity in statutes or conflicts between them. If for example the age of consent is one age for males and another for females but it conflicts with a sex equality law, and there is a precedent, then we would want to consult a legal textbook to explain the degree to which the precedent effects interpretationn of the law. Sometimes a series of precedents are required before full clarity is obtained. In a similar situation, the case of D.C. v Heller invalidated a D.C. law on gun ownership. But the degree to which it restricts gun control laws is unknown. On the other hand, we would be fairly safe in most cases in using D.C. statutes as a source for the laws of D.C. If legislation says for example that people cannot keep pet lions without a permit, we can assume that is the law. TFD (talk) 16:09, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

I wonder if the template (specifically the age of consent template, not all legal templates) should be reworded then to say that academic sources should be sought for interpretation of legislation in addition to citing the actual legal code? —PermStrump(talk) 19:26, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

While citing the statutes may work fine for the easy cases, these tend not to be subject to interesting legal appeals. Proposing the use of legal textbooks or academic journals is problematic, IMO, because of the limited access to such sources, assuming that such sources may be presumed to comprehensively cover such things (not having such access, I can't really say whether this is the case). OTOH, states frequently have multiple statutes (or at least multiple sections of the same statute) which interact in ways that may not be apparent to a casual reader. I suppose that what I'm really saying is that quoting statutes within the body of the article is actually counter-productive, because someone attempting to educate themselves on how the law applies is essentially left to use their own wits to figure it out. Misplaced Pages is supposed to be an encyclopedia, which implies the use of sources to provide usable articles, but it by no means implies that the "ideal" article would be comprised largely of a bunch of quotes from cited sources. Fabrickator (talk) 02:27, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Would anybody care to argue (or support) the point that a judicial opinion which has been "approved for publication" (meaning the court has authorized its use for citation in other cases) is not only a reliable source, but unless understanding the pertinent parts of the opinion is beyond the ken of an educated person, a secondary source presuming to interpret the opinion should generally be treated as inferior?

To raise a different question, at least one editor has made statements to the effect that any verifiable source must actually refer to any age-based restrictions on sexual activity using the phrase "age of consent", in order for that to be a suitable source for this page. So a source describing the circumstances under which one may be subject to prosecution for consensual sex under the laws of a state may not be cited in the absence of the phrase "age of consent". I find this to be beyond the pale, that for the purpose of the "age of consent" pages, this phrase has a specialized meaning, and that is the meaning we are seeking on this page, regardless of the precise words used in statutes or other sources. So I'd appreciate any comments that may lead to a consensus on this point. Fabrickator (talk) 02:27, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

What article? Where is that discussion happening? I wanted to read the context before responding. —PermStrump(talk) 09:26, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

On Talk:Ages of consent in the United States, it is asserted that "the 'age of consent' is however the press and the media define it". This same page mentions an article by "Carter" that's in a mass market publication. This is the article I had in mind as being problematic. Specifically, the Carter article gives the impression that a prosecution under Texas statute 43.25 requires that a sexual performance be involved. But the pertinent judicial opinions make it clear that a person can be prosecuted for "inducment of sexual conduct" (of an underage person), thus serving as an example of the need for the "high standard of verification" called for in the template. Fabrickator (talk) 04:27, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Britannica articles

Some of the articles in Encyclopedia Britannica do not have specific authors (such as this one) and instead we see "Written by: The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica" under the title. Are those articles reliable? --Mhhossein (talk) 11:41, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

• In general, yes. See here. That does not mean they are perfect, and Britannica is a tertiary source, but they should be better than most contemporary popular books. If there is more modern scholarship, I'd go with that. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:55, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
• With exceptions. Note the EB online edition includes edits suggested by readers, and does not use the same standards for verifiability that Misplaced Pages uses, and that they have accepted Misplaced Pages as a source for some of the suggestions (personal experience). If there is any doubt at all, find a better/stronger source. That said, a lot of "popular books" now get produced with no vetting of comments about deceased persons as the dead can not be libeled (legal status). IMO, the standards of WP:RS have fallen short of their clear intent. Collect (talk) 15:24, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
• Indeed, I would use Britannica only as a source of last resort. On the other hand, it is quite valuable to determine where NPOV lies in contentious areas. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:37, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
• Frankly, I'd avoid using the EB except for signed articles. Signed articles are the work of acknowledged experts in their fields, & can be safely assumed to be a reliable (although often out-of-date) source. Unsigned articles are created by freelancers who may have no expertise in the subject they are writing, & which after a first editorial review are routinely republished without regard for developments in the relevant field of research. (The EB makes money based on the amount of text it does not revise, so there is an incentive not to revise articles.) Before the 15th edition, many articles were reprinted with few revisions (except to abridge the article in order to make room for new articles on more popular subjects) from either the 11th edition -- or in some cases the 9th, which isn't a problem if you don't mind relying on state-of-the-art research from the 19th century. The overhaul the new format of the 15th edition required a lot of articles to be updated, which did help some, but to say the current version of any unsigned article in the EB reflects the contemporary consensus on its subject cannot withstand serious scrutiny. And sheesh, in this day & age it's not that hard to find a better source than EB on any topic, as long as one has access to a decent library & the Internet. Misplaced Pages would help itself a lot by systematically replacing every cite to EB with one to other reliable sources. -- llywrch (talk) 19:11, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
• Tertiary sources are best avoided except for the most basic information. They do not provide sources and sometimes oversimplify subjects. If there are content disputes where secondary sources provide different accounts, we can resolve them by looking a at the sources they used, determining whether they were correctly cited and seeing whether subsequent scholarship has revised accounts. But we cannot do that with tertiary sources, and could avoid a lot of edit disputes by not using them. TFD (talk) 06:00, 5 August 2016 (UTC)
  • I'm with llywrch. Avoid wherever possible. Likely to be out-of-date and to present only one pov, almost always easy to find a better source. Doug Weller talk 11:44, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Kabali (film) and List of highest-grossing Indian films

Hey all, I'm having some ongoing problems at both Kabali (film) and List of highest-grossing Indian films. Breifly, Indian films are very popular in India, but they're also very prone to promoters bloating box office financials, and Misplaced Pages often gets caught in the middle of these promotional campaigns. List of highest-grossing Indian films was fully protected because a bunch of editors, including auto-confirmed ones who had suddenly come out of retirement, kept changing the box office values to reflect the box office figures a producer, (a primary source) was reporting a few days after the Tamil-language film Kabali was released. The producer claimed the film had grossed 3.2 billion (320 "crore") rupees. No amount of discussion on the talk page was making a difference. Same at Kabali (film), although to a lesser degree.

With that wave of disruption mostly over, a new disruption arose after Financial Express, which is generally considered a reliable source, made claims that the film has grossed 650 crore and higher. However International Business Times, which is also generally considered reliable, has outright called these high estimates "fake", noting that they include income unrelated to the film's box office take. IBT places the more reasonable estimates at 309-350 crore (3.09-3.5 billion rupees) as has First Post, which has said, "More conservative estimates put Kabali’s collections at around Rs 300 crores from worldwide ticket sales." This is obviously less than the 320 crore that the producer was reporting a few days into the film's run.

This talk page comment of mine is a bit of an obnoxious read in response to an IP user's demand for a detailed explanation, but I think it clearly explains the various issues. If anyone is willing to comment at either that discussion, or at Talk:Kabali (film), or at both, that would be appreciated. Or just to add these pages to their watchlists to help address some of the questions would be helpful too. Thanks! Cyphoidbomb (talk) 02:42, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi, the 309-350 crore figure is currently outdated and we now have multiple sources pointing the Domestic collection as "Rs 211 Crore" and International Collection at "Rs 259 Crore", which brings the world wide theater collections at atleast 470 Crores. . Yes, Tamil Nadu government has a cap on ticket sales at Rs 120 per ticket hence the domestic is lesser than the international. Indiatimes, The Financial Express, BoxOfficeCollection-India, Galaxy Reporter and Bollywood Box Office Collection. So i think we can move on from Rs 350 Crore to Rs 470 Crore until a more updated figure is available. Thanks. --Pearll's Sun 03:45, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

pearll's sun - And I don't think we can, since the values that were put out by Financial Express drew skepticism by Firstpost and IBT. They didn't just question the values, they criticized the lack of research behind the values. If other members of the media are criticizing a publication for not doing research, why would you assume that the rest of their report would be factual? When you can find values from established reliable sources that do not originate from Financial Express, then perhaps we can move ahead. But for days now you've been citing the same problematic references, or (as above) citing publications that are referring to these problematic references. As for your inclusion of galaxyreporter and boxofficecollection.in, no dice on those as far as sourcing goes. I'm not even going to look at them. I know from past experiences that these are faceless blogs, which fails WP:UGC. You seem to be a real hurry to update the box office data using the most questionable sources out there, and that is problematic. I've explained several times at Talk:List of highest-grossing Indian films that we have no deadline, but you seem to keep conveniently ignoring it. You also seem to have ignored my points that Indian cinema articles are prone to corrupt inflations. If you were interested in academic integrity, now would be the time to demonstrate that, rather than deciding of your own accord that now's the time to fluff up the disputed box office values. I'm perfectly fine with the compromise of removing the box office data for Kabali entirely from that article and from Kabali (film) until multiple sources report independently of Financial Express what the gross values are, but somehow I strongly doubt you're interested in a compromise. As noted, the only thing we know for sure is that the film has crossed 350 crore. We do not know for sure if the 470 crore estimates are close to what the rest of the film analysts think. I'm proposing caution and circumspection with time determining what value should be used, you're proposing we rush to publish what one periodical thinks, apparently with no regard for whether or not we'd be republishing bullshit marketing hype. Yours is not the sound position. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 04:28, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Cyphoidbomb. Perfect, Why publish a wrong figure or publish a disputed/inflated one? Removing the box office data entirely from the article claiming it to be "disputed" sounds like the best way to keep off false figures from the article. Also when we check google, it seems to reflect wiki and shows a wrong value. But on the "Highest Grossing Indian Films", can we say its around 350 - 470 Crore or 350 - 650 Crore and call it disputed?. Let's not fix a value by ourselves. Thanks. --Pearll's Sun 04:37, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

I would remove the gross from List of highest-grossing Indian films and from the Infobox at Kabali, with the latter maybe pointing to a relevant section in the article that discusses the disparity, maybe with "Disputed, see Box office". An option for the former article might be to present the gross in the form of a range as I previously did, and as you suggested above, but to flag it as disputed with {{disputed inline}}, linking to a relevant discussion on the talk page (see template instructions). I don't have time to do this now, so if you want to handle both, I'll trust your judgement. Whatever you do, you might want to link to this discussion in your edit summary. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 06:01, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

• I'm a bit biased but when real reliable sources say that the 600 and above range is complete rubbish and anonymous blogs are cited as the exact kind of thing that the reliable sources consider quoting the rubbish, using the anonymous blogs as evidence for a mid-level claim. I'd rather keep a week-old citation and then we can figure out whether or not than a poorly sourced recent one. As noted, our policy is that badly sourced information is worse than no information at all and being conservative is better than claiming things like "this moves from the 14th highest Indian film gross of all time to 6th" and possibly retracting that entire claim. This is no small claim. Just to make sure it's clear, a number that is literally tens of millions of dollars more as we are moving from 350 crore (about $52.6 million) to 470 crore ($70.6 million). A difference of 120 crore which is equivalent to $18 million or basically what the third US box office results were in their entirety this weekend. I know one huge problem is that the Indian film task force has not really analyzed these websites (in part because a new one seems to pop up every few months) and we tend to take the "accept it unless evidence is to the contrary" approach instead of WP:BURDEN the reverse. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:05, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Ricky81682, thanks for your comments. IBT's latest from 9 August 2016 is casting some shade on some of the broken record claims. They also wrote: ""Kabali" has collected more than Rs. 300 crore at the global box office in 17 days and its current pace shows it will not be able to surpass the Rs. 500 crore mark in its life time." It's somewhat noteworthy that the milestone they mention is 300 crore, not 400 crore. Though I have no evidence to support it, the Financial Express pieces read more like press releases than articles. Knowing that the Kabali producer was claiming 320 crore gross a few days into release, which was not supported by independent sources, it would not surprise me if his people had flooded Financial Express with a puff piece and they reprinted it without fact-checking, which is kinda what IBT suggested when they mocked the unnamed publication for printing claims of up to 675 crore. Needless to say, other sources hungrily reprinted the nonsensical claims without any effort of fact-checking, because hey, it brings in clicks. In the discussion above with pearll's sun I recommended presenting the data in the form of a range. It's one way to go and I would typically endorse that for minor disputes, but I really don't know how much Financial Express can be trusted on this. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 19:28, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Cyphoidbomb Yes, IBT says it has collected over 200 Crores in India. But again we need to see which are the most trustable sources. For me all the popular Indian news media are a trustable source and IBT is new one as only post Kabali reports i learned about this news agency.

1: India Times - 1 week back - 211 Cr Domestic + 259 Cr Overseas = 470-500 Cr Overall. 2: FilmiBeat - 2 dys back - 211 Cr Domestic + 259 Cr Overseas = 470-500 Cr Overall. 3: India Today - Film producer claims film earned 320 Cr in 6 dys in Tamilnadu there is a Cap on ticket sales at Rs 120 whereas and theaters sold the tickets at 10 times the price which does not happen otherwise in TN which is illegal, now the question is if the quoted price from IBT could be at Rs 120 per ticket and Producers claim could be the other one. 4: Financial Times - 1 week back - 211 Cr Domestic + 259 Cr Overseas = 470-500 Cr Overall 5: Domestic collection at over 200 Crore - BoxOfficeCollection-India And we have 6: IBT that keeps publishing same collection report for past 1 week.

Now which one to choose? I too second in Ricky81682 comment that "badly sourced information is worse than no information at all". Do we have any option (an e.g. from any article) to place a value such as "350 Cr to 700 Cr" with a tag "Disputed"? or simply remove the value and place "Disputed - See Box Office report within article"? --Pearll's Sun 14:15, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

IBT is not a "new" source. It's been around for years and is widely considered reliable by the Indian cinema task force at Misplaced Pages. Per your points:

1. The India Times reference you keep bringing up cites Financial Times as the source of the info. That's not an independent confirmation, so it doesn't count as an additional source. It is not constructive to keep bringing it up as though it were a unique source reporting its unique findings.
2. There's also no indication that Filmibeat is considered a reliable source by the WP:ICTF. On the contrary, the community appears to dislike Filmibeat/Oneindia as a reference.
3. The Indiatoday source you bring up cites the producer as the source of the financials. We don't use primary sources for controversial data. Obviously the producer has a financial interest in inflating the box office claims. I don't know exactly what point you're trying to make about the ticket scalping, but why would it matter if we're going to discount what the producer claims anyway?
4. Yes, we are aware of the Financial Express claim.
5. There's no indication that Boxofficecollection.in is anything more than a blog, or that it is in any way considered a reliable source by WP:ICTF. Useless for our purposes.
6. Yes, we are aware of IBT's adherence to a value <400 crore. Does it occur to you that this is because IBT doesn't believe the film crossed 400 crore? Like here where they mention crossing 300 crore, but not 400 crore?

Your suggestion that we list the top-end estimate at 700 crore is ludicrous. You couldn't possibly believe that 700 crore is a reasonable top end, since not even the poorest of the sources you've provided has claimed that Kabali grossed 700 crore at the box office. I genuinely don't understand your reluctance to wait a couple of weeks until the chaos subsides. It is not inaccurate to say definitively that the film crossed 350 crore. What is inaccurate is to say definitively that the film crossed 400 and 500 crore. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:56, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

24 heures and 20 minutes

Dear editors: I am working on a draft, Draft:Balelec Festival. A lot of the references that I am finding are from 24 heures and 20 minutes. Are these reliable independent sources? My French is not very good. I asked at Wikiproject Festivals, but received no reply.—Anne Delong (talk) 07:59, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

At first glance, 24hueres seems reliable but 20mn does not however, I don't speak French so additional feedback is needed. Meatsgains (talk) 17:34, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

I would agree with your assessment of 24 heures. It is an established newspaper with a long history and the highest (paid) circulation in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. See 24 heures (Switzerland). 20 minutes is a free newspaper 20 minutes (Switzerland) that is owned by the same company, Tamedia. Per the German wikipedia, 20 minutes publishes "sponsored content", but identifies it as such. For the article on the Balelec festival, both sources can be considered reliable IMO. Mduvekot (talk) 17:58, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Meatsgains and Mduvekot. Assured that the draft has some reliable sources, I've moved it to mainspace.—Anne Delong (talk) 13:35, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Vision Forum

Vision Forum is a religious organization that closed after its leader resigned in a scandal. The Vision Forum website used to host a lot of information, but it's now just a single web page with a few posts about the resignation. When it was up and functioning, one page on the site explained the basic tenets of something called Biblical patriarchy. That info is no longer on the page. But a Christian blog has posted a .pdf of the page, obtained through the Internet Archive's Way Back Machine. One editor replaced the no-longer-useful link with a link to the .pdf. Another deleted it, saying "blog sourced is the same as unsourced". So now we're back to using the old link, tagged as unverified. Here's the diff.

In my view, the .pdf source, as an archive of the original page, is reliable source for the tenets of Vision Forum. But I'm not sure enough of the matter to revert. Other opinions would be welcome. There's a thread on the Vision Forum talk page. Thanks. David in DC (talk) 16:19, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

If it was indexed by archive.org, why don't we use that? Am I missing something here? NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 16:39, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm embarrassed to say that I do not know how to link directly to archive.org. I was pretty impressed that my colleague found the .pdf on the 3rd party site. If you know how to link directly to the archive.org page that backs this up, I'd be much obliged if you'd insert it. I promise to review it and, the next time I go this route, I'll follow your model. David in DC (talk) 16:56, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

I tried it, and I ran into ye old robots.txt problem (apparently, if a sites robots.txt says that the information is not to be duplicated, archive.org will assume that archiving it is illegal, and retroactively apply that to older versions of the page, as well). Sorry. I tried google's cache, too, but all I could get was a cached version of that same blog-post pdf. Honestly, if you can convince the other editors to permit it, then it would be fine (WP is ruled by consensus), because there's no real reason to believe the blog would have altered the original before making the pdf. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:14, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, it's always a drag when you get that. Well, I did a search on Google Books, and there was a surprising amount of coverage. I couldn't find one that explicitly listed all the principles, but there were a few that briefly summarized them. If the consensus is to reject the blog source, maybe one of those books could be used. The search string I used was "The Tenets of Biblical Patriarchy". NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 03:10, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Oscholars.com

Count de Mauny uses this site as a source for a number of claims. The actual source, however, appears to be "Count De Mauny: Friend of Royalty by Seweryn Chomet . Published by "Newman-Hemisphere".

That publisher appears to have published a total of two books both by the same author. Is such a book (which I rather think is self-published, as most actual publishers do not issue a total of two books, each of them by the same author), a "reliable source" for the biography where it is used?

The prose in that biography appears a tad florid, but use of an SPS seems, to me, to be a problem here. Collect (talk) 18:05, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

There's almost nothing on Worldcat.org for Newman-Hemisphere, but Google Books has some hits. Seweryn Chomet has a Misplaced Pages article, but it's mostly unsourced. According to our biography, Chomet mostly translated Russian scientific journals to English, which might explain why it's difficult to dig up information on the publisher. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 02:08, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

ESPN article

Is this article from ESPN considered a reliable source or an op-ed?--Prisencolin (talk) 23:55, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

"Sports columns" are an area where fact and opinion meld, and have been so since before Bat Masterson was a sportswriter. As far as I know, no one has ever been able to divorce the two pieces. Best to take anything which remotely looks like opinion and to treat it as such even in an ostensible "news" article. Collect (talk) 12:45, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

citizenwells.net

In Suicide of Vince Foster#Allegations_of_cover-up_by_lead_investigator there are two sources to support a claim that concern me:

• wnd.com - known not to be a WP:RS
• citizenwells.net - first time I recall this site being used as a source. Looking at the article used as a source, it quotes wnd.com, which makes me doubt its' reliability and a few clicks led to this piece questioning President Obamas' birth cert.

There appear to be no discussions of citizenwells.net in the noticeboard yet, but I presume I'm OK to assume it's not a reliable source? Autarch (talk) 21:37, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

They are both terrible, plainly unreliable sources that should be removed on sight. Neutrality 01:58, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for confirming my suspicion - I've removed the whole section as it mostly relied on them - the only WP:RS was used to confirm that the person quoted had held a position - all quotes attributed to him were based on unreliable sources. Autarch (talk) 17:06, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Maya

There is a discussion, or rather close to an edit war, on Talk:Maya_(illusion) whether etymology of the Sanskrit word maya can be sourced to a sociology/philosophy book by some Pintchman. One editor, Ms Sarah Welch, keeps inserting the reference, arguing that since Pintchman is currently a professor and the book is published, it can be used on Misplaced Pages, and by removing the reference I "attack professors". While I argue that Pintchman's book is on sociology - precisely, on certain religious concepts in Hinduism - and not on linguistics; Pintchman is a professor of religious studies who in her own admission learned the Sanskrit language barely for 2.5 years; she only mentions the etymology en passant, when proposing a theory of a Hindu Goddess, in this WP:PRIMARY publication; and a reference to another book proposing this etymology (by Jan Gonda) is sufficient on Misplaced Pages. However, my argument seems to fall on deaf ears.

The discussion also takes place in a wider context, perhaps less relevant to this noticeboard, of existing teories on the etymology of the word maya (well, that's not a terribly wide context). Ms Sarah Welch keeps highlighting (not to say, promoting) original theories of religion by Jan Gonda (not a linguist, either - but in Hindu traditions, language and religion are strongly interconnected); whilst I try to present existing theories equally and list them in chronological order in the article. Unfortunately, because anonther editor apparently totally unfanmiliar with the subject of Indian studies (RexxS) has joined in doing reverts and attacking me, I decided to ask for a third opinion on sourcing. Thanks for any remarks you may have. — kashmiri  06:34, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

In the above submission on RSN, @Kashmiri has questioned the competence/behavior of @RexxS and me, but not provided the link to the source whose reliability apparently in question. Here it is: Pintchman's book (pages 3-4). It was published by State University of New York Press. This specific book has been reviewed by scholars in peer reviewed journals, such as:

David Gordon White (1996), The Journal of the American Oriental Society, 116(2), pp. 356-358;

Lou Ratté (1997), International Journal of Hindu Studies, 1(1), pp. 211-213.

David Gordon White in his review writes, "Tracy Pintchman (...) fills a long-standing gap in Western writing and research on the Goddess, (...) in special relation to the three cosmic principles of prakrti, maya, and sakti. This work will no doubt become the reference work on the subject, as well as a useful tool for teaching on undergraduate and graduate levels." Lou Ratté review is similarly positive, and mentions Pintchman's discussion of "prakrti, maya, and sakti". Pintchman is a professor in the subject, and she is respected in the field of Hinduism/Indian religions as these reviews suggest. Based on a combination of all this, I respectfully submit that the source is reliable, a secondary source on maya-related etymology/terminology context, as it is being used in the article (Maya (illusion)). I further submit that a read of the book amply show that @Kashmiri is falsely alleging the nature of the book, like much else.

This is not a new issue. In January 2016, @Kashmiri questioned, then attacked the "competence and speculations" of Jan Gonda with "can't even believe a scholar of Sanskrit would have published such a thing". @Kashmiri then argued Gonda is a sole/primary source, and we need more sources to establish this is mainstream view, is now flipflop lecturing above that "another book proposing this etymology (by Jan Gonda) is sufficient on Misplaced Pages". As in months gone by, now @Kashmiri is lecturing @RexxS about WP:Primary again. This is not a reliable sources issue, it feels more like a behavioral issue on @Kashmiri's part, persistent disruption through deletion of content and scholarly sources, and WP:TE since January 2016 despite comments and cautions by editors and an admin, other than @RexxS and me on this (see edit history here and here). Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 10:39, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

A couple of things - yes, generally you do need more than one source to establish a 'mainstream' view, otherwise it is just one (reliable or not no comment) person's opinion. If there are dissenting/different views, then again more sources are required to establish what the mainstream is. If there are no dissenting or no other sources, then it should be presented as the opinion of the expert rather than 'this is the definitive answer'. Secondly - I would not use a non-linguistics expert as a source to verify a words etymology - where other sources are available from linguistic experts. If there are no dissenting or better sources available, then you work with what you have. I would say from looking at the diffs back and forth, this does seem to be an area where there is disagreement. It is not great to have in an encyclopedia article 'Maya is probably...' when there are multiple theories RE the origin. (Saying the above, from looking at Jan Gonda's article, I cannot see why they would not be considered qualified enough to have an opinion and be referenced on the subject, but I can see the argument behind Pintchman) Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:03, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

@Only in death does duty end: Jan Gonda is known for his linguistics work. Tracy Pintchman reviews and states the past scholarship on Maya-related etymology-terminology among other things, on pages 3-4 (her publication is an example that Gonda's study is accepted by other scholars). That section of the article has multiple sources. I agree, we should retain the multiple sources, not delete them. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 11:34, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

@Only in death: Thanks for your balanced view. Let me point out that Ms Sarah Welch has shamelessly manipulated my words - where I asserted that "I can't even believe a scholar of Sanskrit would have published such a thing", I was absolutely correct - this was about a (linguistically absurd) idea that maya is a combination of two verbal roots ma + ya, which Ms Welch attributed to Gonda and defended fiercely but which, as it turned out, wasn't actually even mentioned in Gonda's book. Reluctantly and after lots of fighting, Ms Welch allowed the statement to be removed from the article, as you can see now. To be fair to her, as a former Sanskrit scholar, I am more than familiar with a belief among many newbies to ancient Indian literature that whatever is printed is holy, is sacred and should be revered much like the Vedas.

For a similar reason, I removed Zimmer's primary study that Ms Welch tried to add as a source to whatever, seemingly forgetting about WP:BRD that she earlier kept repeating ad nauseam. I do not see any value that this work from the philosophy of language could add to the Etymology section (which should, or must, adopt linguistical approach and not a philosophical one); while of course it may be cited in other parts of the article. Hope this clarifies, although I admit I grew tired of Ms Welch's attacks. — kashmiri  20:55, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

There is a notice at the top of this page: Please focus your attention on the reliability of a source. This is not the place to discuss other issues, such as editor conduct. Please see dispute resolution for issues other than reliability. If you have nothing to say about the reliability of the source, then please stfu. Take your attacks on other editors elsewhere; they don't belong here. --RexxS (talk) 21:29, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

The article Maya (illusion) currently has a section Etymology and terminology. The present article contains references to half-a-dozen different opinions on the etymology of the word. The sources include two books published by State University of New York Press and two published by Motilal Banarsidass, all of which Kashmiri is trying to remove from the article. The purpose of this notice board is to garner other opinions on whether a particular source is a reliable source in a given context. The source in question that opinions are sought on is:

• Tracy Pintchman (1994), The Rise of the Goddess in the Hindu Tradition, State University of New York Press, ISBN 978-0791421123, pages 3-4;

for the statement "Māyā (Sanskrit: माया) is a word with unclear etymology, probably comes from the root mā". So is it a WP:Reliable source? according to WP:NOR ("In general, the most reliable sources are: Peer-reviewed journals; Books published by university presses; University-level textbooks; Magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and Mainstream newspapers."), it is.

@Only in death: If others also wish to offer their opinions of whether the source should be included or not, per WP:DUE, then please consider WP:NPOV "All encyclopedic content on Misplaced Pages must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." There are another three sources that also support Pintchman's view:

• Jan Gonda, Four studies in the language of the Veda, Disputationes Rheno-Traiectinae (1959), pages 119-188
• Donald Braue (2006), Maya in Radhakrishnan's Thought: Six Meanings other than Illusion, Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 978-8120822979, page 101, Quote: "Etymologically, the term māyā is derived from the Sanskrit verbal root mā (...) Whitney says the primary meaning of √mā is 'to measure'. L Thomas O'Neil agrees in his helpful exposition of the ways and contexts in which māyā is used in the Rigvedic tradition."
• Adrian Snodgrass (1992). The Symbolism of the Stupa. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 29. ISBN 978-81-208-0781-5. Quote: The word māyā comes from the same root mā, "to measure", as does mātra, "measure", which in turn is etymologically linked to the Latin materia, from which our word "matter" derives. Materia not only relates to mater, "mother" and to matrix, but also to metiri, "to measure, to lay out (a place)", (...)

I believe that anyone reading the current section Maya (illusion) #Etymology and terminology is "representing fairly, proportionately, and ... without editorial bias ... the significant views that have been published by reliable sources" as required by our policy. --RexxS (talk) 15:11, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

The way this issue has been brought here leaves much to be desired. @Kashmiri: you needed to read and follow the directions at the top. This is not a dispute resolution venue, but rather a venue to get opinions of uninvolved editors on sources. In particular, conduct issues do not concern us.

The only question that seems to concern this board is whether the Pintchman source should be included. I think there is no harm in including it, because it says that maya derives from ma (to measure) and so provides support for this derivation. This doesn't immediately clinch the issue, but it shows that this derivation has found favour among scholars. Whether Pintchman is a linguist or not doesn't matter much, because she is a secondary source here, and it is all the better if she is not a specialist.

More broadly, looking at this edit, the difference between the old and the new versions seems rather slight. So, I think that, if you discuss with cooler heads, you should be able to find agreement quite easily. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:34, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Kautilya3, I also think that finding agreement ought not be difficult. As I see it, this noticeboard should be able to tell us whether the Pintchman source is reliable or not, and (if required) the Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard can judge whether the source should be included in the article. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 21:54, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: Thanks. (1) I can't agree with terming Pintchman's work as a secondary source. Pintchman's book is absolutely and undoubtedly a PRIMARY source as it consists nearly uniquely of her own research. The book is not just a summary of other people's work, it is not a compendium-type publication nor a Review type academic paper. Same to Zimmer's qouted work. (2) Because it is not a secondary source and Pintchman is NOT a linguist nor an authority on Sanskrit or the Protoindoeuropean language, she should not be referred to in the Etymology section. She lists her specialities in her CV linked above, please feel free to verify that "Sanskrit scholar" or "linguist" are not among them. So, Pintchman's book just happen to mention such an ethymology (without quoting a source btw) because it fits her philosophical idea and not because she studied extensively the origins of Sanskrit or PIE words. — kashmiri  22:10, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

@Kashmiri: please note that WP:SECONDARY tells you: A source may be considered primary for one statement but secondary for a different one, and sources can contain both primary and secondary source material for the same statement. For the matter under discussion, the derivation of maya, it is a secondary source because Pintchman is not stating her own view, but rather the received view. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:39, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

It's also important to realise that a book published by a major publisher carries the weight of editorial oversight and the peer-review process. Its reliability does not merely rest on the author. In this case, the publisher is SUNY Press, which is one of the larger university presses, and publishes its Manuscript Review Process, including its peer-review process.--RexxS (talk) 23:25, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

TeleSur English

Source: TeleSur English (Elliott Gabriel, Ways Jill Stein's VP Pick Will Shake US Politics Beyond 2016, August 2, 2016)

Article: Ajamu Baraka

Content: TeleSur writer Elliot Gabriel said: "e is an accomplished Black scholar, professor, and human rights advocate who has tirelessly fought for the rights of working people in the United States and throughout the world."

TeleSur is a Venezuelan state-run news agency usually identified as Bolivarian propaganda by scholars and media. (See, e.g., here (piece by Council on Foreign Relations international affairs fellow focused on Venezuela describing it as such). Even those sympathetic to the Venezuelan government identify it as such (see, e.g., p. 29 of this book in which Nikolas Kozloff quotes Gregory Wilpert as saying that Telesur has a "widely-acknowledged reputation for being a vehicle for Chávez-funded propaganda").

Given all this, I do not think it is a properly reliable source for this (laudatory) statement about an individual. I welcome input. Neutrality 15:01, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

disagree, given that the article has been claimed to be OK for citation concerning "negative" elements. User talk:Neutrality is reacting to the fact that a user requested the deletion of an article he added from Politico (owned by the son of Texas billionaire Joe Allbritton), which contained one and only one sentence about Ajamu Baraka portraying him dismissively. Cf. The TeleSUR page to understand the origin of the network as an attempt to counter the oligarchic concentration of Latin American media... also note that User talk:Neutrality has not objected to the original selective quotation from the Telesur article (3 words from a long sentence) to make Baraka look bad. My personal decision was to delete both articles, as neither contributes in a particularly useful manner to the article in question, but the complainant decided to revert his citation without reverting the counterbalancing one. SashiRolls (talk) 15:32, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Politico is financially and editorially independent of the government. "Telesur" is not. There is no meaningful comparison between the two. You may dislike Politico, but it is not comparable to propaganda in thesense that TeleSur is.

As for the other use of Telsur (which is apparently no longer in the article, I haven't looked at it). It appears that the other use is a direct quote from the subject of the article, whereas this statement is an absolutely laudatory quote that serves no purpose other than to heap praise on the article's subject. I think you're clouding the issue somewhat here. Neutrality 15:49, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

There was indeed an error in attribution, the Politico article was being cited for content coming from Telesur. Probably a cut and paste error due to the repeated deletions and reverts. It is corrected. I am merely exposing a contrary point of view to your own, I am not trying to cloud any issue, but would be fairly surprised should we suddenly decide that an innocuous statement such as the one above should be censored because someone doesn't agree with the politics of the source publication. If it is, as I've already pointed out, there are any number of similar citations which could be added (since Baraka is a highly respected individual, having received numerous honors for his human-rights work). However, it seems to me that there is a certain amount of bullying going on here to force acceptance of a free-lance writer's personal attack (from Politico) into the biography of a living person, despite the fact that 3 people have argued that it is not a particularly useful reference (two on the talk page, one by originally deleting it). Your objections to this user's deletion of your content are the source of this contention, as you know. SashiRolls (talk) 16:05, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

• Exactly as User:Neutrality states, this is government propaganda arm, not an editorially independent news source. NYTimes: .E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:29, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

genealogy.euweb.cz and geneall.net

This topic was brushed upon in the arrived section Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_175#Judgepedia

This recent edit by user:Aldebaran69 (at 22:04, 7 August 2016) introduced a retrospective inline citation to http://genealogy.euweb.cz/stuart/stuart8.html to replace {{citation needed|date=August 2016|reason=ODNB does not list any of the children}}, in James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick.

I do not think http://genealogy.euweb.cz/ is a reliable source. Does anyone think that it is and if so how does it meet the requirements of WP:V?

The edit also introduced a second retrospective citation to http://geneall.net/en/name/4480/james-fitzjames-1st-duke-of-berwick/ I don not think that http://geneall.net/en/ is reliable website. Does anyone think it is, and if so how does it meet the requirements of WP:V?

-- PBS (talk) 19:05, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Song review

I would appreciate input on a discussion at Talk:Blink of an Eye (Tori Kelly song).

One editor says PopCrush is not reliable. The other says it's the author, not the website, to whom reliability applies.

Thanks in advance. —ATS 🖖 Talk 18:59, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

TVTropes

I've noticed that there are here that use TV Tropes for citations and as external links on a couple of pages (such as Chewbacca defense and space pirate).

I find that a bit worrying, seeing that it's a site that's mainly edited by non-experts. I've been editing there for years, and I've never heard of any notable writers or media experts editing there, meaning that there's likely a lot of misinformation on the site, especially with the light moderation (I spot errors on pretty much every page I visit on the site). There's also the problem that the content changes regularly, right down to pages being deleted outright. I was also under the impression that wikis shouldn't be used as sources anyway, unless the info is official in some way or related to the wiki itself. I know that user-edited sites like Metal Archives are never used, so it would be strange to allow a site with even lower moderation standards.

I'm wondering if such links should be removed, even if there are no other linked sources supporting a statement (the life partner page, for example, only has a TV Tropes link about it's portrayal in media). I'd be happy to remove those references myself if I get the go-ahead. SonOfPlisskin (talk) 01:18, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

It can be fine as an external link if the articles cover the same thing, but WP:USERG disqualifies it as a source from the beginning. Ian.thomson (talk) 01:23, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I've seen similar sources removed as external links, and the Misplaced Pages:External links page says that "sites that fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources" can be considered (emphasis mine). I'm not sure I'd say TV Tropes is full of knowledgeable contributors, though I guess it's a bit subjective, so if people say the external links can stay, I won't argue.
But, what about as a citation source for statements. For example, on the Somebody_to_Love_(Queen_song) page, it's used as a source for this: "Serious consideration was even given to having George Michael take over as full-time lead singer of Queen." My first instinct is to replace links where it's used as a source with "" (or find better links for topics I care about). SonOfPlisskin (talk) 01:51, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, it technically doesn't meet WP:EL, but trying to keep it off the site doesn't seem to be a battle worth fighting (to me at least). Ian.thomson (talk) 16:12, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• I love tvtropes.com. I have been known to waste hours browsing through, reading examples of different tropes. That being said, it should NEVER be used as a source. The vast majority of the tropes listed there were named and defined by the site, the moderation is hit-or-miss at best, and many of the examples either barely qualify as examples of the given trope, or descend into one of that site's ubiquitous arguments over whether a trope was played straight, subverted, deconstructed or had a lampshade hung on it. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:43, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Note: I'm with Ian.thomson on policing the site as an EL: It's not worth the effort to keep it off wiki. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:08, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• I had to cut myself off cold turkey because if I click on TV tropes in my google search results, I was wasting more time there reading related tropes than I do clicking internal links in WP articles. We should try to protect WP readers from additional rabbitholes. But seriously, it's not RS and it's not ok for external links. In reference to Ian.thomson's "doesn't seem to be a battle worth fighting" with a link to IAR, I don't think anyone necessarily needs to specifically look for all of the ELs to TVTropes and delete them all at once (unless they want to), but I don't think the attitude should be "it's fine, IAR" either. If I come across it as a source I'm going to tag it as {{user-generated inline}} or delete it and tag it with {{citation needed}}, depending on how contentious/dubious the statement is I guess, or if it's an in External links sections, I'm going to delete them with the edit summary "WP:ELNO: Not a reliable source", as I think other editors should when they come across it. —PermStrump(talk) 17:13, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

The Hollywood Gossip

I was wondering if this site would be considered a reliable source that could help establish notability. The source in question is an interview, which I know some consider to be a primary source. However my main question is whether or not the site itself would be considered reliable. It gives off strong blog overtones and I don't see anything about an editorial process offhand. Their parent company, Mediavine doesn't outright say that it'll sell articles as part of a marketing package, but at times it gives off the impression that they might. This was previously brought up here, but there was never anything concretely said about the page.

My gut reaction is that it's like Perez Hilton, meaning that it's a tabloid type of blog site that we can't use as a RS. It's one of several questionable sources used in an AfC submission that I'm in the process of declining, so I thought that it'd be good to at least ask about this here in case it can be used. I do see where it's used elsewhere on Misplaced Pages, but then that's not automatically a guarantee that it's a reliable source. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:57, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Your gut reaction is quite right; this is a Perez Hilton-like gossip rag and in no way reliable. We shouldn't use it in any articles. Snuggums (talk / edits) 13:39, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the site, but as far as an interview, do you think it would be reliable for the interviewees statements about him/herself kind of like WP:BLPSELFPUB? Like, do they have a reputation for being so unreliable that they're fabricating interviews? Even if it could sometimes be used for a BLP's claims about him/herself, I guess it doesn't count towards notability because I can't imagine a scenario where that site could contribute to writing a neutral article based primarily on reliable, third-party sources, even if it could be used as a supplemental source in very limited cases once notability was already established. —PermStrump(talk) 17:26, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Prabook as user-generated content

I have cleaned up three or four articles using Prabook already but there are ca. 200 of them. Can I please have explicit confirmation that this is user-generated content and not reliable? If I get that then I may try to work out where to ask about a filter/blacklist for future attempted uses.

BTW, someone did raise this previously in relation to a specific article and, as on that occasion, I suspect Misplaced Pages scraping may have gone on in the examples that I have looked at so far. Thanks. - Sitush (talk) 08:33, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

FWIW, most of the content on Prabook seems to come from the scraping of various, sometimes decades-old Who's Who-type books. Usually a suitable Google Books search will find the original source of the data. Where such can't be found, the data should not be used. And Prabook should never be referenced. But it's just a drop in the bucket, as Wikipedians aren't going to stop citing (or using without even citing) random websites of no authority whatsoever. Mewulwe (talk) 14:06, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

WalterKoenigSite.com

Walter Koenig includes an odd/ambiguous/confusing/probably-ungrammatical statement that "Koenig's parents were Russian Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union; his family lived in Lithuania when they emigrated" ("emigrated" to the United States? Koenig himself was apparently born in the US in 1936, before Lithuania was incorporated into the Soviet Union; were they originally from Russia and then moved to Lithuania and then moved to the US?).

I checked the source to see if it was clearer, and it led to an "Under construction. Coming soon." page. It seems just about every page of that "official" website is currently empty. It also looks ... well, not very official. It looks like a fan site, and the URL made me want to find out what was on WalterKoenig.com, which looks equally dodgy. Does the subject even have an official website?

More to the point, is there a way of verifying or falsifying my suspicion that these are both just fan-sites/domain-squatters posing as officially-endorsed sites?

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:35, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

... and then I saw that the home page looks like this. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:36, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Walter Koenig has an official twitter account, maybe an editor with a twitter account (not me, nope nope nope) could ask him if that's his official site, as it claims to be. If so, then that would make it a primary source (one would assume that he's not maintaining it himself, but that he still maintains editorial control over its contents). MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:38, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Can't help with twitter, anyone else? This is totally anecdotal, but in my personal experience, people in the US with relatives from countries that were part of the former USSR or Austro-Hungary Empire, etc. might get the historical names of places wrong when talking about their own family (myself included), so I don't think that (or the misuse of immigrate/emigrate) necessarily mean anything about who's running the site. I think it should be verified in any case if it's going to be used as a source, but even if it's his site, it might be a good idea to look for that information elsewhere since regardless of who wrote it, that person probably isn't a reliable source for that particular information. FWIW according to the Lithuania article, it was part of the Russian Empire until WWI, after which it was briefly independent until WWII when it was occupied by the USSR (and Nazi Germany then USSR again). The borders and country names in that region changed so many times in a short time period, so it's understandable that people have a hard time describing their own ancestry. —PermStrump(talk) 17:59, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

The Page "David Packouz"

Concerning the page David Packouz (tied with the War Dogs movie). There have been some recent edits to Mr Packouz's page that are extremely disturbing, and the page is becoming very self-promotional. The page for this individual is also poorly written, as general. The sources also do not claim what they say they do - for instance, see source , which does not mention "entrepreneur" nor "inventor". Source does not mention music technology. The entire article reads like an advertisement. Please read through the page which is not very long and discuss as to the best course of action. Specifically the first parageaph and the Beat Buddy section. I have also posted in Neutral noticeboard, as the page is not neutral at all. Thank you kindly. --Asenathson (talk) 16:03, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Is TalkOrigins a reliable source for science topic?

There is an ongoing discussion on Macroevolution page whether TalkOrigins can be used as a reliable source for a scientific article. (It is cited in multiple locations in the article.)

To recap, even TalkOrigins themselves admit to the lack of scientific reliability:

• http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/welcome.html

"How do I know the contents of this archive are reliable?"

Visitors to the archive should be aware that essays and FAQs appearing in the archive have generally not undergone a rigorous peer review procedure by scientific experts. Rather, they have been commented on and critiqued by the readership of the talk.origins newsgroup. While many of the participants in talk.origins are well regarded scientists, this informal procedure is not as demanding as the process a scientist goes through to publish a paper in a scientific journal. It is important to keep this fact in mind when reading the contents of this archive. Because most of the essays have not undergone rigorous peer review, some of them may contain errors or misstatements of fact.

• http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html

Isn't the Talk.Origins Archive just some website that has no particular credibility? Those FAQs and essays aren't peer-reviewed, and many are written by interested laymen rather than specialists, so they can be ignored, right?

We encourage readers not to take our word on the issues, but rather to look at the primary literature and evaluate the evidence. While materials on the Archive have not necessarily been subjected to formal peer-review, many have been subjected to several cycles of commentary in the newsgroup prior to being added to the Archive.

Even they acknowledge that their contents may contain errors or misstatements of fact because they had not undergone a rigorous peer review procedure by scientific experts. Furthermore, they themselves encourage readers not to take our word on the issues, but rather to look at the primary literature.

I propose that TalkOrigins lacks scientific reliability and neutrality to be used as a reliable source. Could you advise please?

69.75.54.130 (talk) 20:17, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

http://www.talkorigins.org/ is a curated repository of essays and papers on the topic of evolution or the evolution/creation debate, written by biologists and scientists, for the public. It seems that the site is cited four times at our page for Macroevolution:

• First, to document that evolution is ongoing and speciation has been witnessed by scientists today. This essay is a peer-reviewed article from The American Naturalist also held at talkorigins.

• Second and third, to note that evolution is both a theory and fact.

• Fourth, to note that scientist define macroevolution as "any change at the species level or above."

talkorigins is neither an ideal (e.g. textbook) nor a wholly uncredible source. Because it is being used to source uncontested statements of fact I would recommend the citations not be removed, but instead replaced with better sources. I would invite the IP to engage in this work for their own sake and ours if they want to improve Macroevolution. -Darouet (talk) 20:47, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Darouet, your argument that "evolution is both a theory and fact" is an uncontested statement of fact, is inaccurate. There are many scientists who contest against regarding evolution as both a theory and fact.

http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/ResBot/EvSy/PDF/Fitzhugh%202007%20-%20Zoologica%20Scripta.pdf

‘Evolution’ cannot be both a theory and a fact. Theories are concepts stating cause–effect relations. Regardless of one’s certainty as to the utility of a theory to provide understanding, it would be epistemically incorrect to assert any theory as also being a fact. ... An emphasis on associating ‘evolution’ with ‘fact’ presents the misguided connotation that science seeks certainty. Acknowledging that the statement, ‘evolution is a fact’, is an incorrect assertion has the benefit of focusing our attention back on the goal of science

I do agree with you that the references to TalkOrigins should be replaced with the better sources.

69.75.54.130 (talk) 21:24, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is not the place to conduct a battle over evolution. -Darouet (talk) 21:37, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages noticeboards
• Misplaced Pages dispute resolution