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Jacobin

Hello all. I'd be interested in getting Jacobin, added to WP:RSP, just to make it easier when it comes up in the future.

I searched the archives and found an extensive discussion here. It got 22 replies. My attempt to tally the results is 9 generally reliable, 9 "attribute" (marginally reliable I guess), and 3 generally unreliable.

I notice that another left leaning news site, The Intercept, is green in the table, and I consider Jacobin similar to them. A google search for "Jacobin accuracy" turns up the usual media bias fact check type sites. I know you guys don't like those sites, but one rates them "high" accuracy, another rates them 32, which is a "good" rating.

What are your thoughts on adding Jacobin to WP:RSP, and what is your takeaway from the archived discussion on what classification it should receive? It might be more productive to focus on evaluating the consensus of the archived discussion rather than starting all over. Thanks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:42, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Meh, I would consider them more similar to CounterPunch which is rated yellow. As Neutrality said in the last discussion, I would not rely on this for statements of fact (even when attributed) because it's an opinion journal, and for factual statements there will nearly always be a better source. For statements of opinion, "Jane Doe wrote X in Jacobin" is fine, but agree with the due weight concerns. (t · c) buidhe 08:46, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes Jacobin is a good source. Generally reliable, attribute opinion. I haven’t had any problems using it as a source. Editors generally accept it in my experience. The quote I used in the previous discussion still holds: “bracingly rigorous and polemical in a really thought-provoking way”. Burrobert (talk) 10:47, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

As for your other question, based on the discussion, I would say there's no consensus that it's generally reliable. (t · c) buidhe 11:44, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Buidhe, yeah, I'd say the consensus of the old discussion was probably yellow, "marginally reliable", often opinion, should attribute. In the interest of keeping this discussion focused, I'd like to state a new question.

Whilst Jacobin is without a doubt a primarily a political commentary source, it's factually rigorous. Its pieces are fact-checked, well cited, and well researched. I notice @Buidhe: compares it to CounterPunch. Which, mind you, is also generally factually reliable though far more heavily opinion based. The thing is, unlike CounterPunch Jacobin also does long-form investigative journalism which puts it closer to The Intercept. @Novem Linguae: why is it "marginally reliable"? Whilst it is doubtlessly a partisan on-line magazine, it's factually accurate, the quality of writing is generally quite high, and professional. CNN and MSNBC in today's world are both typically highly biased and increasingly lean toward "Infotainment" style opinion instead of hard reporting. I fail to see why either should be considerably more reliable. Until there's actual evidence of mendacity on the part of the journal it should be regarded as a highly left-biased but factually accurate reliable source. KJS ml343x (talk) 02:09, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Re the comparisons here: Intercept trades on its reputation for long-term fact-based investigative journalism, and has an editorial team of seasoned investigators too, whereas the Jacobin is primarily an opinion outlet with editors who have no grounding in the world of reporting. I don't see any evidence of professionalism in this area or much investigative work, so I would place it much nearer than Counterpunch, although less prone to conspiracy theories than the latter. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:00, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Should we add Jacobin to WP:RSP with an assessment of yellow, "marginally reliable"? –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:48, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

The consensus in the previous discussion appears predominantly to be "partisan magazine, generally reliable for facts, attribute opinion, check for due weight", in other words similar to WP:SPLC. If you want its addition on RSP, it would require either a RfC or at least two significant discussions (see WP:RSPCRITERIA). There is at present one significant discussion, RSP shouldn't be used as an indiscriminate listing of sources. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 12:22, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree with this description and this summary of the discussion. In a lot of ways I think a comparison to Reason magazine might be even stronger than the comparison to the SPLC. And yes, I agree that it is premature to list Jacobin. Jlevi (talk) 03:58, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree with the yellow classification. While the source is somewhat similar to Reason in that it has a lot of commentary from a given POV, there is a difference in quality. Ad Fontes rates both reliability and bias. Reason is 38.3, 4.1 (reliability, bias)]. Jacobian is 32.3, -19.9 ]. That puts Reason solidly in the second tier of sources while Jacobian is straddling the fence between second and third tier ]. Springee (talk) 13:26, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

The comparison to Reason is apt. I'd hesitate to use either as sources for factual claims about anything political. If it is used, statements should be attributed in text to the author and Jacobin. There was a Columbia School of Journalism article on Jacobin , but unfortunately it's entirely about the business aspect and the novelty of a successful socialist magazine, and has absolutely nothing to say on its accuracy or fact-checking, which is what we care about. Jacobin is very open about their POV, and while bias in sources isn't a deal-breaker, it does raise some red flags. I haven't seen any evidence they're regularly making stuff up, but this is a fairly young publication with an unproven track record and a clear political agenda. It should be used with caution, especially when it comes to political BLPs. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 14:25, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I would also compare with Reason, but I also argued that it was a mistake to rate Reason as generally reliable, for similar reasons. (t · c) buidhe 22:33, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Left like Reason is right ie not really that partisan. I think Jacobin is fine. Selfstudier (talk) 10:26, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I also agree with the yellow classification and the sort of language Tayi Arajakate suggests, although it lacks the specialist knowledge and specialist investigative rigour of SPLC. I would say it is most reliable for niche areas that mainstream media might miss (e.g. trade union disputes, left history) and least reliable for controversial US and geopolitical political topics where it should be seen mainly as a source of less noteworthy opinions. As a UK reader, I would add that its UK/Europe articles tend to be ill-informed and fringey. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:00, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Looking at the past discussions & evidence presented, I'd say Jacobin is generally reliable, as long as it's used with attribution whenever possible. Many other outlets that contain alot of (often unlabeled) commentary & opinion, such as Slate, The Economist, Le Monde diplomatique, & Foreign Policy are considered generally reliable. And the vast majority of such news sources are biased in some noticeable way or another. I also wonder what exactly 'marginally reliable' would entail here, as sources labeled as such, like E! News, Business Insider, and Vice Media are still widely cited (& in some cases, even defended, such as for example Vice on the MGTOW article). Donkey Hot-day (talk) 08:48, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

This discussion is quickly moving from a review/closing statement of the previous thread into another discussion in its own right. A few questions: 1) Should we open an actual discussion again on Jacobin? It seems some people may have additional thoughts. 2) Should we ask for a formal close of the previous discussion? Jlevi (talk) 21:04, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

If we need two significant discussions, might as well turn this into the second one, no? I would like to know the consensus on Jacobin.Selfstudier (talk) 12:28, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

This looks more like a WT:RSP discussion than an RSN one. It's interesting how we now view an RSP entry as a trophy to demonstrate a source's significance. The whole point of RSP is to document sources with multiple discussions so that editors do not have to read multiple RSN discussions for an overall impression. If there has only been one significant discussion on a source, searching for it in the RSP archives will get all you need. Discussing the reliability for the sake of discussion ... is not very helpful. feminist (talk) 13:55, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Think it is working in both directions, right or wrong. Absence of an entry is probably being used as indicator of unreliability.Selfstudier (talk) 15:27, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

That sounds so stupid. If only one discussion exists, the consensus on the source is the consensus in that discussion. feminist (talk) 16:16, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm no expert on the ins and outs of procedure, Tayi Arajakate said up above If you want its addition on RSP, it would require either a RfC or at least two significant discussions (see WP:RSPCRITERIA). There is at present one significant discussion, RSP shouldn't be used as an indiscriminate listing of sources. So is that right? Selfstudier (talk) 19:14, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

The problem is not that their is a lack of consensus but that if it has only been discussed once then it is likely not being used enough to warrant an RSP entry. I think, however, that it is worth noting certain sources that are rarely discussed but are worth considering for an alternative (but still generally reliable) perspective (Reason/Jacobin) or for very reliable information (eg Reuters has never had a major discussion but still has a glowing RSP). ~ El D. (talk to me) 10:20, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

The magazine exists to provide a left-wing perspective and to give in depth coverage of stories of interest to the Left. Opinion pieces no matter where published are considered unreliable per New organizations. That makes sense because opinion pieces rely on mainstream media for their facts. It makes more sense to use the original sources. Their original reporting, while reliable, is usually best avoided because we have to establish weight before including in articles. So I wouldn't use their current article about how the 1992 crime bill was developed because it hasn't received sufficient coverage. Where publications such as Jacobin are useful is in coverage of niche areas, such as what left-wing organizations are doing. TFD (talk) 04:25, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

WP:NEWSORG doesn't just baldly say that opinion pieces are unreliable afaics. I guess what you mean is they are not generally reliable for statements of fact in WP voice, right? I would have thought some opinions count for a lot, depending on whether the giver is good for it or not.Selfstudier (talk) 13:57, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I hesitate to consider Jacobin "generally reliable" for statements of fact, because the source inappropriately blurs news reporting and opinion. For example, this article entitled Bernie Won Iowa presented "Bernie Sanders won Iowa" as a statement of fact despite the contest being won by Pete Buttigieg. Likewise, this article entitled The Corporate Media’s War Against Bernie Sanders Is Very Real presents the opinion of Jacobin writer Branko Marcetic as fact. feminist (talk) 15:06, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Looking at the first article you mention it states the facts correctly (Bernie won the popular vote - which at the time he did, Bernie was drawing in terms of national delegates - which at the time he was , and that Buttigieg was winning in terms of state delegate percentages). Now as a Brit I don't entirely understand what a Caucus is but given that Sanders and Butigiege were drawn on the figure that has a legal impact (delegates) calling him the winner on the grounds that he won the popular vote seems entirely reasonable and honest to me.

In terms of the second story, it is a case of WP:HEADLINES, we never say that headlines are a source regardless of how reliable we feel the newspaper is. I would not be surprised to see stories worded in a similar way in The Economist or another news magazine which we view as reliable. Indeed I would say that news magazines tend to be better than newspapers even if they have occasionally idiosyncratic definitions of 'winning' (such as in Jacobin) or 'coup' (such as in The Economist). ~ El D. (talk to me) 11:50, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

See, this shows how Jacobin wilfully misrepresents how the Iowa caucuses work. By interposing their own opinion on how the system should work (popular vote) over how the system actually works (state delegates), the reader is left with a false impression on the state of the race. The article presents "Bernie won Iowa" as fact but then justifies it as the author's opinion. No, that's not how news reporting works.

It's not reasonable to call Bernie a winner based on a metric that does not matter (popular vote); if the perception of a reader unfamiliar with American politics is that popular vote is key, a news article should at least not promote this wrong impression. To use a UK comparison, a party can lose the popular vote yet gain control of the government: just win enough seats in the House of Commons. I would have no issue if this article were presented as a straight opinion piece with the author arguing that Bernie should be treated as the winner instead, but this is not the case here. feminist (talk) 05:25, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

It strikes me as strange that this works by focusing on 'state delegates' as opposed to national delegates. Winning, say the presidency or a majority in The House of Commons in spite of losing the popular vote has meaningful real-world impacts. As does having fewer national delegates in spite of a popular vote victory. State delegates, by contrast, seems to be an arbitrary internal number that reflects neither what people are thinking (the popular vote) or what will actually happen (national delegates). ~ El D. (talk to me) 10:36, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

I took the title of the first article simply as a hook for a (quite interesting) discussion on the ins and outs of the Iowa system. Admittedly if you are the sort of person that just reads headlines you might be misled but hopefully WP editors are made of better stuff. Fwiw, my personal opinion is we are going to see more of this type of writing in the future, people want opinion/analysis along with their news intake and again, we must trust editors to pick apart the wheat from the chaff.Selfstudier (talk) 10:47, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

WP:HEADLINES does discard the second one, but the first states Bernie Sanders won Iowa in the article text. Now I don't believe that there is a law or democratic party policy saying "the winner of Iowa is the person with the most state delegates" as such I believe that it is perfectly legitimate to declare someone the winner on the grounds that they drew on the thing that actually matters (national delegates) and won the popular vote as opposed to an arbitrary internal number. ~ El D. (talk to me) 19:00, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

How can you read that article and think it's a factual reporting of news? It's not. It's a mixture of some facts, wishful thinking, and a stump speech for Sanders. The 2020 Democratic Iowa Caucus was a mess, and lots of the reporting at the time was muddled and confused, but this article is one of the worst I've seen. At the beginning the author says that Sanders was projected to win more state delegates, which ended up being incorrect. That's fine, projections turn out to be wrong. But she also says that Sanders is tied with Buttigieg in national delegates. She acted as if the preliminary results and projections available at the time were final, even though she was clearly aware at the time of publishing that the count wasn't finalized (Buttigieg ended up winning not only slightly more state delegates, but also 14 of Iowa's pledged national delegates, while Sanders won 12). Saying "I think we should call Sanders the winner because he won the popular vote" is an opinion. Saying "Sanders is tied with Buttigieg in national delegates" is dishonest reporting: a prediction disguised as established fact. And there's nothing on the site informing the reader this is just one person's opinion. Anyone who relied on this reporting would come away less informed about the outcome of the caucus than if they had read nothing at all. The more of their articles I read, the more certain I am that the entire publication should be treated as purely opinion, not a suitable source for factual claims. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 19:43, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

The 2 articles presented are not exactly strong cases for ranking Jacobin 'yellow' instead of 'green'...unless of course we start doing the same for other magazine-type outlets which also do not have separate news & opinion sections, like Slate for instance (which is no stranger to controversial material). On the Sanders issue, I can also reference a reputed outlet like The Economist as also having published unlabeled contentious commentary (in the opposite end of the spectrum), but it'd only be one of many examples from 'green'-rated magazines. And I'm not seeing secondary sources on why Jacobin is not 'reliable', I thought Misplaced Pages policy discouraged people from using primary sources & opinions? Donkey Hot-day (talk) 19:12, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

I tend to agree with it not being reliable for factual claims because of the mixing of fact with opinion, it's not a newspaper. Someone said "partisan magazine, generally reliable for facts, attribute opinion, check for due weight" and that seems about right. Someone wanted this on rsp, I think with this discussion and the previous we should be able to manage that, right? As I said, I think we are seeing more and more of this sort of reporting; seems eventually we will be attributing everything and personally, I don't mind that.Selfstudier (talk) 12:28, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand. You say "I agree with it not being reliable for factual claims", but you want its RSP entry to say "generally reliable for facts"? I am absolutely opposed to that. It's not "generally reliable for facts", because its articles present the authors' arguments and opinions as if they were facts. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 15:17, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

I get that you are opposed, I don't agree with you though because mixing facts with opinions is not the same as getting facts wrong. If everyone was agreed, I assume we wouldn't need a second discussion at all, right? Selfstudier (talk) 19:16, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

• I would consider Jacobin yellow due to subject bias. And I honestly would not consider The Intercept green, but yellow as well. Especially when it comes to scientific topics, where it frequently treads the line toward promoting pseudoscience. Particularly on the topic of Genetically modified foods where it has promoted some strongly debunked sources before. Silverseren 18:58, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Silver seren, mind sharing an example of GMO-woo promotion? I see one or two critiques on the site, but their mostly from an economic perspective, rather than a 'scary scary chemicals' perspective. Don't want to derail the Jacobin conversation, but it would be valuable to see some examples of what you're mentioning if possible. Thanks! Jlevi (talk) 22:52, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Even so, economics is a social science. And I wouldn't trust any political source on economics - not socialists, not libertarians. Crossroads 08:09, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

• Yellow Jacobin is obviously a publication that approaches topics from a leftist perspective. I'd consider it "generally reliable for facts", as it's clear, despite them not categorizing articles as such, what is a fact and what is opinion. Moreover, the case studied above is entirely unconvincing that the article is actually stating that Sanders is unambiguously the winner. Despite this, obvious care needs to be taken to ensure that the facts reported don't constitute undue weight, given the obvious leftist POV of the magazine. Acebulf 02:21, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

One additional detail that I haven't seen mentioned yet: opinion is much heavier from in-house employees who tend to write more of the breaking-news, politically-charged material. Examples: Luke Savage, David Sirota, and Meagan Day. Still obvious when it's opinion vs. reporting from them. Jlevi (talk) 22:56, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable. It's a pure political commentary and punditry outlet, and as such everything falls under WP:RSOPINION - not suitable for statements of fact. As with any opinion piece, pundit talk show, etc., any facts given, even if accurate, have a high likelihood of being cherry-picked or framed in a misleading way. No reason to use it and not actual news sources. Crossroads 08:09, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
• It is worth considering how other RS use this source:

In short, academic sources often use Jacobin to source statements of fact without inline attribution, including regarding protest movements, international economics, and the history of various political movements. Mainstream media sources on all sides of the aisle often use Jacobin to source the perspective of the American left. Usually media sources do so using in-text attribution, unlike academic sources. Jlevi (talk) 12:59, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Search for Quillette on Google Scholar and in media sources and you will find the same sort of use. Yet, because Quillette is likewise an all-opinion outlet with a clear political ax to grind, it is listed as red at WP:RSP. There is no reason for special pleading for Jacobin; it should be treated the same because it is the same sort of outlet; just with a different political POV. A punditry magazine is about the worst possible source for economics and political history; that a few marginal academic papers cite it anyway for that is best not imitated. Crossroads 05:52, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

There's a major difference: at the RSN RfC on Quillette, a large number of specific critiques were made regarding reliability. Multiple hoaxes were pointed out and specific criticisms in RS were discussed. So far, only bias has been criticized for Jacobin, with no concrete comments made regarding reliability. Far from special pleading, UBO is a very standard thing to consider for all sources.

As far as I saw, UBO was not brought forward for Quillette. That is because it would not apply to that outlet! Google Scholar is not a very good way to look at this because the results are polluted with the sites' own articles (~700 for "quillette", ~5500 for "jacobinmag" on GS). Instead, I suggest comparing a search of a specific (mostly) peer-reviewed network of journals . I do so like this:

"site:journals.sagepub.com/ quillette" (74 hits)

"site:journals.sagepub.com/ jacobinmag" (1250 hits)

But let's go a step further! Looking at the usage patterns, I see that Quillette is used as a primary source to describe particular perspectives, and the articles rarely use it to source facts. In contrast, a random assortment from my search finds citations for facts about US labor history, about the rise of neoliberalism in the 80s , and about policing and municipal budgets .

Thus, if we accept WP:UBO as a meaningful part of the WP:RS content guidelines, note the statement, "The more widespread and consistent this use is, the stronger the evidence," and evaluate the extent of use of Jacobin in this single network of journals, I think it is very reasonable to say that it is identified as an often-useful source by peer-reviewed academic sources (and that Quillette isn't). Jlevi (talk) 15:55, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Errors of fact were laid out above by Feminist. Academics can know based on their expertise when a source gets it right whereas Misplaced Pages editors cannot; and frankly, some academic papers are garbage, which is why predatory publishing, the replication crisis, and low impact factors are real things and why we prefer WP:Secondary sources in WP:Scholarship. UBO does not supersede WP:RSOPINION. We can't seize on UBO and ignore everything else said at WP:RS and WP:V. These show that Jacobin is not suitable for use on Misplaced Pages for unattributed fact. Put another way: Why would we trust a magazine whose explicit purpose is to push a political ideology to accurately represent economics and political history? Crossroads 05:26, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Are you critiquing any specific citation I described? Or are you just saying that predatory publishing, etc., is generally something to look out for? I don't think this response really addresses anything specific I put forward, and I certainly acknowledge that UBO is only a part of evaluating RS status.

Regarding the discussion above, it seems it is much more about mixed fact and opinion than about "errors of fact". Feminist starts by expressing concern based on perception that Jacobin "inappropriately blurs news reporting and opinion" (not based on direct "errors of fact"), and the extended discussion is clearly contested.

To your last point, good question! It's totally possible that an expert might be better situated to sort out fact vs. non-fact than a Misplaced Pages editor. Determining if that's the case is a reasonable end-point of this conversation. Implicit in that statement is the idea that experts have determined some subset of Jacobin as somehow useful. Is that a majority of coverage? Only a part? Is that mostly as primary sources demonstrating left-wing viewpoints, in a similar way that academics use Quillette to display certain perspectives? (I argue that this is not the primary usage above.)

To find out, I am trying to look at specific use cases to evaluate who is using Jacobin and when and how they are doing so. Jlevi (talk) 14:05, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

RFC: "Jihad Watch", should it be deprecated as a source?

This request for comment has elapsed, and will be automatically archived after five days with no comments. New comments are still welcome.

Should "Jihad Watch" as a source be deprecated?

Apparently this has never had a formal RFC to actually deprecate it, though the previous discussion in April 2020 seemed to indicate a clear consensus that it should be deprecated. IHateAccounts (talk) 00:37, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

• Why? Is someone trying to cite it as if it is reliable? (t · c) buidhe 03:23, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

I saw this edit by @LaundryPizza03: . I looked back to the last discussion and it seemed pretty firm towards deprecation, and yes, it still seems to be used for citations . IHateAccounts (talk) 05:43, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

@Buidhe:Also I note that your response in April 2020 was "It's not The Daily Stormer, but not reliable either. Deprecate because of problems with accuracy.". IHateAccounts (talk) 05:47, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Support There was near-unanimous support for deprecation in the last discussion, and as noted by MarioGom (talk · contribs) in that discussion, various RS have described Jihad Watch as propagating anti-Muslim conspiracy theories. Also blacklist, per IHateAccounts' findings. There are 320 pages that link to Jihad Watch, including 38 articles that use it as a source. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 09:06, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

• Really? This is getting silly. If we have to have a formal RfC for every obviously shit source out there, this will be a never-ending task. The RSP initiative is in danger of becoming an attempt to legislate WP:CLUE. Alexbrn (talk) 09:49, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
• Really? I think Alexbrn is spot on. Why would we bother for a source that isn't being used. This again is a problem with the way deprecation has evolved from a tool for a very specific case into something that seems to come up every time someone sees something they don't like. I would suggest this is closed as unnecessary. Springee (talk) 14:06, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
• Please withdraw this. Under normal circumstances I'd just close this, but because you've put a formal RFC tag on it it needs to waste our time for 30 days unless you withdraw it. Deprecation is a tool for a few, very limited, situations in which there's a source which we deem unreliable but which has the appearances of a legitimate publication or website and consequently people try to cite it in good faith. If someone is seriously trying to cite something called "Jihad Watch" as a legitimate source, that's a competence issue not a matter for RS/N; we don't need a formal RFC for this any more than we need a formal RFC on whether Star Trek is a documentary. ‑ Iridescent 14:17, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

  I believe it would do a disservice to Misplaced Pages if I were to withdraw this RFC. Per my reasons and those by LaundryPizza03 stated above, the reasons stated by Hemiauchenia below, and the fact that the site is used as a source on multiple WP:BLPs currently. IHateAccounts (talk) 18:13, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

  If it's used as a source (on a BLP or otherwise) for anything that seems even slightly dodgy, you should remove it -- neither deprecation nor an RfC is necessary for that. --JBL (talk) 23:46, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

• Comment It's already listed as unreliable at Perennial sources. There's no need to deprecate it. TFD (talk) 16:13, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
• Deprecate I think some commenters don't understand how prominent Jihad Watch used to be, it's not just some random conspiracy blog run by a nobody, but a prominent website, associated with the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which publishes the deprecated FrontPage Magazine. Jihad Watch has even drawn comment from one of Pakistan's prime ministers, and its author is described by the SPLC as "one of the most prolific anti-Muslim figures in the United States". The website is currently cited 38 times in article space per jihadwatch.org  . I that stripping out the non-aboutself references to this source is something that needs doing. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:45, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
• I have aborted this unnecessary RfC -- the number of possible unusable sources is infinite, they do not need to be run through RfCs one-by-one. Find something useful to do with your time. --JBL (talk) 21:50, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

• @Newslinger: Given that the April 2020 discussion wasn't a formal RfC, can it be used to deprecate the Jihad Watch without going through another discussion, given how strong the concensus was? Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:04, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

  The world is not divided between "sources that are usable" and "sources that are deprecated"; there are categories such as "sources that are so clearly unsuitable for basic factual statements that to hold structured discussions about them is a pointless waste of time" and "sources that no one has ever seriously proposed to use to source anything" and "sources that are already listed as generally unreliable at WP:RSP". Absent a clear need, the world is not made better by formally deprecating things in these categories -- running an RfC to confirm an existing and unchallenged consensus is a pointless waste of time. --JBL (talk) 23:07, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

@JayBeeEll: I said exactly the same thing during the Zero Hedge deprecation RfC at which time Zero Hedge had around 20 Misplaced Pages citations which I felt was really more about making a point rather than a useful source deprecation. The real need is to strip out non-aboutself references to Jihad Watch, which I have done to several citations already. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:49, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

​By definition, deprecation does require a formal RfC (i.e. one using the {{rfc}} tag). — Newslinger talk 22:33, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• Deprecate, if it isn't absolutely clear yet. I note the associated FrontpageMag is expressly deprecated - David Gerard (talk) 00:09, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

  It is absolutely clear, and that's why I've removed the RfC tag, again. --JBL (talk) 14:33, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

• Comment, if this site is being repeatedly spammed across article and there is indisputable consensus that it is generally unreliable, shouldn't this just be referred to WT:BLIST? Tayi Arajakate _Talk 10:55, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

  Yes, of course, this RfC is a waste of time, which is why I've removed the tag again. IHA, please notice how almost everyone is saying the same thing. --JBL (talk) 14:33, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

  @JBL Hi, IHA's adopter here. I have been silently watching this RFC in order to provide offwiki feedback. I was not planning on making any comment to avoid accusations of canvassing or tag teaming, etc. However, I feel the need to say, as an outside observer, that it is incredibly clear that people are not saying the same thing here. Some people are saying it shouldn't be depreciated, and other people are saying it should. Both sides agree it's a bad source, but I still see a good faith disagreement as to what to do about it.
  If you have an alternative means for IHA to get the result that they want (ie. depreciation, blacklisting, edit-filtering, or auto-reverting), then please feel free to suggest that. Until then, IHA seems to be following the only method laid out within Misplaced Pages:Deprecated sources to achieve their desired outcome. –MJL ‐Talk‐ 18:59, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

  I concur that it's a reasonable RFC to raise here, and ask that the RFC tag not be removed again. We've seen before (e.g. Mail on Sunday) when an apparently-gratuitous RFC had to be run, just because some people insisted the obviously terrible source closely associated with an already deprecated source was great actually and kept putting it in. If we have to nail this one down, we might as well - David Gerard (talk) 19:20, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

  So far, there is a clear consensus among the people who have participated in this RfC that it should never have been opened, and zero people arguing that Jihad Watch is an acceptable source (which is, of course, further evidence that an RfC is not needed). The situation of the Mail on Sunday is completely incomparable in all respects. If a couple of you want to jerk yourselves off to the accomplishment of officially deprecating a source that no competent editor would ever use or defend, I guess I can't stop you, but it's an utterly idiotic waste of the time of everyone. MJL, maybe you can explain to your mentee that they should not edit war and not waste community time and also learn what the hell a personal attack is. Please no one ping me back to this discussion. --JBL (talk) 20:15, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

• Withdraw this While Jihad Watch is in no way an acceptable source, we only deprecate sources that are cited enough by editors to be a problem. Compared to Newsmax or Occupy Democrats Jihad Watch is far less prominent. I would not be against blacklisting the source. funplussmart (talk) 19:39, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
• Deprecate It is currently being used in BLPs such as Hani Ramadan and we should deprecate. There's no need for it to drag this out any longer. Spudlace (talk) 00:35, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Spudlace, I went to Hani Ramadan, to check whether the jihadwatch link was actually being used to mislead readers about a BLP individual. I found JW had quoted what looked like a legitimate article from swissinfo.ch. While it is less than ideal to reference a mirror, it is not a BLP violation as you implied. JW's link to the swissinfo article was 404... But it took me about fifteen seconds to find that swissinfo had merely moved that article to .

The simple excision of the JW reference without looking for the original legitimate article it mirrored was disruptive, in my opinion. I realize someone else followed up to your hint here. But you could have performed the same check I did. So I encourage you too to be more careful.

In my opinion, the argument you advanced here falls short, and should be ignored by the closing admin. Geo Swan (talk) 00:06, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

• Deprecate per comments above and last discussion. User:JayBeeEll, instead of disruptively removing the RfC, how about getting it blacklisted if you don't think this RfC is necessary. Doug Weller talk 11:13, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

  @Doug Weller:, I have nothing more to add here. --JBL (talk) 12:44, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

• Withdraw-- I fail to see who is actually trying to insert "Jihad Watch" into an article? It's currently listed in only about 30 articles, mostly for aboutself reasons. Unless there is widespread abuse, deprecation is clearly not needed since Jihad Watch is already listed as unreliable at WP:RSP. Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 10:50, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
• Withdraw per Alexbrn and Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 10:55, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
• Bad RfC. Doesn't allow for context and point to disputes about diffs. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:36, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
• Deprecate blatant propaganda site. Should be removed from wherever it is used. Walrus Ji (talk) 11:04, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
• Bad RfC Who really use it? --Shrike (talk) 17:10, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
• Deprecate -- not a usable source. --K.e.coffman (talk) 18:16, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
• Deprecate or blacklist. Major promoter of the Love Jihad conspiracy theory, as seen in https://www.jihadwatch.org/category/love-jihad. Frequently cited by other unreliable sources, including OpIndia (RSP entry), as a "Western" source for specious anti-Muslim claims. — Newslinger talk 22:33, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Point of order the article Love Jihad may describe this phenomenon as a "conspiracy theory". Unfortunately, anyone who as followed the relatively rare instances of female converts to Islam who become radicalized, their trials show that it was quite common to find they were targetted by what that article called "Jihad Romeos". See Jihad Jamie. I did a lot of work on the Brides of ISIL article, so I read about many of these women.

Newslinger, thanks for directing my attention to the Love Jihad article, as it may require a bias-ectomy.

Please, no one should the Love Jihad article's characterization of the phenomenon as a conspiracy theory as a reason to deprecate jihadwatch.com. Geo Swan (talk) 23:14, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

The consensus of high-quality academic sources is that "Love Jihad" is a conspiracy theory or fabricated claim. See below (emphasis added):

Additionally, you have not provided any reliable sources showing that Jamie Paulin Ramirez's marriage was an instance of "Love Jihad", which involves a Muslim feigning love with the intention of converting a non-Muslim. According to the sources in the Jamie Paulin Ramirez article (including Reuters), Ramirez had already converted to Islam prior to meeting and marrying Ali Damache. The Ramirez case is an instance of radicalization, not an instance of "Love Jihad". Jihad Watch has published 18 articles promoting the "Love Jihad" conspiracy theory. As a persistent publisher of false or fabricated information, Jihad Watch should absolutely be deprecated. If Jihad Watch is so obviously unreliable that an RfC is not necessary, as some editors in this discussion state, then blacklisting is the most appropriate solution. — Newslinger talk 02:09, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

• Bad RfC - The website is only being used on one article where it backs up its own claim, Other than that it's used no where so as such I see no real reason to formally deprecate something that isn't being used and as far as I can see has never been a hot topic of debate. –Davey2010 23:35, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• No deprecation, no blacklisting

In 2017 Jarble started Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_228#Jihad_Watch with an assertion that more than 60 articles cited jihad watch.

Well, currently, it seems to be cited by just one article - Islamophobia in the United States. Is that citation appropriate? Neutrally written? I don't think there is any question it neutrally written, and appropriate.

Deprecating potential cites, blacklisting potential cites, should not be done for frivolous reasons. As someone else said above, if there isn't a history of problematic citations from this site then deprecating or blacklisting is completely inappropriate. Geo Swan (talk) 23:41, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

@Davey2010:, @Geo Swan: When I filed this initially, the list of pages it was used on was much, much longer. It appears a set of editors took this filing as impetus to try to remove many uses from pages, which is I guess fine on its own, but does not change the fact that the site was used extensively in the past (as noted by @Hemiauchenia:). Given that the previous discussion while not an RFC itself was nearly unanimous in favor of deprecation, I felt that having the RFC and nailing it down would be good for prevention of future problems involving the site, especially as it is owned by the same organization that publishes another already-deprecated source. I think it's entirely unfair for people to say "well it's not used now" when it was when the RFC was filed, and unfair for people to claim there's "no problem" when it took the RFC to get them off their asses to do a cleanup. IHateAccounts (talk) 23:50, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

• Intelligent contributors use RS intelligently.

First, even the most highly regarded RS occasionally publish bad articles. Both the NYTimes and the Washington Post have had rare occasions when they trusted and promoted brilliant new writers, who turned out to be plagiarists, who unethically copied other authors, and confabulators, who just made stuff up. Intelligent contributors who use the recommended caution and neutrality when citing sources can cite a bad source in a truly neutral way, so their citation of a brilliant but dishonest journalist is not an embarrassment, because they used the neutral voice.

Second, intelligent, reliable contributors will be just as able to recognize when a particular RS might be unreliable, they can be just as careful as you think you are.

You say you had a list of problematic usages of jihadwatch? Well, if editors have since fixed all those usages, so we now can't find a single one, then doesn't that prove formal deprecation or blacklisting aren't necessary? I suggest we reserve deprecation and blacklisting for rogue sites so tricky they routinely fool even experienced contributors, and they fool contributors so often they can't be controlled through normal quality control.

I have a concern that deprecation and blacklisting can turn out to be editorializing - an attempt at censorship.

Because you didn't list a single problematic article third parties, like me, can't actually confirm the site is being used in a problematic way. Geo Swan (talk) 02:14, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

At the time, I thought linking the list of citations was sufficient. Clearly I didn't account for people who would uncivilly assume bad faith later on. IHateAccounts (talk) 02:37, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Your comment indicates that Jihad Watch had been inappropriately inserted into articles at least 59 times, and that the use of Jihad Watch is inappropriate in nearly all cases. Domains are regularly added to the spam blacklist after being inappropriately linked in articles just a few times, so Jihad Watch exceeds the threshold for blacklisting by an order of magnitude. — Newslinger talk 08:08, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

• Deprecate. This is only cited in 11 articles at the present moment, but... Vive Charlie miscites it as a primary source that the author of the cited article works for Vive Charlie, Eurabia cites it as a primary source to showcase the views of its authors, it's cited in David Horowitz Freedom Center as a primary source to indicate that it's a blog run by Robert Spencer, Islamophobia in the United States cites it as a primary source to show that it is an islamophobic hate site... if it can only be cited as a primary source, and that mostly just to say it shouldn't be trusted as a reliable source, we should really deprecate it. It's abundantly obvious that it is among "highly questionable sources that editors are discouraged from citing in articles, because they fail the reliable sources guideline in nearly all circumstances" per the beginning of WP:DEPRECATED. Why would we want to wait until a problem occurs with content cited to this obvious hate site? FalconK (talk) 23:53, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• It is ALREADY deprecated - JW is listed at WP:RSP as being “unreliable for facts”, this means it has already been effectively deprecated. Are we discussing some form of further deprecation? If so, I am not sure what that would be. Blueboar (talk) 13:31, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

@Blueboar: please see WP:DEPREC, the source has not been deprecated as of yet. Deprecation is a necessary requirement to place an edit filter warning anyone who tried to use the source in the future. IHateAccounts (talk) 15:39, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Meh... It look to me like it WAS deprecated ... is this just about getting approval to add the tag that generates an automatic warning? Blueboar (talk) 16:03, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

RSN Archive 293 says "This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page." Hemiauchenia's "concensus" note which was added on December 12 is worthless, as is the deprecation page. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:27, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

• Deprecate* Not only should JihadWatch be deprecated, but it should also be included in WT:BLIST. Maqdisi117 (talk) 00:25, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Requesting Closure

I have placed a closure request for this RFC. IHateAccounts (talk) 16:28, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Al Jazeera on Middle Eastern and Jewish issues more generally

Apparently Al Jazeera has falsely reported that Israel opened dams to flood Palestine, and had posted a video which promotes a Holocaust conspiracy theory. Should Al Jazeera be regarded as unreliable more generally for topics relating to the Middle East and the Jews? feminist (talk) free Hong Kong 15:06, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

All sources make good-faith errors in reporting things, and all sources do have occasional errors in judgement. Perfection is not required, but rather a commitment to truthful reporting. Al Jazeera pulled the video, according to the exact source you provided, which means that they recognized their mistake, and are willing to make corrections for it, a hallmark of a reliable source. --Jayron32 15:14, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Since Al Jazeera retracted the report I don’t see a big issue here. All sources will be wrong some of the time and all sources are also more likely to be wrong the closer a story drifts to their ideological blindspots. What separates the wheat from the chaff is whether or not an outlet retracts stories and corrects errors. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:06, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

As others have noted, it is generally reliable not always reliable. Both of these stories were corrected promptly (and in the case of the later the producers suspended). The dam myth was also circulated by AFP, a reputable news wire, and indeed in its article on the subject CAMERA points to another inaccurate article produced by... Haaretz. The Al Jazeera, the AFP, and Haaretz are all RSes. Corrections are indeed generally seen as evidence of reliability. Al Jazeera probably shouldn't be used for Qatar but besides that I see little to no problem with it. ~ El D. (talk to me) 11:58, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Al Jazeera is clearly partisan source regarding the conflict. It also funded by the government which is not democratically elected so in my view there are similar to Russia Today and other propaganda outlets that funded by government in autocratic regimes --Shrike (talk) 15:10, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

That's a broad generalization by Shrike. I agree with El komodos drago that even reliable sources sometimes make mistakes. Al-Jazeera should be given credit for promptly withdrawing the story.VR _talk 17:34, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Vice regent,What is wrong with what I said? Its not funded by the goverment?The government is not autocratic? Shrike (talk) 18:32, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

I disagree with your implication that "sponsored by non-democratic government" = unreliable, "sponsored by democratic government" = reliable. What does that have to do with fact-checking? Trump was democratically elected yet has been accused of making lots of false and misleading statements. The only thing I'd caution with Al-Jazeera is when we're talking about the monarchy of Qatar itself. Other than that, I'd consider them generally reliable including on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They can't be considered any more biased on that topic than newspapers located inside of Israel like Haaretz.VR _talk 15:30, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

In addition to Vice regent's point, all news sources are owned by somebody, and that somebody is capable of influencing the editorial line and contents of the publication. States, private individuals and private entities have interests which may bias content, and this fact should be taken into account when citing any source at all. Boynamedsue (talk) 19:08, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Boynamedsue, Yet Qatar is not only funding it, but also funds Hamas and other terror orgs. Also, since VR mentioned Haaretz, for some reason Misplaced Pages loves Haaretz, yet its circulation is only 3% of Israeli readership and it goes down every year, and yes, it has a very leftist tilt. Having an opinion or bias is not the issue, it's that it is state sponsored and will only go so far in reporting news that may upset its owner. Sir Joseph 00:15, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

I do not know of a press organisation without political bias. Of the Israeli ones I have read, Jeruslaem Post seems very biased in favour of a pro-Israeli analysis of any given international event, Haaretz seems more neutral. I don't have enough knowledge of internal Israeli politics to discuss their domestic coverage. As I say, all sources have biases. Boynamedsue (talk) 07:54, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Two retractions/corrections. 1 in 2015 and 1 in 2019. This looks like evidence of reliability, not unreliability. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 18:52, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

• The Al Jazeera is unreliable and highly pro-Sunni biased, pro-Arab in the Middle East-related topics and pro-Bosniak in the Balkans topics.--WEBDuB (talk) 13:23, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
• Like WEBDuB says, though Al-Jazeera does produce some quality pieces at its core it is "propaganda" or "public diplomacy" of the Qatari government as pointed out by Zainab Abdul-Nabi in a journal article. Like RT, the good pieces of journalism are just a cover to draw viewership for when they want to spin the Qatari narrative. Vici Vidi (talk) 08:28, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Though the Daily Telegraph produces some quality pieces at its core it is "propaganda" of the Conservative party and the interests of its owner. Though the Guardian produces some quality pieces at its core it is liberal "proaganda" based on the political interests of the unaccountable Russel Trust. Though the BBC produces some quality pieces it is at its heart "propaganda" for the British state and its official liberal democratic capitalist ideology. We can do this for any news source. Judge the content on the content, not on ownership. Boynamedsue (talk) 08:01, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

RealClear media

Moved from WP:RS/P

I'm wondering about the status of RealClear media, IOW RealClearPolitics (RCP) and RealClearInvestigations (a redirect to RCP). My initial impression is that they are aggregators, but also with own, very biased, content. All I find is this thread opened by User:JzG in November 2019:

• Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_278#RealClear_media

Valjean (talk) 17:00, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

I just noticed this use at our conspiracy theory article Russia investigation origins counter-narrative:

Jeanine Pirro, a long-time friend of Trump, described Mueller, FBI Director Christopher Wray (a Trump appointee), former FBI Director James Comey and other current/former FBI officials as a "criminal cabal," saying "There is a cleansing needed in our FBI and Department of Justice—it needs to be cleansed of individuals who should not just be fired, but who need to be taken out in cuffs."

Here we have a combination of types of sources. All content at Misplaced Pages (other than WP:ABOUTSELF) must come from RS, even to document the most ludicrous pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, etc. If something is not mentioned in RS, it does not have the due weight to be mentioned here. Period. That makes this use of RCP, if it is deemed unreliable, very dubious. The NYTimes and Salon should be enough. -- Valjean (talk) 17:10, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

• Definitely Unreliable. Doesn't clearly mark the difference between opinion and news content on the columns it publishes, and the rest is just aggregation (including a number of questionable sources like the Washington Examiner). For instance, "Donald the Dragon Slayer" today is labeled as "Commentary" and not listed in its "Editorials" section. IHateAccounts (talk) 18:43, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

  What's wrong with labeling an opinion piece as "Commentary"? Commentary literally means "expression of opinion". feminist (talk) 13:50, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

• If we're going to discuss RC's reliability, it should be done at WP:RSN rather than here unless there have been additional threads on the matter already. -- Calidum 19:28, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree. I'll move this there, so feel free to continue there. -- Valjean (talk) 23:29, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

• Generally Reliable--RCP has a very strong editorial board, with many award-winning journalists and writers: , and the site has a rigours fact-checking process: . They are most well-known for their robust polling, which is published in numerous high-quality sources: The Guardian, Reuters, CNBC, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal. Likewise, Real Clear Investigations also seems to be referenced by reliable sources such as The Washington Post and NPR. RCP & RCI aggregates from different sources, though they do seem to have their own columnists. News vs. opinion is always clearly marked. Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 03:05, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
  • While it's an interesting offering, the RCP Fact Check Review is a review of fact checks done by other organisations. The existence of this review doesn't add a lot of credibility to their own content. — Charles Stewart (talk) 14:32, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
• Judge by WP:RSOPINION. RCP is mainly known as an American conservative-leaning news and poll aggregator. It is mainly used on Misplaced Pages for its election predictions, the same way we use the Daily Kos (RSP entry) for its election predictions despite its unreliability. It also sees some use for its opinion pieces, which is usually appropriate depending on the identity of the opinion piece's author. Overall I don't think RCP publishes much straight news, if at all, so I would treat it as similar to Reason (RSP entry), The Spectator (RSP entry) or The Weekly Standard (RSP entry). feminist (talk) 13:38, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
  • As for this specific page, it appears to simply include transcripts of a video. Authenticity is not in doubt when you can actually listen to the video. But why not just cite Fox News directly? feminist (talk) 13:41, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable - This is primarily an opinion site and partisan aggregator, not a reliable news source. It cannot reasonably be considered a RS. Go4thProsper (talk) 03:28, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable - Original material is not factually reliable, and aggregated material may not be accurately attributed. The Wall Street Journal has reported that RealClearPolitics for two years has been a significant source of links to Russia Today stories, and the provenance of the RT headlines was obscured. While much of the aggregated material may be reliable, it should be cited to the reliable source, not to RealClear. John M Baker (talk) 00:12, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable They have a gatekeeping process demonstrated by multiple contributors organized in an editorial hierarchy; a physical presence by which they can be held liable for libel; and RS consider them reliable as evidenced by the fact their original reporting has been sourced by Reuters , Government Executive , Albuquerque Journal , CBS News , TIME , CNN etc., etc. Both the current executive editor and the current White House correspondent are separate recipients , of the Aldo Beckman Award for Journalistic Excellence from the White House Correspondents Association which is pretty much the Oscar for White House coverage and its recipient is elected by WHCA member journalists. If RC is not reliable, we need to rethink our standards of reliability.
  That said, stories that are simply aggregated by RCP are not implicitly reliable, opinion / commentary columns are not reliable for anything other than the opinion of the writer per WP:RSOPINION, and extraordinary claims should be credited to the source and not presented in WP's voice regardless of the reliability of the source (at least when reported only by a single source). Chetsford (talk) 04:44, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable. RealClear Media hosted (and may still host) a secret Facebook page promoting far-right memes and extremist conspiracy theories. This family of websites is mainly opinion pieces and aggregation of pieces published elsewhere. As for their sites that claim to do original reporting, their "RealClearInvestigations" site is backed by right-wing foundations and published an article supposedly revealing the identity of a protected whistleblower—something that reputable/mainstream news organizations chose not to do, because it would endanger the whistleblower and violate anti-retaliation principles. And as the Wall Street Journal reported in Oct. 2020, the aggregator has consistently funneled readers to Russian propaganda, while obscuring the source from browsing readers. All of this points to clear unreliability. Neutrality 19:33, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

The WSJ story you site describes RealClear as "mainstream" and their poll average as "famous." Furthermore, I am unaware of any requirement that an RS refrain from publishing the identity of a whistleblower. For comparison, is the NYT unreliable because they blew a CIA program to catch terrorists via their finances ? Obviously that put lives at risk. Meanwhile, the NYT, which routinely advocates for restrictions on oil drilling in the USA, is owned in considerable part by Carlos Slim, who obviously benefits from such restrictions. In sum, you are condemning RealClear for things we appear to accept from other sources. Adoring nanny (talk) 03:37, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable for anything except perhaps its attributed polling averages (which seems to be the only thing it is really well-known for, looking over sources and usage, and which is probably better cited to a WP:SECONDARY source anyway.) Outside of that it is largely noteworthy as an aggregator; and there's no reason we would cite them rather than the sources they aggregate. For the (largely opinion) original stuff they do post, there seems to be little distinction between opinion and fact. More importantly, they have in particular been publishing false material about the 2020 election and surrounding events recently, which is a definite strike against their reliability. Generally speaking I don't think it makes sense to use a handful of passing mentions as an argument for WP:USEBYOTHERS when the NYT just wrote an entire in-depth teardown essentially saying how unreliable it has become. EDIT: I would say that per the NYT source it is particularly unreliable after 2017 because of this: Interviews with current and former Real Clear staff members, along with a review of its coverage and tax filings, point to a shift to the right within the organization in late 2017, when the bulk of its journalists who were responsible for straight-news reporting on Capitol Hill, the White House and national politics were suddenly laid off. The shift to the right would be fine on its own, but firing their reporting team isn't. And that led to the other issues the article identifies - inaccurate coverage of the 2020 election, unsubstantiated or false stories, stories that raise ethical concerns, and so on. None of this sounds like the write-up of a source we could use as an WP:RS; it appears they gutted their news team sometime in 2017 and switched to basically pumping out spin, with increasing disregard for fact-checking or accuracy. --Aquillion (talk) 10:48, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable for the reasons explained by John M Baker, Neutrality, and Aquillion. They do seem to be known for polling averages more than anything else, which also leads to a WP:DUE concern; how often is a poll average, of which there are many, actually worth writing about? In that case, we'd be turning to secondary sources anyway, as Aquillion suggested. Less-than-stellar publications are sometimes the ones to "break" a story (because it was leaked to them, or because they were listening to the police scanner, or whatever). When more solid reporting confirms the story and mentions where it first appeared, that doesn't necessarily count in favor of the marginal publication's reliability for our purposes. XOR'easter (talk) 01:51, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Exactly this. The National Enquirer broke the John Edwards extramarital affair, but that doesn't mean the Enquirer is suddenly reliable either, all it means is a stopped clock happened to briefly coincide with the time of day. IHateAccounts (talk) 15:57, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
  • How true. I subscribe to and follow over 4,000 journalists and media sources of all types, including the use of many Google Alerts, so I see what is written by the most unreliable of sources. For example, The Daily Caller often has "news" details that is cutting edge (IOW on the wrong side of the knife...), but those details are not yet found elsewhere, so I do not use TDC as a source or even mention those details. I wait until RS pick up the story. TDC will usually frame these interesting details in a misleading story that misleads its readers, and we shouldn't send readers to such trash. When the details appear in RS, the setting is more neutral and factual, and we can then use those sources as documentation of those interesting details. They now have the needed due weight and proper sourcing. So be patient and wait for RS to cover such stuff. -- Valjean (talk) 16:21, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable per User:Chetsford. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:42, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable, completely, given their track record of demonstrably false claims, fringe opinion pieces and the like. One cannot even call it "reporting" anymore, given the mass layoffs of actual journalists in 2017. Zaathras (talk) 01:12, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
• Comment We have a lot of people declaring "not factually reliable" as an undemonstrated assertion. The standards for RS are the same as our general standards; if RS consider them reliable, they are reliable. We have demonstrated that RS consider RC reliable by the fact that their original reporting is widely, and regularly cited by RS. We have demonstrated that RS consider RC reliable by the fact that their journalists have received some of the most significant awards given by and from the journalistic craft. Unless we have RS widely declaring RC to be unreliable, our individual assessments of RC is irrelevant. So far only one source has been offered which sort-of hints at that; we don't blacklist an entire media outlet because of one false positive - otherwise we'd be non-RS'ing the New York Times over the Caliphate podcast scandal that just broke or Rolling Stone for A Rape on Campus. All other arguments appear to rely on personal analysis. Content analysis is research and personal content analysis is OR. A policy-based argument, supported by sources, has been offered demonstrating reliability. The same has not been offered demonstrating unreliability. Chetsford (talk) 05:54, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Is this really the standard? Then the assessment should also take into account reporting from the New York Times, which writes that, during the Trump administration, “Real Clear became one of the most prominent platforms for elevating unverified and reckless stories about the president’s political opponents,” and that it ran “stories that most other news outlets, including some that lean conservative, would not touch because the details were unsubstantiated or publication of them would raise ethical concerns.” John M Baker (talk) 04:47, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
    • Yes, we definitely should take that into account. But taking a report about a source into account is different than giving that report veto power. As I said, above, the ability to find one or two instances of RS questioning a source should not be treated as some gotcha! reason to deprecate a source. If that were all it took, we would have no sources left. Here , WIRED reports "News organizations, including The New York Times, have reported the story without trying to get to the bottom of it, or even finding out basic information such as where or when the alleged party took place."; here Rolling Stone is found liable for a demonstrably fake story; here The Intercept writes that the Washington Post published a story about hacking that is "demonstrably false" . In each of these cases, we have far more evidence of RS considering the NYT, Rolling Stone, and WaPo reliable than unreliable. Similarly, as demonstrated in my !vote, the same applies to RCP. Chetsford (talk) 14:45, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
      • But the New York Times article is not comparable to the claims that the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Washington Post published individual false stories (not that I think that the linked critiques of the NY Times and the Post are particularly compelling). Rather, the Times has provided an overall assessment of RCP's current reliability, and it has done so in terms that are utterly inconsistent with finding a source to be reliable. That should weigh far more heavily than individual examples where an established reliable source chose to refer to RCP uncritically. Nor do I think that the test of reliability should be the treatment given by reliable sources. If that were the case, we would certainly have to reinstate the Daily Mail, which just in the past few days has been cited by The Independent (Dec. 31, 2020), The Times (London) (Dec. 29, 2020), The Times (London) (Dec. 29, 2020, again), The Sunday Telegraph (Dec. 27, 2020), and the Kansas City Star (Dec. 24, 2020), among others (all examples from NewsBank). The test should be whether a source is in fact reliable, based on reported facts, and not on whether media sources sometimes choose to use it without further examination. John M Baker (talk) 21:30, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
        • When sources considered reliable mention and provide an analysis of less reliable sources it's often useful to WP to support article content rather than using unreliable sources, but it doesn't mean that we should by extension consider those reliable (which is precisely why an independent interpretation of their claims is useful)... —PaleoNeonate – 00:27, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• Generally discourage - especially if editors must determine the usable material from the obvious propaganda themselves. —PaleoNeonate – 00:32, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable per User:Chetsford with the RSOPINION restrictions feminist noted. I think I would consider much of their material analysis but absent a source directly contradicting them I would say it is usable in that capacity. Springee (talk) 12:27, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
• It's aggregation and partisan opinion content, so should be treated accordingly. So if we're talking about their original content then no, of course we shouldn't use it for statements of fact in Misplaced Pages's voice (i.e. unreliable), but there may be uses for attributed opinions of certain authors in exceptional cases (as usual, RSOPINION does not mean that every/any opinion carries WP:WEIGHT on its own, but it's possible there are uses for them). — Rhododendrites \\ 05:44, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Tibetan Political Review

This discussion is an offshoot of Talk:Nyingchi#Tourism, where Normchou, Esiymbro, and I agreed that the Tibetan Political Review does not appear to be a reliable source. This is disputed by Pasdecomplot on the basis that it has not appeared at RSN yet.

Tibetan Political Review is self-hosted on Google Sites, has no affiliation with any academic publisher, is not listed in major journal indices, has no evidence of academic peer-review, and does not appear to be reviewed or discussed by established RSes (that we could find). It only existed for 7 years and often reads more like a blog than a research journal (e.g. the first article).

As such, it does not qualify under academic and peer-reviewed publications (WP:SOURCE) or reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses (WP:SCHOLARSHIP) and likely falls under has not been vetted by the scholarly community. This is much closer to:

journals that exist mainly to promote a particular point of view. A claim of peer review is not an indication that the journal is respected, or that any meaningful peer review occurs. Journals that are not peer reviewed by the wider academic community should not be considered reliable, except to show the views of the groups represented by those journals.
— WP:SCHOLARSHIP

Perhaps someone else could shed further light on the usability of Tibetan Political Review though, or draw a broader consensus on its reliability. — MarkH₂₁ 12:28, 20 December 2020 (UTC); strike-out editor who didn't comment directly on TPR 02:11, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

• Appears to be a collection of opinion pieces? Run by a poet and a couple of lawyers, so definitely not a scholarly journal. They accept unsolicited submissions. Doesn't appear to even have been discussed before. I don't think this can be used for anything other than what they themselves are saying, and since neither the Tibetan Political Review nor the writers appear to be notable, I'm not sure why we'd ever even be quoting/attributing them. At any rate, not an RS for anything other than their own opinions, attributed. —valereee (talk) 17:03, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

• To clarify the dispute, both the independent scholar Warren W Smith and Tibetan Political Review are being challenged at Nyingchi. I propose that the focus of this RSN be broadened to include Smith as an author, as well.
• Tibetan Political Review was founded in June 2010, and its editorial board is comprised of academics and jurists in the U.S and India. These include Nima R.T. Binara, Wangchuk D. Shakabpa, Bhuchung D. Sonam, and Tenzin Wangyal. Their web site was as listed on the Tibetan Political Review page at fr.wikipedia , but is presently . Their Misplaced Pages page doesn't list the editorial board's other professional interests, even if they are published poets.
• It's cited by Courrier International which is published by Le Monde; included in University of Minnesota's Human Rights Library for reliable accounts of conditions in Tibet; listed in Oxford University's Press Oxford Handbooks' Scholarly Research Reviews ; cited by Harvard Kennedy School Asian American Policy Review and by Harvard Law School ; cited by Tibetan Review, and by World Tibet News/Canada Tibet News Network as well as by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada for reliable accounts of conditions in Tibet. The list could continue, but might be seen as "bludgeoning" the issue that Tibetan Political Review is effectively peer reviewed, is cited, and definitely found very reliable by both academic institutions and a governmental agency vetting reports from Tibet, MarkH21 and Esiymbro and Normchou.
• Warren W Smith has a scholarly piece in Tibetan Political Review, and it's what led to this RSN; a very knowledgeable and respectable piece covering modern history in the region . Any editor with the same knowledge base would agree, regardless of its "hosted" url. That's why it was provided as RS. Amazon's bio says,Warren W. Smith Jr., an independent scholar in Alexandria, Virginia, received his Ph.D in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Smith's specialty is "Tibetan nationalism, Sino-Tibetan relations and the issue of Tibetan self-determination". Smith also has a page at fr.wiki, where it's noted that a critic Barry Sautman is himself criticized in his own page's lead for espousing PRC views, as in Ses positions sur le Tibet sont jugées comme étant proches de celles de la République populaire de Chine.
• At Talk:Nyingchi#Tourism it's clear Smith's scholarly views of China's Tourism policies in Tibet as presented in Tibetan Political Review are an issue. And, Tibetan Political Review has also become an issue, although the author and RS's stability dates from 30october, when it was discovered while digging for RS on the Middle Way Approach. My dispute is not about a lack of RSN on these topics, but the effective silencing of a scholar's criticism of policies due to random issues, such as the URL and such as ignoring the academics on the editorial board and the academic institutions which find Tibetan Political Review reliable - including Harvard University, Oxford University, and the University of Minnesota. Pasdecomplot (talk) 23:55, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

• None of these sources seem to establish peer review, and only the Canadian Immigration Board calls it a journal. As valeree points out, the editors are distinctly lacking in qualifications in the relevant fields (between the four list on the about page only 1 has a relevant degree - a BA in Political Science). Warren W Smith may be an SME, but I personally would not call anyone a SME unless they had an English Misplaced Pages page. While I generally overlook this, in this case the claim is deeply controversial and the post provides no supporting evidence. The fact that it reads like a polemic, not an academic paper (tourism is aimed at turning Tibet into something like a theme park where Chinese can go to indulge their fantasies about primitive Tibetan society doesn't sound like something I'd see in a serious journal) does not help me. ~ El D. (talk to me) 01:22, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
• Literally only one of the links of citations (the Oxford Handbooks' Scholarly Research Reviews link) is a published academic review, and even then it isn't reviewing the TPR article itself. The rest is a mix of student publications, a mention that an alum is on the editorial board in an alumni spotlight, raw links on a library page, non-academic Tibetan diaspora journalism, and a Canadian immigration board's response to an information request. If that is all that can be found for the 837 articles published by the TPR then it definitely does not qualify as being vetted by the scholarly community.The other editors here also bring up a valid point about the editorial board being self-described as poets, writers, and lawyers without academic affiliations. That's not the kind of editorial board that you find with scholarly journals. — MarkH₂₁ 01:53, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

• The points Smith makes about Chinese tourism policies in Tibet are widely shared, by residents throughout Lhasa and visitors to its spiritual sites, at monasteries, and are found as related to the demolitions and forced displacement of nuns and monks at Larung Gar and Yarchen Gar. Other sources go further to state tourism policies in Tibet are used as a form of ongoing cultural genocide. Smith's informed and pithy statements are supported by Tsering Woeser and many others, as I've learned while editing. It's rather shocking, certainly, but the information is a proven reliable account of current conditions in Tibet, by an academic specialist. Thus, it is something you'd find in an academic journal, and it appears long overdue in being cited widely.
• Smith has a page in French Misplaced Pages, and is cited in several French media outlets - additional diffs can be provided. El D's opinion about English wiki pages for authors is an opinion not supported by RS. Additionally, El D also happens to find Chinese state-run Xinhua accurate in a current RSN yet has issues with Tibetan Political Review? Xinhua's reporting in 2008 alone revealed it as a complete disinformation outlet.
• Another editor opines views, picked up by MarkH21, but those views aren't supported by diffs. My source says the board has academics. Is there a list of board members and their professional affiliations for each academic RS, or even for each RS that can be used for comparison? Probably not.
• The highly prestigious and academically stringent Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School citings, characterized as "student publications", indicate that current scholars and future leaders have confidence in the reliability of Tibetan Political Review. Their confidence signifies an academic standard within the student body and professorial body that Tibetan Political Review meets.
• All of which makes the continued dispute on the author and on the journal seem somewhat out of balance with RS standards. I might point out that editors here also support the previous replacment of text via Tibetan Political Review with different text via the source Radio Free Asia, in contradiction to those editor's previously stated views on RFA, which can be found in RSN archive 313. What the replacement indicates is RFA is considered more reliable than Tibetan Political Review. (Wording changed per request by Girth Summit)Pasdecomplot (talk) 11:00, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

What other sources say about other issues in Tibet are irrelevant. If they back up the claims of the TPR, then use them in the article instead. If they simply claim that Tibetans are undergoing political genocide, then they are irrelevant to the claim that Nyingchi is a "fake village". My statement against it being the sort of thing that would be found in an academic journal was an issue with the wording, not the meaning.

I doubt that student publications can be considered part of the scholarly community. Here is the editorial board of the IJCP (being used above as a source against Xinhua). This is what an editorial board of a scholarly journal should look like. (on the subject of Xinhua, I do not believe my views on Xinhua are relevant. If you would like to dispute them, take them up on the relevant RSN.)

My request for an English language Misplaced Pages page is my personal interpretation of WP:SPS. I am happy to give a lot of leeway on it for non-controversial claims, but this one is clearly quite controversial. If the TPR is reliable, then it is clearly not needed. But if it isn't then I would like, on controversial issues like this, the involved source to have a Misplaced Pages page demonstrating their notability. ~ El D. (talk to me) 12:17, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

IJCP is a completely different source. We're not saying all academic journals need boards comparable to IJCP. The issue is reliability, as evidenced by academic usage, review, and academic credentials of those involved.

The "personal interpretation" for pages is noted, but is not RS policy from my understanding.

Harvard Law#Rankings|Harvard Law]] and Harvard Kennedy School are considered part of the US, and the world's, scholarly community.Pasdecomplot (talk) 13:09, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

The rankings and reputations of the schools at Harvard are not relevant here. A Harvard Law School alumni bulletin that says that someone is on the editorial board of the Tibetan Political Review and a Harvard Kennedy School student publication that cites the Tibetan Political Review once do not tie the reliability of the Tibetan Political Review to the reputation of Harvard as a whole. — MarkH₂₁ 13:34, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Pasdecomplot: Your assertion that people in Tibet share Smith's views does nothing whatsoever to demonstrate that he is a subject-matter expert or a reliable source. If his view is repeated by reliable sources, then use those reliable sources. Whether someone has an article on some version of Misplaced Pages doesn't demonstrate that they are a subject-matter expert.The article you describe as from the Harvard Kennedy School describes itself as A Harvard Kennedy School Student Publication. Student publications are not established RSes regardless of the home institution, just as masters theses and doctoral theses-in-progress are not considered RSes per WP:SCHOLARSHIP. The article that you describe as a citation from the Harvard Law School is literally an Alumni Focus bulletin that only mentions the Tibetan Political Review once: says Tenzin Wangyal, a Boston lawyer and member of the editorial board of the Tibetan Political Review. That is anything but a citation of the Tibetan Political Review and says literally nothing about its reliability.The Tibetan Political Review Editorial Team page describes them exactly as Valereee did, e.g. a poet, writer and translator living in New York City, a writer living in Dharamsala, India, He is admitted to practice law in New York and Massachusetts. The fact that they graduated with bachelor's degrees and law degrees from universities does not mean that they are academics.You're going off-topic by pointing at another editor's views on other sources and suggesting hypocrisy. You're also going off-topic about Radio Free Asia and also make vague references to editors; I did not suggest replacing the text at Nyingchi that was cited to Tibetan Political Review with a citation to Radio Free Asia, nor did anyone else here to my knowledge. I only removed the text referenced to Tibetan Political Review because it's not a reliable source, and so far five other editors have agreed with that view except you. — MarkH₂₁ 13:15, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

There is no suggestion of hypocracy. The point on RFA is germaine as a comparison, given the current edits at Nyingchi where the text via RFA (as edited by Normchou) remains after several reverts, including a revert earlier today by MarkH21. The point is this RSN demonstrates Tibetan Political Review is included as a reliable source of current accounts in Tibet as versus RFA, which is not seen as a reliable source for the same accounts, and is described as a source that should only be used as an inline source per the RSN. If it wasn't used to replace Tibetan Political Review, I agree it would be off-topic. Pasdecomplot (talk) 13:42, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

There were two paragraphs; one referenced to the Tibetan Political Review and one referenced to RFA. In this edit, I deleted the paragraph referenced to the Tibetan Political Review and did not replace anything with RFA. There also isn't a single participant in this RSN discussion who said that RFA was unreliable in the archived RSN thread that you refer to. You're misrepresenting the comments of other editors with something that is totally off-topic. — MarkH₂₁ 14:02, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Here's a text quote about RFA from RSN archive 313 I suggest this section be closed henceforth. Radio Free Asia, which actually purports to be a news agency, can be the subject of the first separate discussion. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 02:57, 19 September 2020 (UTC) Pasdecomplot (talk) 14:45, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

That's a blocked editor who has not commented at this RSN thread and cannot comment at this RSN thread. That's also not an example of your full claim that editors here also support the previous replacment of text via Tibetan Political Review with different text via the source Radio Free Asia. Are you still standing behind it or can you just drop the false claim? — MarkH₂₁ 14:52, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

• The other RSN thread is completely immaterial here; none of those sources were deemed reliable. The most common comments I can find in that thread was that the sources needed to be examined individually rather than as a group, and that the thread was trying to argue about too many sources at once. I'm not sure anyone but PDC even commented on Radio Free Asia there. —valereee (talk) 16:09, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

To make sure inaccuracies are corrected for the future archive: Here's the text from the closing at Archive 313, Sources should be discussed individually. I may be one of the users who was "canvassed" to this discussion. In any case, I watch this page and would have noticed. I think sources should be taken one by one. WP:USEBYOTHERS may be relevant to some of these. Between the (possibly innocent) canvassing and the joining of eight sources in this discussion, I'd suggest starting over with one or two of the sources in separate discussions. Adoring nanny. So, for the record, the statement above none of those sources were deemed reliable is actually not accurate as per closing, but the discussion does supply other general use guidelines. Another innaccuracy I'm not sure anyone but PDC even commented on Radio Free Asia there was already clarified above, where the only comment on RFA by CarasdhrasAiguo has been provided here, and note the coment was not addressed by the other editors. I only requested the RSN on RFA and other sources, after repeated reverts of those sources by CaradhrasAiguo. Although that editor is not participating in this RSN, their non-summarized revert at Nyingchi of Tibetan Political Review began a series of reverts which then led to this RSN. Pasdecomplot (talk) 12:48, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

But, to return to the topic and comments: The Harvard Kennedy School AAPR journal cites Smith twice, and Tibetan Political Review once - the same Smith article on the Middle Way Policy previously edited into Nyingchi. The Harvard Law Bulletin quotes Tenzen Wangyal, a Boston lawyer and board member of Tibetan Political Review, in its article on Lobsang Sangay of Central Tibetan Administration and a Harvard Law alumnus. The IRB's citing of Tibetan Political Review in its background on an immigration case signifies their position on its reliability, as indicated by their absence of disagreement to the information. The Oxford Handbooks Online scholarly research reviews and peer reviewed abstract entitledTibetan Buddhist Self-Immolation by Kevin Carrico cites at least four different articles from Tibetan Political Review in its references, which are cited alongside Robert Barnett, Janet Gyatso, Tsering Woeser, Jamyang Norbu, Elliott Sperling and others. Pasdecomplot (talk) 14:14, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Pasdecomplot, if you're referring to my comment as "inaccuracies" that you're correcting for future archives (it would be so much easier if you stopped playing this little game of yours and just addressed me directly, but whatever): The text you are quoting is not the closing statement in that discussion. That text is a comment from a single editor, Adoring nanny. It just happened to be the final comment made in that discussion. That does not make it the closing statement. That discussion never received a formal closing. The statement I made is correct: in that thread, which was never formally closed, none of the sources addressed were declared reliable. None were declared to be not-reliable, either. None were declared anything. —valereee (talk) 14:31, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Berlin's Humboldt University's South Asia Chronicle includes an abstract by M.N.Rajesh, which cites Tibetan Political Review and Smith, and Reed University's Anthropology of Global Tibet appears to include Tibetan Political Review on its reading list (included on searches). Author, editor and translator Tenzin Dickie is published by Washington Post Online, edits at Treasury of Lives, and edits at Tibetan Political Review . Woeser as a RS cites Smith . And, here's a Courrier International's reprint of Tibetan Political Review . Pasdecomplot (talk) 15:15, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Pasdecomplot, Again, none of these makes Tibetan Political Review a reliable source for anything but their own opinions. They may very well be informed opinions. Academics may very well put them on reading lists and even cite them. None of that creates editorial oversight. And, yes, academic journals and other reliable sources DO provide a list of their editorial hierarchy, that's one of the things we check for when we are assessing a source for reliability: some sort of masthead. —valereee (talk) 15:29, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Valereee is correct. For TPR's 837 articles, our searches has turned up two citations of TPR articles from any peer-reviewed scholarly publications. That is paltry and worse than several known predatory journals, let alone reputable peer-reviewed sources that have been vetted by the scholarly community (WP:SCHOLARSHIP again). The remaining evidence does not demonstrate much in terms of reliability:

• A Canadian immigration board (IRB) information request citation
• A student publication (AAPR) citation
• A alumni bulletin mentioning that a Harvard alum was on the TPR editorial board
• TPR appearing on reading lists
• Verification that one of the writers on the TPR editorial board (Tenzin Dickyi) is indeed a writer
• The author of a TPR article being cited in a blog post by another writer (Tsering Woeser)
• Being reprinted in a newspaper

It appears that there is no stronger evidence for reliability, and even a couple more additional genuine citations from peer-reviewed academic publications would be too few to really bring this to general RS status. — MarkH₂₁ 04:38, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

{Replying to MarkH21's refractor}

• As WP:SOURCE states, If available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources..., but doesn't say they are the only reliable sources. We've established that the board provides professional oversite, and we've established that academic authors in peer reviewed journals cite Tibetan Political Review as in WP:USEBYOTHERS.
• Warren Smith, the author of the article in Tibetan Political Review, is also established as a respected and notable specialist in his field. This adds further reliability to the article that's specifically contested with edits at Nyingchi . He and Tibetan Political Review are properly cited inline, and the quotation's accuracy is reinforced by an excerpt added to the citation:

Historian Warren W. Smith states in his 2015 review of the model villages, included in his "Origins of the Middle Way Policy" for Tibetan Political Review, that tourism is turning Tibet into a theme park, and used Nyingchi's "fake Tibetan 'model villages'" as an example of Chinese "fantasies about primitive Tibetan society".

• To address another aspect of the importance of the author and source, related edits on Nyingchi were also reedited, but based on other RS. Possible related informational aspects with Smith's article is that those RS and sources state Tibetan nuns forced into political re-education centers/camps in Nyingchi have been documented as forced to sing and dance on a stage in Nyingchi. Which might or might not tie into "where Chinese can go to indulge their fantasies" since Nyingchi is a popular tourist destination, only more RS will tell.
• For the record, the published author Woeser is cited by BBC and other first rate news agencies, and her blog is a famous record of Chinese human rights abuses in Tibet, and cited by those agencies.
• Sorry for the repetition, but the IRB (Immigration and Refugee Board) citation is extremely notable as to the reliability of factual information in Tibetan Political Review regarding current conditions in Tibet.
• I've provided at least six individual citations of different articles from academic settings, and there are more for Smith alone, for Smith and Tibetan Political Review together, and for the journal with its other authors. Pasdecomplot (talk) 15:02, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

References

1. Warren W Smith (25 March 2015). "Origins of Middle Way Policy". Tibetan Political Review. Retrieved December 18, 2020. Tourism is aimed at turning Tibet into something like a theme park where Chinese can go to indulge their fantasies about primitive Tibetan society ... Theme parks and cultural performances are being developed in Lhasa where Chinese tourists can experience an unthreatening version of Tibetan culture and an altered version of Tibet history in which Tibet has "always" been a part of China. Fake Tibetan "model villages" are being built in lower areas of eastern Tibet like Nyingtri in Kongpo where Chinese tourists can live in Tibetan houses and be entertained by Tibetan singers and dancers. Tourist numbers reached almost 13 million in 2013 of whom 99 percent were Chinese. The perpetual presence of so many Chinese tourists in Lhasa significantly alters the population balance and cultural dynamic.

(ec) MarkH21, I think items reprinted in RS would probably be usable as items from that reliable source (rather than from TPR), but the one PDC has linked to is published by Courrier International as an opinion piece, so again only a reliable source for Tenzin Dorjee's/TPR's opinion, with attribution. —valereee (talk) 15:04, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Note: Editor MarkH21 has stated that the edit above describing editorial "support" for RFA is "a false claim". While Esyimbro and Normchou both used RFA as an editing source, MarkH21 did not, but the edit history includes 5 reedits around the RFA source as Tibetan Political Review was being challenged as a source . The interpretation of "support" stemed from WP:SILENCE in this instance where numerous edits and reverts around RFA were being made, but no deletions of RFA occurred. I don't believe a "false claim" was made, although MarkH21 has clearly restated they don't feel SILENCE is applicable. Thus, this note respectfully clarifies MarkH21's position on RFA. Pasdecomplot (talk) 12:11, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

The seriously off-topic edits below should be refractored to the user's talk page. A request has already been made. Pasdecomplot (talk) 10:36, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

• So, it's clear we don't have consensus for TPR to be considered a reliable source (other than for its own opinions, attributed, of course; it's perfectly reliable for that.) But I think we'd need a formal close to declare it not-reliable for anything other than its own opinions, attributed, as that's not as immediately clear. Should we request a formal close? —valereee (talk) 15:55, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Four editors have participated here, with three calling it not reliable (outside of WP:ABOUTSELF) and one calling it reliable. Another editors (plus a now-blocked editor) also called it not reliable at the original Talk:Nyingchi discussion. The consensus seems pretty clear, but a formal close doesn't hurt. — MarkH₂₁ 02:09, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

    I've requested one. —valereee (talk) 19:03, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

• Still hoping for eventual formal closure. —valereee (talk) 01:22, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Poreklo

Serbian private genetic portal Poreklo(Порекло) as RS for origin, genetic, history etc information's?

• Портал Порекло основан је 1. фебруара 2012. са идејом да постане свеобухватна база података о пореклу презимена, имена, насеља и становништва у местима Србије, као и на целом простору бивше Југославије. The portal Poreklo was founded on February 1, 2012 with the idea of becoming a comprehensive database on the origin of surnames, names, settlements and populations in places in Serbia, as well as in the entire territory of the former Yugoslavia. Mikola22 (talk) 17:35, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

  Maybe surname etymology, but not much else, I would say. (t · c) buidhe 13:57, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

• Who edits it, who writes for it, what is is reputation among academics?Slatersteven (talk) 14:03, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Portal Poreklo osnovala je grupa entuzijasta okupljena u Društvu srpskih rodoslovaca „Poreklo”, sa sedištem u Beogradu. The Poreklo portal was founded by a group of enthusiasts gathered in the Association of Serbian Genealogists "Poreklo", based in Belgrade. Who edits it, writes or whether has reputation among academics, I don't know anything about that. As for reputation among academics I don’t think it exists in the sense that someone use portal Poreklo as source in some scientific work. Mikola22 (talk) 15:32, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
    • So just another web site, not sure its RS.Slatersteven (talk) 15:38, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
      • @Slatersteven:There is a list of contributors in impressum part that includes доц. др Душан Кецкаревић- docent in biochemistry and molecular biology at university of Belgrade,др. Ивица Тодоровић- ethnologist, др Бојана Панић- molecular biologist, др Милош Тимотијевић- historian, Борисав Челиковић also a historian and etc., people with PHD and with scientific research behind them. User:Theonewithreason (talk) 24. December 2020 (UTC)
        • and on its about page (and can we please type English translations of names, ect) "Collects and processes scientific, professional, but also lay literature", so it is not only by experts. "Conducts conversations with individuals, who are the guardians and transmitters of folklore", that reads like they carry out and publish their own work (so maybe SPS issue). IN fact they look like a advocacy group. Nor can I see a list of contributors (or any editorial policy).Slatersteven (talk) 15:54, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
          • Editorial policy is under Statut part of the page ]. Regarding names доц. др Душан Кецкаревић -doc.dr Dusan Keckarevic, др. Ивица Тодоровић - Dr. Ivica Todorovic, др Бојана Панић -Dr. Bojana Panic, др Милош Тимотијевић - Dr. Milos Timotijevic , Борисав Челиковић- Borisav Celikovic. User:Theonewithreason (talk) 24. December 2020 (UTC)

• 1) A number of European portal on genetics are "private", like that means it's something bad or suspicious. 2) They have a number of people with PhD in their ranks and have done the best job when it comes to scale of samples and the general studies of heritage of ethnic groups on the Balkans. Work done by Poreklo is far superior then any other project in former Yugoslavia. 3) Authors associated with Poreklo have published noted books and capital works. For example: 3.1) Poreko has also published large studies/books on their main topic of expertise. 3.2) A tool developed by Poreklo members "Nevgen" is used all around the world and it largely contributed to their reputation and funding. 4) They have also published online a number of great books on ethnology etc. 5) They work with a number of scientists and NGOs, which is also mentioned here. 6) Most of the articles written by Poreklo members are based on reliable sources and use multiple citations, as any decent study/work should. All in all - quite the RS. Cheers, Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 00:00, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

• 1) Eupedia is also European portal on genetics and it is not RS, see discusion 2) If they have some people with PhD in their ranks it does not mean that portal itself is RS. We cite information's from that portal and not information's from their books which are also located outside portal. Their books are not published by portal Poreklo, in first case it is "Издавачка кућа Прометеј"(The publishing house Prometheus) and second case is book of some associate with not much information about the book or author. 3) Same answer as for 2), also Jovica-Krtinić(main editor of portal Poreklo) author of that "studies/book" is not a scientist, he is from (Milutin Bojić’s Library, Belgrade, Serbia and Society of Serbian Genealogists Poreklo). Tool developed by Poreklo members "Nevgen" is developed by anonymous private person which is also used by some foreign scientists. 4) They(portal) published nothing, they are just one of the media which has and books on their portal that also exist and elsewhere. 5) They collect raw genetic data from private individuals and this information can be useful for some scientists but that does not mean that the portal itself or information's from that portal are RS. 6) We do not know who edits the texts or what some texts are based on, many texts are written by private individuals also.
• We also have WP:COPYRIGHT and WP:NONFREE issues with this source in rules and conditions of using the Serbian DNA project(genetic results and information's) because "Article 2: It is not allowed to publish results from a Serbian DNA project without obtaining the consent of the Serbian DNA project editorial board", "Article 3: It is not permitted to visualize parts of the project in electronic media (on television and the Internet) without obtaining the consent of the Serbian DNA project editorial board" and "Article 5: It is not allowed to use data from the Serbian DNA project for commercial purposes". "Non-commercial use only" license is not supported on Misplaced Pages and that's what Article 5 is about.

• Therefore this source is not and cannot be RS. Mikola22 (talk) 05:12, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

• • I have to agree with @Sadko: specially if this is used for a dispute like we have on ] page that unnecessary lasts few days long, in that case site poreklo is equally realible as portal Hrcak.hr in which we have whole different types of contributors some of them are with PHD some of them are without like the author, site poreklo should not be dismissed so easily because it is more reliable than some other sources User:Theonewithreason (talk) 25. December 2020 (UTC)

• Hrčak je centralni portal koji na jednom mjestu okuplja hrvatske znanstvene i stručne časopise koji nude otvoreni pristup svojim radovima(Hrčak is a central portal that brings together Croatian scientific and professional journals that offer open access to their works) while portal Poreklo is some private genetic portal used as RS. Hrcak.hr is not RS he only transfers various sources. Mikola22 (talk) 08:36, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Which means that every article in Hrcak.hr should be individually looked and valued to see does it present some sort of advocacy or not. And like you written above it is not just presented by scientist there are number of different contributors, therefore it doesn't present more RS than "some" other site. User:Theonewithreason (talk) 25. December 2020 (UTC)

You must not delete information from the article(Josif Pančić) without discussion on talk page or if exist some problem with some source you must discuss it here by opening a new topic. I did not delete the previous two sources, although they had problems. The Croatian source has not had any problems so far and I don't think he will in the future, so please return information to the article. This way of disruptive editing it will only bring you to punishment or block, because we must respect source and information from source. Mikola22 (talk) 08:58, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

It will not block me because a) the source you contributed does not say anything about his origin, b) As we can it has same issues like here discussed source and it doesn't mean that it will not have problems in future specially if it is misused c) It appears there is number of editors disagreeing with you and d) by restoring just one part of information and ignoring some other sources that were not marked as unreliable shows lack of WP:GOODFAITH, my suggestion is that you find international neutral source from well sourced authors, you can restore it to a previous edit from senior editor Slatersteven or you can leave it like @Aeengath: left it until we find more reliable neutral source. You could also cooperate with user Aeengath to reach a consensus.User:Theonewithreason (talk) 25. December 2020 (UTC)

:::::Comparison with Hrčak.hr completely missed the point. A superficial attempt to give some validity to Poreklo.--Miki Filigranski (talk) 19:04, 29 December 2020 (UTC) Blocked sock. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 03:13, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

• It's not a reliable source. If you are using this type of controversial source in a controversial article, it should be a recognized source whose claims to reliability can be verified some place other than their own website. They don't have established reputations for fact-checking and are usually contradicted by equally weighty sources from other, rival nations. We should shut the door on endless disputes about which of these sources we should ban, which is where this is heading - see Sadko's comment: "Work done by Poreklo is far superior then any other project in former Yugoslavia." and Theonewithreason "poreklo should not be dismissed so easily because it is more reliable than some other sources". Unless this work is of broader academic interest and merit, which can be shown by citations in mainstream scholarship, I don't see this project as the platform to emphasize or promote views which may introduce WP:FRINGE ideas. Spudlace (talk) 09:07, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

That means the same thing goes for internet portal Hrcak.hr same issues, not always written by scientists, if overused could give partisan and one sided view etc. We should not have double standards here User:Theonewithreason (talk) 25. December 2020 (UTC)

Maybe, launch an RSN thread about it. But we do not horse trade.Slatersteven (talk) 09:49, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Poreklo falls somewhere in the middle of the RS spectrum. It's published by the Serbian Genealogical Society but many of its contributors aren't academics or experts in the field of genealogy, although quite a few are. As Buidhe noted earlier, it can likely be considered RS for surname etymologies and the like. For concrete claims regarding an individual's or family's ethnic origin (often a contentious topic in the Balkans) stronger sources are needed (WP:V). Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 22:58, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

They are an SPS advocacy group with no claims to editorial oversight that self-published work based on "conversations with individuals, who are the guardians and transmitters of folklore", as discussed above by Slatersteven and others. That fails every requirement of WP:RS. For contentious topics, we should cite only stronger sources with an established reputation. Spudlace (talk) 02:03, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

*Unreliable. Seemingly most of the members and editors who are writing articles on Poreklo are not educated historians, linguists, geneticists, and so on, but mainly a group of volunteers. For example, one of the authors mentioned by editor Sadko studied the economy while the president and main editor of the society and portal Poreklo, Jovica Krtinić, studied politics. Even if some of them are educated in a scientific field of work, education as such is not enough argument for reliability because we also seek reputation, specialization, and critical reception in scientific articles. I tried reading recent articles with Google Translate. They are obviously using their platform for promoting controversial viewpoints and fringe theories based on some limited genetic information like in this latest article using only selected few scientific references. It is claiming that Zachlumia, Pagania, Travunia and Duklja were Serbian principalities, that most of the scholars believe that Serbs from Zachlumia or Pagania migrated to a region in Italy and due to Michael of Zahumlje origin from a tribe of Litziki from Poland where in today's population was found some genetic match with a sample in Serbia and Italy, it somehow proves the Serbian historical origin and relationship with people and region in Poland and Italy. As can be read in the articles for which provided wikilinks (as well as Kanalites, Bosnia (early medieval polity), White Serbs and White Serbia), it is completely contradicting the general and modern scientific consensus & debate and does not make any sense. Agree with Spudlace, the comments by Serbian editors Sadko and Theonewithreason are biased. --Miki Filigranski (talk) 19:04, 29 December 2020 (UTC) Blocked sock. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 03:13, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

I am not a Serbian editor ,if you think to label people it should be noted that Filigranski is Croatian editor therefore biased. User:Theonewithreason (talk) 30. December 2020 (UTC)

::I'm an Italian citizen, ethnically Italian-Slovene. Sorry if misinterpreted your nationality or ethnicity, but you're mainly editing and engaging in discussion on Serbian topics with an obvious Serbian point of view.--Miki Filigranski (talk) 10:52, 30 December 2020 (UTC) Blocked sock. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 03:13, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

I am just going to say that I am of mixed Yugoslav ethnicity with different citizenship never been in Serbia, about mine point of view same thing can go in your way since it is obvious your are pushing towards Croatian side (a lot), you are not as extreme as other editors here but but you are gaming the system like you did with Trbovich, funny don't see you fighting the same way when some other authors are heavily used i.e Anzulovic (who is even in Croatian history circles discarded) but no matter. I am long enough here to understand how you "play the game" and that administrators here don't give 2 cents about Balkan topics. User:Theonewithreason (talk) 30. December 2020 (UTC)

But just to be clear on one thing I would rather cooperate with you and some other Croatian Users like Oymosby who do understand Misplaced Pages rules so at least we can discuss, then with some other who are really just here to push it.User:Theonewithreason (talk) 30. December 2020 (UTC)

:::::You're making false accusations about Trbovich. On articles about science we must use reliable sources published by reliable authors who primarily specialized in a relevant scientific field of work. Trbovich studied art, literature, law, and the economy. Barely anything related to history as well as was only paraphrasing historian's Miller's source which was also cited because of which was pointless to use Trbovich's source anymore.--Miki Filigranski (talk) 18:07, 31 December 2020 (UTC) Blocked sock. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 03:13, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

• The portal can be helpful in certain cases, especially for resolving etymological disputes. However, we should be careful with genetic studies. There have been many RSN cases (1, 2). and we should use only recent peer-reviewed journal articles.--WEBDuB (talk) 12:11, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Business Insider

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Which of the following best describes the reliability of Business Insider?

businessinsider.com  
businessinsider.in  
businessinsider.co.za  
businessinsider.com.au  

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

AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 21:41, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Previous RSN discussion: Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:31, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Several other previous discussions listed at WP:RSPSOURCES. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 02:48, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Survey (Business Insider)

• Option 2. Mainly per this old-ish article in the The New Yorker. It is owned by Axel Springer SE (see ), which seems reputable enough to this non-German reader. It looks like a WP:NEWSORG to me—the lead article as of when I'm typing this is bylined, although it doesn't include any quotations not previously published. I'd say this looks like a slightly more questionable WP:HUFFPO. If consensus is not to deprecate, I would suggest flagging at RSP that usage of Business Insider should be attributed, if not avoided. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 21:41, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Axel Springer are the publishers of Bild a notorious german tabloid often compared to the The Sun, and has a questionable reputation for factual accuracy. Of course the same company that owns The Sun also owns The Times which is generally reliable, so I don't necessarily that the reliability of a publication can be determined by its owner if they happen to be a major publishing company. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:07, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Axel Springer also owns Die Welt which is solidly reliable. (t · c) buidhe 13:56, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

• Solid Option 2 leaning towards Option 3. Started out as a collection of blogs, all the awards it's received have been in blog categories. Known to engage in clickbait tactics and noted by the New Yorker for prioritizing speed over accuracy. Also noted in the current Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Perennial sources listing, which notes a whopping nine times it's been discussed already, the site does not clearly mark syndicated content and that makes for another reliability issue since such content has to be gauged by the reliability of the original publisher. IHateAccounts (talk) 21:54, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
• Leaning Option 2. It has some good stuff, but some awful churnalised clickbait. I'm reluctant to consider it sufficient to connote notability. I'd certainly attribute at least - David Gerard (talk) 16:00, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 I'm leaning towards option 3 as well. Maybe some of the content is good and some isn't. I don't think it's reliable enough to use as the only source because of known churnalism and questions about fact-checking. It's not taken seriously at AfD. Spudlace (talk) 09:48, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1, per WP:NEWSORG. Ad Fontes rates their reliability and bias as 43.13 and -0.38. So slightly better than The Economist. Media Bias / Fact Check rates their reporting Very High. ImTheIP (talk) 12:14, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

  ImTheIP, Thanks, that's very helpful. I'm not familiar with Ad Fontes Media. Do we typically use their ratings as evidence of reliability in other contexts? (Not to say they aren't reliable—I just haven't heard of them before). AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 18:54, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

  We don't regard them highly at all. They're not a good media ratings organisation. Neither is MB/FC, which is literally just some guy's blog opinions - David Gerard (talk) 19:37, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

  David Gerard, IMO Ad Fontes is a very useful tool, and they roughly agree with our own RSNP on many sources. But they're a tool, not evidence of reliability. We don't (and shouldn't) use them as evidence. But as a tool, they're pretty useful. —valereee (talk) 21:17, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

There are some key cases in which our standards diverge wildly from AF. I'm not going to talk about their 'bias' axis, but their 'reliability' axis is quite different from our conceptions. They take into account headlines and graphics, which in general we consider separately from article content. They also consider 'expression', which they define as (essentially) the % of opinion content in an article vs the % of fact. This is not in itself a bad thing--we prefer to clearly mark opinion content--but it makes using their scoring much less useful for our purposes. I think there are other ways in which our definitions of reliability diverge from their definition of veracity, but this is a fair start. Jlevi (talk) 21:33, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1. Now that I think of it, I don't really see any evidence that they're not reliable. There's clickbait, sure ( was at the top of their trending list as of the time I'm writing this), but it's attributed to check-able sources and bylined. It seems comparable in reliability and bias ratings to other reliable sources, per the !vote immediately above, keeping in mind any necessary caveats about the reliability of those sources. Their native advertising is tagged as such (and that article is from 2013). They aggregate and rely on others' reporting, but so does HuffPo, a reliable source. The New Yorker article that concerned me above doesn't actually make any claims of journalistic malpractice. I'm now inclined to view BI as a genuine news organization—buzzy and clickbaity, no doubt, but a news organization nonetheless. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 22:56, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Business Insider's headlines are out there and they've received a lot for criticism for it. "Buzzy and clickbaity" headlines are significant. WP:NEWSORG says to cite the reporting agency too, so why not just cite it to the agency? Editors use all kinds of crazed tactics to push POV into articles. Spudlace (talk) 02:25, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Spudlace, Citing the agency is of course appropriate when there is an agency, but BI publishes original reporting as well. As for buzzy headlines, HuffPo runs them too (this one is an AP report). AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 02:48, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

@AleatoryPonderings: Two things. First, it seems a bit disingenuous for you to have tried to remove information you didn't like about the source followed by trying to add information you did to the article, seemingly to influence this RFC?

Second, you seem to have ignored or missed the consensus of previous discussions and a key finding as listed on Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, which is their failure to clearly mark syndicated content, which makes evaluating content on the reliability of the original source excessively difficult. Aggregation or syndication, clearly marked as such, is one thing; failing to clearly mark it falls into an area of possible source-laundering. I am reminded of another recent case where someone was trying to misrepresent a syndicated Washington Examiner piece full of WP:FRINGE election conspiracy-theory content as "coverage by MSN", which thankfully was easily debunked since MSN clearly marked it and even included the WE header. Imagine instead, the WE piece had been laundered by Business Insider, which doesn't properly mark its syndicated content? IHateAccounts (talk) 17:40, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

IHateAccounts, Please WP:AGF with respect to my edits to Business Insider. The first edit was an attempt to remove a POV subsection (calling a section "tabloid clickbait" is clearly POV-laden). The second was an ordinary edit to add information about the source. I am not a shill for BI; rather, I have been convinced of their reliability from information presented in this RfC, which I added to the article to better inform readers.

Second, when you say "syndicated", do you mean sponsored or taken from an agency? If the former, they seem to mark it; if the latter, I don't actually see the evidence that they don't mark syndicated content (WP:RSP says "may not be clearly marked", which is not a definitive statement in the least). If you could point me to a more specific example of their failure to do so, I would be happy to consider it. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 17:48, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Btw, here is an example where syndicated content from Reuters is very clearly marked. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 17:52, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 Lots of clickbait churnalism which should generally be considered UNDUE or adds no weight to a view. However occasionally a good story comes out of BI. Springee (talk) 01:17, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 leaning Option 4 What often happens at RSN is editors engage in individual analysis of sources or apply their own standards for determining reliability. We only have one standard to apply; if RS consider an outlet RS, it's RS; otherwise it's not. There have been such numerous RS that have repeatedly raised questions about the reliability of Business Insider's reporting and its editorial independence that I feel safe in !voting 4. For instance -

• Joining The Daily Mail as one of only two outlets who published a sensationalist and potentially fake headline about leaked documents (reported by PolitiFact )
• Giving a corporate advertiser "limited editorial control" over its news content (reported by Columbia Journalism Review )
• Allowing reporters to take junkets paid for by sources (reported by the Columbia Journalism Review which described it as a "serious ethical problem" )
• Publishing a factually false story about Apple (reported by Ryan Holiday in his book Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator),
• Publishing a factually false story about Edward Snowden (reported by The Intercept ),
• Requiring its own reporters not to report negatively on the outlet itself (reported by The Daily Beast - journalists at outlets like the BBC and the New York Times regularly cover their own shortcomings)
• A journalistic ethos for dubious "churn 'n burn" style journalism described as creating the potential for "fake news sites frequently trick" it (reported by the Columbia Journalism Review )
• Questionable ethics and journalistic credentials of editorial leadership - including the outlet's editorial head who is serving a lifetime ban from securities trading over fraud allegations (reported by The New Yorker )
• "Capricious story assignments" handed out by editorial leadership (reported by CNN )
• A scientifically demonstrated tendency to use clickbait headlines,

- and a dozen other examples too numerous to mention. For full disclosure, I have regularly used BI stories in the past to reference content. In light of new learning from this discussion, I will refrain from doing so in the future and seek to replace it where I've added it. Chetsford (talk) 06:22, 27 December 2020 (UTC); edited 08:14, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

I have Holiday's book but I can't find the false Apple story in it. Can you provide some quotes from the book so that I can verify it? ImTheIP (talk) 13:27, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

ImTheIP, page 188. Vexations (talk) 14:04, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, I found it on page 182 in my version of the book. Though I can't see what is "factually incorrect" about it. ImTheIP (talk) 15:00, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

The "potentially fake headline" was A leaked presentation reveals the document US hospitals are using to prepare for a major coronavirus outbreak. It estimates 96 million US coronavirus cases and 480,000 deaths. In February this year, James Lawler presented a forecast of Covid pandemic in the U.S. at a webinar held by the American Hospital Association (AHA). He predicted 480,000 deaths and 96 million infections and encouraged hospitals to "prepare" for an epidemic of that magnitude. PolitiFact rated BI's article false because it wasn't shown that hospitals were actually "preparing" for that. According to PolitiFact, the AHA declined to respond when asked whether they were "preparing" for that or not. ImTheIP (talk) 10:35, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

PolitiFact rated it "false." I'm not qualified to independently analyze, research or apply qualifications or caveats to PolitiFact's reporting and conclusions. Chetsford (talk) 18:37, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

The article about clickbait, Crowdsourcing a Large Corpus of Clickbait on Twitter, does not claim that BI has a "scientifically demonstrated tendency to use clickbait headlines". The only meaningful statistics presented is figure 4 on page 1506. The figure shows that the publishers with the least amount of clickbait are ABC News and FOX News. The publishers with the most amount of clickbait are Breitbart News, BuzzFeed, Yahoo, Mashable, and Forbes. BI is somewhere in the middle, with about the same amount of clickbait as Washington Post, and Independent. The authors do not state how many headlines there were from each publisher so it is hard to draw any hard and fast conclusions. ImTheIP (talk) 19:29, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

• Dunno about reliability, but they shouldn’t be accepted for showing notability. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:44, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3, leaning 4. Chetsford's sleuthing has convinced me (for those keeping score, I have now !voted every possible !vote in this RfC). The stories about BI in Trust Me, I'm Lying are enough to put me over the edge of considering BI generally unreliable. On the other hand, it is frequently cited by fact checkers (, , , , ). Those fact checkers may need to update their policies, but I'm not quite ready to discount their reliance on BI. We shouldn't be relying on them, though. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 18:55, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2, leaning 3 - as suggested by their use by fact-checkers and the high rating given by Ad Fontes, most of their content appears reliable. However they clearly also have ethical issues and conduct sensationalist reporting and some factually inaccurate reporting. I would suggest treating as something along the lines of the Mirror or the Metro. (note, MB/FC also records this failed fact check). ~ El D. (talk to me) 12:19, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1: I can see no reason to limit use if this source. Examples listed above are not convincing. E.g. the Snowden story was also published by other outlets such as the Wall Street Journal. Business Insider did make a correction to its story. Sensationalist headlines are not relevant to what we do as headlines are not treated as reliable sources for our content. Burrobert (talk) 12:43, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1: I have used this source occasionally, and have never found it to be inaccurate. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:22, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2, leaning 3 per Springee and Chetsford. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  22:55, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2, while the information provided by Chetsford does give me pause, they are still well-respected by fact-checking organisations, and I find their journalism to be generally solid, if click-baity. They are certainly do not deserve a green tick, but I do not think I would consider them generally unreliable. Devonian Wombat (talk) 02:32, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 per Columbia Journalism Review , The New Yorker , The Intercept , and CNN (h/t Chetsford). We can do better for our readers. There is no information that Business Insider provides that is not provided by some other, better source. There's no reason to use it. Also echoing Chetsford that we only have one standard to apply: if RS consider an outlet RS, it's RS; otherwise it's not. Editors' personal opinions or experience with a source are totally irrelevant. Levivich /_hound 03:30, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
  • I've opened the CNN link and I'm not sure why it supports Option 3. It does talk about the turnover of staff at BI attributed to the pressure to get more traffic - surely the case at many news outlets today - but how does it support the conclusion that it's unreliable? Alaexis_¿question? 08:56, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
    • If the first four support the conclusion that it's unreliable, then it doesn't matter if everyone is sure about the fifth. But a source that, as CNN reports, is run by a guy who was banned by the government for fraud, and who is causing journalists to leave by pressuring them to produce more content and get more scoops, at the expense of journalism, is not a source I would want to use to support any statement in any article. Levivich /_hound 17:09, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
      • I opened it at random, you will forgive me for doubting the rest as well now. The personality of the owner does not directly affect the reliability, you need to prove that his behaviour somehow made the reporting unreliable. Alaexis_¿question? 21:26, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
        • I will also forgive you for wasting my time. Levivich /_hound 23:22, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
        • It's not the owner (the owner is Axel Springer), it's the head of editorial; that very much and very directly impacts reliability. Chetsford (talk) 03:18, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 for sure, unless BI has gotten significantly worse in the past year. Yes, they're very clickbaity, and yes, there's blog-esque content which is worthless, but that describes quite a lot of media nowadays. As long as non-bloggy work is cited and the usual rule of "completely ignore the headline" is followed (which is good advice even for "respectable" newspapers), they're still potentially usable. SnowFire (talk) 06:14, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

  but that describes quite a lot of media nowadays I agree but that doesn't mean we should lower our standards accordingly. We should just use a lot less news media than we currently do, across the site. News media is good for breaking news, pop culture, and that's about it. Levivich /_hound 17:11, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 There is a lot of discussion about the clickbaitiness of BI but that is not reason enough to put it into the unreliable categories. The sources Chetsford provides show that it is not a paragon of reliability but it does generally at least pay more than lip service to journalistic standards. It does publish information that it shouldn't and so can't be reasonably considered to be in Option 1 but it does not reach the same level that lumps it into the post-truth nonsense sourcing group that has been deprecated here. The BI is not just an aggregator of other outlets' stories and not everything it publishes is available elsewhere. If a better source for the same information exists, it would be preferred but it should not be rejected out of hand. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 17:24, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 It is not clear that all BI articles are subject to meaningful editorial oversight. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 02:42, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2 Its clickbaitness makes me reluctant to establish notability or assert facts under WP:DUE Morbidthoughts (talk) 03:35, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 per ImTheIPand Beyond My Ken. The large majority of their reporting is accurate and often used by other news organizations. We don't have to include a specific article if we have another reliable source contradicting it. However, if we don't have evidence that a specific story is untrue, then we don't have a reason to drop a Business Insider article as a source. No evidence has been presented that the minor errors that occasionally crop up are a systematic problem. Jediting1 (talk) 08:37, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2 leaning to Option 1. Have read BI for many years, and consider it a decent source on financial (and tech) matters. The clickbait aspect stops me from a full Option 1, however, they are explicit about when a piece is featured/advertising-driven. I have read articles in the WSJ and FT that are biased but are not presented that way, and in particular that generally uphold "consensus view" on Wall Street. In contrast, BI often covers the material written by major analysts that aren't covered in the WSJ/FT, but who are followed widely in markets. Britishfinance (User talk:Britishfinancetalk) 17:15, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3, at least for certain non-financial topics. The is known for editorializing and clickbait headlines. For example, I once replaced a BI reference on Fermi paradox that is unduly alarmist. It makes some claims about the climate change model that are not supported by a Scientific American (RSP entry) interview with the author, Adam Frank — for example, the Frank claims that the model is not intended for making specific real-world predictions, but the BI article presents it as evidence that humanity is doomed. BI does not clearly differentiate between staff, contributor, and republished pieces. It contrasts even with many of the alarmist stories reviewed at Climate Feedback. I do not know anything about its financial news. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 03:36, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2, certainly not opposed to Option 3. BI's editorializing on non-business topics is egregious and astonishing. In a recent article on the proposed decomissioning of the ISS, they made the unsubstantiated, and frankly unsupportable assertion that the ISS's true value was unachievable before Space Exploration Inc came on the scene . I know it seems petty to point out just one example, but this is a pattern with that outlet. Editorializing and clickbait galore, possibly with an interest in boosting the subjects they write about. For example, in the same article, they claim that "NASA had "to abandon low-Earth orbit and cede that territory", but that it could be averted "But if all goes according to plan for Axiom Space, the fast-growing private aerospace company will manage to stave off that future and continue a strong and continuous US presence in low-Earth orbit. In turn, NASA could save billions for year while having access to a new, state-of-the-art facility.". Axiom Space, for what it's worth, is essentially a non-entity in the spaceflight community. They have no products, 60 staff, and a lot of promised "will do" on the back of SpaceX. Utterly editorialized outlet. BrxBrx(talk) 03:31, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2 - The problems with BI have been presented pretty thoroughly by Chetsford, Levivich, et al. and I think there's clear evidence that its tendency towards clickbait, some ambiguity regarding promotional content, and push for content over quality more or less disqualify it as an outright "reliable," but I have not seen the level of evidence of inaccuracy and running afoul of traditional journalistic values that I typically see for sources we label generally unreliable. This seems like a clear option 2 for me, but I'll dig a little deeper when I have more time. — Rhododendrites \\ 05:17, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
• Based on links cited by other contributors I would tentatively say option 2 would be most appropriate, with editors advised to beware of sensationalist claims in headlines, avoid citing the site for surprising or extraordinary claims not present in other sources, and carefully check articles for advertising partners' promotional influence. I would urge any closer to be cautious in deeming such a widely-used source to be generally unreliable or deprecation-worthy without a clear consensus. – Teratix ₵ 14:59, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (Business Insider)

• General note: Business Insider is currently listed as no consensus at WP:RSP. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 21:45, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Why are you doing this? The current listing at RSP is "no consensus", with some additional considerations. And you put up this RFC hoping to get that changed to... "unclear, additional considerations apply". This is a giant waste of time. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 06:50, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm doing this in the hopes of getting a clearer consensus on its reliability, because it is frequently used on Misplaced Pages. You are welcome to contribute to the RfC, instead of disparaging it. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 17:33, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree with RRC -- this is a giant waste of time. If you don't think it should be used, remove it; if you think it should be used, use it; if other people object, discuss it with them; if the discussion fails to produce a local consensus, then finally there is a purpose to a broader discussion like an RfC. There are an infinite number of sources, it is ridiculous to hold RfCs without concrete need. Please withdraw it. --JBL (talk) 18:14, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. This source has been discussed at RSN numerous times without consensus, and has been used as a source—on high-traffic articles such as Barack Obama and Donald Trump, among many others—more than 12,000 times. Of course, someone else can close it early if it does not attract sufficient attention, but I think there is a need to form a clearer consensus on this source and that's why I've started this RfC. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 18:37, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

JBL, considering that all of your recent contributions to this noticeboard are complaining about RfC's rather than any meaningful additions, maybe you should just unwatch the page like you said you would?. Business Insider is used over 12,000 times making it have a similar number of citations to Fox News, not just some random source. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:51, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia, I think the appropriate place for a personal comment like that would have been my talk-page. This page is not on my watchlist, I ceased participating in the discussion you mention, and I have not left more than one or two comments in any discussion since. The fact of the matter is a lot of people seem to create RfCs here that are totally unnecessary, and this is one of them. Try to complete the following sentence in a way that isn't absurd: "Having this RfC come to the conclusion AP prefers will make the world better in the following way: ...." It is my impression that, once upon a time, discussion on this page was concentrated on the use of particular sources in particular contexts. That was valuable; this is not. --JBL (talk) 01:34, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

I note that they do have a corrections policy. Though it seems to be oriented towards authors making corrections, not readers asking for corrections. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:05, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Is there any evidence of actual fabrication, that would make it worth serious consideration of deprecation? - David Gerard (talk) 11:31, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

@David Gerard: I haven't seen any; it more seems like they are accused of playing "fast and loose" with their reporting, but no indication that they have outright lied. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 18:45, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Although, MediaBiasFactCheck indicates that at least one BI story () was rated false by FactCheck.org here. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 19:05, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

@David Gerard: There now is evidence of at least publishing false stories, if not "fabricating". See Chetsford's comments and my most recent !vote above. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 19:42, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Another source to throw into the mix: https://www.imediaethics.org/business-insider-will-give-anyone-anonymity/, although it's quite old and the relevant policy may have changed. And another, about their native advertising: https://archives.cjr.org/the_audit/business_insider_goes_native.php AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 18:47, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: Keep in mind that a lot of Business Insider articles are written to promote products and they take sales commissions (affiliate marketing). There is usually a disclaimer in these articles. As much as they insist that their reviewer teams are independent from their sales team, they are obviously in a financial conflict of interest and they are rewarded by making positive reviews (positive reviews, more clicks, more sales, more income). I think these particular articles should not be used at all. --MarioGom (talk) 17:35, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Proposed wording at RSP

As this RfC seems to be winding down, I thought I'd get the ball rolling on a proposed revision to the text at WP:RSP. It currently reads:

There is no consensus on the reliability of Business Insider. The site's syndicated content, which may not be clearly marked, should be evaluated by the reliability of its original publisher.

I think that text should be replaced with:

There is consensus that Business Insider should be used with caution and replaced with another source if available. There is no consensus on the reliability of BI's original reporting. Moreover, is not clear that articles published in Business Insider are subject to meaningful editorial oversight. The site also publishes syndicated content and native advertising, which should be subject to special scrutiny.

I have stolen some of this wording from Billhpike. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 20:28, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Libcom.org

I am proposing that this source should be classified the same as Scribd.com for the same reasoning given for them on RSP or deprecated as their library is full of user uploaded contents and it is a copyright issue. It is a repository of numerous unauthorized scans hosted on its own server or a link farm of infringing links. I've had to remove multiple references to unauthorized infringing copyrighted book/magazine scans hosted on Libcom 1, 2, 3 another one more Graywalls (talk) 01:02, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Seems fair. Are there any subsections of the site that are more curated? Or are they all basically user uploads? If some are curated, it would remain a pretty useful resource for that smaller collection of documents. Jlevi (talk) 03:47, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

We should be wary of making a blanket policy that discourages general use of Libcom and instead work on a case by case basis. It is an incredibly rich and well curated repository and many of of the texts hosted there would not involve any copyright violations. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:34, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

That's a fair point. So I support making it red, rather than deprecate. There is a good amount of "uploaded" contents, as such it should be treated as WP:UGC and the fact they have plethora of infringing materials directly hosted is a huge problem in the same way Scribd is. Graywalls (talk) 18:17, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I think making a general assessment on Libcom is very open to misinterpretation. With Scribd, it is effectively a social media platform, but most of what Libcom puts out are reputable published books, as such the problem is people using Libcom as a link, not people using the stuff Libcom produces as a reference. Some sort of edit filter might be preferable so that the citations could be remade correctly. ~ El D. (talk to me) 23:28, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

This is my concern. Scribd wasn't primarily depreciated for copyright reasons but because Anyone can upload any document they'd like and there is no assurance that it hasn't been manipulated - anyone can upload anything there, making stuff hosted there suspect (an WP:RS concern) even if it purports to be an accurate copy of a legitimately published work. This concern isn't true for Libcom. Copyright violations are a concern, but they are not a WP:RS concern, so I would be opposed to adding any source to RSP in any context solely based on legal or copyright issues. That's not what RSP is for. --Aquillion (talk) 16:46, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

The copyright issue was one of the issues actually explained in RSP listing for Scribd. Libcom contains quite a bit of WP:UGC making the source WP:QS For example, some kind of UPLOADED essay by user on Libcom http://libcom.org/library/trotsky-left-opposition-rise-stalinism-theory-practice-john-eric-marot as used as a source in the article Communism. Graywalls (talk) 00:55, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

That essay was originally posted in Historical Materialism (journal) (volume 14, issue 3 published 2006 - a peer-reviewed academic journal affiliated with the University of London and published by Brill Publishers) and as such is not user-generated. It also doesn't appear to be in violation of copyright but that is a matter for people who know more than me. ~ El D. (talk to me) 14:27, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@El komodos drago, doi:10.1163/156920606778531743 It's not an open access journal and there's no way Brill (the publisher) released this copyright. As attributed, the upload is definitely a copyright violation. czar 21:58, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Libcom has been described as semi-reliable. Again it's to broad, it is an excellent source for a large amount of varying information presented by anarchists, of course it's biased and we use the source with care. However many Libcom authors include well known academics such as Noam Chomsky, to accept Noam Chomsky only when he is writing outside of Libcom seems well ridiculous. It can be an excellent source for anarchism assuming we use it with care. Therefor stating it as self published source seems extremely off. Many articles use libcom for good reason. Des Vallee (talk) 03:51, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

• I think we should make a distinction between libcom.org's news section, blogs and library. Blogs are obviously full WP:UGC. For the news, I tend to think them as semi-WP:UGC. Maybe others can clarify this, but it seems similar to some Indymedia projects. On the other hand, the library section has a vast collection of documents, many of them in the public domain, or authorized, etc. These documents should be judged individually. Many of them are WP:PRIMARY, others WP:RSOPINION, etc. --MarioGom (talk) 11:01, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Broadly agree. I don't think blogs would be cited here much but are clearly UGC/SPS. News is almost all reposted from elsewhere, so can assessed case by case on basis of original source. Library is all reposted but is frequently good material whose provenance is clear, can be assessed case by case to identify if primary in relation to a particular claim, opinion in need of attribution etc, or might involve copyright violation. History articles also need to be assessed case by case, as provenance of each item is set out clearly on libcom and it should be easy to determine what counts as a secondary or primary source for a given claim. In short, blanket assessment would be unnecessary and problematic. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:04, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

• As an active editor in this space, I can't see any case for calling Libcom a reliable source. Whether news or republication from other sources (lots of copyvio), it has no hallmarks of editorial control (all user-generated content). It's a great resource for starting research, absolutely, but should not be cited by an encyclopedia, not even on a per case basis. A "blanket assessment" would be absolutely appropriate here unless someone can show that they have a reputation/pedigree for editorial accuracy or control. (not watching, please {{ping}}) czar 21:58, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

The Needle Drop

I already know how this discussion's going to go, but I'd like to once again revisit Anthony Fantano's reliability as a source. At this point, given that he's been called The Only Music Critic Who Matters" by the New York Times (AKA the most reliable of reliable sources), Misplaced Pages's refusal to acknowledge him as an album reviewer seems to based more on respect for precedent and/or stubbornness than his actual merits as a reliable source. It is both at odds with reality and inconsistent with the way other sources are treated.

Jim Sterling is self-published and self-reviewed, yet his reliability as a source for video game reviews is not questioned. Like Fantano, Sterling's work was published under someone else's brand before he moved into self-publushing. Unlike Fantano, his current practice of self-publishing is not used as an excuse to remove his reviews from articles. Can someone please explain why Jim Sterling is an acceptable opinion to cite for video game reviews when the same is not true for Fantano and music reviews? PDMagazineCoverUploading (talk) 02:22, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't call NYT "the most reliable of reliable sources". We tend to rate scholarly sources higher than journalism. (t · c) buidhe 03:52, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree with this and was thinking about opening a thread about this (Its worth noting that the "The Only Music Critic Who Matters" was subtitled "If you are under 25"). This isn't really a source reliability question, but more a discussion about whether Fantano's stature is equivalent to those of mainstream media outlets like Pitchfork for album reviews, and whether his opinions are due for inclusion in the reception section, but as we are discussing a particular source this is the appropriate noticeboard. The fact that he is a self-published source is irrelevant for his opinions on albums. Fantano's status as an independent music critic is Sui generis, that is to say, totally unique, there simply aren't any other contemporary independent music critics with anywhere near his stature, which rivals that in audience and reach of mainstream music publications. I don't think that Fantano's opinion should be mass edited into every album he has ever reviewed, but I don't think he should be banned either as he effectively is now. I think his reviews should also count towards the notability of any album he covers. Hemiauchenia (talk) 07:31, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't agreed with this. The problem with his reviews that he post them on YouTube, which is a self-published website and self-published websites are not reliable sources per WP:SPS. Basically anyone on YouTube can do a album review besides Anthony Fantano. I'm a fan of the guy but I don't think it should be allowed on Misplaced Pages, if it supported by a third party source. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 07:59, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@TheAmazingPeanuts:, Music reviews are subjective, Fantano isn't being cited to support statements of fact, but his opinion on music, ergo this isn't a reliability issue. In the 2020 RfC there was clear concensus against adding an edit filter to YouTube links because youtube is a platform, not a publisher and has no effect on source reliability. The question is a due weight one, namely, does Fantano have the same prominence as critics in professional publications that he deserves to be placed in the reception section, and does he qualify as a subject-matter expert? Arguably, he does. "Basically anyone on YouTube can do a album review besides Anthony Fantano" yeah but how many of those have recieved multiple profiles in high-profile publications? Fantanos status as an independent music critic is unique, and to just dismiss him as a "YouTuber" is silly. Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:25, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Further to this, we accept Robert Christgau's personal and private reviews on many album articles, and not just because it is listed on Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Albums/Sources. While NYT may not be a glowing endorsement, I tend to agree with the "marginal use" opinions offered here. We don't know if Fantano has an editor or makes retractions, or even if there may be payola involved in having Fantano offer a review, so I would not accept Fantano's word as final, but if an album has fewer than five reviews and Fantano has reviewed the work, it would benefit our project to include the review. Walter Görlitz (talk) 08:38, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree, accepting Robert Christgau's self published reviews but not Fantano's is hypocritical. Fantano covers many less popular albums by smaller musicians and his views would enhance the reception sections of those articles. Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:51, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia: That's not the same and it's not hypocritical. The thing is Robert Christgau has written his reviews on his website in this fashion and now on Substack. That's different then posting a video on a website that can be considered as unreliable. So are you saying we should use Anthony Fantano's videos as a reliable sources instead of an article? TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 09:42, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

As long as it's some sort of "official" YT-account or whatever, they seem about equally WP:SPS, with the possible subject-matter expert exception. See also WP:RSPYT. CNN on YT is as WP:RS as CNN elsewhere. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:13, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Fantano has his own website, which functions as direct youtube links. I don't see why there is an issue citing Fantano when theres no issue citing say a CNN report. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:17, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

These comparisons don’t make any sense. CNN isn’t applicable — CNN (or whatever news source of your liking) is a massive publication with editorial oversight and review. Needle Drop is a person - Fantano - a person uploading his content straight to YouTube. Entirely different. The problem is no editorial oversight, no policy, nothinh, just a guy recording his thoughts and throwing it on YouTube. That is absolutely not what happens when a news reporter uploads content to a publications YouTube channel. Completely different. Sergecross73 msg me 19:56, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@Sergecross73: I completely agreed. Using a video review is not the same then using a text review, these comparisons are dumb and don't make any sense. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 20:13, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Is he an acknowledged expert (by more then one RS) ?Slatersteven (talk) 12:18, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Also against this. This has been discussed to death at the musical WikiProjects. It’s straightforward - hes a self-publishing Youtuber. It’s extremely rare that such a sourc is deemed usable on Misplaced Pages. If anything, we should be re-looking at why we deem someone like Jim Sterling as usable, not the other way around. Sergecross73 msg me 17:27, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@Sergecross73: And yet Christgau's self-published reviews are just fine eh? Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:38, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia Why would you put words in my mouth like that? When have I ever said that? If you’re going to respond to me, please at least address the comments I’m actually making. Sergecross73 msg me 19:48, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@Sergecross73: You were a participant to the 2014 discussion on Wikiproject Albums on Christgau in which you stated that "I would consider generally reliable regardless of genre, unless a consensus at a given article deems the source not to be used" for his non-self published work. Do you agree or disagree that Christgau's self published reviews are usable? I'm not addressing your arguments because its pretty clear from Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_228#The_Needle_Drop that your actual reasoning is WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT and that you think that he's "just some guy on YouTube", describing him as "mak boastful, unfounded claims without proof or explanation" and criticising him for making joke reviews even though Pitchfork does the exact same thing, and not addressing the evidence presented from reliable sources that Fantano is indeed a notable critic. Hemiauchenia (talk)

Apologies for me not realizing you were responding to something I said six years ago to someone else? My sentiment from 6 years ago was that Christgau was usable but not compulsory and that he should be used sparingly. I personally dont use him at all, but I’ve learned to pick my battles because older editors in the music WikiProjects appreciate his work. Believe it or not, opinions can change over the course of 6 years, and if someone put forth an effort to not use Christgau anymore, I’d probably support it. Anyways, regardless, My problem with Fantano is that he’s self-published. Please assume good faith. Sergecross73 msg me 20:16, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

• I think that the attention and endorsements that Fantano has received from RS makes a strong case for his expertise and relevance on a USEBYOTHERS basis. In addition to the NYTimes coverage linked above, here's two more examples attesting his relevance: , . His use of the video format is annoying for us since text sources are so much easier to work with, but that's not a reason to consider him unreliable or irrelevant. Concerns about a lack of editorial oversight or fact checking are less germane for assessing his relevance because ultimately he is primarily being used for his opinion, and the question is whether his opinion is relevant, not whether it is "accurate". With that in mind, I wouldn't use him for controversial factual claims, but I think it's valid to cite his opinion as part of critical reception sections for music. _signed, Rosguill 18:00, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
• I think that RSes have praised Fantano's reviews enough that his opinion "matters" enough to be included in the review section of album articles --Guerillero 18:14, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
• Another note - the opening comments are also misleading. To say WP:VG full-heartedly supports Jim Sterling’s use as a source is not accurate. If you look at their source list - WP:VG/S - you’ll see Sterling listed as “situational” with caveats and restrictions on his use. As someone who also edits in music and game content areas, I can verify that we often treat Sterling the same way we do Fantano - limiting the use of his content to when it’s been published by reliable sources. Sergecross73 msg me 20:08, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

My comment about Christgau is based on fully recognizing his body of work in reliable sources, with editorial oversight. He has been recognized as an expert and has written several books on albums. None of these books were self-published. There are reliable, sources that believe he is a qualified music journalist. There are discussions that have reached consensus that he is a RS when he writes on his own as well as when he has been published in other sources.

I have not seen any sources that support this same standard for Fantano. I have seen editors claim that sources exist. Please provide them so we can see what the sources say about Fantano. Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:32, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

RfC: The Needle Drop

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Can Anthony Fantano (The Needle Drop) be used for his reviews of music in the reception section of articles? Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:05, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Responses (The Needle Drop)

• Yes There is no disagreement on the fact that Anthony Fantano is a self-published source, and therefore should be not used for independent claims about living persons. However, Fantano's opinion on music is not a question about whether Fantano is a reliable source, but whether or not he is a prominent critic. Coverage by reliable sources such as a profile in the NYTimes indicates that he is, and that he has a substantial following, far more so than any other independent music critic aside from Robert Christgau. Some editors have dismissed Fantano because he uses YouTube as the medium of his content, and that because YouTube is an "unreliable source" we should exclude him. However in the 2020 RfC on YouTube, it was determined that YouTube is a platform, not a publisher, and has no effect on source reliability. I don't think Anthony Fantano is more important than more mainstream music review outlets or that his opinion should be on every album that he has ever reviewed, but I see no reason to exclude him entirely as the current WP:LOCALCONSENSUS at WP:ALBUM does (Technically the rule is that his views must be mentioned by a separate reliable source, in practice this functions as an almost total exclusion) and his reviews of less popular albums would help flesh out coverage. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:05, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

After having a think about this and doing some additional research, I have come to some conclusions. Fantano and Pitchfork have a lot of overlap in what they cover in terms of more obscure albums, while Fantano's reviews of lobsterfight - pink, black, and orange in the corners and Dope Body - Crack a Light are the only reviews of these particular albums I can find. I agree with other commenters that there's not much reason to use Fantano for mainstream popular music where there is likely to be extensive coverage by other sources, unless reliable sources consider his opinion on them significant. I also agree that the inclusion of Fantano's reviews should vary on a case by case basis. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:38, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

• Only when no other sources can be found. Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:10, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• Only when no other sources can be found. At the end of the day, he is a YouTuber. His Misplaced Pages page uses {{Infobox YouTuber}}, his page says "YouTuber", so he’s a YouTuber. No one can tell me otherwise, for obvious reasons. YouTube as a platform is not reliable. It has no one to review videos, no one to fact check. That is left entirely to the content creators. Even if someone is a verified creator, in my eyes, they aren’t any more reliable then a verified Twitter account as Twitter is the same amount of unreliable. Having NYT recognize their person doesn’t make their videos more reliable. The platform is still YouTube. I’ve seen all sides of the argument from reading the above discussion, and I’m suggesting he is questionable as a source and should not be used when not needed, but can be used under dire circumstances (i.e. when there are minimal (0-2) reviews other than him and it is safe to assume no other sources will review the album). D🎉ggy54321 02:55, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• Revote: No. After careful consideration, I have changed my vote to "No" per comments made by ImaginesTigers and Ojorojo, as well as about 60% of my original comment (arguments about Fantano being a YouTuber, the whole bit about YouTube being unreliable and the Twitter analogy). D🐶ggy54321 01:38, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

• No (Unreliable unless published/mentioned by a separate reliable source) - per my prior comments and WP:SPS. The issue is less about YouTube being the medium, and more about how he’s just a self-publisher without the things we look for in a professional publication. (No editorial oversight, editorial policy, anything like that.) Sergecross73 msg me 03:12, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• Yes, usable for music review content per my comment above. There is evidence of multiple RS treating him as a significant voice in music criticism. The weight of his opinions obviously is something to be decided on a case-by-case basis, although like other editors I doubt there will be much of a reason to cite him on articles where there's extensive mainstream critical coverage. _signed, Rosguill 03:35, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes (for music reviews), after reading the comments here and the article on him, I concur with Rosguill. Clearly RS treat him as a prominent critic, so he should be considered one by us per that conference of credibility; the platform he is on shouldn't matter, though I also agree that the weight his opinions are given should be decided on a case-by-case basis. --TheSandDoctor 04:49, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• Usable for music reviews per the RSes treating him as an important voice of music criticism. --Guerillero 04:49, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• Yes, per Hemiauchenia. As a self-published source, Fantano is not a reliable source for factual claims. But given his notability, I see no reason why his opinions cannot be cited. Obviously he should not be the sole or even primary source of a Reception article except in special cases, e.g. Angelic 2 the Core but a few sentences mentioning his review would be fine. PDMagazineCoverUploading (talk) 05:08, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• No: While I do enjoy Fantano's reviews myself, they should not be cited directly because they either come from YouTube or his website, which is self published. However, if a non contested reliable source publishes one or more of them, then that is fine to be cited. --K. Peake 06:32, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• No: I agreed with Doggy54321 and Sergecross73. Fantano's reviews would be reliable if they published by an reliable source. We should not ignore the fact that his reviews are still self-published. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 07:01, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

  Yes: After thinking about it, I have change my vote from no to yes, due to what Binksternet and JG66 has said. While I still think YouTube should be avoided for obvious reasons (per WP:SELFPUB), but Anthony Fantano is a well-known music critic and his reviews should not be ignored. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 07:41, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

• Yes except for BLP material. WP:SELFPUB appears to be directly relevant here and the material cited in the discussion above convinces me that this person meets the criteria in that policy. ElKevbo (talk) 07:12, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, we can and should use the Needle Drop for recent releases. My opinion has changed on this; I first thought Fantano was a flash in the pan, but he has proved his staying power, and his reviews are much discussed. We are here to summarize for the Misplaced Pages readers all the relevant literature, and whether we like it or not, Fantano has become part of the literature of music released since 2009. It matters less that he is right or correct in his reviews (Christgau famously went against the grain many times) and more that his reviews get tons of eyeballs, and attract strong reactions. Fantano is the subject of a few in-depth pieces about his career as a music critic, and none of them say he cannot be trusted. Australian entertainment news outlet Junkee said Fantano was praised by Christgau. Binksternet (talk) 18:23, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

He was definitely acknowledged by Christgagu, but to call it praise is questionable, the full quote (rather than the snippet in the article) seemed pretty dismissive to me. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:40, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• No - He's popular, perhaps he's the "wave of the future," but he's also, as the NYT article mentions, as much an entertainer as a critic. The article also mentions a managing editor, without describing what this editor actually does. The comparisons with Christgau are bizarre; Christgau has written for dozens of prestigious publications for over five decades, and has served as an editor himself; he is also an acknowledged expert on popular music. Mr. Fantano worked at a college radio station, and then Connecticut Public Radio. That would seem to be about it? He can be hugely popular, and even a harbinger, without actually meeting Misplaced Pages's standards for integrity and oversight. But, like Pitchfork, he will most likely continue to professionalize and mainstream himself and his platform, and may yet meet these outdated notions of editorial oversight. Caro7200 (talk) 19:15, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes on critical opinion, No for factual claims - The New York Times piece demonstrates that Fantano's critical opinion matters in today's new wave of journalism, whether we like it or not. I think some of the "No" votes are taking a black and white approach to WP:SELFPUB when the guideline is actually a bit more grey. The purpose of the guideline is to deter editors from sourcing material that clearly has no ground to stand on, like blogs and forum posts. It offers consideration for self-published authors who are deemed "subject-matter experts". While the guideline looks to works published in reliable sources to support this, I think this Times piece is an acceptable substitute. I think everyone should read it before voting. Now, music opinions are cheap :), but facts are not. Since the inner workings of The Needle Drop and its editorial process are still an enigma to me, I can't say there is strong enough editorial oversight that he can be used for factual claims. TarkusAB 05:57, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

• Yes for music reviews, per Rosguill and TheSandDoctor. He's treated as a significant critic in reliable sources, so while obviously his reviews shouldn't be given undue weight, they do merit inclusion. --Drevolt (talk) 06:03, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, but only for music reviews, and even then sparingly; his opinion is not a must-have in any given section on critical reception. Surprises me big time that I've come around to this way of thinking, but I'm swayed by some of the arguments put forward above. Binksternet's especially. I work pretty exclusively on music articles from the 1960s and early '70s, so I'd be surprised if there was ever a need for Fantano's opinions in those articles (he'd have to get in line behind dozens of critics and journalists – several dozen perhaps – going back decades). But Fantano's standing, at least as I understand it from this RfC, reminds of what I've read about Paul Williams when he founded Crawdaddy in the mid '60s. Williams had zero in the way of professional experience and for some time his (SPS) publication was just a fanzine, but it was immediately popular and highly influential; some music historians credit the Williams–Crawdaddy combination as the start of genuine rock/pop criticism. Fantano appears to have spearheaded a similarly revolutionary approach to how we view professional music reviews. I still think inclusion via secondary sources is preferred over directly citing his YouTube pieces, but then that's the approach I generally adhere to anyway – eg, by letting artist biographies, books on music history, etc, serve as the guide to what we include from contemporaneous (1960s) album and song reviews even if the entire review is now available online. JG66 (talk) 07:03, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

• No. I don't understand why other editors are ignoring the self-published requirement. You cannot, in my view, argue that he meets the expert criteria; that's a wilful misunderstanding of what its actual purpose, which is beyond even citing journalism—it’s for academics. An article in The New York Times about him is not the publication reproducing his work or his analysis. The NYT is actually kind of disparaging about his videos, calling them long-winded (maybe that's because he's self-published, and has no editorial oversight). Neither does it imbue him with any authority; the only person calling Fantano "an authority" in the article is a musician and college student whose account does bite-size criticism. The NYT saying that he is a music critic that matters to people under 25 does not make him an expert; it makes him notable. Allowing YouTubers to be cited, selectively, is absolutely buck-wild. He's a notable, self-published source, who shouldn't be cited. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 12:37, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
• No The bar for critics should be fairly high. Many viewers may like him, but his reviews don't appear to be quoted or otherwise used in artist bios, music reference works, etc. He may be popular, but otherwise doesn't seem to be an established expert, as per WP:SELFPUBLISH. —Ojorojo (talk) 15:32, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
• No – I agree with Ojorojo here. Even though Fantano can be considered influential on listeners of today, he's still self-published. – zmbro _(talk) 16:10, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
• No – I've read the NYT piece and, if I had reservations from voting one way or another before, I don't now. Maybe I'm getting old :/ isento (talk) 01:23, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Note – Keep in mind that self-published doesn't mean a source is automatically invalid: "A self-published source by an expert may include a significant opinion that hasn’t yet appeared in a non-self-published source" Perhaps revisit this source in the future, which is what the handful of reliable sources covering Fantano claim he represents. Apparently, he studied journalism, which is a plus. But allowing him as a source right now would be too much too soon. I think we should give it some more time, allow for some more coverage to develop around him to establish his credibility as an expert source, beyond the cultists who see him as one. isento (talk) 02:27, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
• No As many have identified this source as WP:SPS, I would like to add that he is not a music journalist to have enough credibility. And please don't compare him to Robert Christgau--the latter is a true journalist, and the former is a self-proclaimed "critic" and a content creator on social media rather than a journalist whose opinions hold actual weight. The NYT piece is rather disparaging than complementing his views. HĐ (talk) 07:35, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

"Robert Christgau ... is a true journalist, and is a self-proclaimed "critic" and a content creator on social media rather than a journalist whose opinions hold actual weight" is a silly WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT Fantanos opinions clearly do hold weight, otherwise Daughter's tour wouldn't have sold out as mentioned in the nytimes piece. The NYTimes piece is pretty even-handed, only jabbing that his album reviews are "long winded" as they can be over 10 minutes, which is't really that long and by my account many of his reviews are substantially under that. Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:46, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

No, Christgau is a journalist (at least perceived to be so), but I have yet to see any source regard Fantano as a journalist. If there is any source that says otherwise, I am happy to reconsider, HĐ (talk) 12:49, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Christgau is now on Substack partly--or mostly--due to ageism (he's in his mid-70s, I think). He served for a time as an editor at the Village Voice; I have no doubt that he is paying close attention to whatever factual claims he makes in his criticism. I have no problem with Fantano using YouTube as a platform; I definitely don't have a problem with whether I "agree" with him, or anyone, about an album. I read many but not all of the references in his article--if anyone has more information about what his "managing" editor actually does, I could change my opinion. And, as an aside, RSs are always going to screw up--I remember a Too Short album where three or four RSs listed different release years--not different specific release dates, but years... Caro7200 (talk) 15:13, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• Yes I see no issue with adding his reviews, as multiple RS have noted him as a prominent critic. YouTube being his outlet is irrelevant. It is a publisher, not a source. SK2242 (talk) 23:22, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, for music reviews in agreement with SK2242. VERSACESPACE 14:39, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes - As a prominent music critic, I don't see any problem with citing his opinions on Misplaced Pages with attribution. Self-published sources can certainly be used to cite an author's basic opinions.Eliteplus (talk) 14:50, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
  • He is obviously notable, if not notorious, as demonstrated by independent news coverage. But WP:ALBUM/SOURCE currently says sources should be professional. And given he has no professional oversight of his work, he is given (practically) free reign to behave in a way even Robert Christgau -- at his most contrarian and offensive back in the day -- would probably have been fired for doing so, as in this unconstrained expletive rant just several months ago. This is why the matter of being self-published is not just a superficial rule. isento (talk) 18:53, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• No - WP:RS clearly states that 'Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications ' (emphasis mine). This has been Misplaced Pages policy since 2006 at least. And Fantano, contrary to Robert Christgau, does not fit this specific criteria. In my personal ideal world, Fantano scores would be cited on Misplaced Pages, as he is the most influential music critic in the world, but that would require amending WP:RS beforehand.--JBchrch (talk) 00:07, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Note - And I literally subscribe to his Patreon to the tune of $5 per month. Cheers --JBchrch (talk) 00:33, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

• Yes, for reviews. Regardless of whether you think he's a proper music critic, he is most definitely at least a professional music reviewer. We do not have a requirement that a review be written by a trained critic, as ideal as real criticism might be. We want professionals. Fantano doesn't work for a newspaper, but he's a professional. The requirement that someone be employed by a publisher is a good guideline, but this is one of those exceptional cases. I don't think we need to change the guideline in order to see that Fantano is a better source than many of the reviewers and critics that happen to work for a newspaper/magazine/website. Some local newspaper might have a couple paid reporters with no knowledge of film or music writing superficial film and music reviews in between the politics and sports, and because they technically work for a paper, we consider them reliable. — Rhododendrites \\ 06:06, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment: Should probably have posted this a few days ago, when there were a few comments about the NYT article and Christgau's opinions in the latter. There have been other articles published about Fantano's rise, of course, eg Jeremy Gordon's 2016 article for Spin. Gordon writes that "A new era of music critics has mostly given up writing about the art form to put their faces front and center on YouTube"; he says Fantano is not only the best known of this new breed but that TND " enough ad revenues to support his family". So Fantano is unquestionably a professional reviewer. Also, the scepticism in the NYT article shouldn't be a surprise, and there's mention in the Spin piece too of areas where Fantano's approach has attracted disapproval from the more traditional type of music critic. Again, to go back in time (further to comments I made above): Paul Williams at Crawdaddy! and Richard Goldstein at The Village Voice were both the subject of profiles in Newsweek in 1966 yet, so I gather from secondary sources, there was still a suspicion among the old guard that they weren't the real deal, partly because rock music wasn't yet deemed worthy of sophisticated criticism and appreciation by the culturally elite. A year later, it was, and Goldstein was lambasted by establishment sophisticates like Richard Poirier and Ned Rorem for his unfavourable response to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album. (These middle-aged writers said that Goldstein and any other dissenting young "rock critic" lacked the ability to understand the Beatles' achievement.) ... As I say, this post's probably a day or two too late to be relevant. JG66 (talk) 15:08, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
• No He is not only self-published, but a NYT article about him doesn't make him reliable. I do enjoy some of his pieces and his notability is well known. However, until I see some proof there is an oversight review of his material and content I will stand my ground on this. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 16:10, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (The Needle Drop)

Pinging previous participants to the discussion:@PDMagazineCoverUploading: @TheAmazingPeanuts: @Sergecross73: @Guerillero: @Rosguill:. Sorry for the repetition, but I think this is best resolved by having a well attended RfC. Feel free to simply re-add your thoughts, as I didn't feel comfortable altering peoples text. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:07, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Ugh, I've been busy updating our 1925 book covers for Public Domain Day and haven't payed as close attention to this discussion as I should. I agree with the idea that Fantano is acceptable to cite as a reviewer, but not as a reliable source for factual information. In other words: It should be acceptable to mention Fantano's review on Angelic 2 The Core, but he should not be cited on the Corey Feldman article as a source for information about Feldman. PDMagazineCoverUploading (talk)

I'm disturbed at the number of editors who appear to be ignorant or completely dismissive of WP:SELFPUB, a policy that has widespread consensus. Editor who believe that a self-published source cannot be considered reliable or used under any circumstances are encouraged to raise those objections at the Talk page of that policy; it's inappropriate to ignore or undermine that policy in this RfC. ElKevbo (talk) 07:15, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@ElKevbo: What part of SELFPUB do you think makes it acceptable for a self-published music review to be used on an article about that reviewed work? I know that they may be used about themselves, but nowhere in there does that part of the policy page suggest that it can be used about another person. The one exception I see there is if the reviewer is an "established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications". Again, waiting to hear how Fantano's reviews meet the criteria listed there. Walter Görlitz (talk) 07:43, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

A musical work is not a person so that doesn't seem relevant. "I don't think this person has met the bar of being a recognized expert" is a reasonable position to take but that's not what you wrote above in your !vote. What you wrote above - that this source is reliable if there aren't any other sources - doesn't actually make any sense at all. ElKevbo (talk) 15:18, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@ElKevbo: What I wrote above and what I am asking here are not necessarily connected. I am asking you what part of SELFPUB makes it acceptable for a self-published music review to be used on an article about that reviewed work? I do not see a connection and I don't think you have any justification. I suspect you're using SELFPUB in a way that it is not written to support. In short, SELFPUB does not apply to a self-published reviews—whether they be on YouTube or their own blog—and you know it. Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:35, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Why is a self-published review different from any other self-published source? ElKevbo (talk) 16:19, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Can you answer his question or not? Sergecross73 msg me 18:05, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

There is no "YouTube exception" to WP:SELFPUB so the burden is on those who are arguing for such an exceptional situation. ElKevbo (talk) 18:12, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Walter Gorlitz has already answered the question himself: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." As EK observes, one can argue about whether Fantano meets the conditions of this sentence; but if he does meet the conditions, then WP:SELFPUB is an endorsement of using his reviews. (EK is making a really simple point, I'm not sure why people are pretending not to understand it.) --JBL (talk) 18:16, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure why people are pretending not to understand it. The more sources that are depreciated, the more subjects that can be found non-notable, and the more articles deleted. I wish observing Wiki behavior didn't lead me to this conclusion, but it's unavoidable. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:00, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

@ElKevbo: Yeah, why most of the editors are ignoring the guidelines on self-published sources. I understand Anthony Fantano is well-known but why are we giving him a pass since he still published his reviews on YouTube. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 10:52, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

What does publication on YouTube have to do with anything? ElKevbo (talk) 15:18, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@ElKevbo: YouTube is a self-published source, which is unreliable. If we considering using him as a reliable source for music reviews, I suggest we use his blog instead of direct links to his videos. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 19:24, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

This is just wrong -- per WP:SELFPUB, "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." This is true regardless of the medium of publication (YouTube, blog, etc.). --JBL (talk) 22:08, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Self-published sources, including YouTube videos, are not inherently unreliable. If you would like to change the project-wide consensus on this, I recommend and request that you do so at the Talk page of WP:SELFPUB.

I have no opinion on whether this person's videos or blog posts are better sources except to note that blog posts are not inherently more reliable or "better" than videos nor are videos inherently unreliable or "worse" that other media. ElKevbo (talk) 22:13, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@ElKevbo: @JayBeeEll: I understand what the guidelines says, but it seems like almost everybody in this discussion is given Fantano's YouTube reviews an exception, which we should not. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 00:03, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

TheAmazingPeanuts appears to be notifying specific users about this RfC, 1 2 3 4 5 6, many others can be seen in his edit history, in violation of WP:CANVASSING rules. Canvassing rules state that making notifications on the talkpages of users are allowed if:

• They have made substantial edits to the topic or article
• They have participated in previous discussions on the same topic (or closely related topics)
• They are known for expertise in the field
• They have asked to be kept informed". I don't know enough about the opinions of users in question to know if this is an attempt at votestacking. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:58, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia: I was making editors aware of this discussion, why you making a big deal about this? Let's stay on topic here. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 20:12, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@TheAmazingPeanuts: Because you could be selectively notifying editors who you know agree with your opinion, and thus altering the outcome of this RfC. I don't know enough about the people you have notified to know if that it is correct, but your notifications on users talk pages should be noted in this discussion for transparency. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:17, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia: You are wrong, I did this before with past discussions to let editors (who work on music-related articles) know there is a discussion to avoid edit wars in the future. I don't care if they agreed with my opinion or not. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 20:31, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

You directly notified 16 users, including: Drevolt, Kyle Peake, JG66, Zmbro, Binksternet, Robvanvee, MarioSoulTruthFan, Jennica, SnapSnap, Sock, BawinV, HĐ, Doggy54321, BillieLiz, Holiday56 and Isento. I'm not sure that counts as excessive under current canvassing rules, but that is a lot of users. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:43, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

For what it’s worth, I recognize most as being editors who are or have been active in the music-related content area. And the notifications I spot checked were neutrally worded. And I don’t particularly view any of these editors as "buddies" with AnazingPeanuts who are likely to automatically side with him. (Not am I - AmazingPeanuts and I have clashed on numerous occasions.) This feels like another distraction... Sergecross73 msg me 01:47, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

I believe it's simply a case of TAP being the collaborative type and wanting to ensure as many regular or semi-regular editors as possible weigh in on each issue. That way, the outcome's a convincing one, whichever way it goes. (Looking at the list of 16 people, I wouldn't say we're all of one mind on most things, anyway.) I think it's an admirable approach. It's certainly better than when editors try to push something through before too many people become aware of the discussion, even though the outcome could well affect the whole project. Anyway ... JG66 (talk) 03:11, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

@Sergecross73: @JG66: This is what I trying to do. I not telling other editors to disagree with Hemiauchenia, I just letting other editors (who work mostly on album-related articles) to know there is an discussion involving a popular reviewer. This topic is unrelated and should not even be discuss. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 03:52, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

As an editor who was pinged, I can confidently say that it is not canvassing. TheAmazingPeanuts and I have made edits to the same pages, but as far as I can recall, we have yet to have a talk conversation just the two of us. The most we’ve interacted is in RMs. While I do appreciate him bringing this to my attention, his vote/comments did not influence my vote. We literally have opposing votes. @Hemiauchenia: I’ve never been involved in a discussion like this before, so how would TAP even come to the conclusion that I would oppose this? I’m a part of WP:MUSIC, WP:ALBUM and WP:SONG, so I deserve to be part of this conversation. Music is my field of interest on Misplaced Pages. Besides, the more opinions the better. Side note: I don’t think saying you could be selectively notifying editors who you know agree with your opinion is assuming good faith. As JG66 said, it was probably just because TAP wants as many editors as possible to have a comment in this discussion. D🐶ggy54321 01:58, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I regret the accusation of canvassing, its just that the notification of specific users for RfC's is something that can easily be used to alter outcomes, which makes me wary. "you could be selectively notifying editors who you know agree with your opinion" was not accusatory, it was just a reflection on the nature on notifying specific individuals rather than Wikiprojects. TheAmazingPeanuts is a good contributor and I have nothing against them. Some of my actions during the discussions were too hasty, and I'm feeling in a strange, reflective move, and I regret the way I handled myself. Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:14, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Ah look, let's just put this thing to bed. It's quite understandable that you raised concerns re WP:CANVASS, Hemiauchenia, just as it was very welcome when you subsequently withdrew the tags you'd(?) added to the relevant editors' ivotes. There's no hard feeling, and no one's acted inappropriately. Besides, as the voting shows already, there's a wide range of opinions among TAP's supposedly favoured 16. (I'm just slightly peeved that I appear to be fairly low down on TAP's list of party invites, judging by their contribs at that time ... There was a Seinfeld episode based on that theme, I think.) JG66 (talk) 05:41, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

How Stuff Works

Curious to know what others think about the reliability of How Stuff Works. They don't appear on WP:RSP at all as of Dec 2020. Their website has a section on reliability where they talk about their approach, their commitment to transparency, awards they've received, and writer selection process. They also stress that they're not a primary source, but my understanding is that secondary sources are acceptable on Misplaced Pages, as long as they're not the topic of a page. I'm on the fence on this one, and would love to know what other, more experienced editors think. Mozby (talk) 16:09, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

• Weak Unreliable: HowStuffWorks doesn't seem to issue corrections, they quietly edit things they find to be wrong. They do seem to have some rigor, but transparency is hard with these websites. I'd say whenever possible, try to use any secondary sources they cite.

References

1. "Is HowStuffWorks a reliable source?". How Stuff Works. Retrieved 31 December 2020.

• Generally Reliable rated as very highly factual on grounds of being pro-science by MB/FC. ~ El D. (talk to me) 17:27, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

@El komodos drago: Media Bias Fact Check is not a reliable source per WP:MBFC and should not be invoked in source reliability discussions. It has no editorial oversight. It rated the Epoch Times as "factual" until media coverage forced them to change the rating. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:20, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

MB/FC is inappropriate for article content but in terms of reliability generally arrives at the same conclusion we do here so an MB/FC rating in the absence of other evidence is generally a good pointer. (given that most sources gain little to no coverage in third parties, MB/FC is probably the best place to start most discussions from). Obviously, RSN is here because we do not take MB/FC as gospel, it is just one source of many. But let's go and look at the factors that MB/FC will have used for its decision for our selves.

It reports largely on scientific studies, so uses factual sourcing. A brief glance at it reveals it to be pro-science. It doesn't appear to be pushing conspiracy theories. A search for failed fact checks gives no results. This is what an MB/FC rating of highly factual means.

Basically, if what we've got is MB/FC and nothing else, I'd go with the MB/FC. ~ El D. (talk to me) 19:08, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

But saying "MCFC found it reliable, therefore it is reliable" isn't a meaningful contribution, you've said essentially nothing about HSW except for repeating MBFC's superficial analysis. I could say that "I fucking love science" iflscience.com   is pro-science, but it isn't a reliable source. My own opinion about HSW is that it is a marginal source for facts, and that anything that HSW covers is likely going to be better covered by other more reliable sources. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:33, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Okay, a more in-depth analysis. How Stuff Works is listed as a class room resource by PBS , The Guardian describes it as professionally writen , it is used as a source by The Independent , it was a New York Times podcast pick . Is that still too superficial? ~ El D. (talk to me) 14:58, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

None of these three count as evidence that the source is generally reliable. (1) The first link you provide speaks to its reliability for schoolchildren in the topic area of animals in the Etosha pan. By this standard, of course, Misplaced Pages itself and many other sites we would never consider reliable would also be considered reliable sources. (2) The second link you provide does not itself confer any sense of general reliability; it notes that the site may be suitable for the audience of "American teenagers doing homework projects". (3) I've been quoted in newspapers too, and that doesn't make me reliable. So has Misplaced Pages. (4) I can't even find How Stuff Works in there, but I can say that doesn't look like the kind of thing I look at in determining the reliability of a source. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 08:09, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

At best, unclear/additional considerations apply. I'd say closer to generally unreliable. Our article on How Stuff Works describes it as a "commercial infotainment website". Thankfully, their articles also seem to cite sources that are themselves reliable, and we can use those sources instead. In the event that they present original material that cannot be elsewhere found, their articles can be evaluated on a case-by-case basis for reliability. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 08:16, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Eclipse of the Assassins

1. Source. Bartley, Russell H.; Bartley, Sylvia Erickson (2015). Eclipse of the Assassins : The CIA, Imperial Politics, and the Slaying of Mexican Journalist Manuel Buendia. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.

2. Article. Kiki Camarena and related articles, including BLP Félix Rodríguez (soldier)

3. Content. General suitability as a source for WP:REDFLAG claims

Eclipse of the Assassins propagates the conspiracy theory that the CIA was involved in the 1985 murder of DEA agent Kiki Camarena to cover-up a drug smuggling operation to fund the Nicaraguan Contras. Various federal investigations long ago rejected the CIA drug smuggling claims (i.e. ), and the largest homicide investigation ever conducted by the DEA identified Mexican drug traffickers as Camarena's murderers (e.g.). The book includes WP:REDFLAG claims by two former DEA agents (Hector Berrellez and Phil Jordan) and a self-proclaimed CIA agent (Tosh Plumlee, known to the FBI for fabricating various claims over the past 50 years, including his presence in Dealey Plaza during the assassination of JFK) that have been rejected (e.g. ) by those that include the former DEA head (Jack Lawn), the Inspector in Charge of the Camarena case (Jack Taylor), and a journalist who has followed the case for years and is described as an expert in "drug kingpins" (Elaine Shannon). Some of the other problematic sources that the book uses in an attempt to bolster its claims include: 1) Gary Webb (whose Dark Alliance series claiming that the CIA supported drug trafficking to raise funds for the Contras set off the firestorm leading to the various government investigations); 2) Spartacus Educational (criticized by the SPLC for promulgating conspiracy theories and conspiracy sources, and has itself been rejected as reliable source in various discussions here); 3) Terry Reed (self-proclaimed CIA agent known for his claims of having inside knowledge of CIA drug smuggling and that Bill Clinton and George W. Bush endorsed and profited from it); and 4) Richard Brenneke (self-proclaimed CIA agent known for his claims about the October Surprise conspiracy theory who says, like Plumlee, he was one of the CIA drug running pilots).

Despite a plethora of dubious sources for controversial claims, there is a question as to whether this is automatically a reliable source because it was written by a retired history professor (with his wife) and published by a university press. Questions: Are books written by academics automatically considered reliable, or can they still be considered unreliable or "fringe"? Are books published by university presses automatically considered reliable, or can they still be considered unreliable or "fringe"? To what extent are editors permitted to vet the sources used by such those sources? Can this particular source be used for statement of fact, and to what extent is WP:INTEXT applicable or necessary? Thanks! - Location (talk) 17:11, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I think it's fair to say that most editors, including me, have a presumption of reliability for materials published by reputable university presses that have undergone peer review as part of the press's normal publication and editing processes. We can and should make exceptions when there is evidence that those processes broke down or there are other significant irregularities.

I know nothing about this particular topic, the author, or the claims that are made in this book so I cannot provide any detailed comments on this source. I do wonder, however, how the author used the sources that you claim are dubious; there is a world of difference between mentioning a source and using it as a foundation for making significant claims. ElKevbo (talk) 00:15, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

The output of university presses are considered generally reliable, not the books themselves. To use a metaphor, we consider the New York Times reliable but they can (and do) make mistakes. Books published by professors may be reliable under the 'subject matter expert' clause but generally far less so for WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims. Eclipse of the Assassins was apparently positively spoken of by an assistant professor in the Hispanic American Historical Review, a professor in the European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and in the Midwest Book Review . That is not to say that this is accepted scholarship but it seems somewhat unlikely if the response of the entire academic community was "oh dear we shouldn't have published that".

I would personally say that it should not be used for any BLP claims and should be used with in-text attribution and given low weight but would be hesitant to dismiss it out of hand. Obviously, the US government has a conflict of interest in reporting an alleged murder by the CIA, and Webb's coverage (and the whole CIA-Contra story) remains controversial but I would lean on the side of caution unless a corroborating source is found. ~ El D. (talk to me) 20:06, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

@El komodos drago: I don't understand how your second paragraph can follow the first. In your first paragraph, you state that this book that has been written by an academic expert (and published by an academic press) has been favorably reviewed by other academics in peer-reviewed journals. But then your second paragraph says that we should give this source "low weight" and only with "caution." Those things don't seem to match up. ElKevbo (talk) 20:48, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Apologies, I do tend to get carried away. I am weighing the origins of the source with it making an exceptional claim. If there are other sources that reiterate the claim then I would be happier giving it normal weight and using it for BLPs. ~ El D. (talk to me) 22:49, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

(basically what the person closing the RfC said) ~ El D. (talk to me) 22:58, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

This RSN post appears to be an attempt to relitigate a closed RfC on the Kiki Camarena talkpage that was found in favor of including the allegations included within the book. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:24, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, while I am sure Location is acting in good faith, unintentional forum shopping has the same problems as that of the intentional variety. ~ El D. (talk to me) 23:06, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Not at all. I agree with the close. There are questions as to whether 1) WP:REDFLAG allegations, even by a former history professor, must conform to WP:INTEXT and 2) how allegations that contradict other sources should be presented. - Location (talk) 23:08, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

My reading of the RfC is that in regards to Can this particular source be used for statement of fact the answer is yes, it can with the exceptions laid out in the RfC (no content in lead etc.). In regards to to what extent is WP:INTEXT applicable or necessary? the answer is yes, in-text attribution is necessary. This means that it must be clear that this is what is in the book and whether or not it is true is unclear. I hope that helps, ~ El D. (talk to me) 20:48, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Books reviews and journal articles

The book is written by academics and published in a university press. It is both reviewed and cited favorably by other academics in peer-reviewed and/or academic journals. I can't find a negative review:

• Pansters, Wil G. "Drug trafficking, the informal order, and caciques. Reflections on the crime-governance nexus in Mexico." Global Crime 19.3-4 (2018): 315-338 .
• Freije, Vanessa. "Eclipse of the Assassins: The CIA, Imperial Politics, and the Slaying of Mexican Journalist Manuel Buendía." (2016): 766-768 .
• Pansters, Wil G. "Spies, Assassins, and Statesmen in Mexico’s Cold War." (2017): 143-156 .

Pansters and Freije argue that the Bartleys are correct (Pansters), or at the very least make a compelling case (Freije). -Darouet (talk) 20:52, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

• Note that this issue is being discussed at WP:AN, here: . -Darouet (talk) 20:53, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

State-sponsored fake news sites

The US State Department released a report in August 2020, titled Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem, which documented six state-sponsored disinformation / fake news sites. There is some overlap with the EU's anti-disinformation East Stratcom Task Force's sites that have already been blacklisted here: Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#State-sponsored_fake_news_sites. The six sites named in the State Department report are:

• www.strategic-culture.org Strategic Culture Foundation
• journal-neo.org
• globalresearch.ca (already blacklisted)
• news-front.info
• southfront.org (already blacklisted)
• www.geopolitica.ru
• katehon.com

Would propose that these four sites be added to the spamblocked sites from the December 2019 RfC here: Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_281#RfC:_Deprecation_of_fake_news_/_disinformation_sites.

Suppose that another RfC would be required for this? - Amigao (talk) 22:57, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose any blanket determination of unreliability of websites based on a national security agency's declaration as inconsistent with the intent of the RfC which directs deprecation in cases identified by "reputable sources" (plural). This is not a statement opposing the spamblocking of any site on this list (they're all, obviously, non-RS), only the manner in which we're proposing it occur and based on the singular evidence offered. I would support a specific RfC dealing with each site, individually, but not an en masse determination based solely on the declaration of a single nation's security apparatus. This does not constitute (a) sources (plural) as per the RfC, or, (b) reliable sources as per the RfC, since the source in question is an agency of the U.S. Department of State whose singular mission is "advancing the interests of the American people" (a fine mission but incongruous with the concept of reliability). Further underscoring the unreliability of the U.S. State Department as a source, is the fact that it has repeatedly either proved to have lied to advance its mission or been strongly suspected of lying to do so over a period of 80 years with great flippancy on a vast multitude of topics (e.g. , , ,, , , , etc.) Chetsford (talk) 00:04, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
• We shouldn't automatically declare any source reliable or unreliable solely because a government department said so, but there can definitely be a discussion on each of the sources, and the fact that the State Department declared them unreliable should in my opinion hold some weight (not dispositive weight, but some weight) in those discussions. Zoozaz1 talk 00:26, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Interestingly, the EU's anti-disinformation East Stratcom Task Force has documented quite a bit of disinformation from each of these sources. Just a few examples:

• katehon.com - anti-vaxxer disinfo
• strategic-culture.org - anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories
• journal-neo.org - COVID-19 bioweapon conspiracy
• news-front.info - COVID-19 vaccine disinfo - Amigao (talk) 03:07, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

• I would also consider the East Stratcom Task Force non-RS for the following three reasons:

1. They are an agency of a state-sponsored national security agency (the European External Action Service) and should not be viewed as an objective factfinder but, rather, a mechanism to advance the foreign policy and national security objectives of its government sponsor; the government sponsor, in this case, is engaged in non-militarized conflict against the sponsor of the other sites (Russia) so its objectivity is questionable. As well, they don't follow any normal editorial standards (for example, all of their posts are unsigned and anonymous) and there is no evidence they are functionally independent of the governing political apparatus of the EU.
2. The ESTF's reliability and editorial independence has been directly challenged in the past by reliable sources (e.g. , , etc.).
3. A cursory search of the ESTF archives finds numerous examples of it publishing objectively false information (just to cite one example, here , it claimed residents of Washington, D.C. weren't allowed to vote in U.S. presidential elections).

Disinformation is a popular subject of media coverage today and we should have no problem finding independent RS; if the only examples we can find to support our position are official publications of foreign ministries and intelligence agencies, we should take pause. There is probably good cause to spamblock the sites listed, but we should reach this conclusion solely based on independent RS, not on the basis of the declarations of official agencies of governments engaged in conflict or cold war against the other side. This creates a dangerous precedent. Chetsford (talk) 04:16, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

This only makes sense if you agree that the EU is a state and that it is a state which is engaged in non-militarized conflict against Russia. The NYT article you cite does not question the site's reliability, only notes that it toned down its China coverage and that Eastern European states think it is "underfunded and undersupported and should be more ambitious". The one example you give of "objectively false information" was corrected. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:47, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose I don't think the United States government is a reliable source for what constitutes fake news, since it consistently lies itself. Unfortunately, its not possible to factcheck it's most recent claims, but here are a few from the past: spy planes over the Soviet Union, its involvement in the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, babies in incubators killed in Kuwait, the military strength of the Soviet Union, the planned invasion of Grenada, Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction and links to al Qaeda, and the NSA surveillance program. The CIA even has an old article on its website, "When the Government Lies." TFD (talk) 12:42, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose agree with TFD who makes some good points. Burrobert (talk) 14:42, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose per TFD and WP:GLOBAL. We should not privilege US or EU government sources as being definitive or particularly reliable. NightHeron (talk) 14:54, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose per Chetsford and TFD. We are an independent encyclopedia, and we do not take cues from any government no matter how well-intentioned it may appear (and the US and EU have not exactly been models of truth as TFD points out). I'm not saying that Russia or China are better (they are probably worse) or that these sources are reliable, but we will need to consider them independently and one at a time. ~ El D. (talk to me) 17:54, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• Comment. The what-about-ism regarding the U.S. government in many of the posts opposing the proposal is silly and should not be weighed in favor or opposition to whether or not these sources have some level of disclaimer or disallowed use on Misplaced Pages. If I can read the US State Dept report in the near future, I'll choose to vote.--Mpen320 (talk) 23:49, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• Comment as per Zoozaz1 I would oppose spamblocking purely on the basis of this US State Dept statement or purely on the basis of EUvsDisinfo. However, this might prompt us to look at these sources and see if they how they are used in WP and if we need to discuss reliability. For example, journal-neo is used quite a bit and almost certainly shouldn't be used as a source for factual claims. The others are not used though. Should we hold a seperate conversation on whether New Eastern Outlook should be seen as generally unreliable? BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:47, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• Strong oppose to deprecation based on US State Department documents, national intellience agencies, etc. The intelligence community has a long documented history of fabricating news in support of their media or to undermine other media that they deem as opposed to their interests. --MarioGom (talk) 11:17, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• Strong oppose to blindly implementing the wishes of the State Department. I will diverge with some of the comments above in treating their analysis of state-sponsored medias as equivalent with their established track record (well documented by Chetsford) of lying about the Iraq War, Ed Snowden, etc. We do frequently discuss and scrutinize state-sponsored media sources and attribute when they are used, and we should continue to do that as usual. Spudlace (talk) 11:41, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Dunning–Kruger effect

Hi editors, I came to the subject article on Dunning–Kruger effect as a normal reader. While reading, I found a source that I consider to be unreliable. The source is number 4, "What the Dunning–Kruger effect Is and Isn't", URL here .

I note that this article was protected in April 2020 due to disruptive edits. I very intensely want to avoid an edit war. Before editing, I want to check with you experts and make sure that I am correct that this source is unreliable and can be removed.

I posted about this source on the talk page. Thank you very much for your help.Jarhed (talk) 21:19, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

The WP:Burden is on Wikiuser100 (or whoever is defending the source, the talkpage is indented weirdly or missing a signature) to prove it is reliable. My quick searching shows Tal Yarkoni to be a Research Associate Professor. Emir of Misplaced Pages (talk) 21:37, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi thanks for replying. I am not sure what an academic credential for an individual has to do with a reliable source. Could you please elaborate?Jarhed (talk)

The source is a personal blog post (WP:BLOG), so it was a good idea to investigate it. As such it can be considered that author's opinion. The author's competence field matters (emphasis mine): "Research Associate Professor Department of Psychology University of Texas at Austin". Another good sign is that his post cites his sources, including the 1999 paper he's writing about. If I understand, Yarkoni argues that the paper doesn't support the popular misconception that incompetent people believe they are better than competent people, just that they overestimated their own skills (the overestimation tends to be less for more competent people). If I read the 1999 paper abstract, it doesn't contradict that conclusion. Considering all these I tend to find the source usable about the misconception. If it's challenged by other good sources then it could ultimately be attributed and presented as this psychologist's understanding of the paper (but that might not be necessary at first glance). —PaleoNeonate – 00:01, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

I am not saying that challenges to the Dunning-Kruger effect are not valid. I am appealing to undue weight. The subject effect is well known in the behavioral sciences. My problem is that a personal blog post is being used to imply that the entire theory has been discredited and that is simply not true.Jarhed (talk)

I agree that the post doesn't discredit it, it's only valid criticism about the misconception that the incompetent believe their skills to surpass that of experts. If the way it's presented and if it's considered due are still debated, this would normally be decided at the article's talk page, or processes listed at WP:DR can be used. —PaleoNeonate – 12:19, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

What's going on here, User:Jarhed? You knew before you posted here that I had responded in full (with numerous cites) to your broadside on this matter (regarding an author and paper that had been introduced some time in mid-2017 and over 400 edits before I ever arrived at the Dunning-Kruger effect article) at that page's Talk page here, including detailing the Yarkoni work's citation:

• in the thesis of a graduate student at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School at Monterrey, California (Disaster Threat and the Dunning-Kruger Effect), which investigated the occurrence of the Dunning-Kruger effect in individual decision making during disasters for its impact on U.S. homeland security policymaking;
• at the Psychology and Neuroscience Stack Exchange in answer to the question: Does the Dunning-Kruger effect still work the same if the incompetent person is aware of this effect? by a lecturer in psychology at Deakin University in Australia;
• being quoted at length at the Chart of the Day feature at The Atlantic the very day it was published, July 7, 2010, here; and
• cited and directly hyperlinked in the Science section of National Geographic.com "Not Exactly Rocket Science" by that section's author, Ed Yong, under News/science/writing here, lauding its "big caveats on the Dunning-Kruger effect". Yet you post here as though none of that ever happened.

Thank you User:Emir of Misplaced Pages and User:PaleoNeonate for your contributions. I have corrected the errant indenting I had inadvertantly created in my single post at the Dunning-Kruger effect Talk page (linked above), eliminating any confusion it might have introduced. Yours, Wikiuser100 (talk) 14:27, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

References

1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10626367/

Hi Wikiuser100, your response to my criticism was composed from other articles that are not reliable, such as from Stack Exchange. In the article, there is substantial criticism introduced through unreliable source (4), a personal blog post by so called author Tal Yarkoni and his blog. I intend to remove this unreliable source and everything that references it. I am here on the reliable sources noticeboard to get some expert opinions about this. I apologize if my effort to get expert opinions offends you.Jarhed (talk) 23:50, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Yarkoni's blog post seems like it meets SPS imo. (t · c) buidhe 00:12, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

SPS Self published sources Jarhed (talk) 03:33, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

• I think it was worthy of investigation and discussion and I'm kind of impressed with the thoroughness with which editors on both sides of the debate have examined this source. I agree with the other above who said this is an OK source to use as an expert WP:SPS, however it should be used with attribution. So, "According to Tal Yarkoni, ..." We shouldn't use it to cite a statement in wikivoice, but attributed is OK. Levivich /_hound 18:09, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

OK, User:Jarhed, it's time for you to stop threatening to remove the Yarkoni material that has been at the Dunning-Kruger effect article since 2017. Five editors here have weighed in in support of its use - User:Emir of Misplaced Pages, User:PaleoNeonate User:buidhe, User:Levivich, and myself, with supporting documentation - and none have supported you. Yet you persist with challenging it in spite of this at the Dunning-Kruger talk page:

To be frank with you Mr. Wikuser100, I actually think that your criticisms of the theory are valid and worth recounting in this article. All that I want you to do is to adhere to Misplaced Pages guidelines about reliable sources and to source your criticism accordingly. That blog post that you used is not reliable. I would appreciate it if you would find some reliable sources in accordance with Misplaced Pages guidelines for reliable sources.

The author's qualifications, how the cite is used in the article, and how it is used elsewhere by others have been upheld. You are beating a dead horse. Enough. Yours, Wikiuser100 (talk) 10:38, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Your characterization of agreement with you is erroneous, no such agreement exists here or on the talk page of the article. I insist that you stop characterizing my discussion here as a "threat". I threaten nothing and I have no intention of arguing with you. I will say again: personal blog post (4) on the article is not reliable, and it is being given undue weight in the article. I have been convinced by this discussion that it should not be removed from the article completely, and I agree with that analysis. I am preparing to edit the article to remove the unhelpful paragraph from the article header. I will leave the reference and all discussion under heading "Mathematical critique", although there is criticism about this section on the talk page that it contains no math. I don't care about that section. What I care about are your edits that imply that the theory has been disproven, which is flat nonsense. Have a great day.Jarhed (talk) 08:32, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Local Government Information Services

In Illinois, conservative operative Dan Proft has set up various political publications that take on the style and format of newspapers, obstinately to hide their true purpose as political advertisements. The main umbrella for these publications is Local Government Information Services which as of writing includes

As documented in this article from the The State Journal-Register, the political advertisements run negative content about Democratic candidates ("Democrat X eats babies") giving no right of response to those candidates while running vague upbeat stories about Republican candidates ("Republican Y wants to help everyone") that lift content word for word from said Republican's promotional materials. Illinois Playbook, a publication of Politico has a summary of the politicized coverage coming from the various publications. An example of this being used against a Republican that Proft's organization did not prefer can be found here.

The reason I raise this issue Rich Miller, a longtime journalist covering the Illinois General Assembly, estimated in a 2018 article published in the The News-Gazette that 90% of the articles about the 2018 Illinois House of Representatives election and the 2018 Illinois Senate election were from one of the political publications. I believe this creates the risk of such politicized information being used in articles about Illinois elections and in the biographies of Illinois elected officials.

The publications include some non-political content that appears to be pulled from public sources and then written by algorithms such as "Meeting of Cityville City Council to Occur on Smarch 32nd" or "Bill Smith Pulled 4 Democratic Ballots In 5 Cycles". I believe I may have used such a publication in the past for party affiliations of township officials. I have no reason to believe that the information I used was wrong. However, considering the amount of political advertisements versus apolitical content, I believe we should have some caveats on how these publications can be used on Misplaced Pages.

Thoughts on this would be appreciated.--Mpen320 (talk) 03:12, 4 January 2021 (UTC) (forgot to sign)

Wow! That is a ton of sources to try to track. I am reluctant to state that they should not be used at all, but my impression is more that they should be treated like opinion pieces or whatever the general consensus is regarding FoxNews. - Location (talk) 01:18, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

• Probably Unreliable But Requires Further Examination Media report on media, often critically, and we should be cautious about deprecating any source on the basis of one or two articles that question aspects of another media outlet. That said, based on my cursory examination it doesn't appear RS consider these RS. When I run the phrases "Kanakee Times reports" and "according to the Kanakee Times" (as well as a few other of these outlets) through Google News I find they're only sourced to other outlets on this list. However, in a few other cases there was some limited outside sourcing from independent RS. For example, the Metro East Sun is cited by The Telegraph and the Sangamon Sun has been cited by the Journal Star (Peoria) . The whole thing seems fishy but I think it will require a very detailed examination versus a blanket scarlet lettering of 30 different outlets. Chetsford (talk) 02:05, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

• Clarification is that they are not thirty outlets. It's one outfit that publishes under 30 different names. I only felt obliged to provide enough sources to name my point. There are more articles on more unique incidents from other outlets that call attention to what is literally fake news in some cases. As for their citations by the Alton Telegraph and Journal Star, those are public figures from the Illinois State Board of Elections and whatever publishes the pension data. It's the kind of issue I am talking about. They mix in legitimate information with politicized nonsense. I'm not sure how Misplaced Pages policy and the editors would want to deal with that.--Mpen320 (talk) 03:21, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

We could probably do with a Misplaced Pages article about these publications (or the groups that fund them like Think Freely Media). –MJL ‐Talk‐ 03:54, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Well, even if you ban all these domains what is to stop the operator from just switching the names around and continue? "South Cook News" becomes "South Cook Times" and "Southern Illinois News" the "Metro Southern Illinois Telegraph" etc. It's not an easy problem to solve. Are these sites frequently cited on Misplaced Pages or is it more of a theoretical problem though? ImTheIP (talk) 13:28, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Other issues aside, I don't believe the worry that they might change their names because of Misplaced Pages should be a factor in any decision. First, are we so important to the publisher that they'll change all their stationary, business cards, bank-account names, etc. so readily because Misplaced Pages won't cite them? They're going after their small-town audiences directly, day after day. Second, we can't predict what someone may or may not do in the future — we can only address the reality in front of us.--Tenebrae (talk) 20:05, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Is Rollcall a reliable source for Rob Portman's wealth?

While Rollcall.com may be a reliable source for some things, it's page ranking the wealth of the 115th United States Congress at the beginning of 2018 (shown as 2021 in Portman's article) says:

"While these reports open a window into the financial position of every member, they are far from comprehensive or exact. Members need only report their financial positions in 11 broad ranges of value, starting with less than $1,000 and maxing out at $50 million or more. And they do not need to report the values of their principal residences or their contents, the biggest assets for most Americans. Liabilities open during any part of 2016 are also counted. What’s more, the policing of the accuracy of these reports appears to be spotty. The consequence for making an obvious mistake or omission is generally a letter from the clerk of the House or the Senate Ethics Committee encouraging an amended filing." Doug Weller talk 07:14, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

I'd say this disclaimer reflects well on Roll Call and poorly on US federal financial disclosure law. Here, Roll Call is specifically pointing out a defect in the requirements of the financial disclosure, and noting to the reader that—because of the limits of these disclosure requirements—the data cited may not give a full picture. This indicates a careful editorial policy on Roll Call's part. As for use in the article, I think we should qualify the statement in the article the same way as Roll Call does, if we use it at all. So, something like, according to Roll Call's ranking of the wealth of congresspeople, which relies on disclosure reports filed by members of Congress … etc. In general, I've always seen Roll Call as an excellent source for US federal politics, and this article confirms that prior as opposed to calling it into question. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 15:25, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree, and I've revised my section heading as I wrote that first before I looked at the site more. I don't think we should use it, giving the disclaimer is complicated and almost pointless. Doug Weller talk 16:07, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

I would say reliable especially because of such a disclaimer. Though you should probably use the numbers as a "at least this much" sort of inclusion, since the disclaimer entails the numbers being the minimum amount of wealth known. Silverseren 19:29, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

FYI, we're also currently using this Roll Call wealth ranking source in the ledes of Michael McCaul, Trey Hollingsworth, and Vern Buchanan, and in the bodies of Cynthia Lummis, Roger Williams (American politician), Brad Schneider, Nancy Pelosi, Chris Collins (New York politician), Rick Berg, and Alan Grayson. Probably in more but that's what I found in a quick search. Marquardtika (talk) 14:44, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Also David Perdue, but I qualified it in Special:Diff/998684159. I couldn't get Special:LinkSearch to give me anything super helpful based on the url. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 15:24, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Is www.caucaz.com (now defunct) a reliable source?

Hello, i am engaged in a discussion with some Baha'i editors at this page. They claim in this article that Musa Nagiyev is a Baha'i. The source that they are citing is a website www.caucaz.com, which is now defunct and it states in its about-us page that it accepts synopsis from individuals. Apart from this, the article on that website is written by one Baha'i, Azer Jafarov - and he cites his own book as a source for that claim. This guy (Azer Jafarov) works in the National Office of the Baha'i faith in Azerbaijan. He does not have any academic record and he does not provide any source in his book for his claims about Musa Nagiyev's accepting the Baha'i Faith. I would like to know if this claim about "Musa Nagiyev" can be kept with some conditions or outrightly removed. Thank you.Serv181920 (talk) 11:06, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Comment – I am one of the editors who defended the source and I am not Baha'i. It appears based on this that Caucaz.com normally publishes experts and therefore presumably has some level of editorial oversight. (That source is in turn produced by experts, see here.) Gazelle55 (talk) 21:58, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

References

1. https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://femida.az/az/news/41110

Gazelle55 - Thank you for your comment. I am surprised because the source is only Azer Jafarov - others sources (such as Caucaz.com) are taking from him without any investigation! Don't know what motivates them to take from a person who works in at a Baha'i office and his book is published by the NSA and he does not provide a single source for his claims! If a person like Nagiyev (billionaire) had ever accepted the Baha'i faith, it would have been reported far and wide in the Baha'i sources themselves. I did not find any mention about him in the Baha'i news, Star of the West or the Baha'i World.Serv181920 (talk) 10:03, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Your reasoning makes sense to me—the source may be wrong—but I fear that allowing this reasoning would be WP:OR. I would think the editorial decision to publish by Caucaz overrides any underlying concerns about the author and his sourcing (to himself as it happens). But perhaps because the reputation of Caucaz is not widely established we shouldn't give it a pass. I'm curious what the more experienced editors at this noticeboard believe. I guess there is a backlog because they are taking some time to weigh in. Gazelle55 (talk) 19:06, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Is Middle East Eye a reliable source for contentious claims about a BLP

Two Middle East Eye articles have recently been added as sources to the Douglas Murray (author) (fixed link) article ], ]. Is MEE a RS and/or DUE for contentious claims about a BLP subject? Are their OpEd articles considered acceptable? Springee (talk) 14:21, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

You are referring to Douglas Murray the author. Contentious = likely to cause disagreement or argument. Any negative statement about a person is likely to be contentious to that person and her supporters. Who is doing the contending in this case? Burrobert (talk) 14:54, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, the author. Sorry, I didn't realize the page was Douglas Murray (author). I believe standard practice is any negative/disparaging content that is associated with a BLP subject to be contentious. The first link is being used as a reference to a book Murray wrote so if MEE is a RS and generally considered DUE then I think that would be OK. While scornful it doesn't attack Murray directly. The second link is an OpEd article and is being used to support a claim that Murray is associated with the far-right. My primary concern is the OpEd part though claiming someone is associated with far-right, alt-right, white nationalist etc are all what I would consider to be value laden labels. At an overall level is MEE reliable (it does at least report to have an editorial structure) and second is it normally DUE? My feeling is probably RS but I can't say if it should be given WEIGHT. The OpEd article is not acceptable because it's an OpEd being used to support negative associations about a BLP. Springee (talk) 15:09, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

I didn't found any editorial board on the site also it regularly publishes fake news and hate --Shrike (talk) 15:26, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

It is hard to find information about the editorial structure of MEE. I couldn’t find it on the website. We know that former Guardian journalist David Hearst is the website’s editor-in-chief. Some information about staff is contained in this (not particularly positive) article . Regarding MEE’s reliability, no reliability problems are mentioned on our page for the website. The two articles provided by Shrike do not mention specific examples of unreliability. The Arabnews article says something that strengthens MEE’s claims to being GR: "many human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International, use MEE’s articles as a point of reference, as do the New York Times, the Washington Post and Germany’s Deutsche Welle". The main issue raised in the Arabnews article relates to a disagreement about its focus. The JewishNews article is upset with what it believes is MEE’s connection with Hamas. Burrobert (talk) 16:57, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm always way of MEE, which publishes some good stuff and some flawed stuff. The article about the book seems somewhere between an opinion piece and a book review and so could maybe be used with attribution if we think that its author, Ian Almond, Professor of World Literatures, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University in Qatar, is sufficiently expert or noteworthy for this to be due. The other piece is more reportage and it's by Nafeez Ahmed, who is quite a controversial journalist, so I would consider only using it in a way like this: "his work has also been linked to the alt-right by Nafeez Ahmed". I think the alt-right claim and footnotes should be moved out of the lede and into the body, and the Islamophobic claim should be summarised in the lead and detailed properly in the body. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:17, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Since the Ian AlmondNafeez Ahmed article says it's an Op-Ed I don't see why we would include it, especially since it is being used to support a contentious claim about Murray. Springee (talk) 18:41, 4 January 2021 (UTC)Corrected Springee (talk) 02:37, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

the Almond article is published under "opinion" but is clearly a book review. A detailed book review by a well-known Georgetown professor is hardly undue. As for the "contentious claim" you keep bringing up - in today's polarized media environment there is little that is not contentious. Noteduck (talk) 02:00, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I cut-pasted the wrong name. The Ahmed article is the one I meant as it was the Op-Ed. I'm still concerned about the claims that MEE is a propaganda outfit. At this point I wouldn't be OK with citing anything to a MEE article. Is Ian Almond's opinion of the book available through other sources? Springee (talk) 02:31, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

To make my point, let's compare Almond's review to Rod Liddle's, which also appears on Murray's page. Rod Liddle has a history of scandal (just read his page!) has had a complaint upheld against him by the Press Complaints Commission and has pleaded guilty to Contempt of Court in the course of his reporting. He also, quite unlike Almond, appears to have zero specific expertize in issues surrounding Islam and political Islam. Should we then exclude this passage on Murray's page:

Rod Liddle of The Times called the book "a brilliant, important and profoundly depressing book".

I think we can all agree this is silly - the claim isn't written in Wiki's voice, and Liddle is writing in The Times which is a well-established media outlet. The point I'm making is that my ongoing complaint about the Murray page is that sources perceived as unfavorable to Murray are being subject to an impossibly high evidentiary threshold. Just because the Ian Almond review is highly critical of Murray's book does not mean it has no place in the article Noteduck (talk) 02:15, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

This is a basic sourcing issue. Misplaced Pages, like it or not, says material published in things like The New York Times, etc are generally given more weight than material published in sources with less reputation. If Ian Almond's view is highly significant is it shared by other sources? Why would it only be published in this source. I know this can be frustrating as I've been on the other side of this sort of thing. Springee (talk) 02:37, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

"is it shared by other sources" - yes. The points made by Almond are shared by the other negative reviews of The Strange Death of Europe, or did you not look at them? Again, this is part of a frustrating trend of articles critical of Murray being held to an impossibly high evidentiary threshold for inclusion. Absent stronger rebuttals please do not remove this material from Murray's page Noteduck (talk) 11:11, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

The Daily Mail is shared by other sources yet deprecated. In this case Almond's review is not shared by other sources. The other article is clearly labeled opinion. Springee (talk) 11:25, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

A few points that summarise my views:

• What we know about MEE indicates that its editors/journalists are experienced.
• MEE seems to operate from a particular viewpoint/bias. This is what several articles linked above are saying. This does not preclude it from being a reliable source.
• There is no evidence that MEE is unreliable in the sense of publishing false information or failing to correct errors it makes.
• Both Ian Almond and Nafeez Ahmed appear to be notable enough for their opinions about a subject within their areas of expertise to be included in a Misplaced Pages article.
• As with other sources, opinion pieces and reviews, whether positive or negative, should be attributed to the author of the piece.

Burrobert (talk) 15:27, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

The question we should be asking is whether this source is reliable, not in general, but for some particular context and proposed addition to the Murray article. That's my understanding of how RSN is supposed to work. The quote that is being appealed to from the MEE piece by Ahmed is this:

Murray’s screed against the free speech of those asking questions about the intelligence services is ironic given that in a separate Wall Street Journal comment, he laments that the attacks in Paris and Copenhagen prove the West is losing the war on “free speech” being waged by Islamists. But Murray’s concerns about free speech are really just a ploy for far-right entryism.

This is being appealed to in order to support the following claim:

Murray's views and ideology have been described as being proximate to the far-right by a number of academics.

So is Ahmed an academic who thinks that "Murray's views" are "proximate to the far-right"? I can't tell from this source. Ahmed says that Murray's view that certain attacks show something about Islamists is what he unclearly calls a "ploy for far-right entryism". There are two problems. First, Ahmed is not talking about "Murray's views" but rather one particular view he holds. So it's at best misleading to suggest that Ahmed thinks "Murray's views" are "proximate to the far-right" since only one of Murray's views is under discussion here. Second, I don't know what he means by the claim that the view in question is a "ploy for far-right entryism". It seems to me OR to say that he means that this view of Murray's is "proximate to the far-right". I think it's unclear what he means by "a ploy for far-right entryism", and that it is basically impossible to reliably summarize his claim in other terms. So it would have to be a direct, attributed quote if it were regarded as DUE. But it isn't DUE, because it isn't clearly written, and it's published in a non-prominent source. So I'd oppose relying on this source for the proposed content for all these reasons. Shinealittlelight (talk) 00:47, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

It would be appropriate to include Almond and Ahmed’s opinions from MEE with attribution. The question of how their views should be summarised on the page is a question that would be better discussed on the article’s talk page rather than the reliable sources noticeboard. Burrobert (talk) 06:20, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

this whole thread is somewhat misleading. The Ahmed source is one of THREE journalistic sources used to demonstrate Murray's "proximity" to the far right, along with FIVE academic sources. Shinealittlelight these are semantic games you are playing - clearly Ahmed is associating Murray with the far right. I would go back over your talk page and consider your biases, especially given that you have called out for bias before. Noteduck (talk) 06:54, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

There is nothing misleading here. The term, "proximity" is vague. Also, this isn't a question if other sources make a claim, only if this one passes BLP standards. Once again, MEE is a questionable source per discussion above and this is labeled as an opinion. Either way I think we can agree this isn't a consensus. Springee (talk) 15:00, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Quotes are provided as courtesies for readers and editors and are not in themselves sources. The source is Ahmed's article "White supremacists at the heart of Whitehall" Ahmed mentions Murray 41 times (I counted) in his article and the context, white supremacy and far-right activism, makes it clear that he thinks Murray is one of them. Ahmed's opinion is one of (at least) five others which establishes WP:DUE. Whether MEE is "reliable enough" or not is quite irrelevant because no one can seriously dispute that the article on their site is written by Ahmed and accurately reflects his opinion about Murray. BLP is meant to keep potentially libelous content out of Misplaced Pages, like when some rag reports that a politician has had an affair, it is not meant to stop content which is unquestionably true. ImTheIP (talk) 18:49, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Am a bit confused about the quotes part. I agree that we can assume this MEE article accurately reflects Ahmed's opinion/analysis regarding the Murray book. I guess that puts me in the same boat as some other editors who ask if this is DUE based on the reputation of Ahmed. I'm not sure that it is. I agree that others say similar things. So while that suggests Ahmed's views are out of line with others I still have to ask if that makes his specific reference DUE for inclusion. Springee (talk) 19:11, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Per WP:RSN, RSN is where we assess whether a quote from a given source adequately supports a bit of proposed text for a WP article. In this case, I have argued that the answer is "no": the quote provided from the source does not adequately support the proposed content. You're all free to disagree with me if you want, of course, but let's keep it civil. I'm not playing any games, I'm providing an analysis in line with RSN. For what it's worth, if Ahmed had written something that wasn't totally unclear, I think his reputation and credentials suggest that his opinion on matters within his expertise would be DUE. But I find what he wrote in the relevant quote to be unclear and for that reason not usable for the proposed content. If someone wants to ask about a different quote as support for more competently written content, then we can talk about that. Shinealittlelight (talk) 22:02, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

While DUE is offtopic for this noticeboard, the point of sourcing the claim to Ahmed and five other authors is to demonstrate that the claim is corroborated by a large number of sources and is therefore DUE. No, the quote in itself isn't the source. Quotes are provided as courtesies to readers who are too lazy to click on links and in cases where the source might come under a paywall. The entirety of Ahmed's article is the source. This is of course immaterial to the question of whether an article written by Ahmed on MEE is a reliable source for Ahmed's opinion, which it clearly is. ImTheIP (talk) 10:07, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

thank you. This source belongs on Murray's page and the attempts to remove it, which have been rejected repeatedly by editors with no stake in the page, should stop Noteduck (talk) 10:11, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Well, I agree that Ahmed is a recognized expert, and while the venue in this case is low quality, he is clearly respected. Thus, I think that the source provided is a reliable source for the claim that Ahmed regards Murray as one of several people who "appear to be funded and embedded in a network of far-right ideologues" and he thinks that Murray's "concerns about free speech are really just a ploy for far-right entryism". That's what Ahmed says about Murray's relationship to the far-right in this piece. So while I have no idea what these quotes mean and would not know how to summarize them other than directly quoting them, I do think that the piece is reliable for establishing that these are direct quotes of a recognized expert. I don't see that the piece supports the proposed content, though, which is very misleadingly written. Shinealittlelight (talk) 15:50, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

• Unreliable-- Given that Middle East Eye has documented connections to terrorist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, the fact that it is funded by the Qatari government, and the lack of a strong editorial board, demonstrates that this site is unreliable--especially for contentious claims to a BLP: , , , , . Additionally, this site seems to engage in borderline antisemitism: Is Israel's hand behind the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn?, Palestinian groups urge Labour: Don't adopt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, Israel’s push to control global discourse has infected the medical realm, Israeli settlers' racism is not an aberration. It's part of an apartheid system etc. Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 02:51, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Popular Mechanics for UFO claims

• Popular Mechanics (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) the magazine

This popscience magazine publishes interviews, press releases, etc. It has often been used on WP to promote WP:FRINGE claims about UFOs and various people or their works. Since RSN archives about it are limited, I thought it'd be a good time to discuss it. It's been mentioned at WP:FTN a few times like here, here, here and more recently here. It's now even at WP:ANI here. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 15:10, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

What text are you looking to verify specifically? The source, AFAIK, is reliable for what is written in it, but that is a distinct problem from people using that reliable text to say something incorrect in Misplaced Pages's voice. Whether or not a source is reliable is distinct and different from people using reliable sources to "verify" something incorrect in Misplaced Pages by misinterpreting or misusing what the source says. --Jayron32 15:25, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

When it comes to WP:FRINGE-area stuff, Popular Mechanics has seemed sensationalist and clickbaity to me. For example, the fourth FTN discussion linked above was about claims of a compact fusion reactor; the story brushed off any implausibilities about the idea (there's one vaguely cautionary sentence in the whole thing) and freely speculated about how the Navy could be using it to build their own UFOs. XOR'easter (talk) 16:01, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but are we saying that Pais invented a compact fusion device, or that Pais claimed to have invented a compact fusion device? Those a fundamentally different statements, and the Popular Mechanics article could only be used to verify the second statement, not the first. --Jayron32 16:29, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

• Useable with attribution, I am not sure anyone has shown it is guilty of any fabrication.Slatersteven (talk) 16:32, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

  But does coverage there actually count towards due weight? I'm doubtful. XOR'easter (talk) 17:49, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

  Which is not an RS question.Slatersteven (talk) 18:02, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

  Consensus about the reliability of a source can and does include this question. It is the kind of thing that's listed in WP:RSP, where the exact phrase "due weight" occurs 23 times. When Gawker is the only source for a piece of information, the information would likely constitute undue weight, etc. If the concern about how seriously a publication should be taken is more general than a single article, as is the case here, surely it's all part of the same discussion. XOR'easter (talk) 19:40, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

I completely disagree; reliability and due weight are orthogonal. More importantly, while reliability is a general concept that can be evaluated independently on the subject due weight is intimately tied to close knowledge of the specific subject. Therefore due weight is not something that can be easily considered in a general noticeboard but must occur in venues specific to the topic, primarily the article's Talk page. ElKevbo (talk) 19:53, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Now I'm genuinely confused. For one thing, reliability can require specialist knowledge to evaluate; sometimes, training is necessary to cut through superficialities and sales talk, and without at least a little background on a topic, one might not even know what RS to look for in order to evaluate a publication. For another thing, there isn't a specific article in question here. PaleoNeonate listed five different discussions on two different noticeboards. If WP:RSP records the consensus about a source, where is that consensus supposed to be formed? XOR'easter (talk) 20:01, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

• Useable with attribution per Slatersteven. This is a general comment and does not represent my thoughts on any specific article. Popular Mechanics (among a few others) has gone all-in on UFOlogy and, in a perfect world, should never be used a source for anything about that subject. But this is not a perfect world. We only have one standard to determine if a source is RS and that is if other RS consider it RS. As of now, that's the case: Popular Mechanics is widely sourced by RS, and RS have not yet widely discredited Popular Mechanics' reporting. The fact that Popular Mechanics' reporting seems clickbaity or, even, batshit crazy, isn't enough to make it unreliable. This is, perhaps, a failure of the system but it is what it is. (Of course WP:DUE applies but, given the paucity of coverage of many UFO topics that may not be enough of a threshold to exclude it from some articles. DUE/UNDUE determinations would need to be made on an individual article's Talk page in any case and are out of scope for the RSN.) Chetsford (talk) 18:11, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
• Building on what Chetsford said I think its important to note that this new crop of otherwise non-fringe focused military/science/technology publications looking at the UFO topic is that they aren’t really examining the fringe aspects of the whole UFO thing. They appear to primarily explore the nexus of UFOs with advanced yet entirely manmade aircraft and weapons systems rather than engage in think pieces about what sort of pie a grey alien would prefer if a grey alien was in the mood for pie. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:18, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
• Sigh. Popular Mechanics. On the one hand, you have Debunking the 9/11 Myths: Special Report - The World Trade Center, which is a rather detailed debunking of 9/11 "inside job" conspiracy theories. On the other hand, you have Pentagon Has ‘Off-World Vehicles Not Made on This Earth’, which tries to lend credibility to conspiracy theories about miraculous alien technology being kept secret. Unfortunately, we have no third-party analysis and criticism about the current state of editorial reliability of the publication that would help us form some sort of blanket policy at this time. So the best we can do is to continue to make DUE and UNDUE determinations on a case by case/article by article basis. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:31, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the author of that second article also writes for Men's Health where he has written things like "3 Men With a Really Huge Penis Reveal What Their Lives Are Like". - Location (talk) 21:04, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

A man of many talents it seems. PackMecEng (talk) 21:07, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

It's no Aliens Smell Like Farts but I suppose we can't all win the Pulitzer. - MrOllie (talk) 23:43, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

• Popular Mechanics has shown quite clearly that in regard to UFOs it has gone completely off the deep end, and should never be used even with attribution. It's definitionally a WP:FRINGE source in respect to that subject. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:22, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yellow/use with caution - it's like Time or Newsweek. Popular Mechanics isn't even on the level of Popular Science, and never was. It's like TV Guide. It's a publication aimed at entertainment, not education, and we should treat it as such. Levivich /_hound 18:13, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
• Not reliable for UFOs and WP:FRINGE topics more generally. Use with caution on other subjects, considering on a case-by-case basis how their coverage stacks up against other sources and whether they may be too sensationalist. XOR'easter (talk) 15:46, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Coat of arms of The Catholic University of America

A concern has been raised about the quality of sources at Coat of arms of The Catholic University of America, an article I created yesterday. Before I did, I consulted the four similar articles and thought the sourcing here was at least as good as in those:

• At Yale University coat of arms, one of two sources is from the alumni magazine.
• At Coat of arms of the University of Chicago, all five come from the University.
• At Coat of arms of the University of Notre Dame, six of twelve are ND sources.
• At Heraldry of Harvard University, all four references are from Harvard and 11 of 12 citations in the "Sources" section are from Harvard.

When the CUA article was new page patrolled the reviewer didn't flag it, but I would appreciate another review. --Slugger O'Toole (talk) 21:05, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

It is difficult to believe that any of these is independently notable, but I don't think this is the right venue to settle that question. --JBL (talk) 22:03, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Looks fine to me, although as another said I don't think this is the best place to discuss this. 3Kingdoms (talk) 22:10, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

3Kingdoms, To be clear, are you saying you think the sources are OK but it might have notability issues aside from that? -- Slugger O'Toole (talk) 02:25, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Not that at all. I thinks its find to have it up, just that board is more about deciding if sources are reliable, not if the page is notable, I fully support it being up and think you did a great job. 3Kingdoms (talk) 04:46, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

3Kingdoms, Thank you for the kind words. That is what I am trying to determine: are the sources at Coat of arms of The Catholic University of America reliable and appropriate? -- Slugger O'Toole (talk) 04:04, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

No problem. Looks good to me. 3Kingdoms (talk) 04:05, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• Nope. Not even close to reliable or appropriate.

1. The sourcing of OTHER articles is completely irrelevant as to the question of THIS article, except as a form of rationalization.
2. The ONLY independent source is a single page from a 1915 book that lists various university BOOKPLATES, which depicts the coat of arms.

--Calton | Talk 04:40, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Pando.com

Is Pando a reliable source? It comes up a fair bit in BLP deletion discussions, and taking a look at it, they certainly hold themselves out as a news site. But it's a tiny bit unlike that, somewhat more like a blog. The contributors are often professional journalists , but sometimes podcast hosts , non-journalists , academics , and... people contributing apparently promotional pseudo-articles and opinion pieces from activists . Amiee Pearcy appears to be the only staff editor and I'm slightly concerned this may be more like her blog with guest contributors than a news organization. Sometimes they repost random medium articles from contributors whose qualifications they do not state . It looks like it might be a very small operation, and in 2019 it appears its entire editorial staff changed due to the sale of the site . In the founding statement, the founder calls it a blog . What do we think about the following questions?

1. Does being profiled here count as significant coverage in a reliable source?
2. Are contributor articles here reliable? Do we think they are adequately fact checked and that there is significant journalistic oversight, or is it possible that contributed articles might present opinion and advertisement as fact?
3. Are staff articles here reliable?

FalconK (talk) 00:11, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: Sarah Lacy, the founder of Pando, is a journalist who previously worked at other journalistic outlets like TechCrunch and Business Week. Pando has done some legitimate investigative journalism on tech companies like Uber, and published a number of well-known technology journalists and was something of a must read years ago on tech news matters. I'd suggest that referring to Ronald Purser, a professor of management at San Francisco State University, as merely a "podcast host" is somewhat unfair. The "promotional pseudo-article" is a legitimate problem, and in cases like that, I think it is more than reasonable to exclude articles like that. I'd also be careful given the disclosures section of the site—tech investors like Marc Andreessen of VC fund Andreessen Horowitz own a small chunk of the site, so it might be reasonable to consider appearance of bias if they're covering a company that has been funded by one of the investors listed. The "blog"/"not a blog" discussion is as pointless and unilluminating as it almost always is on Misplaced Pages (using blogging software or having a blog-like style does not preclude one from doing legitimate journalism, not referring to oneself as a blog doesn't magically make you reliable). —Tom Morris (talk) 09:33, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

RfC: China Daily

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Link:

Should the source be deprecated? Firestar464 (talk)

MBFC Rating:

02:57, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Media Bias Fact Check is not a reliable source and should not be invoked in talk page discussions, it says pretty much nothing of value about the quality of a source. That said I do think a RfC on China Daily is warranted. chinadaily.com.cn   is currently cited in 5,762 articles. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:04, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I'll add the usual options. Which of the following best describes the reliability of China Daily?

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

--Sunrise (talk) 19:03, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Survey (China Daily)

• Deprecate - My first impression on looking at it is that it's probably in the same category as RT (TV network) aka "Russia Today" which is already deprecated? Being owned by the "Propaganda Department" of the Chinese government and all... IHateAccounts (talk) 03:12, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't think we should be deprecating sources so lightly based on a first impression. --MarioGom (talk) 19:06, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

@MarioGom: on detailed further review it is owned, operated controlled, and so forth by the same entity that owns and controls China Global Television Network, which is already deprecated for being a propaganda outlet. IHateAccounts (talk) 20:46, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Deprecation China Daily being owned by the CCP is no more a stopper for me than NBC being owned by Comcast. We should disabuse ourselves of the notion that state-owned media in non-western states is somehow inherently less reliable than state- or corporate-owned media in the west (to clarify, that's a general observation I've made of others - not you, and I don't think you're doing that here). Indeed, Bennett's indexing theory - certainly the most influential theory in the last 30 years in media studies - suggests that media in the west are already more or less state-controlled on matters of importance, even if they're not state-owned, the different perception of independence only due to their need to calibrate reporting to the multiple control levers present in multi-party states. I believe China Daily is generally reliable for all but reporting on the CCP and adjacent institutions where its use should be limited to WP:SELFSOURCE. Though, as with all sources, WP:DUE should be considered in every use. I draw this conclusion as follows:

-Media Bias Fact Check is unambiguously unreliable. For the purposes of RSN, I always assume it simply doesn't exist.

-The consensus of scholarship indicates that media in China can, and is, held judicially liable for defamation (e.g. this study by Benjamin L. Liebman, among others) and this includes state-controlled media.

-The China Daily has a gatekeeping process.

-The China Daily is sourced to RS which is, ultimately, the only standard we - as Wikipedians - can apply. Provided this is met we can't deprecate a source because we're uncomfortable with the governance or ownership structure. In just the last year its original reporting has been sourced (with attribution, but absent frightening caveats about the CCP owning it) by Science Magazine , the BBC , Barron's , Washington Post , NPR , and others. USA Today even used it as a corroborating source for one of their fact-checks . If we deprecate China Daily while accepting sources that routinely source the China Daily for their content we're saying we know more about the China Daily than any RS. And if we know more than RS, there's no real reason to keep the WP:OR policy.

Chetsford (talk) 03:27, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

While I haven’t evaluated this particular source in detail, the above comment contains a number of arguments that are largely invalid or irrelevant. (I will ignore the suggestion that many of our usual RS are effectively state-controlled, as something that shouldn’t require refutation.) Starting with the bullet points, it's true that MBFC is unreliable and should not be considered. However:

• Defamation claims being permitted by a country’s laws is a minimal standard, not an argument in favor of reliability. Furthermore, the article cited is from 2006, before the more recent increases in state control. And even at the time, as acknowledged in the same article, defamation claims were also used as tools of media control.
• Having a gatekeeping process is likewise a minimal requirement. Presumably, one of the concerns in this case includes what type of reporting that gatekeeping process will allow.
• Simply being cited by RS does not make a source reliable. Instead, we want the source to be discussed in RS and to evaluate the contents of those discussions. The Daily Mail is also sometimes cited in RS; this is a common situation in which information from an unreliable source may become usable on Misplaced Pages because of a better source applying its own editorial processes to the information in question.

Additionally, much of the comment is about Chinese sources in general. While this can certainly inform the evaluation, any such information will be overridden by information about the specific source in question. Checking the WP article shows e.g. China Daily#Editorial control and China Daily#Disinformation allegations, which are issues that would need to be addressed.

It's true that state ownership doesn't inherently make a source unreliable, but it’s still a relevant consideration in countries that use the press for propaganda. (I think that some editors, when they mention state ownership, are using it as a shorthand for this type of argument.) The reason that ownership structure can be overlooked in some cases is not because the owners are unbiased, but because they are more likely to have credible policies about independence in reporting. This is not a “west/east” distinction, or any other system that tries to divide people by nation or culture - it’s a result of applying sourcing guidelines that ignore such things. Furthermore, introducing such distinctions (which are largely arbitrary to begin with) only serves to frame the discussion in terms of geopolitics and makes it harder to evaluate the issue neutrally. Sunrise (talk) 18:59, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

@Chetsford: just FYI Liebman appears to be saying the exact opposite of what you say he says. Also making that argument in this explicit context ignores the fact that the CCP is above regular Chinese law, it literally doesn't apply to them as party is above state unlike in those multiparty systems (your argument appears to conflate state owned and party owned media). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:44, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• I would say it's generally reliable for non-political stuff (like the manhole story that BBC reported based on a China Daily story) and generally unreliable for everything related to politics, broadly defined (see China_Daily#Controversy). Alaexis_¿question? 09:47, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose deprecation. First, context matters and no context is discussed here, not even one example. Second, being rated as left-biased (or right-biased) by some random organization is irrelevant to deprecation discussions. Reliable sources are not required to be unbiased. And finally, as much as ownership structure is now a thing for flagging content on Twitter or Facebook, that's not yet a Misplaced Pages policy. Ownership is part of what we look at when evaluating sources, but not the only thing at all. --MarioGom (talk) 19:14, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
• I’m surprised it hasn’t been deprecated already given their explicit existence as a propaganda organ of the Chinese Communist Party and long history of disinformation peddling. We have explicit cases of them spreading disinformation which are covered on their page. They have no respect and little credibility within the traditional media, Reporters Without Borders has condemned them etc. I strongly support deprecation. Nothing I’ve seen suggests its usable outside of about self which I will add given the immense nature of the CCP thats actually a lot of contextually appropriate use. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:30, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose deprecation. It's a state-owned / operated / supported news service, in essence no different form the BBC or PBS. Non-political news is the product of professional reporters. Any story displaying overt political bias is stating the government's official party line — which is important to know. --Tenebrae (talk) 19:57, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

@Tenebrae: China Daily is owned by the Chinese Communist Party not the Chinese state, it is political party-owned not state-owned. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:02, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure there's a distinction between the Communist Party and the Chinese state. I'd be surprised if we wouldn't have considered the Communist Party's Pravda a useable source for insight into Soviet thinking during the Cold War. --Tenebrae (talk) 20:07, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Then I don’t understand your point about them being in essence no different from the BBC or PBS which are entirely independent of the political parties in their respective states. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:11, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I thought it was clear: In China's case, the Party is the government. --Tenebrae (talk) 20:23, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

@Tenebrae:, since you now agree "In China's case, the Party is the government", that makes this vastly different from the BBC or PBS, which are independent of political party in their countries. It's much more a propaganda rag with little factual reliability, with the best comparisons indeed being the factually deficient Pravda, or Russia Today, or 112 Ukraine (owned by Russian proxies), or Rodong Sinmun from North Korea. There are also precedents from Misplaced Pages regarding papers similar in ownership structure, if not political leaning, such as An Phoblacht, Anadolu Agency, The Electronic Intifada, HispanTV, or Press TV. See their entries at WP:RSP.

It might be viewed as a source (as you proposed) for occasional insight into official talking points of the Chinese Communist Party, but I would never trust Pravda, or Rodong Sinmun, or China Global Television Network, or "China Daily" for facts. IHateAccounts (talk) 20:38, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Tenebrae. Plus, we have literature that indicate the BBC tends to adopt framing in its reporting that mirrors that used by whatever party is in power at the time. (e.g. , etc.) We need actual evidence of unreliability, not merely expressions of our personal discomfort with the ownership group. "They're communists" is not a policy-based argument to deprecate a source. Chetsford (talk) 23:13, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Then I don’t understand your argument about it being in essence no different from the BBC or PBS, if you’re arguing that the entire relationship between party and state is radically different than in a multiparty state like the US or UK then what do you mean by "in essence no different” Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:59, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• Option 1 and Oppose Deprecation: the arguments mentioned by Chetsford, MarioGom and Tenebrae are persuasive. Appropriate attribution should be made for statements related to China Daily's area of bias. Also, this RFC hasn’t been set up in our required neutral format. “Deprecate China Daily” isn’t a suitable heading for an RfC and the introduction is supposed to be neutral. Burrobert (talk) 20:29, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
• Deprecate. The fact that they are owned by the publicity department of the Chinese Communist Party is reason enough. Just as we treat (say) NewsBusters and CNS News together, because both are owned by the Media Research Center, so it should be with China Daily and the deprecated Global Times. For those who don't think that is sufficient reason, please consider China_Daily#Disinformation_allegations. To take one recent example, China Daily promoted tweets saying that the Hong Kong demonstrators were sponsored by Western interests. It also claimed that they were planning terrorist attacks on September 11, 2019.. Adoring nanny (talk) 23:52, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Deprecation, however I would go with option 2 or 3, depending on the topic. Chinese state media is OK to cite as a WP:RS for non-controversial mainland news (such as China opening whatever high-speed train line or something like that), but for controversial topics such as Taiwan and the South China Sea, they should only be used with attribution to get the PRC's official opinion on such subjects. Félix An (talk) 23:53, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose deprecation and treat as we treat other semi-official or official media: somewhere in between options 1 and 2, with good judgement expected from editors as usual. Thanks to Chetsford especially for their careful consideration and comments. -Darouet (talk) 21:02, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

• Option 4: Deprecate and put it in the same category as Global Times and CGTN/CCTV. In my opinion, Xinhua News Agency should also be deprecated. Brady (2015) wrote an excellent review on those so-called "media" as part of Beijing's global propaganda campaign. Despite the subtle and stealthy nature of China's overseas influence operations, there are numerous reports by reliable sources and countries with press freedom regarding Chinese state-controled media including China Daily disseminating false or fabricated information. For example, . It is truly unbelievable that some editors could turn a blind eye and still promote the false equivalence of state-controlled propaganda organs and private media with editorial independence and well-established fact-checking processes. Normchou  22:03, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

References

1. Brady, Anne-Marie (October 2015). "Authoritarianism Goes Global (II): China's Foreign Propaganda Machine". Journal of Democracy. 26 (4): 51–59. doi:10.1353/jod.2015.0056. Retrieved 16 December 2020.

• Oppose Deprecation The fact that they have not failed a fact check speaks strongly in their favour, even if it is obviously the state outlet of the PRC. Certainly however, on topics where the PRC feels strongly about however, it should be used only as a last resort, or in order to back up an official position of the PRC. BrxBrx(talk) 03:34, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (China Daily)

I just want to highlight some content from China Daily:

Anti-government fanatics are planning massive terror attacks, including blowing up gas pipes, in Hong Kong on September 11.

A protester fires a US-made M320 grenade launcher at an illegal assembly in Tsim Sha Tsui amid escalating violence in Hong Kong on Sunday night.

In both cases, we have outrageous lies pushed by China Daily. There are more at China Daily. Adoring nanny (talk) 19:09, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

And just today, we have this:

Eradication of extremism has given Xinjiang women more autonomy, says report.

Missing in China Daily's discussion of the "autonomy" of Uighur women is any mention of the Xinjiang re-education camps. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:47, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

The last of these articles gained notoriety in the past day after an excerpt from the article was shared on Twitter by the Chinese Embassy in the United States. The excerpt is reproduced below:

Chinese Embassy in US @ChineseEmbinUS

[REDACTED]

Study shows that in the process of eradicating extremism, the minds of Uygur women in Xinjiang were emancipated and gender equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no longer baby-making machines. They are more confident and independent.

Eradication of extremism has given Xinjiang women more autonomy, says report

January 7, 2021

References

1. Chinese Embassy in US (January 7, 2021). "Study shows that in the process of eradicating extremism, the minds of Uygur women in Xinjiang were emancipated and gender equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no longer baby-making machines. They are more confident and independent. " (Tweet) – via Twitter.

This tweet (and accompanying China Daily article) appears to be a defense of certain elements of the Uyghur genocide, and has received coverage in Ars Technica (RSP entry) and an opinion piece in the Washington Examiner (RSP entry). — Newslinger talk 06:45, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

As morally unacceptable as that is, "moral unacceptability" is not part of WP:RS, so I think we should judge based on factual accuracy. (t · c) buidhe 13:03, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Ok, let's look at factual accuracy. From the China Daily article:

The research center's report said safe, effective and appropriate contraceptive measures are now available to couples of childbearing age in Xinjiang, and their personal decisions on whether to use those measures — which include tubal ligation and the insertion of intrauterine devices — are fully respected.

Contrast this with reports from actual WP:RS of forced sterilization of Uyghur women . Is forcing sterilization on someone consistent with respecting their decision on whether or not to use contraception? And the nail in the coffin -- one might argue that China Daily was simply reporting what the "research center" said and was therefore accurate. But in that case, shouldn't they have characterized both the "report" and the "research center" differently? Because neither "research" nor "report" are accurate characterizations of the document in question, are they? Adoring nanny (talk) 13:44, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Just focussing on factual accuracy almost all of it is false. This is not a study that an independent source or one with basic fact checking abilities would have used. Its almost laughable, lets for instance contrast this statement with the well known second class political status of women in modern China "In the process of eradicating extremism, the minds of Uygur women were emancipated and gender equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no long baby-making machines, it said. Women have since been striving to become healthy, confident and independent.” The CCP doesn't promote female emancipation and gender equality even for Han women... Are we really expected to believe they do it for the women of a minority which by all reports they are repressing? I’ve certainly never seen a WP:RS give these sort of bullshit propaganda reports the time of day. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:55, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

• @Firestar464: Could you please revise the RfC statement (the text between the {{rfc}} tag and the first timestamp) to meet WP:RFCBRIEF, which requires the RfC statement to be "neutral and brief"? Specifically, "Media Bias Fact Check classifies it ... 'state propaganda.'" cannot be in the RfC statement since it advocates for a position, but you can move it into either the survey or discussion section. The link to MBFC's rating of China Daily should also be moved or removed from the RfC statement. — Newslinger talk 21:51, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

 Done Firestar464 (talk) 11:38, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Comment regarding the above: Xinjiang and Tibet (along with HK, Taiwan, the South China Sea) are two controversial areas that we should probably refrain from using Chinese state media in, but for most non-controversial mainland news, it should be WP:RS. Félix An (talk) 02:47, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

The problem with that is that we can't know in advance what they are going to start lying about. In general, a rule like this would require readers to keep up with a lengthy and continually changing list of areas of concern. For example, prior to December, 2019, there was no reason to suspect their information about coronaviruses. See also Censorship in China. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:03, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

David Irving and Hitler's dogs

I was surprised to discover a book by famed Holocaust denier David Irving among the sources of Blondi, (one of) Hitler's last dog(s).The cited claim is that Hitler bought a different German shepherd to keep Blondi company and that her name was Bella. Is this sort of thing allowed? GPinkerton (talk) 03:25, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Since the book in question was "Hitler's war" which is where Irving started his trek to Holocaust denial, it would be for the best if it was removed. While it seems likely that in this case of Irving was telling the truth, he is too discredited I think to use. Do you know any other works that mention this fact? I don't like removing info that is truth, but Irving is a major problem as a source. 3Kingdoms (talk) 04:09, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

3Kingdoms, that was my thinking, and I don't anything at all about Hilter's pets; I just wanted to copy some information from Blondi to German Shepherd (mystifyingly, the most famous German shepherd was not mentioned, though others of Hitler's dogs were) and here was a citation to Irving nestled among the Traudl Junges and the Ian Kershaws! GPinkerton (talk) 04:32, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

The subject of personal websites for reliability and/or opinions

Hello, as part of the Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Amusement Parks trade, many articles rely on historical information from news outlets and contextual sources. Though, more recently I've been interested in finding out the reliability of sources, and from people who claim to be "experts in the field". One of these sources would be from Bill Androckitis Jr. who runs the blog, Touring Central Florida, and has been quoted by the Tampa Bay Business Journal as being one of these amusement park experts 1 2. The main question I wish to pose here relies on individual roller coaster articles (i.e. Time Traveler (roller coaster), Iron Gwazi, VelociCoaster) that seek historical information and opinions based on their respective reception sections.

For one, how can I determine definitively if these people are indeed "leading experts in the field"? Does a mention in a newspaper or journal define such expertise? On another point, if their expertise is reliable, can their personal website(s) be used towards providing any relevant information to historical reporting on an attraction and/or be sufficient sources for opinions related to the reception cascaded upon reviewing a new attraction? All the best, Adog (Talk・Cont) 04:45, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately, personal blogs cannot be used for factual aspects, but if you can assert they are an expert for amusement parks (of which I'd think this is not people traditionally in journalism) their opinion can be included per WP:RSOPINION. --Masem (t) 05:09, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

That does not agree with our policy about reliable sources. It would be unusual to cite an expert's blog and the bar is high to establish reliability (much less due weight) but it's not prohibited. ElKevbo (talk) 05:47, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

There is a lot of nuance in answering the general question of "who is an expert" with a tremendous amount of variation between different topics, fields, and disciplines. In general, I think we look for people whose expertise has been recognized by others e.g., sources that are indisputably reliable such as well regarded newspapers, sources that have undergone significant review such as peer-reviewed academic publications. It's not enough that someone proclaim that they are an expert nor is it enough for one or more Misplaced Pages editors to believe that the person is an expert; we need to know that others whose opinions carry weight believe that person is an expert.

Of course, establishing that a source is reliable does little or nothing to establish that it should be cited; due weight is a separate question that must also be addressed. In other words, although the sources we cite must be reliable we are not obligated to cite every reliable source. (Broadly speaking, if the only source that can be located is someone's personal blog then the chances are good that the information doesn't meet the bar of due weight. If something is so important that it must be included in an encyclopedia article then we should be able to find it in high quality sources that have been positively reviewed and edited.) ElKevbo (talk) 05:47, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

@Masem and ElKevbo: Appreciate the responses! To clarify in short, yes to opinions if in a reliable source (though it is not necessary to use all opinions per due weight), but a no to historical information or coverage of an attraction, especially in the case of a personal websites coverage. If wrong correct me, as I usually come back to discussions as a future reference point. Adog (Talk・Cont) 18:01, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

No, that's not correct. Determining if a source is reliable (i.e., it can be cited) is separate from determining if it can be represented with due weight (i.e., it should be included). Self-published materials like blogs can certainly be reliable but whether they can be represented with due weight in an encyclopedia article is a different matter. There is nothing that prohibits us from citing a self-published source for factual claims but it would be very unusual especially if the SPS is the only source for those claims.

So it's a probably reliable and maybe due weight for opinions and maybe reliable and maybe (but less likely) due weight for facts. ElKevbo (talk) 18:50, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

If Androckitis' experience is limited to riding coasters in Central Florida then he is certainly not an expert. I personally know plenty of amusement industry writers who have been to parks all over the world and have track records of more than 1,000 different coasters. Those are the experts whose opinions you should be seeking. This Androckitis guy needs to get out more before you start including his personal opinions in wiki articles.—JlACEer (talk) 05:40, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

@Adog:You should really take this discussion to Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Amusement Parks. Roller coasters should not be treated like movies or music or restaurants, so there is no reason to post opinions from "experts," source notwithstanding. It may be allowed per WP:RSOPINION but it is unnecessary and unlikely to be welcomed.—JlACEer (talk) 15:12, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

@JlACEer: I had a while back and was informed to first take it to this forum. Though, the input on this page from you is also helpful. What I find hard is how do we know this person has experience with such-and-so roller coasters. I could claim to have ridden coasters all over the world and no one would be none-the-wiser. Is there a way to account for this expertise with certainty as in the case of this Mr. Bill Androckitis Jr. or do we have to take their word at face value? Also if you could link those opinions it would be helpful in gathering opinions for reception articles Adog (Talk・Cont) 17:39, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

An expert is someone who has written articles and books about the topic for academic publishers. If a new species of ant is discovered, it might make more sense to use the blog of the scientists who discovered it rather than a newspaper article based on their press release. Or you might want to use it for additional details not included in media coverage. News media sometimes quote well informed amateurs and we can use the news articles to report what they have said. But we cannot use their blogs directly. We rely on the news media to use judgment in assessing the reliability of their claims, which we cannot do ourselves.

In most cases, weight is relevant and provides a reason not to use blogs. If it's that important, why didn't news media mention it?

TFD (talk) 17:59, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

I would not say there is a need to be published by academic publishers... for one thing, there are topics that no academic publisher covers... and those topics can have non-academic experts. There are even a few amateurs who are experts in academic topics. It really depends on the specific topic.

I would say that two criteria would qualify an amateur to be considered as an expert: 1) the person has written articles and books on topic that have been published by reputable publishing houses, and 2) those articles and books are routinely cited/referenced by others who write on the topic. Blueboar (talk) 18:33, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, and not everything published by a reliable publisher will automatically be suitable for inclusion. The answer may vary depending on context and how the claim or statement is worded. Adog, can you post an example of a claim and its corresponding reference? It would be nice to add more context to what is still a rather broad question. --GoneIn60 (talk) 18:20, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

@GoneIn60: Apologies, my original statement is vague on purpose since there is not a Misplaced Pages article that has used him as a choice quote, it was more of a hypothetical. If I were to use an example I think there are four avenues I could take of what is questionably appropriate to include in an article:

• The opinion or information provided by an "expert" used in a reliable source/medium on the history of a given amusement park-related article (As exemplified in the Tampa Bay Business Journal article)
• The opinion or information provided by of an "expert" used in a reliable source/medium in the reception of a given amusement park-related article (As exemplified by my own inclusion in Iron Gwazi using Park World's Paul Ruben in a RS)
• The opinion or information provided by of an "expert" used on their own personal blog/website on the history of a given amusement park-related article (Such as the websites of BGT History, BGT Nation, BGT Guide)
• The opinion or information provided by of an "expert" used on their own personal blog/website for the reception of a given amusement park-related article (A review from Bill or Roller Coaster Philsophy)

Thank you though to even more users responding to this. What really screws me is who gets to be called an "expert" in the amusement park industry since its not an academic field and more-so relies on experience and recognition questionability. I think Blueboar hit the nail on the head. Adog (Talk・Cont) 18:51, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Exactly. There are different kinds of experts in the amusement park industry. Some provide consultation services for amusement parks and manufacturers based on marketing trends, some may provide expert analysis of trends and feedback within the enthusiast community, and others may be the engineers and concept designers behind the actual rides and attractions themselves. Reading Blueboar's post, I think that's exactly what's at play here. Not every kind of expert is going to have a flourishing presence in academic literature, and therefore falls under a different standard of verification. Having reliably-published information being picked up and cited routinely by other reliable sources covering the same topic would qualify them in my book as being an industry expert. --GoneIn60 (talk) 19:05, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

To answer your question Adog on how you know if a person is an expert, I guess it comes from observation. You quoted Paul Ruben, and we all know that he has been writing for Park World for years. Prior to that he was an editor for RollerCoaster! magazine. We've also seen his name as a contributor in various other publications. We know he is an expert because articles like this one often mention his credentials. I know Arthur Levin is an expert because I've seen his articles in USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, numerous other papers and he used to write in the amusement section of about.com. I see Tim Baldwin's name as a frequent contributor in RollerCoaster! and Amusement Today. He covers coasters all over the world so it is pretty safe to assume he's ridden thousands — plus his profile says he has. Other names should be familiar because we see books and articles from them all the time: Tim O'Brien, Scott Rutherford, David Francis, to name a few. And, it doesn't have to be those who have been around for a long time. Taylor Bybee with CoasterStudios is fairly young, but from his YouTube videos we can see that he travels extensively. The videos are very professionally done and I frequently watch them to see what his opinions are. I trust what he has to say. I would consider him an expert. On the other hand, I have no idea who Bill Androckitis Jr is. I realize that someone at the TB business journal refers to him as a theme park expert, but, in my opinion, he needs more creds than simply having a Central Florida blog to be considered an expert.—JlACEer (talk) 19:20, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

MobileReference/MobileReference.com

This is (or was) a publisher that produced books consisting of Misplaced Pages articles. (Previous discussions: Archive 120 and Archive 97.)

From Misplaced Pages:List of citogenesis incidents:

• In June 2006, the English Misplaced Pages article Eleagnus was edited to include an unreferenced statement "Goumi is among the "nutraceutical" plants that Chinese use both for food and medicine." An immediate subsequent edit replaced the word "Goumi" in the statement with "E. multiflora". An equivalent statement was included in the article Elaeagnus multiflora when it was created in August 2006. The version of the statement in the article Eleagnus was later included in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs, a collation of Misplaced Pages articles MobileReference published in January 2008. In May 2013, after the statement in the article Elaeagnus multiflora had been removed for the lack of a long-requested citation, it was immediately reinstated with a citation to MobileReference's The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs.

Despite all MobileReference citations being removed some years ago, we now have a small number re-introduced, which I plan to remove, depending on the feedback received here.

They may have produced books source through other means, or possibly combining Misplaced Pages articles with other freely available sources. One such example was cited in Museum Lane:

Museum Lane runs between two of London's leading museums in South Kensington, namely the Science Museum to the north and the Natural History Museum (formerly the Geological Museum) to the south.

1. MobileReference (2010). London Sights: A Travel Guide to the Top 60 Attractions in London, England, UK. MobileReference.com. p. 358. ISBN 978-1607789314.

This source claims to include opening times, as such probably incorporates information from Google Maps.

It seems difficult, if not impossible, to gauge the reliability of all the MobileReference books individually. Nonetheless it seems to me reasonable that, sans a reason to make an exception, we should add MobleReference to the list of perennial sources as unreliable.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 07:58, 6 January 2021 (UTC).

BET

Is BET considered a reliable source?

Neither Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Perennial sources nor Media Bias/Fact Check mention this website. I'd like to think it's reliable given that it's owned by a major media company, but the fact that some of its articles are heavily sensationalized makes me think otherwise. Ixfd64 (talk) 23:35, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I believe this question requires more context. What article would be used, and on what[REDACTED] page, to support what text? IHateAccounts (talk) 23:36, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I was thinking about citing this article in shooting of David McAtee. However, the source it used was a tweet from a regular user. This made me doubt its objectivity. Ixfd64 (talk) 23:57, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't conflict with other WP:RS coverage such as this: https://www.wlky.com/article/lmpd-no-body-cameras-activated-during-shooting-death-of-david-mcatee/32734260# IHateAccounts (talk) 00:32, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

I see. In this particular case, the article could probably be used as a source if I didn't already use another one. Ixfd64 (talk) 18:48, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

What about China's various CCTV channels?

China's CCTV is their state-run TV channel, and they have many channels. Unlike CGTN, which often features VOA-like or RFA-like garbage, CCTV actually has very good content on their other channels other than #1 (I've watched both a lot recently). Xinwen Lianbo, their famous news program, has more a more propaganda-esque tone, especially when reporting on controversial issues (it's my least favourite CCTV channel for this reason, and I even jokingly nicknamed all the CCTV news reporters "陈先生" (Mr. Chen) and "李小姐" (Miss Li) regardless of their name, because they sound all the same and say the same things over and over), and sometimes their reporting on subjects such as Taiwan or the South China Sea may be questionable and should be avoided in citations. However, it is a reliable source for citing the official opinion of the PRC and the CCP, and the reporting on non-controversial mainland news is usually reliable. In CCTV-1's other programs, they are usually "meh", and it sometimes gets annoying when they over-sensationalize something and say, for example, when the aforementioned "陈先生" says, "哇！这颗螺丝显示出来“中国速度”！真先进啊！" (that was obviously an exaggerated joke, but you get the idea) However, other channels, such as CCTV 9, has great, factual documentaries on Chinese history (this is my favourite so far, it's on the Chengdu-Kunming railway, and there's no annoying 陈先生和李小姐), and CCTV 10 has a lot of good technology-related documentaries too. Is it safe to cite CCTV, provided that the subject of the news report or documentary is non-controversial and well-presented? Félix An (talk) 00:40, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Félix An, depends on the specific content and the context in which it is used. Do you have a particular source usage in Misplaced Pages? MarioGom (talk) 18:18, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

No, just asking for future reference. Félix An (talk) 18:19, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

KurdWatch

KurdWatch was at the noticeboard in 2015, and the outcome at the time did not include the fact that its only content managers Eva Savelsberg and Siamend Hajo are quite controversial. Both appear to attend SETA (which promotes a Turkish Point of View on Kurds) Forums here and here, and Eva Savelsberg appears at TRT which is only seen as reliable source for the Turkish Point of View. here. Kurdwatch is has ended its activity due to lack of funding in 2008. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 23:06, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

I was wondering what others have to comment on it, whether it is a reliable source referring to Kurds or not.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 23:08, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Hard to quantify, just looking at its content, it clearly has a strong anti-YPG bias. I am particularly concerned about a text entitled "Ethnic cleansing in Tall Abyad? Characteristics of YPG and PYD rule in the areas captured from the IS." This documents title is very unusual given it finds no evidence of ethnic cleansing. Their article on the Yazidis also skims over Turkish involvement in persecution of the Yazidis and manages only to mention the PYD in passing despite the fact they were instrumental in the survival of that community, and the immigration of large numbers of Yazidis into Syria. Boynamedsue (talk) 10:12, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Zambia Daily Mail

What is the reliability of the Zambia Daily Mail? It’s used as a source several times on Draft:Tanonga Nswana. I had previously declined the draft due to incorrectly assuming it was affiliated with the UK Daily Mail. SK2242 (talk) 13:06, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

RfC - Screen Rant

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Is Screen Rant a reliable source, a marginally reliable source, an unreliable source, or should it be deprecated? Lazman321 (talk) 15:34, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Pick an option below and explain your reasons why:

• Option 1 - Screen Rant is a reliable source.
• Option 2 - Screen Rant is a marginally reliable source, or should only be used under circumstances.
• Option 3 - Screen Rant is an unreliable source.
• Option 4 - Screen Rant needs to be deprecated.

Responses (Screen Rant)

• Option 1 Screen Rant is owned by the same company which owns Comic Book Resources (otherwise known as CBR). I'd also like to echoe he discussions of previous editors when they weighed in on this subject a few years ago, with JOEBRO64 calling it reliable as "a sister site of Comic Book Resources (considered one of the most trustworthy comic news sites in the industry) and they share staff. The staff is paid and experienced, and it's got good editorial oversight. It's also been cited by The New York Times, HuffPost, Cnet, CBS, Fox, ABC, NPR, The Hollywood Reporter, and other RSs, and it's used a lot on comic/film-related GAs. I've never had a problem with using it before" and Flyer22 Reborn calling it "a reliable source for film material and some other material." While they do publish trivia, as some have pointed out, Poitrus pointed out, late last year that Screen Rant seems to be "usually reliable." I would be shocked if there is anyone who believes that Screen Rant is not reliable, marginally reliable, or should be depreciated. They call themselves the "most-visited independently owned movie/TV news site in the US." Also see:

• Christian Science Monitor: "Screen Rant had a humble start back in 2003 as a place to rant about some of the dumber stuff related to the movie industry. Since then, the site has grown to cover more and more TV and movie news (and not just the dumb stuff) along with sometimes controversial movie reviews. The goal at Screen Rant is to cover stories and review movies from a middle ground/average person perspective."- https://www.csmonitor.com/About/People/Culture-Partner-Bloggers/Screen-Rant
• Variety: "This year, three widely read blogs — Collider, Screen Rant and Latino Review — sold to deep-pocketed buyers"- https://variety.com/2015/biz/news/film-blogs-collider-screen-rant-latino-review-1201525341/

Beyond this, they have policies for fact-checking, corrections, and ethics, among others. Perhaps some of the stuff they publish is trash, but that is true of any website like theirs. Removing Screen Rant would put a LOT of Misplaced Pages pages in peril, impugning their ability to have reliable sources, making Misplaced Pages for the worse for all of us. Historyday01 (talk) 05:24, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

• Option 1 for coverage of pop culture and entertainment. I agree fully with Historyday01's argument. In addition to this editor’s points, Screen Rant requires an application to write for them; the application requires applicants to show that they have “expert knowledge.” In other words, the website is not a content farm. Additionally, their editors have some very impressive credentials. I will note that Screen Rant routinely gives in-depth coverage to niche and trivial topics. Editors should follow requirements such as Due Weight, What Misplaced Pages Is Not, and GNG's multiple source requirement when relying on Screen Rant, but this is true of all sources. Basically, I don't think we should dismiss a reliable source because its focus is considered niche or low-brow.Spirit of Eagle (talk) 07:21, 9 January 2021 (UTC) (edited 1/11/2021 at 12:33 AM).
• Option1 seem to have good editorial standards and are cited by outlets such as The New York Times, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 00:33, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2 is probably the best fit. It's highly questionable for any BLP info, or determination of encyclopedic value and due weight. Trivia and entertainment of this type is of questionable value in general for encyclopedia articles. --Hipal (talk) 17:12, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable starting when? It's been around since 2003 "as a place for fans to speak openly about the movies they love", was acquired by Valnet in 2015 , and its editorial polices are only as of late 2019. The low quality of its articles were discussed by WPVG in 2017 and early 2019. They apparently still offer a contributor program. I haven't looked into its quality since before those policies were added, but at the very least, it would not be appropriate to extend a blanket reliability verdict back to its founding. Separately, I'm not sure why sharing a parent company with CBR is seen as an extension of CBR's own editorial policy (especially when they only acquired CBR in 2016, a year after acquiring Screen Rant). Valnet owns a lot of properties and their stated focus is on entertainment and clicks, not quality of journalism. Unless they share an editorial staff or procedure, there's nothing automatic/universal about reputation for accuracy that extends from the parent org. czar 00:50, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Valnet’s website states that their goal is to “keep our readers informed and entertained…ith reliable and trustworthy news stories.” While the language about entertained should raise some eyebrows, they state they desire to be reliable and trustworthy (a purported desire backed up by Screen Rant’s strong editorial policies). As for past debates, there were multiple editors vouching for Screen Rant’s reliability. I do not think either discussion had a clear-cut consensus. Regarding reliability over time, I largely agree with you. This is a website that went from a guy blogging his opinion to a reasonably respected media source. They’ve had editors for many years before the Valnet purchase and reference editorial practices in a 2018 archive . Personally, I think post-October 2019 articles should be counted as reliable while earlier post-Valnet purchase articles should be counted as probably reliable but use caution. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 02:04, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

• Option 1. Exercises editorial oversight and has a reputation for fact-checking. I run into this source reasonably often and have not encountered any errors or sloppy reporting. Armadillopteryx 01:38, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (Screen Rant)

The poster is supposed to give their own opinion on the matter, preferably with some evidence, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 01:50, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

@Atlantic306: Not required as per WP:RFC. Lazman321 (talk) 14:52, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Lazman321, I haven't found this requirement as of yet, but if it is there, it still says "all editors (including IP users) are welcome to respond to any RfC." In any case, hearing your opinion on the matter would make sense, as this RFC seems strange considering past discussions which have mentioned Screen Rant. Historyday01 (talk) 00:46, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

I simply said it was not required. The reason why I set this RfC up is that the previous discussions were inconclusive. In the last discussion, one editor thought Screen Rant was reliable, two thought it was reliable in certain circumstances, though the two disagreed on the circumstances, and one editor thought it was slightly questionable due to its clickbait headlines. My opinion on Screen Rant currently is that it is generally reliable, but to watch out for click bait articles. Lazman321 (talk) 02:10, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Ok. Well, I think we have a general agreement, from those who have contributed up to this point, that Screen Rant is "generally reliable." --Historyday01 (talk) 16:54, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Why is this under discussion? --Hipal (talk) 17:12, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

The Implications of Twitter's Ban on Donald Trump

So I was thinking about how Trump was recently banned by twitter. Unfortunately we have a lot of citations on Misplaced Pages that go to Trump's twitter, where you can no longer view his tweets. I was thinking of the following solutions:

• Use: thetrumparchive.com in order to link to Trump's tweets (website is pretty reliable, )
• Use the Wayback Machine, which is not as reliable (in terms of completeness).

P,TO 19104 (talk) (contribs) 00:15, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Wayback Machine is far preferable to the other website. It is maintained by a well-funded staff with a long track record of keeping materials accurate and available for many years.

I have to wonder, however, why we'd cite these tweets in the first place. They're primary sources. If they're important enough to include in an encyclopedia article then surely editors can cite secondary sources that establish due weight e.g., news articles. ElKevbo (talk) 00:51, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

I would say either source is reliable, but I think the Wayback Machine is better to use if possible. One day, the National Archives will have some site where his tweets will be archived and available, but of course, that is not available at the present time. Historyday01 (talk) 05:26, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

@ElKevbo:I think part of the reason for having the alternative citations to the primary sources (e.g. an archive of the original tweet) is that many news websites link the tweets themselves using cross-site linking rather than taking screenshots, which then breaks if the tweet or account is deleted later. IHateAccounts (talk) 17:55, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

ElKevbo, you make a valid point there and having alternative citations is important without a doubt. Historyday01 (talk) 00:52, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• If its a tweet that has caused issues (such as his various racist ones, the ones encouraging violence and so on), it will have been covered by reliable sources in the news and we would use them. That the original tweet is no longer available is irrelevant, the secondary source is enough to verify the content. If its used as a reference for something primary (the only real legitimate use of self-published social media) - well Trump isnt even a reliable source for himself due to the habit of you know, being a gigantic liar. Do you have an example of something which Trump's twitter is currently being used to reference? Only in death does duty end (talk) 01:24, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• I'm with Only in death on this. There is no need to link directly to the tweets (a primary source). If the tweets were notable, they would have generated secondary coverage. If the recent ban created broken links, I would just remove the links, rather than use Wayback Machine or other means. --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:33, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Fixing mention of Only in death. --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:35, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• I agree with Only in death and K.e.coffman. In the past when I've had cited individuals who have deleted their tweets or deactivated (like was recently the case for Shadi Petosky and Dana Terrace), and I have included the references with their tweets, I've just changed the url-status from "live" to "dead". I don't know where his tweets are cited elsewhere, but considering the raft of news coverage, I'd imagine they are quoted in other media outlets, so you wouldn't even need to cite the tweets directly. Historyday01 (talk) 01:38, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Georgetown University Bridge Initiative - academic research project intended to discuss Islamophobia

Georgetown University's Bridge Initiative is an extensively staffed, permanent academic project intended to discuss Islamophobia in politics and society. User:Kyohyi and User:Springee have repeatedly contended on the talk page of the political commentator Douglas Murray that Bridge is "self-published" and have repeatedly removed any references to Bridge Initiative's fact sheet on Murray from the page. I maintain that the Bridge Initiative is, to all appearances, an extensively staffed academic research project led by a major university that in no way meets the criteria for "self-publication". I believe that the contentions that Bridge Initiative is "self-published" are dubious, but given that Bridge has not been directly raised on the Noticeboard I thought it was necessary to bring it up first. This is from Bridge Initiative's "about us" page:

The Bridge Initiative is a multi-year research project on Islamophobia housed in Georgetown University. The Bridge Initiative aims to disseminate original and accessible research, offers engaging analysis and commentary on contemporary issues, and hosts a wide repository of educational resources to inform the general public about Islamophobia.

The Bridge team to whom all the articles are credited, includes professors John Esposito Farid Hafez and Susan L. Douglass, the human rights lawyer and commentator Arsalan Iftikhar and a host of others - those are just the ones with existing Wiki pages. The project puts out publications including editorials, factsheets, interviews, reports, videos, and more.

A link to Bridge Initiative at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service - essentially their school of international relations - can be found here. Here are some references to Bridge in academic literature:

• Farid Hafez, "Schools of Thought in Islamophobia Studies: Prejudice, Racism, and Decoloniality," in Islamophobia Studies Journal 4, 2 (Spring 2018): 210-225

the Bridge Initiative at Georgetown University, headed by John Esposito, is a permanent research project dedicated to the study of Islamophobia. The impact of the Runnymede Trust’s definition can be seen in the project called The Bridge Initiative, which was led by John Esposito at the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim–Christian Understanding at Georgetown University.

• Khaled A. Beydoun, "Islamophobia: Toward a Legal Definition and Framework," in Columbia Law Review Online 116 (November 2018): 108-125

The Bridge Initiative is a research project, housed at Georgetown University, established to monitor, research, and analyze Islamophobia in the United States.

The Bridge Initiative is being used as a source to support a claim that is backed by several other academic sources. I personally don't understand how this could not be seen as a prima facie reliable source, even for a BLP article. If it is indeed self-published, then any university research project including something as renowned as the Innocence Project, not to mention groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center and really any kind of think tank, could also be described as self-published. Any help would be appreciated Noteduck (talk) 00:22, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Per WP: V "Self-published material is characterized by the lack of independent reviewers (those without a conflict of interest) validating the reliability of content". I will ask again, who are the reviewers independent of the bridge project that can validate the reliability of the content. If that condition is not met it's a SPS. Also per WP: V expertise is not justification for use on a BLP "Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer". --Kyohyi (talk) 00:30, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

The relevant policy doesn't say anything about us having to establish that independent reviewers have explicitly reviewed the independent source. It specifically says: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." Based on what Noteduck wrote above, this source seems to meet those criteria.

Your second point about WP:BLP, however, does appear to be relevant. I wonder if that specific part of BLP needs to be revisited, however, as it would seem to mean that we cannot cite eminently reliable expert sources (e.g., SPLC) in BLPs when no editor would raise a reasonable objection. ElKevbo (talk) 00:56, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

You missed the relevant part of the policy which is here "Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent reliable sources. " the leads to note 9 on the bottom of the page which says "Self-published material is characterized by the lack of independent reviewers (those without a conflict of interest) validating the reliability of content. ". The subject of self published sources and blps occurs almost yearly, and almost yearly it gets re-affirmed. --Kyohyi (talk) 01:11, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, many of the materials written by research projects and other groups such as the SPLC are self-published. That is does not mean that they cannot be considered reliable. Editors who object that a source is not reliable solely because it is self-published need to review our relevant policy and note that it does not support their position. ElKevbo (talk) 00:44, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

It is self published and should not be used to say disparaging things about a BLP subject without a RS giving the views weight. Springee (talk) 00:50, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Per our WP:BLPSPS policy, we can "Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article." For better or worse, there is no carve-out for the number or level of educational degrees the author has. The initiative appears to be, more or less, a group blog. Its articles are not subject to independent peer review. It seems like a RS to me for non-BLPs, however, insofar as BLPs are concerned the policy doesn't give us much leeway. If there are other sources that say the same thing, though, I'm not sure what the issue is? Why can't those be used and this set aside? Chetsford (talk) 01:19, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

If non-peer reviewed academic sources can NEVER be used for a claim on a BLP article, does that mean that all material from these kinds of sources must be removed from a BLP article?

• academic research projects, no matter how eminent (eg the Innocence Project
• think tanks, whether academic or not
• advocacy groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, no matter how well-researched

Let's take the example of the Innocence Project, which employs 88 people and claims to have had a hand in nearly 200 exonerations of prisoners in the last 30 years. If a prisoner is exonerated by the Innocence Project, can any material on the prisoner's Wiki page that is sourced to the Innocence Project be deleted on the basis that that person is still alive, leading to a contravention of WP:BLPSPS? If so, this is a serious hole in Wiki's policies related to source reliability and some kind of formal request for amendment should be made Noteduck (talk) 01:38, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Generally they are usable if a RS cites the material. So if a university institute says A, B and C about MrX and the NYT mentions B and C we can say B and C with attribution and a citation to the NYT article. Springee (talk) 01:43, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

"If non-peer reviewed academic sources can NEVER be used for a claim on a BLP" I've never heard of that policy before. I have heard of our WP:BLPSPS policy which says "Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article." But I'm not familiar with any policy that says "non-peer reviewed academic sources can NEVER be used for a claim on a BLP" so I'm not sure. Do you have a link to it? Chetsford (talk) 02:01, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the specific excerpt from the Douglas Murray page, only one section of the body article has been removed:

Murray has been extensively profiled by Georgetown University's Bridge Initiative, which aims to document examples of Islamophobia.

Everything else that has been removed are footnote references to Bridge Initiative. The claim that Murray is Islamophobic is one that I doubt Murray would accept but is well established in academic evidence - see these two sources listed in the article This must be understood in the content of an ongoing debate on the page in which the frequent characterization in academia and journalism of Murray as being ideology proximate to the "far-right", "alt-right", "white nationalist", linked to far-right conspiracy theories, or Islamophobic, is relentlessly contested and frequently reverted without cause. Noteduck (talk) 01:59, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

sorry Chetsford that was the point I was trying to make - I can't believe such a policy exists. However, as far as I can tell this is essentially the stance Springee is taking - Springee, please correct me if you think I'm mischaracterizing your position. If Bridge Initiative cannot be used about a BLP article because it is "self-published", I can't imagine ANY academic source that isn't in a peer-reviewed journal or published book ever meeting Wiki's WP:BLPSPS standards, notwithstanding the face that the contention Bridge makes - that Murray's work deserves to be scrutinized for Islamophobia - is extremely commonplaceNoteduck (talk) 02:08, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

"is extremely commonplace" So is this just an intellectual exercise or what? Why don't you just use the other sources then? Chetsford (talk) 02:10, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

I thought it was worth noting that an entire academic research project with multiple noted academics was willing to lend its name to a factsheet that discussed Murray's purported Islamophobia at length, rather than a pinpoint reference in an academic paper. Furthermore, this is not just a mere intellectual exercise - Springee has contested many different edits to controversial pages on the grounds that they are "self-published", especially in relation to pages on conservative public figures and organizations (note, Springee and I have an extensive history of disagreement on edits). For example, on the PragerU page Springee had this to say about this long and extensive report by University of North Carolina professor Francesca Tripodi:

While I think the contention that every academic or think tank source that does not explicitly mention an editor or peer reviewer should be excluded Agree that a subheading may not be correct. Also, we have to be careful that we don't say/imply PragerU is working with far-right groups. Some of the views expressed in PragerU videos overlap with far-right ideas. Also, both the Bridge Initiative and Tripodi papers are self published and the Tripodi framework was challenged by another academic in a self published paper. The connection aspect of the Tripodi paper has been widely reported but the individual characterizations in the paper are simply self published opinions. I think the other sources should be reviewed before assuming they are all valid. Springee (talk) 12:20, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

The report can be found at:

• Francesca Tripodi, "Searching for Alternative Facts: Analyzing Scriptural Inference in Conservative News Practices," Data & Society Research Institute 2018

Springee may have hit on something important. Is there a lacuna in Wiki's editorial policies that essentially means that ALL academic, think tank and advocate material on a BLP or controversial topic that is not explicitly peer-reviewed or in a published book is precluded from inclusion on Wiki? Noteduck (talk) 02:41, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Noteduck, the topic of this thread is specifically Bridge, not the rest of the disputes on the related pages. Please WP:FOC, not other editors. Springee (talk) 02:59, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Springee,an entire team of academics and the name of an elite university have attached themselves to Bridge, so I'm just trying to understand what the relevant evidentiary standard is here. Surely the "publisher" in question is Georgetown University? Noteduck (talk) 03:07, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

See also, just a few mainstream journalistic sources citing Bridge as an RS. See also that there are FOUR references to the Southern Poverty Law Center in the footnotes of the Milo Yiannopoulos - another BLP article. I'm not sure how the SPLC can be distinguished from Bridge Initiative in evidentiary terms, unless Wiki has gotten it wrong on Yiannopoulos' page Noteduck (talk) 04:37, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The first cites them for a rather small claim (According to BI X said Y), not an analysis. The second only mentions BI to say the person being interviewed works there so that isn't even citing BI work. The final one is an opinion article but it actually does the critical thing. It reports on BI report. It says we should pay attention to the contents of the report. That is an example of a secondary source giving weight to a self published report. In this case that secondary source is an Op-Ed article but we can ignore that for this example. The problem in the Murray case is we don't have RSs saying the fact that Bridge did an assessment of Murray is significant nor that Murray should be described by the contents of that report. Springee (talk) 04:52, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

those are three solid journalistic sources that treat Bridge as an RS. Here are a few more media sources that treat Bridge as a reliable source. Can you address my point about the Yiannopoulos article? I'd like to know how you distinguish Bridge from SPLC, or whether you contend that Wiki got it wrong in that case Noteduck (talk) 21:20, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

It's not clear on the exact source your asking about but something like: Doe, Jane. "Islmaphobia." The Bridge Initiative. (2002). has an author and a publisher. The author is a person and is not the publisher, which is a thing, so generally not self-published, on its face. See also, Doe, John. 'The Article'. The New York Times. (2015); or Doe, A. "The Book" HaperCollins. (2020). or Staff, "Another Article." Assiciated Press (2010). none of which need to be peer reviewed to be an RS. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:35, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

What is the disputed edit? I found, "Murray has been extensively profiled by Georgetown University's Bridge Initiative, which aims to document examples of Islamophobia." That type of statement should not be in an article however reliable the source is. TFD (talk) 02:50, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Contrary to what WP:SPS says, it is often not easy to distinguish self-published sources from non-self-published sources. In this case, it seems to me that the professors are the authors and the university the publisher of the content. Who would be liable if what the professors write is libelous? Georgetown University. So Georgetown University should be seen as the publishing entity. ImTheIP (talk) 11:19, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

This does raise a question that has come up before, does SPS only apply when the author(s) and publisher(s) are ones and the same or does it apply when the organization is in effect one and the same. A news room has writers and separate editors. If Bridge is like the academic institute I was part of the heads of the institute we essentially the editors/reviewers of all that went out but they were also authors on some of the work and as a group were involved with all publications. As another example, would we consider a report issued by GM which refuted Nightline's C/K pickup report] to be something other than self published by GM? Do we think GTU has an independent review department checking what Bridge is publishing or does the review occur within Bridge? Springee (talk) 13:33, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

ImtheIP Alanscottwalker. I am 100% sure the admins did not have this extremely pedantic definition of "self-published" in mind when they drafted the WP:SELFPUB page - again, I would contend that under Springee's definition, the Southern Poverty Law Center would be "self-published" despite its reputation and pedigree, which would render the page of someone like Milo Yiannopoulos in dire need of fixing (incidentally, SPLC have called Murray a "notorious Islam basher" and criticized his work before). It may be the case that by an extremely narrow definition of "self-published", no material from any academic project or report (unless explictly peer-reviewed), think tank or advocacy group could be included in BLP pages unless it explicitly mentions an editor or publisher. However, perhaps Wiki's policy needs to be formally amended to clarify pedantic semantic arguments like this one Noteduck (talk) 07:10, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

References (Bridge Initiative)

Inline citation for deprecated CCTV

CCTV is an distinctly almost deprecated source, diff added as the community decided per a RfC Archive 312 in September 2020 here. (The deprecation table links CCTV to CGTN.)

Exceptional claims via CCTV were deleted in good faith then readded. Inline citations to CCTV were then added in good faith , per policy on adding contentious information on living persons. Those were reverted see last paragraph in 'Chinese response' and characterized as "disruptive" .

At issue is the exceptional CCTV claims (read ridiculous) were used in RS during the 2008 Tibetan uprising anniversary, or in the 'heat of the moment'.

This is a RfC on requiring inline citation of CCTV in such instances. If in these instances the deprecated status of CCTV allows for the deletion of edits sourcing CCTV indirectly, clarification is welcome. It's also requested that only uninvolved editors/admins comment. Pasdecomplot (talk) 14:32, 9 January 2021 (UTC)(edited due to edit conflict, will add diffs as provided, 14:56, 9 January 2021 (UTC))

Option 1: require inline citations as per exceptional claims and BLP.

Option 2: delete, as deprecated, or as should be deprecated.

Pasdecomplot, what do you mean by depreciated? The linked RfC was about CGTN, not CCTV. MarioGom (talk) 14:46, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Please read that RfC again MarioGom, it's also on CCTV. They're inextricably linked. Pasdecomplot (talk) 14:56, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Pasdecomplot, CGTN was deprecated. CCTV, which is a network of dozens of different TV channels, was not. This RFC is just invalid because it assumes false premises. With other sites we went as far as evaluating the reliability of different sections, so I don't see how deprecating a channel implies deprecation of the whole parent network. MarioGom (talk) 15:04, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Sorry MarioGom, there are no false premises. Please see the table of RS/Deprecated Sources (first diff added above), which links to the CGTN depreciation archive. Pasdecomplot (talk) 15:13, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Pasdecomplot, the CGTN entry vaguely mentions CCTV International. That's still a small fraction of CCTV (see CCTV channels). MarioGom (talk) 15:18, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

CCTV is deprecated in our table of deprecated sources MarioGom. This RfC is focused on inline citations of CCTV since it's a deprecated source. It also asks the question of whether or not info from a deprecated source, here CCTV, should be deleted when cited by other sources. Pasdecomplot (talk) 15:44, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Pasdecomplot, ok. It's clear that you interpret the CGTN RFC and the listing as covering the whole CCTV network, while I consider that was not the case, since CGTN was the source discussed in that RFC, and some editors clarified explicitly that the discussion was about CGTN and not CCTV as a whole. I guess we'll need input from other editors. Best, MarioGom (talk) 15:49, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not interpreting anything, MarioGom, just using RSN table of deprecated sources. It's a very clear. Pasdecomplot (talk) 16:09, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Maybe Usedtobecool (RfC closer) or Newslinger (listed at RSP) can clarify: Did RFC: China Global Television Network result in the deprecation of CCTV as a whole (all websites and TV channels)? If not, did any other RfC result in such deprecation? --MarioGom (talk) 16:19, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

• Reading the archived discussion, it seems clear to me that the Deprecation was indeed limited to just CGTN, and not all of CCTV (the initiator of the RFC was explicitly questioned about this, and stated that he/she was concerned that the RFC would become a WP:TRAINWRECK if it included all the various CCTV outlets). Note: This does NOT mean that CCTV is considered OK... it just means that the RFC was more focused. I would suggest that a second RFC is needed to clarify consensus on CCTV outlets beyond CGTN. Blueboar (talk) 16:22, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

• A reminder: CCTV International is currently deprecated as per RS. That is its status. The deprecation was not limited, as evidenced by the table of deprecated sources. This RfC focuses on that status, which has been stable since September, Usedtobecool. Let's focus on CCTV's current status Newslinger.

The concerns about or objections to its status as deprecated can be addressed by another editor, of course, by proposing another RfC on those divergent issues. Which could be discussed under a different RfC, respectfully, since it's a different topic and diverges from the issues here Blueboar and MarioGom.Pasdecomplot (talk) 18:28, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

(DISCLAIMER: the above reply does not speak in anyway about motivations, only about a result which does not imply, nor can be interpreted to imply nor interpreted to suggest, any motivation whatsoever. Thanks. 18:44, 9 January 2021 (UTC))

No problem on my end... I agree that further RFCs may be needed to clarify the previous consensus, but I don’t know the sources well enough to have an opinion as to whether they should be deprecated or not. Don’t really care one way or the other. Blueboar (talk) 21:55, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

No, China Central Television (CCTV) is not deprecated. A discussion or RfC on a source applies to the source and its subsidiaries, but not the source's parent company or any sibling publications. For example, although the News of the World (RSP entry) is deprecated, its parent company News UK is not deprecated, and its sibling publication The Times (RSP entry) is still classified as generally reliable. — Newslinger talk 22:00, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

The OP seems to be claiming this edit by Girth Summit was calling referring to CCTV "disruptive"? —valereee (talk) 02:31, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Valereee, I wasn't saying that referring to CCTV was disruptive. This isn't really the forum for discussing DE, but briefly - PdC removed a bunch of content about certain claims the Chinese government had made; they did this not because it was referenced to CCTV (it wasn't), but because the two RS (Sydney Morning Herald and Reuters) it was referenced to each made mention of a CCTV report in their own reporting. Another editor reinstated it with improvements, but PdC then changed the content to say that the SMH had 'published a report by CCTV', which was patently false. It was that edit which I warned them was disruptive - whether it was deliberate, or a poor choice of wording, it introduced a falsehood into the article. GirthSummit _(blether) 08:53, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Apologies for the repetition, but CCTV International is deprecated on the project's table of deprecated sources, as the first link in this RfC evidences Newslinger. The deprecated status is thus proven.

Whether or not the deprecation status can be changed, or should be changed, or is a misreading of the discussion, are all another topics not included in this RfC. (Sorry for typo on deprecated -corrected in earlier edits.) Pasdecomplot (talk) 09:39, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Pasdecomplot, the table is a summary of previous discussions. Either there is an RfC deprecating CCTV or there isn't. That's the source of truth for deprecation status. There is no RfC deprecating CCTV, so it is not deprecated. My guess about the CCTV International reference (which was not part of the original RfC) is that CGTN is, indeed, an International branch of CCTV. However, it's not its only International channel. This is a dead end, really. An RfC may be started to deprecate other CCTV-owned outlets in addition to CGTN. Until then, CCTV is not deprecated. MarioGom (talk) 10:54, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

I have striked part of my previous comment. The thing is that CGTN was formerly known as CCTV International. --MarioGom (talk) 11:04, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: we should remove the mention to CCTV International from the CGTN entry. The RfC did not mention CCTV International and it explicitly excluded CCTV. This is obviously causing unnecessary confusion for some editors. --MarioGom (talk) 10:57, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
  • CCTV International and CGTN refer to the same entity under different names. The reason CCTV in general was not included in that debate is to avoid trainwreck. (t · c) buidhe 14:34, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Perhaps it is time to allow the trains to go down the track and see what happens. If we assume that all of CCTV was deprecated, the question then becomes: do we wish to undo (or modify) that deprecation? Alternatively, if we assume that all of CCTV was NOT deprecated, the question becomes: do we wish to deprecate it? This can only be answered by a new RFC. Blueboar (talk) 15:16, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

      Blueboar, I don't think we need an RfC to determine if CCTV was deprecated or not. It clearly wasn't. CGTN was deprecated (see closure), and CCTV was explicitly excluded by the RfC filer. When listing it, CCTV International was added as the former name of CGTN. Of course, that doesn't preclude the possibility of someone filing an RfC for more CCTV outlets. In the mean time, that doesn't mean that CCTV is always a valid source, that's an assessment we do with all sources in all kinds of contexts without the need of formal listing at WP:RSP. MarioGom (talk) 16:08, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

      • The issue at hand is regardless of whether or not we already have deprecated CCTV it does objectively meet our standard for deprecation and most of the sources presented in the CGTN discussion talked about the whole CCTV ecosystem not just CGTN. If CCTV is not currently deprecated it should be ASAP. CGTN is their headliner and by far the most reliable, the other channels have *less* editorial oversight etc not more. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:18, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

        @Horse Eye's Back, the problem is that CCTV is actually 50 channels, including CCTV-10, which is the Science and Education channel and which some editors may believe is perfectly reliable for science topics, and CCTV-11, which is Chinese Opera channel, etc., etc. Do we do a single RfC, or do we need 50? —valereee (talk) 17:27, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

        @Valereee: I think technically that depends on whether the channels are editorially independent of each other, if they are then we do in fact need 50 just like we would if we wanted to deprecate every Murdoch owned outlet around the world. I haven’t seen anything that suggests editorial independence though, CCTV seems to have a unified management and senior editorial structure. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:15, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

        Maybe it's something we're just going to have to bite the bullet on at some point? —valereee (talk) 22:23, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

        Perhaps, I think the bullet we need to bite is how to treat the Chinese information/disinformation network as a whole rather than having separate discussions for each of the big three. The problem there I think is that its such an important question we that we need to be damn sure we’re actually asking the right question before making it a RfC. We’re also obviously going to see pushback from the Chinese gov on that issue both on and off wiki which is why I think we’re all hesitant to bite the bullet on this one. Just look at what they did to the Wikimedia Foundation just because we allow the existence of a Taiwanese[REDACTED] affiliate. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:32, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• It's clear we should never use CCTV as the source for any controversial content, but it's just as clear we can report on what reliable sources say CCTV has reported. The fact CCTV isn't reliable doesn't mean they disappear. When Reuters reports what CCTV is reporting, of course we can use that. We would never write, in Wikivoice and sourced to CCTV, "The Chinese government found arms in a Tibetan temple." We definitely would write "Chinese state-owned media reported the Chinese government found arms in a Tibetan temple" with a citation to the Reuters story. The fact a source isn't deprecated doesn't mean it's reliable. It may just mean other editors don't think it's worth the trouble of formally deprecating, which is the case here. Trying to RfC all of massive CCTV is just pointless. No one would source anything controversial to Chinese state-owned media. —valereee (talk) 15:25, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

  Valereee, I agree here too. It would be quite weird to deprecate, let's say, the sports channel (CCTV-5) based on the reliability of some pieces published in other channels about controversial topics. MarioGom (talk) 16:10, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• Responding to the ping: it's true that CCTV International is deprecated, since CCTV International is the former name of China Global Television Network (CGTN) (RSP entry). But, CGTN only comprises 6 of the 50+ channels operated by CCTV. The other 44+ non-CGTN channels of CCTV are not covered by the deprecation, because the RfC did not focus on those channels or result in a finding of consensus on them. State media targeted to domestic (CCTV) and international (CGTN) audiences are subject to different conflicts of interest, so I don't think the deprecation of CGTN would necessarily carry over to the remainder of CCTV if an RfC were held for CCTV. We would need discussions that focus on the remaining CCTV channels to determine the consensus on them. — Newslinger talk 20:59, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments Blueboar and Horse Eye's Back. So, what about the specific exceptional claims about living people made by CCTV, then "rebroadcasted" inline via sources? Aren't BLP issues also at stake? Shouldn't at least inline citations be required in this instance, especially since monks are living beings then at danger from CCTV falsified reports? As a note, I haven't seen RS that substantiated these CCTV reports. MarioGom please start that RfC on removing CCTV's name - just a gentle reminder that it's not the topic here.

As my first RfC, this should have been posted above (permission to refractor sought): Pasdecomplot (talk) 17:33, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Pasdecomplot, you seem to be the only one here who thinks that CCTV is deprecated. Even the person who added the CGTN entry to WP:RSP explained it. So this RfC is still invalid. MarioGom (talk) 17:52, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

I've struck through "deprecated" to keep the RfC moving, and added text also to Option 2. Please feel free to start another RfC MarioGom. Pasdecomplot (talk) 18:44, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Just refractored in the Options at top. Pasdecomplot (talk) 18:55, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Pasdecomplot, this is embarrassing. Please stop. GirthSummit _(blether) 20:02, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

I've removed "RfC" from the section heading, since formal requests for comment use the {{rfc}} tag, which is not present in this discussion. An RfC on CCTV as a whole might not be very useful, since there are too many channels in this television network. For comparison, a discussion on CBS News would be specific enough to be useful, but a discussion on every channel owned by ViacomCBS would almost certainly not be useful. — Newslinger talk 22:44, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

RfC - The Raw Story

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While editing the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol article, I encountered The Raw Story. I've occasionally seen others cite this source, so how reliable is The Raw Story?--WMrapids (talk) 17:47, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Pick an option below and explain your reasons why:

• Option 1 - The Raw Story is a reliable source.
• Option 2 - The Raw Story is a marginally reliable source, or should only be used under circumstances.
• Option 3 - The Raw Story is an unreliable source.
• Option 4 - The Raw Story needs to be deprecated.

Responses (The Raw Story)

• Option 1, Generally Reliable. Obviously, editorials should be attributed per policy, but beyond that I find no evidence of publishing deliberate falsehoods, failure to fact-check, or other similar issues. IHateAccounts (talk) 17:51, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2. Headlines are inflammatory, content is poor and derivative, and articles are generally short. It does not strike me as a professional media outlet on the level of what is generally considered reliable. As of right now these are their front page articles :
  • "Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley's presidential hopes crippled after election stunt led to Capitol violence: report" — a rehash of a Politico article.
  • "Trump's loss of social media accounts has him scrambling to stay the center of attention: CNN" — a few quotes of what a CNN commentator said.
  • "'Full scrub' of Trump loyalists in government needed to protect Joe Biden: security expert" — a rehash of what an expert said on MSNBC.
  • "How the Capitol siege has crippled Trump kids' political futures" - a summary of Daily Beast column.
  • "Michael Cohen offers a glimpse inside the dark world of an unhinged Twitter-less Trump — what Michael Cohen said on a podcast.--JBchrch (talk) 18:14, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

@JBchrch: so your argument is.. you don't like the stories they cover? IHateAccounts (talk) 00:08, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi IHateAccounts, news sources that have low editorial standards and are opinionated should be treated carefully.--JBchrch (talk) 13:36, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: While poking around, I found that their Raw Story Investigates page has more in-depth and original content. Not sure on the quality, but thought I should share this as well.--WMrapids (talk) 18:39, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

• Option 1 It is very clearly a biased source in that it has certain political leanings, but I see no evidence of its reporting being unreliable. Unlike sources like Breitbart, i've never heard of Raw Story reporting false information (or not retracting it if it did happen, which is also important). Silverseren 05:24, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• Option 2 lean towards Option 3 They are a pretty biased paper, which while not always a problem, coupled with ties to AlterNet makes me careful of them. 3Kingdoms (talk) 02:27, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 no evidence of unreliability but opinion pieces should be attributed, in my view Atlantic306 (talk) 02:53, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Pittsburg Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade

Reporters from both sources report management altered stories to advance a pro-Trump bias.

Sadly for the journalists, I wonder if this should cause us to consider these two works somewhat unreliable (not for fault of the journalists) for the last several years. At least in the realm of politic topics. --Masem (t) 02:11, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• This is definitely cause for concern. IHateAccounts (talk) 02:14, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• I think it is way too early to make that sort of judgement based upon a two-day old story. (Here is another article about this in The Washington Post.) I am not about to go through all of the articles they post, but here is one I found in The Blade that states "supporters of President Donald Trump swarmed the building and sent lawmakers into hiding". - Location (talk) 02:31, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• Do we have any knowledge on what the kind of alteration done was? Like, a specific example of what information was changed? Because that's really the question. Was outright false information presented or just a biased stance on topics? Silverseren 05:26, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Per the article, we know upstream words were changed to give a pro-Trump slant, and that this was going on for a "few years". This may simply be a matter of bias issues with these sources, which would be a thing to flag as a "use caution, replace if possible" and certainly would not use direct quotes attributed to the journalists' writing themselves. It is unlikely outside US politics other edits were made upstream, but it would simply make sense to caution editors on this situation and recommend using other works if at all possible to source information for the 2010s. --Masem (t) 02:30, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Is this source reliable?

I have no clue with this one. If this is the wrong place, I'm sorry about that. I'm looking to add this bridge collapse on October 9, 1977 to the article on Hurricane Heather, and I can't find another source on the bridge collapse. Thanks! Skarmory (talk • contribs) 03:52, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• Hmm...there's a lot of primary sources in there, so those could be used in a limited fashion for what they are. As for the secondary commentary, do we know who wrote the text portions? I would presume someone who works at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, considering the source URL. The reliability of the textual commentary depends on if the writer is a reliable source for the information, such as a professor who actually researches the topic. Silverseren 05:29, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• For what it's worth, I found this path to the pdf: https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/ > https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/flwo > https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/facilities/Staff-Locations > http://www.sao.arizona.edu/FLWO/whipple.html > http://www.sao.arizona.edu/FLWO/flwohis.html > http://www.sao.arizona.edu/FLWO/hist/flwo1973-79.pdf. The coverpage of that document is here and indicates that Don Hogan was the author. A brief biography of his credentials can be found on p.135 or so of this pdf. I'm not sure what information is to be sourced, but I am inclined to say that despite the document's informal appearance Hogan had expertise regarding the facility's history. - Location (talk) 18:59, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Is google arts and culture a reliable source?

So,I added a reference to this article(Turbo_Tech_Controller) and that reference was linking to an artsandculture.google.com page,so is google artsandculture a reliable source?

Simulator-master (talk) 04:25, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• No. It appears to be a recursive source (i.e. Citogenesis), considering the link back to the Misplaced Pages article in question just to the lower right there. And, presumably, that source URL would not be reliable in general. It does appear to have source link backs to where it gets stuff from on other pages. So...just follow and use the original source for other stuff in those cases. The problem here being that the source is the Misplaced Pages article, so no reliability at all. Silverseren 05:33, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

In addition to what has been stated above, the article was first created unsourced in 2004, when quality standards around new articles were much lower. I can find no other sources about this controller other than a reddit thread, indicating that it is not notable. It should probably be nominated for deletion. Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:46, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• No. It just scrapes data indiscriminately from museum websites, Wikidata, and WP itself. Usually there will be a credit to the original source—use that if it's reliable, and find something else if it's not. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 20:09, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Amnesty

The attributed blockquote below was used in COVID-19 pandemic in the State of Palestine. It was removed with a suggestion that it was a primary source that needed secondary context. This questioning of Amnesty as a source comes up with reasonable frequency in the IP area with some editors arguing it is primary, partisan, biased, or an advocacy org. I found in the archives quite a few references to Amnesty with this from October 2019 being solely about it and it is not on the RSP, is it worth having an RFC about general reliability?

According to Amnesty International

"Israeli authorities must ensure that vaccines are equally provided to the Palestinians living under their control, in order to meet their obligations under international law. They must also ensure smooth entry of vaccines and other medical equipment to the OPT, including making any necessary logistical arrangements to ensure the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines."

.

Selfstudier (talk) 13:00, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Amnesty is advocacy group and biased regarding the I/P conflict, to the very least they should be attributed and used in conjunction with secondary WP:RS if they WP:DUE at all--Shrike (talk) 13:07, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

My feeling is that Amnesty is a primary source for its own views on its own[REDACTED] page but a secondary source for content on a page related to, say, Palestine. Ignoring this interesting philosophical point, the same content is available from other sources (, , ). Even the Times of Israel mentions Amnesty's opinion (), though it isn't completely happy with it. Burrobert (talk) 13:40, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Burrobert, If it available then why use amnesty and not secondary WP:RS to give a proper context? Shrike (talk) 14:02, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

That would be one way of cutting the Gordian knot. However, what about next time someone uses an Amnesty report in one of our articles? Burrobert (talk) 14:12, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Burrobert, In my view it shouldn't be used without at least one WP:RS per WP:DUE Shrike (talk) 14:16, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

as happens a lot.Selfstudier (talk) 14:18, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

It is an advocacy group (although more respected than most), and biased wrt the I/P conflict, so in most cases its conclusions should be attributed to the organization, assuming that it is WP:DUE. (t · c) buidhe 14:29, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Are you able to clarify what you mean by "biased wrt the I/P conflict"? Biased toward/against whom and for what reason and how do you know? Burrobert (talk) 15:30, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, in general they are viewed as holding a pro-Israel line although that has lessened in the last two decades. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:47, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Amnesty is reliable but this piece of text should never have been used as it was... Thats a recommendation not a conclusion or finding. It certainly doesn't say whats its inclusion in the section "Debate over responsibility” (which is weirdly atypical and shouldn't exist at all BTW) suggests it says. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:47, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

There are conclusions and findings in the Amnesty report which are relevant to the question of responsibility. What do you mean by "which is weirdly atypical and shouldn't exist at all BTW"? Burrobert (talk) 15:57, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Those are strong recommendations but they are not conclusions or findings as they are inherently speculative. The entire section is block quotes with barely any context... Have you ever seen that before when editing wikipedia? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:25, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

You can retitle it if you like, it is just a subsection of Vaccines to hold the conflicting sources until we get some clarity and can write it up normally. I did read them as saying Israel has the obligation - "to meet their obligations under international law." I think that's probably what its all about, legal interpretations. Some say yes, some no, 180 degrees apart.Selfstudier (talk) 16:06, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• I think Amnesty claims should generally be added with in-text attribution. Its inclusion is almost always granted. You can find a secondary source for the publication of virtually every Amnesty report. I would apply the same reasoning to other notable advocacy groups such as Human Rights Watch. --MarioGom (talk) 16:00, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

I hadn't previously looked at the "COVID-19 pandemic in the State of Palestine" page. My previous comments were based on the initial question and the link to the Amnesty report. The "Debate over responsibility” section does look odd. I believe the recommendation is to use block quotes for quotes that are more than about 42 words in length. I can't comment on the actual content of the section apart from what has been raised here as I haven't read it. Some findings from the Amnesty report are:

• "The Israeli government must stop ignoring its international obligations as an occupying power ..."
• "The COVID-19 vaccine roll-out plan so far covers only citizens of Israel, including Israeli settlers living inside the West Bank, and Palestinian residents of Jerusalem. It excludes the nearly 5 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, under Israeli military occupation".
• "Israel’s COVID-19 vaccine programme highlights the institutionalized discrimination that defines the Israeli government’s policy towards Palestinians".
• "... there could hardly be a better illustration of how Israeli lives are valued above Palestinian ones,” said Saleh Higazi, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International".
• "Over half a century of occupation and enforcement of a system of institutionalized discrimination in the OPT, including East Jerusalem, Israel has deprived Palestinians of their basic rights and committed mass human rights violations. Israel must end its discriminatory policies and remove any barriers that may hinder Palestinians from accessing or enjoying health care".
• "Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law include ...".

Burrobert (talk) 16:57, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

References (Amnesty International)

References

1. "Denying COVID-19 vaccines to Palestinians exposes Israel's institutionalized discrimination". Amnesty International. January 6, 2021. Retrieved January 6, 2021.

Inquisitr revisited

What about Inquisitr? (I don't have a specific use case in this instance, I just keep seeing it cited and was hoping for some community clarification. There was a short-lived discussion previously here .)

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

Chetsford (talk) 02:58, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

• Option 1 ... My first reaction, based purely on the website design and that fact it is known as an aggregator, was 3. However, on closer examination I don't think the facts support that. It appears to primarily deal in précis' - not aggregation - with some original reporting thrown in. It has a gatekeeping process and a physical address in a jurisdiction in which it can be held legally liable for what it publishes. And it's easy to find a great many RS that have cited its reporting, e.g. KHQ-TV , Washington Post , Vox , Greensboro News & Record , Asheville Citizen Times , UPI , etc. And, Yahoo News appears to syndicate some of Inquistr's original reporting, too . Chetsford (talk) 02:58, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment. Along with The Daily Mail, it apparently published quotes from a fake interview with Roger Moore in 2013, although did issue a retraction: . Not sure how much I trust AOL.com for news, but they also note a fake story + retraction involving Melania Trump: . And another from Psychology Today: . AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 03:26, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

• Good find! As long as there's a prompt correction I'd probably rank that in the same category as MSNBC reporting Bob Dylan dead last year and then issuing a correction or the Washington Post claiming Jair Bolsonaro was the President of Mexico a couple months ago . But it's good to have these things available to help our evaluation. Chetsford (talk) 03:33, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

• Option 2. While not horrible, I have seen Inquisitr give undue credibility to the allegations by Gary Webb that the CIA was involved in drug smuggling to raise money for the Nicaraguan Contras (e.g. ) and allegations that Operation Mockingbird was a real CIA operation (e.g. ). I seem to recall a few other articles that I have stumbled upon that were troublesome, but I guess that doesn't help if I cannot recall what they were. - Location (talk) 06:35, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

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