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Association of Religion Data Archives and World Religion Database

Æo has removed ARDA religious estimations from various wiki pages because he says it uses some World Religion Database data which he claims is affiliated to the World Christian Database which he claims is unreliable. First of all, ARDA is completely separate from both of them. Below is ARDAs impressive resume from their about page https://www.thearda.com/about/about-the-arda

Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) strives to democratize access to the best data on religion. Founded as the American Religion Data Archive in 1997 and going online in 1998, the initial archive was targeted at researchers interested in American religion. The targeted audience and the data collection have both greatly expanded since 1998, now including American and international collections submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. The ARDA is generously supported by the Lilly Endowment, the John Templeton Foundation, Chapman University, Pennsylvania State University and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

ARDA Advisory Board: Renata Curty (UC Santa Barbara), Joel Herndon (Duke University), Nathaniel Porter (Virginia Tech), Ruth Tillman (Pennsylvania State University), Andrew Tyner (Center for Open Science)

ARDA Affiliates: US Religion Census, Baylor Univeristy, World Religion Database at Boston University, which is part of Brill publishing: https://www.worldreligiondatabase.org/

Here is The Harvard Library calling World Religion Database "a good source of statistics" https://guides.library.harvard.edu/religion and here's The Stanford Library https://guides.library.stanford.edu/religion saying of Arda "Data included in the ARDA are submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. The ARDA allows you to interactively explore the highest quality data on American and international religion using online features for generating national profiles, GIS maps, church membership overviews, denominational heritage trees, tables, charts, and other reports." University of Oxford Library also recommends both of them https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/collections-and-resources/data/finding-data/themes/religion.

Below are multiple book sources that call ARDA and the World Religion Database "Reliable", including the Oxford handbook and Cambridge University: 12, 3, 4, 5 AEO does not have ANY reputable source that calls it unreliable it is completely his personal opinion from his own original research. He thinks he knows better than Harvard and Oxford. Foorgood (talk) 23:44, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

• Since 2022, ARDA has completely reviewed its datasets and has aligned them with those of the WRD/WCD. As I have thoroughly demonstrated here, the WRD and the WCD are the same, they are the continuation of the World Christian Encyclopedia, and are ultimately produced by the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. They are therefore biased and unreliable (WP:PARTISAN, WP:QUESTIONABLE, WP:SPONSORED). In any case, they should never replace data from national censuses and surveys conducted by statistical organisations. In the linked discussion, I cited extensive excerpts from WP:RS which have criticised the WRD/WCD. I have also thoroughly commented the links provided by Foorgood in support of his opinion and even provided an excerpt from one of them which demonstrates my view.
• Other users who have recently been involved in discussions about these topics can intervene: Erp, Nillurcheier, Lipwe.--Æo (talk) 23:55, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
  • The World Religion Database and World Christian Database are not officially affiliated but in any case both are considered Reliable by endless scholars including the 5 I included above such as Oxford and Cambridge.Foorgood (talk) 00:02, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
    • Foorgood, "endless scholars" isn't going to cut it, and "Oxford and Cambridge" aren't scholars. It's important to be precise here. One of the librarians listed on one of the pages you linked confirmed to me what academics already know: a note on a library guide on a university library's website should NOT be taken as any kind of official endorsement for the reliability of that database. Drmies (talk) 01:13, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

      I have 5 books from scholars in the original post and then I added some of the many institutional examples: Harvards Library calls it "a good source of statistics for religions" right here https://guides.library.harvard.edu/religion and Stanfords Library calls ARDA "Data included in the ARDA are submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. The ARDA allows you to interactively explore the highest quality data on American and international religion using online features for generating national profiles, GIS maps, church membership overviews, denominational heritage trees, tables, charts, and other reports" here https://guides.library.stanford.edu/religion but I'm done with this conversation. Have your way and make the source deprecated so that all the scholars and universities can continue to tell their students they shouldnt use Misplaced Pages. New editors here will now see that sources called good by Harvard are considered deprecated by Wiki. Foorgood (talk) 01:58, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

In one of the sources provided by Foorgood (F. Lionel Young, III, World Christianity and the Unfinished Task: A Very Short Introduction, Wipf and Stock, 2020), which is itself a book dedicated to a particular Protestant missionary project and view, you can read the following lines: ...Barrett's research has continued under the auspices of an organization established in 2001 named the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, now situated on the campus of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. The center's co-director, Todd Johnson, began working with Barrett in 1989, and collaborates with his colleague on several projects, including the 2001 edition of the WEC. Building on Barrett's groundbreaking work, the center launched the World Christian Database and the World Religion Database....

As a general example and point of reference, compare ARDA projections about Australia to the Australian 2021 Census (ARDA overestimates Christianity by 14%); ARDA projections about Canada to the Canadian 2021 Census (ARDA overestimates Christianity by 10%). They are completely wrong, for every single country.

A further critical remark is that ARDA data are speculative projections, not actual surveys, and therefore violate WP:CRYSTAL. There have already been discussions about these matters in the past (e.g.), and some time ago Nillurcheier and I discussed about the possibility of making these sources WP:DEPRECATED (here).--Æo (talk) 00:15, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Authoritative critical assessments

Religion studies scholars & statisticians

For the sake of information completeness, I re-copy hereunder the excerpts I originally reported on my (Æo's) talk page in the discussion with Foorgood.

The following academic papers express criticism about the WRD/WCD, regarding their common origin in the WCE as a missionary tool, their systematic overestimate of Christianity while underestimating other forms of religion, and their favouring certain Christian denominations (Protestant ones) over others:

• Liedhegener A.; Odermatt A. (2013). "Religious Affiliation in Europe - an Empirical Approach. The "Swiss Metadatabase of Religious Affiliation in Europe (SMRE)". Zentrum für Religion, Wirtschaft und Politik (ZRWP), Universität Luzern. doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.33430.55364. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

• p. 9: "...the World Christian Database (WCD) or the World Religion Database (WRD) which is a direct offspring of the WCD. ... In itself the latter is not an unproblematic source, because its data, gathered originally from the World Christian Encyclopedia, result mostly from country reports prepared by American missionaries. Therefore, a systematic bias of its data in favor of Christianity is a major, although controversial point of criticism".

• Hsu, Becky; Reynolds, Amy; Hackett, Conrad; Gibbon, James (2008). "Estimating the Religious Composition of All Nations: An Empirical Assessment of the World Christian Database" (PDF). Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 47 (4): 691–692. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5906.2008.00435.x.

• p. 679: ... The main criticisms scholars have directed at the WCD concern the estimation and categorization of certain religious populations. There are questions about whether religious composition within countries is skewed by the overcounting of certain groups or variance in quality of information obtained on different religious groups. There is also concern about possible bias because the WCE was originally developed as a Christian missionary tool. Some of the country descriptions in the WCE have been characterized as having an anti-Catholic and pro-Protestant orientation (McClymond 2002:881), and Martin describes the WCE as a work "dedicated to the conversion of mankind" (1990:293). Criticisms have also been raised about projections for different religious groups and demographic trends, as the WCD provides empirical data for the population of religious groups well into the future. Doubts have been raised about the WCD's estimation and categorization of new religious groups. Steenbrink (1998) criticizes the 1982 WCE data for Indonesia, which suggest the population is only 43.2 percent Muslim and 36.4 percent "new religionist." Steenbrink maintains that those classified as "new religionists" should actually be classified as Muslim, even if stricter Islamic groups might disagree. Lewis (2004) observes that the Soka Gakkai, Rissho Kosei Kai, and Nichiren Shoshu in the Japanese Buddhist tradition are classified as new religions, whereas Pentecostals (a much more recent movement) are classified as Christian rather than a new religion. The size of Christian populations is also debated. Jenkins (2002) notes a large gap between the reported size of India's Christian population in the government census and in the WCE/WCD. While he admits that census figures omit many Scheduled Caste adherents who can lose government benefits by declaring Christian identity, he suspects the WCD overcounts Christians in India. The WCE has also been criticized for including "inadequate and confusing" categories of Christian religious groups, in particular, "Great Commission Christians," "Latent Christians," "Non-baptized believers in Christ," and "Crypto-Christians" (Anderson 2002:129). Some worry that it is difficult to distinguish Christians who keep their faith secret from Christians who practice an indigenized form of Christianity that incorporates elements of non-Christian religions. McClymond writes that estimates for the "non-baptized believers in Christ" or "non-Christian believers in Christ" in India who are Buddhist and Muslim "seem to be largely anecdotal" (2002:886). Estimates of adherents in the United States have also been challenged. Noll has questioned the designation and size of certain Christian categories, for which the WCD and WCE provide the most detail. Although he finds estimates for most Christian denominations agree with other sources, he notes that "Great Commission Christians"—a category used to describe those actively involved in Christian expansion—are estimated in the United States and Europe to be a much larger group than the number of Christians who weekly attend church (2002:451). Another cause for concern is the number of "independents," a muddled category including African-American, "community," and "Bible" churches. Changes in the data set also raise issues about categories: Anderson notes that groups previously labeled as Protestant in the first edition of the WCE in 1982 (Conservative Baptist Association of America, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and the Presbyterian Church in America) were relabeled Independent in the second edition published in 2001 (Anderson 2002). Some have argued that projections of religious composition for years such as 2025 and 2050 should not be included with the empirical data, as they are merely conjecture (McClymond 2002). Irvin (2005) argues against making predictions about the future of worldwide religion based on recent statistics because Christian growth in Asia and Africa will not necessarily continue along the trajectory it has in past decades. ....
• p. 680: ... To address the criticisms mentioned above, we compare the religious composition estimates in the WCD to four other cross-national data sets on religious composition (two survey-based data sets and two government-sponsored data sets): the World Values Survey (WVS), the Pew Global Attitudes Project (Pew), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the U.S. State Department (State Department). In our analysis, we find support for some of the criticisms made by reviewers ... the WCD does have higher estimates of percent Christian within countries. Another important difference between the WCD and other cross-national data sets is that the WCD includes data on 18 different religious groups for each country while other data sets only estimate the size of major religions. In evaluating some of the specific critiques discussed above, we find that WCD estimates of American Christian groups are generally higher than those based on surveys and denominational statistics. ... The majority of data came from fieldwork, unpublished reports, and private communications from contributors who are a mix of clergy, academics, and others; the Christian origins of the encyclopedia explain in part its detailed information on Christian groups. ....
• p. 684: ... Figure 1 shows that the WCD tends to overestimate percent Christian relative to the other data sets. Scatterplots show that the majority of the points lie above the y x line, indicating the WCD estimate for percent Christian within countries is generally higher than the other estimates. Although the bias is slight, it is consistent, and consequently, the WCD estimates a higher ratio of Christians in the world. This suggests that while the percentage Christian estimates are closely related among the data sets, the tendency is for them to be slightly higher in the WCD. ... On the other hand, the WCD likely underestimates percent Muslim in former Communist countries and countries with popular syncretistic and traditional religions..
• p. 692: ... We find some evidence for the three main criticisms directed at the WCD regarding estimation, ambiguous religious categories, and bias. The WCD consistently gives a higher estimate for percent Christian in comparison to other cross-national data sets. ... We also found evidence of overestimation when we compared WCD data on American denominational adherence to American survey data such as ARIS, due in part to inclusion of children, and perhaps also to uncritical acceptance of estimates from religious institutions. We agree with reviewers that some of the WCD's religious categories are impossible to measure accurately, such as "Great Commission Christians," "latent Christians," and "Crypto-Christians." ....
• (Added by Ramos1990). However, context matters. Here is their overall conclusion: ...In sum, we find that the WCD religious composition data are highly correlated with other sources that offer cross-national religious composition estimates. For cross-national studies, the WCD may be more useful than other sources of data because of the inclusion of the largest number of countries, different time periods, and information on all, even small, religious groups.

Missionologists

Added by Erp and Ramos1990:

• Woodberry, Robert D. (2010). "World Religion Database: Impressive - but Improvable". International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 34 (1): 21–22. ISSN 0272-6122.
  • Quote: ... the editors seem to have constructed their estimates of religious distribution primarily from surveys of denominations and missionaries, not from censuses or representative surveys of individuals ....
  • However, context matters: Despite these criticisms, we can appreciate the editors’ achievement in applying a relatively consistent methodology across the world. Furthermore, the WRD estimates are highly correlated with other cross-national estimates of religious distribution, a conclusion supported by an article by Becky Hsu and others. and also ...Still, despite my criticisms, I will eagerly use these data in my research. I do not know of any better data available on such a broad scale and am amazed at the editors’ ability to provide even tentative estimates of religious distribution by province and people group.

• Marsh, Christopher; Zhong, Zhifeng (2010). "Chinese Views on Church and State". Journal of Church and State. 52 (1): 34–49. ISSN 0021-969X. JSTOR 23922246.
  • Quote: overestimate of Christianity in China, which adds a lot to the total number and percentage of world Christians: ... At the extreme high end, the World Religion Database puts the percentage of Christians in China at 7.76 percent, or a just above 100 million, but this number is most certainly an overestimation ....

Added by Æo:

Another edition of WRD/WCD data has been the Atlas of Global Christianity (produced by the same Gordon-Conwell team). I have found negative critical assessments even for this edition, this time coming from an "insider" (Christian missionary) source, even though through an academic publisher, written by Anne-Marie Kool of the Evangelical Theological Seminary of Osijek, Croatia:

• Kool, Anne-Marie (2016). "Revisiting Mission in, to and from Europe through Contemporary Image Formation" (PDF). In Charles E. Van Engen (ed.). The State of Missiology Today: Global Innovations in Christian Witness. Downers Grove: IVP Academic. pp. 231–49.
  • p. 1: ... seeks to give “as nuanced a picture as possible” of the history of Christianity over the last 100 years showing an “unmistakable” general pattern, that Christianity experiences a “severe recession” on the European continent that once was its primary base, while it has undergone “unprecedented growth and expansion” in the other parts of the world. ....
  • p. 2: ... widespread caution is raised with regard to the accuracy of the figures and not to engage in statistical analysis with the data, “without robustness checking… they contain random error and probably some systematic error” ....
  • p. 9, containing a self-criticism from Kool for having herself made uncritical use of the data: ... The World Christian Database and the World Religion Database serve as sources for the data of the Atlas. With regard to the methodology used, Woodberry is right in emphasizing that “more transparency is needed”. It might well be that the great quantity of details easily silenced possible critical voices. It is peculiar that hardly any serious critical interaction and discussion of the underlying methodology of the Atlas has taken place, neither of its two data providing predecessors. The data are simply taken for granted, as I have taken them for as authoritative in my teaching and research during the last two decades. ....
  • p. 12, about systematic overestimation of Christianity in Europe, with allusions that there might be financial reason behind such overestimations: ... The statistical image of Europe that is now communicated only re-enforces the image of Europe as a Christian continent, by not giving insight in the internal diversification and erosion. So why is only this broad definition used? Is it for fear of losing power? Or for maintaining the image of the numerically strong “World C” that provides the human and financial resources to “finish the task”? Are matters of Christian finance playing a role? Out of a sense of empire building? Or of a sense of hidden resistance to accept that Europe also is now also a mission field? Is it out of fear of becoming a minority? Fear for ending up statistically weaker than the Muslims? Or an attempt to cling to the influence of the “Western” over the “non-Western” world, based on an image of Europe as still a massive Christian continent? ....
  • p. 13; it is a missionary tool designed for a specific strategy of aggression towards what in American missionary Christianity has been conceptualised as the "10/40 window": ... Eric Friede’s sharp analysis points us to the fact that the Atlas is ultimately written from the perspective of the so-called Great Commission Christians, Christians who engage in and support Christian missions, as many essays address the issue of “how to grow Christianity” in a particular region. The mission strategy invoked is then one of identifying within Global Christianity the resources needed for the task, the human resources, the GCC Christians, as well as the Christian finances that could make this enterprise work. An assessment of major tools needed for finishing this task is offered in subsequent sections, like Bible translation is followed by a section on Evangelization, with a division of the world in A, B and C, according to the level “being evangelized”. Statistics are used to motivate missionaries and national workers to mission action with Christian mission being reduced to a manageable enterprise with a dominant quantitative approach and a well-defined pragmatic orientation, “as a typical school of thought coming from modern United States”. .... Kool makes largely reference to: Eric Friede, "Book Review. Atlas of Global Christianity: 1910-2010, by Johnson, T.M. & Ross, K.R. (Eds.), 2010", Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, Theological Librarianship 3(1), 2010.

Among other sources, some of which we have already analysed, Kool makes reference to:

• Brierley, Peter. (2010). "World Religion Database: Detail Beyond Belief!". International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 34 (1): 18–20.
  • It is a critical assessment, once again coming from a missionary journal, that raises doubts as to the reliability of the WRD on the basis of the mismatch of the latter's data (purportedly based on censuses) with actual data from censuses, in particular those of the UK. Judd Birdsall and Lori Beaman, in Faith in Numbers: Can we Trust Quantitative Data on Religious Affiliation and Religious Freedom?, Transatlantic Policy Network on Religion & Diplomacy, 22 June 2020, at p. 3 say that the WRD, despite being widely cited and impressive, "comes with limitations. In his review of the Database, the statistician Peter Brierley pointed out that for the United Kingdom the Database used denominational reports, such as Church of England baptismal records, rather than the UK census figures to calculate affiliation. A tally of denominational reporting showed that 82% of Britons were Christian, whereas only 72% of them claimed to be Christian in the UK census". (n.b. Brierley makes reference to the UK 2001 census data, showing that already in 2001 the WRD overestimated Christianity in the UK by at least 10%).
  • (Added by Ramos1990). However context matters. The same source states: The WRD is a truly remarkable resource for researchers, Christian workers, church leaders, religious academics, and any others wanting to see how the various religions of the world impact both the global and the local scenes. It is always easy to criticize any grand compilation of statistical material by looking at the detail in one particular corner and declaring, "That number doesn't seem right." The sheer scope of this database, however, is incredible, and the fact that it exists and can be extended even further and updated as time goes forward in the framework of a respected university deserves huge applause for those responsible for it. Praise where praise is due, even if I am about to critique it.

Discussion (ARDA and WRD)

Part 1

The World Religion Database provides its estimates based on census and surveys: https://www.worldreligiondatabase.org/, just like Pew Research does. The sources I cited above from Oxford and Princeton call it very reliable and accurate even though it is not exact as Censuss but estimates like Pew are used all over Misplaced Pages.Foorgood (talk) 00:39, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

That being said, I want to confirm whether or not AEOs position is that ARDA/WRD estimates shouldn't override national censuss(which I agree with) meaning they could still be used for other estimates, OR if AEOs position is that ARDA/WRD should not be used at all(which is absurd given their reliable reputation with Oxford and Cambridge)?Foorgood (talk) 01:04, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

The WRD is not a census (survey of the entire population of a state by that state's statistical office), and, as demonstrated by Erp herebelow, their methods for collecting and elaborating data are unclear (and, n.b., circular! the WRD makes reference to Pew which in turn made reference to WRD!). With my comments, I have abundantly demonstrated the bias of the WRD and its sponsors. Please note that some of the sources you have cited are from the same sponsors of the ARDA (e.g. Pennsylvania University), others (the Oxford etc. books you claim recommend ARDA) are from years ago when the ARDA had not yet switched completely to WRD data (I myself consulted the ARDA site in 2020/2021 and their data were completely different, and more reasonable, than those from the WRD implemented after 2020/2021) and they merely list or cite ARDA as a source. That ARDA data should never replace data from national censuses is obvious. Moreover, they are WP:CRYSTAL projections. Therefore, I think that ARDA/Gordon-Conwell data, together with Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures (another dataset of projections based on Pew 2001-2010 surveys) should be WP:DEPRECATED. Æo (talk) 10:47, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Nope you cannot radically decide to block PEW and ARDA, both globally recognized as top reliable sources, from Misplaced Pages just because you now think you know better than them. But what we can do is give preeminence to Censuss while allowing estimates to be provided lower in the article with the disclaimer that they are not official surveys etc. Foorgood (talk) 14:03, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

"Both globally recognized as top reliable sources". Please note that such alleged "global recognition" is basically the result of their own campaigns of promotion, and support by their allied journalistic media. Take the F. Lionel Young source cited above: it indeed praises the WRD within a chapter dedicated to statistical sources which are part of a precise Protestant Christian missionary project. These are, very simply, unreliable biased sources. Obviously, I cannot classify them as deprecated myself; this would require community consensus. Let's see how the present discussion will develop before proceeding with further steps. Æo (talk) 14:45, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

You actually think that PEW or ARDA, globally recognized as reliable, would meet all the requirements listed here?!: https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Deprecated_sources.. Again are you so extreme in your stance that you can't come to a compromise like you've done already by simply having Censuss take top priority on nations religions pages? Foorgood (talk) 15:26, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Regarding census data I have not come to any compromise; census data are simply the best, most accurate available. And yes, I think ARDA/WRD/WCD (alias Gordon-Conwell) and Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures (projections based on outdated 2001-2010 surveys/collections of data) meet the requirement for deprecation. Note that deprecation does not mean banning a source (blacklisting), it's just a warning that will appear whenever contributors will insert links to such sources. Æo (talk) 17:10, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Ok so you are saying that you don't feel the PEW or ARDA data needs to banned entirely from articles, just given disclaimer that it's not an official survey like a census? Foorgood (talk) 17:34, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

ARDA itself is a database archive and states that when citing ARDA the original source must be included in the cite so the key question in most cases is the reliability of WRD. I have access to the World Religion Database so decided to check one recent cite in the Demographics of atheism article where the claim was "In 2020, the World Religion Database estimated that the countries with the highest percentage of atheists were North Korea and Sweden". First how on earth does anyone know what the percentage of the population are atheists in North Korea? Tunneling down through the WRD yielded the source for its info on religion in that country as "North Korea, Future of the Global Muslim Population (FGMP), 2020" and a note at the bottom of a fairly blank page was "Pew Forum Projection". Unfortunately the Pew FGMP (a) doesn't mention atheists and (b) cites the WRD as its source for the Muslim population of North Korea. I do note a WRD discussion of its methodology is at https://worldreligiondatabase.org/wrd/doc/WRD_Methodology.pdf including the paragraph:

"Religious demography must attempt to be comprehensive. In certain countries where no hard statistical data or reliable surveys are available, researchers have to rely on the informed estimates of experts in the area and subject. Researchers make no detailed attempt at a critique of each nation’s censuses and polls or each church’s statistical operations. After examining what is available, researchers then select the best data available until such time as better data come into existence. In addition, there are a number of areas of religious life where it is impossible to obtain accurate statistics, usually because of state opposition to particular tradition(s). Thus it will probably never be possible to get exact numbers of atheists in Indonesia or Baha’i in Iran. Where such information is necessary, reasonable and somewhat conservative estimates are made."

My suspicion is the estimate of the number of atheists in North Korea is a guess with very large error bars. The number of atheists in Sweden is likely to be more accurate though the latest survey they used is 2008. One should check what definition of atheist is being used by WRD. Erp (talk) 01:31, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Excuse me the 2017 Win/Gallup poll also has Sweden as the 2nd most atheist country and here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/Religion_in_North_Korea we can see 2 different estimates are used to give North Korea's high atheist percentage. Estimates have their own methodology and they are considered Reliable by Oxford and Cambridge so don't try to reinvent the wheel and say that we know better than these statisticians because if so you're going to have to remove every single estimate on Misplaced Pages for every topic- and there are thousands. Our job on Misplaced Pages is to include estimates that are reliable while obviously giving precedence to government surveys *When available*.Foorgood (talk) 01:52, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Actually the estimates for North Korea in the Religion in North Korea are for 'no religion' which is not the same as being atheistic. Also the 2017 Win/Gallop report (https://web.archive.org/web/20171114113506/http://www.wingia.com/web/files/news/370/file/370.pdf) has China as being the 'least religious', not atheistic, of the countries polled with Sweden second. However in the same report when it comes to percentage stating they are atheists Sweden drops below China, Hong Kong, Japan, Czech Republic, Slovenia, South Korea, France, and Belgium. North Korea for obvious reasons was not among the countries polled. This does not help in showing that WRD is a reliable source. Note that does not mean I agree with @Æo that censuses are the best sources; censuses can have biases or be incomplete and good surveys/polls can be just as reliable or better if not as precise. I would be happier with WRD if it were specific on how it got its figures for each country (among other things it would avoid articles citing X and then citing WRD which in turn was using X). Erp (talk) 17:38, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

If you click here https://www.thearda.com/world-religion/np-sort?var=ADH_704#S_1 and read the top it says "Variables: Total number of Atheists by country and percent of population that are Atheists: Persons who deny the existence of God, gods, or the supernatural. (World Religion Database, 2020) (Atheists)1" Again, you guys are acting like you know better than these world renowned sources. Foorgood (talk) 17:43, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Foorgood, I have thoroughly demonstrated that such "world renowned sources" are not produced by actual statisticians but by Protestant missionaries and Erp has demonstrated that their methods for collecting data are dubious. The line you have cited does not mean anything as to statistical survey methodology, it is just a conceptual category they have used to represent their data. Please read WP:NOTHERE. Æo (talk) 23:33, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

I suspect the precision of exactly 4,016,422 atheists in North Korea in 2020, too precise for what is suppose to be an estimate. Have the authors not heard of significant figures or more likely it is an issue with the database design not being able to round? Also the definition at the top of the ARDA WRD chart is not quite the same as the one in the World Religion Database (the numbers do match). The latter definition is "Number of Atheists in this country's population. Atheists are persons professing atheism, skepticism, impiety, disbelief or irreligion, or Marxist-Leninist Communism regarded as a political faith, or other quasi-religions, and who abstain from religious activities and have severed all religious affiliation; and others opposed, hostile or militantly opposed to all religion (anti-religious); dialectical materialists, militant non-believers, anti-religious humanists, skeptics." There is a separate category for agnostics.

As for world renowned? Something can be well known yet still not be deemed reliable. I did a search of the Wiley Online Library for "World Religion Database", 27 hits though 16 of them were to a single book by the people who created the database. Wiley also includes the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion which had two of the cites (one of which was a critique of the World Christian Database). One would think people contributing to a journal on the scientific study of religion might be using this database extensively? I also did a search on "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" in Wiley, that had 1,248 hits.

I will note that Brian Grim's background does include a PhD in sociology from Penn State which should ensure some statistical training. Erp (talk) 00:35, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Oxford and Cambridge and 3 other top publishers call them reliable 12, 3, 4, 5 Why? Because they are all statisticians from Universities around the country: ARDA Advisory Board: Renata Curty (UC Santa Barbara), Joel Herndon (Duke University), Nathaniel Porter (Virginia Tech), Ruth Tillman (Pennsylvania State University), Andrew Tyner (Center for Open Science)

ARDA Affiliates: US Religion Census, Baylor Univeristy, World Religion Database at Boston University, which is part of Brill publishing: https://www.worldreligiondatabase.org/

No, you do not know better than these experts. But AEO I'm asking you, your position is that ARDA not be banned from articles you just want it with the deprecated tag?Foorgood (talk) 01:16, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

And ERP you will have to show us a screenshot if you think we will simply take your word about what WRD classifies as atheism because there is so far absolutely 0 proof of what you just stated. Foorgood (talk) 01:44, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

@Foorgood I'm not sure I'm permitted to put a screen shot in this discussion (wikipedia images are suppose to be stuff we can use in articles) or even if it would be sufficient proof for you given you apparently have no access to the database and therefore don't know what it looks like (I could after all photoshop it). Would it be better to have a third party who has access to WRD to vouch for the accuracy? A party you choose. I'm not sure whether @NebY or @Æo have access. Erp (talk) 04:24, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Nope because as I wrote below: Here is The Harvard Library calling World Religion Database "a good source of statistics" https://guides.library.harvard.edu/religion and here's The Stanford Library https://guides.library.stanford.edu/religion saying of Arda "Data included in the ARDA are submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. The ARDA allows you to interactively explore the highest quality data on American and international religion using online features for generating national profiles, GIS maps, church membership overviews, denominational heritage trees, tables, charts, and other reports." University of Oxford Library also recommends both of them https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/collections-and-resources/data/finding-data/themes/religion. All the top Universities call it a reliable source period you do not have ANY reputable source that calls it unreliable it is completely your personal opinion from your own original research. Foorgood (talk) 14:03, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

@Erp: I don't have access to the database, but I personally trust your word. In any case, I think it would not be a problem if you uploaded a little screenshot of the section of the page which demonstrates unclear and circular reporting; I think it would not be a copyright violation. Regarding Foorgood, I think he is gaming the discussion system by bringing the interlocutor to exhaustion, ignoring the evidence we have put forward and stubbornly copy-pasting his links which do not demonstrate anything except that ARDA/WRD is listed among other sources on some university/library websites. Æo (talk) 17:05, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

I would also remind @Foorgood: of WP:AGF. We have no reason to suspect Erp of fabricating a quotation from WRD and I very much hope that FoorGood doesn't imagine that such suspicion would be justified by or would justify misleading statements by Foorgood themself. NebY (talk) 17:41, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Many thanks for pointing that out about Good Faith. I would like someone else to check given that I am using an older browser so perhaps some things are hidden from me such as lack of sources (not the definition of atheists, that is definitely there). Or I should check on a different computer. I note @Foorgood has been contacting various people and one of them might have access.

I'm actually not so sure it was circular reporting since it isn't clear whether the surveys listed by WRD were actually listed sources or listed links for related information. The idea behind the WRD makes a certain amount of sense; however, the methodology is lacking in a few ways. What are the sources for each country and a short description on how they are used, who is responsible for the calculations in each country (or are the listed editors, Todd M. Johnson, Brian J. Grim, Gina A. Zurlo, Peter Crossing, and David Hannan, responsible for all countries?), are there regular archives so a researcher using it doesn't find the data changing out from underneath them (these archives might exist); why aren't figures rounded to avoid giving a precision that is impossible for estimates? what are the error estimates?

By the way if WRD is well known (whether for good and/or for bad), it probably should have its own Misplaced Pages article. Erp (talk) 02:01, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Foorgood, your wrote "Oxford and Cambridge and 3 other top publishers call them reliable" and previously "they are considered Reliable by Oxford and Cambridge". Books publishesd by Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press don't represent the opinion or judgment of OUP or CUP (or of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge), and this is true of publishers generally; for example, a book published by Harper Collins does not represent the opinion of Rupert Murdoch. An advisory board of statisticians "from Universities around the country" isn't automatically of high quality (they might be the best in the US or they might be the only ones in the US who'll work with that organisation) and the extent to which advisory boards influence an organisation's work and output varies massively. NebY (talk) 14:13, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Here is even The Harvard Library calling World Religion Database "a good source of statistics" https://guides.library.harvard.edu/religion and here's The Stanford Library https://guides.library.stanford.edu/religion saying of Arda "Data included in the ARDA are submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. The ARDA allows you to interactively explore the highest quality data on American and international religion using online features for generating national profiles, GIS maps, church membership overviews, denominational heritage trees, tables, charts, and other reports." University of Oxford Library also recommends both of them https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/collections-and-resources/data/finding-data/themes/religion. All the top Universities call it a reliable source period you do not have ANY reputable source that calls it unreliable it is completely your personal opinion from your own original research. Foorgood (talk) 16:01, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Foorgood, note that the sites you have linked merely list ARDA among other sources, and the blurb is likely a self-presentation. They are not critical researches; critical assessments are those like the ones from which I have excerpted the quotes reported at the beginning of the discussion (Liedhegener et al. 2013, Hsu et al. 2008). Also please note, and I repeat this for the umpteenth time, that the ARDA acquired all its data from the WRD only by 2021/2022, and before then it hosted completely different data. As already expressed before, the first problem here is the WRD, and the ARDA is the secondary problem as it functions as the dissemination platform of WRD data. Æo (talk) 17:54, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

And as you saw Harvard calls World Religion Database a good source so do yourself a favor and stop humiliating yourself trying to make it seem deprecated and pretending you know better than Harvard Stanford and Oxford. Even the Yale and Princeton Library websites suggest World Religion Database. Foorgood (talk) 17:57, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

That's better, at least to start with; you clearly identify those mentions as being from university libraries. But then you veer into saying "all the top universities", as if the libraries are the universities, as if those samples do call it a reliable source, and as if your sample proves that all "top" universities or even their libraries call it a reliable source. And then you tell me that "you do not have ANY reputable source that calls it unreliable it is completely your personal opinion from your own original research". You do not know what my opinion is; my comment above on your statements was my first. NebY (talk) 17:57, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

That first sentence from Stanford Library, "Data included in the ARDA are submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world", is also in our article Association of Religion Data Archives and has been since its origination in 2006. The Stanford page appears to be comparatively recent - note that this Jan 2022 list of guides from the Wayback Machine doesn't mention a religion page. The Stanford statement might be copied from Misplaced Pages, which is not a WP:RS, or both might be taken from a self-description of ARDA, whose website currently has "now including American and international collections submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world." (I notice that's not such a strong statement, not making a claim about all the data.) It does not appear to be Stanford Library's independent appraisal of ARDA. NebY (talk) 17:31, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Correct, as I wrote above the blurb is a self-presentation copied and pasted here and there, including on Misplaced Pages. Also note that the self-proclaimed "foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world" are fundamentally the same people of the WRD alias Gordon-Conwell and of the John Templeton Foundation (another organisation about which we could report plenty of criticism). Æo (talk) 17:38, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed that you'd found it on[REDACTED] too! NebY (talk) 17:46, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

(Personal attack removed) Foorgood (talk) 18:13, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

I think that much of the evidence presented so far by User:Foorgood indicates that ARDA is a reliable source. The set of references that were provided 12, 3, 4, 5 indicate that there is scholarly usage of such a database. Keep in mind that all major surveys have their limitations and none are really the final word - especially on atheism. Estimates of atheism are particularly problematic e.g. estimates from China differ between surveys (WIN-Gallup International vs Pew Research Center) and China and well... Asia alone shifts the global estimates of atheism considering that just China by itslef has the greatest number of atheists in the world. From wikipedia's stand point there is no issue using ARDA. It is not a depreciated source. It has limitations and problems like all other surveys. Attribution may solve the issues of putting any results from any particular survey in wikipedia's voice.

From the arguments presented against ARDA, none indicate that it is a depreciable source. ARDA has notable sociological researchers like Roger Finke in its board and peer reviewed articles on it are also available . Also, there are many hits from other scholarly sources on google scholar using the database too .Ramos1990 (talk) 00:11, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

In my view it is not ARDA that is in question but rather one of the databases it archives, World Religion Database. ARDA itself says that the source should be cited with ARDA just being the repository.

If I modify the google scholar search for just "World Religion Database" I get 559 results though some of them aren't exactly supportive. For instance

one article reviewing the database states

Second, the editors seem to have constructed their estimates of religious distribution primarily from surveys of denominations and missionaries, not from censuses or representative surveys of individuals

and

would radically improve the usefulness and face-validity of the data:

• Documenting how each estimate was calculated. A Webbased format is ideal for revealing this kind of information: most users would not be interested in the details, and costs to print such information would be exorbitant.
• Providing some measure of uncertainty with each estimate (e.g., standard errors or even a qualitative evaluation by the editors). Researchers could then integrate uncertainty into their statistical models or exclude cases with uncertain estimates. As it is, estimates for Afghanistan, Algeria, China, and North Korea appear as precise as estimates from Canada and Germany. (Woodberry, Robert D. (2010). "World Religion Database: Impressive - but Improvable". International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 34 (1): 21–22. ISSN 0272-6122. Retrieved 2022-11-02.)

I also noted that many of the other cites were in articles authored by the database creators.

I also did a search on jstor which tends to be a bit more selective than google scholar on what is scholarly though some recent stuff (3-5 years) may not yet be available on it. There were 31 results (with at least 3 of those by people directly involved in the database). One is by Hsu et al. 2008 mentioned above which is not favorable to the database. One article had the statement

"Relying on the 2010 estimates of the World Religion Database (WRD), this method is used in instances where no better data than the religious composition of the birth country were available" (Henning, Sabine; Hovy, Bela; Connor, Phillip; Tucker, Catherine; Grieco, Elizabeth M.; Rytina, Nancy F. (2011). "Demographic Data on International Migration Levels, Trends and Characteristics". International Migration Review. 45 (4): 979–1016. ISSN 0197-9183. JSTOR 41427975. Retrieved 2022-11-02.)

This seems to show a reluctance to use it if anything better was available. Also

"At the extreme high end, the World Religion Database puts the percentage of Christians in China at 7.76 percent, or a just above 100 million, but this number is most certainly an overestimation" (Marsh, Christopher; Zhong, Zhifeng (2010). "Chinese Views on Church and State". Journal of Church and State. 52 (1): 34–49. ISSN 0021-969X. JSTOR 23922246. Retrieved 2022-11-02.)

WRD seems to be on the edge of acceptability. At most it should only be used if no better source exists (I still can't imagine how they calculated the so very precise numbers for North Korea). Erp (talk) 02:48, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

WRD is not on the edge of acceptability. It is clearly used in the sources you cited above. Brill, which is an academic publisher, publishes the database and it comes from Boston University by the way so it is RS by that measure alone. I see no reason to object to it from wikipedia's policy standpoint. The sources you brought do not show that it is a bad database, because clearly peer reviewed sources do use it. Google scholar also produces peer reviewed articles and books that use it too. I got more than 800 when looking at "world religion database (WRD)". How is this a problem for it? It is used quite a bit. Bad sources do not get used this often to build on research. So clearly it has value for academics.

Now, there are studies that do sloppy work on atheism such as WIN-Gallup which showed global atheism rising way too fast in 2012, and magically declining by half in the subsequent WIN-Gallup surveys within the same decade. This of course is preposterous - that atheists would double and then decline in 10 years. People, on a global scale, do not change radically one way and then change back in a decade. And some researchers have advised caution on WIN-Gallup's data set (e.g. Oxford Handbook of Atheism) since their numbers on atheism in China are way too large - compared to all data sets on religion and atheism available. But none of this makes WIN-Gallup an non usable or depreciated source on wikipedia.

That is because all studies have their weaknesses and they usually contradict each other in the literature (Pew vs WIN-Gallup vs WVS vs census data, etc). Misplaced Pages just presents what certain data sets have come up with. We as wikieditors do not psychologize or make assessments or judgments on how one database is good or bad methodologically. As long as WRD has an academic standing in some way in the literature, there is no real reason to discount it over any other. Attribution should take care of placing the weight on the database being cited for the numbers.Ramos1990 (talk) 06:10, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

As it has already been written and amply demonstrated, the ARDA is a repository of data which at some point between 2021 and 2022 changed all its datasets with those of the WRD/WCD alias Gordon-Conwell. It is the latter that is in question in this discussion, and judgment on the ARDA follows judgment on WRD/WCD. As it has been widely demonstrated, the WRD/WCD is a Protestant Christian encyclopedia, dataset and missionary tool. Its sources are Protestant Christian missionaries, for the most part, as stated in its own methodology paper (pp. 13-14: ... The WRD taps into knowledge from contacts in every country of the world who inform us on what is happening in non-traditional forms of Christianity, such as churches and insider movements ...; notice that some of these firsthand informers, "insiders", are sometimes completely out of reality: for instance, in 2013 some Protestant churches predicted that 10% of Mongolians would be Christians by 2020, yet between 2010 and 2020 (census data) Christians in the country have declined from 2.2% to 1.3%).

As for the sources you have listed (which are the same links provided by Foorgood), the respectability of the publisher or hosting site does not necessarily imply that the content is qualitative and reliable. Cf. WP:RS: WP:SCHOLARSHIP: "POV and peer review in journals": Care should be taken with 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...; cf. Drmies above who has contacted one of the hosting websites: One of the librarians listed on one of the pages you linked confirmed to me what academics already know: a note on a library guide on a university library's website should NOT be taken as any kind of official endorsement for the reliability of that database.

Regarding more in detail the sources you (and Foorgood) have listed, I repeat once again: #1 is a book dedicated to a particular Protestant Christian view and project which is ultimately the same one of Gordon-Conwell; #2 is written by one of the compilers of the ARDA itself (Finke of Pennsylvania University); #3 simply lists and comments the ARDA among other resources, and, note it well, goes back to 2011 when ARDA had not yet switched to the WRD/WCD (it says that at that time its sources were mainly the World Value Survey and the International Social Survey Program); #4 is just the list of references used within the book; #5 is not a source of a good quality and in any case I don't find any reference to the ARDA. Æo (talk) 10:02, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

P.S. O.T. Regarding atheism/irreligion and WIN-Gallup, which are not into question in the present discussion, notice that the definition of "atheism" and "irreligion" can vary according to the context, and that these categories overlap and are not as well definible as belief in a specific Abrahamic religion. Also notice that "atheism" and "irreligion" can overlap with the categories of Eastern religions: Buddhists could be considered atheists, while the notion of "religion" in East Asia does not traditionally apply to non-Abrahamic religions (or to forms of East Asian religions which have adopted an organisational form similar to that of Abrahamic religions), especially to East Asian diffused traditions of worship of gods and ancestors, and the same could be said for certain non-Abrahamic religions and unorganised beliefs which are emerging in the Western world. Æo (talk) 11:25, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Part 2

Worth observing the Foorgood has repeatedly canvassed editors to this discussion; that's how Ramos1990 got here, for example. --66.44.22.126 (talk) 12:13, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Nowhere did he/her or anyone else reach out to me prior to me making a comment on this thread.

Back to the program, to the comments of AEO, I see that most of the discussion is not on whether it is academic (clearly it is - has peer review, Brill is an academic published with peer review, Boston University, notable academics head the project, many peer reviewed publications widely use it, etc). On this alone it is a RS per wikipedia. The stuff about WP:Scholarship applies to fringe publishers, but not Brill (which uses peer review).

Most of the issues that mentioned in this thread relate to methodology and the papers cited in the top of the thread (Liedhegener (2013) and Hsu (2008) both show generally positive views of WRD despite any shortcomings). This has nothing to do with the fact that it IS an academic source, is used by academics to advance research and that it used as a tool in academic research on religion worldwide. As far as I have seen, no major objections have been provided on this latter front. If bias or fault is perceived (this is not agreed upon and the uses of it in peer reviewed publications show its wide utility), this would not be a problem for[REDACTED] either because even WP:PARTISAN states that sources do not need to be neutral and that these sources may be better sources for numerous contexts and that attribution would be appropriate.

On top of that I see that researchers on Islam use it too The Oxford Handbook of Politics in Muslim Societies, and apparently Pew uses WRD data for some of its numbers in Africa for instance The Palgrave Handbook of Islam in Africa. (interestingly it mentions that census data have design problems as well so no dataset is without its problems - which is true since censuses have inconsistent terminology and metrics on religion and some censuses like the American one do not ask about religion). Also, the Liedhegener (2013) paper mentioned at the top of this thread says WCD was used for Encyclopedia Britannica numbers too. Here is another paper using WRD in combination with other sources to get a comprehensive demography . Here is another on Islam in combination with other studies . Also here is one that compares WRD numbers in New Zealand on the nonreligious along with other datasets and is comparable to Pew. Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion: Volume 7

The more I look into this the more I find that it is used quite a bit in the literature along with other datasets either As Is or in a supplementary fashion. I don't see it being used in a depreciative fashion. I see no issue with it being cited with attribution (most studies get attributed either way) and scholars generally do not have a problem with it either (which is why they use it in the first place including general positive comments on it from Liedhegener (2013) and Hsu (2008) which were cited at the top o the thread), and there certainly is no[REDACTED] policy basis against WRD.Ramos1990 (talk) 22:52, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

"...As far as I have seen, no major objections have been provided on this latter front". What needed to be said has been said, about the use of the source in certain books and about the publishers of either the source itself or books which have made use of it, and academic assessments regarding its non-neutrality and dubious methodology (with one such assessments even affirming that they "seem to have constructed their estimates... from surveys of denominations and missionaries") have been provided (please see WP:IDNHT).

Moving forward, please notice that there are various precedents of sources sponsored by or affiliated to religious organisations which have been deemed unreliable: Catholic Answers, Catholic News Agency, Church Militant, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, and, most significantly, the academic CESNUR and its journal Bitter Winter, which are listed among semi-deprecated sources for being "an apologia site for new religious movements, and thus is inherently unreliable in its core area due to conflicts of interest. There is also consensus that its content is unreliable on its own merits". Also the Annuario Pontificio of the Catholic Church is not used in Misplaced Pages for statistics about Catholics in every country of the world, so I don't see why Misplaced Pages should be filled with statistics produced by the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Æo (talk) 15:10, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I think we have brought up our points on the matter and when you look at the sources, they show more than what you constantly present in your quotes. The sources you presented here usually support WRD too. For instance, its own methodology paper you cited clearly shows that WRD's sources include Censuses, surveys and polls along with denominational data (see p. 4-5) methodology paper. So just isolating "from surveys of denominations and missionaries" is incorrect on methodological grounds and even this quote misrepresents the source you extracted this from (Woodberry, Robert D. (2010). "World Religion Database: Impressive - but Improvable") because after reading it, Woodberry is very positive to WRD overall and acknowledges its comparativeness with other datasets and even says "Still, despite my criticisms, I will eagerly use these data in my research. I do not know of any better data available on such a broad scale and am amazed at the editors’ ability to provide even tentative estimates of religious distribution by province and people group." Plus the fact that WRD is used by Islamic researchers, nonreligious researchers, Pew Research Center (actually integrates it as part of Pew's methodological design per Barton in Palgrave Handbook), CIA estimates (per Woodberry), and Encyclopedia Britannica (per Liedhegener) show that it much more reliable and trusted than you are willing to give credit. But since all datasets have their problems - including censuses, attribution would solve any issues. And its academic status with Brill which is a peer reviewed publisher helps too.Ramos1990 (talk) 00:52, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Another edition of WRD/WCD data has been the Atlas of Global Christianity (produced by the same Gordon-Conwell team). I have found negative critical assessments even for this edition, this time coming from an "insider" (Christian missionary) source, even though through an academic publisher, written by Anne-Marie Kool of the Evangelical Theological Seminary of Osijek, Croatia:

• Kool, Anne-Marie (2016). "Revisiting Mission in, to and from Europe through Contemporary Image Formation" (PDF). In Charles E. Van Engen (ed.). The State of Missiology Today: Global Innovations in Christian Witness. Downers Grove: IVP Academic. pp. 231–49.
  • p. 1: 《... seeks to give “as nuanced a picture as possible” of the history of Christianity over the last 100 years showing an “unmistakable” general pattern, that Christianity experiences a “severe recession” on the European continent that once was its primary base, while it has undergone “unprecedented growth and expansion” in the other parts of the world.》
  • p. 2: 《... widespread caution is raised with regard to the accuracy of the figures and not to engage in statistical analysis with the data, “without robustness checking… they contain random error and probably some systematic error” ...》
  • p. 9, containing a self-criticism from Kool for having herself made uncritical use of the data: 《The World Christian Database and the World Religion Database serve as sources for the data of the Atlas. With regard to the methodology used, Woodberry is right in emphasizing that “more transparency is needed”. It might well be that the great quantity of details easily silenced possible critical voices. It is peculiar that hardly any serious critical interaction and discussion of the underlying methodology of the Atlas has taken place, neither of its two data providing predecessors. The data are simply taken for granted, as I have taken them for as authoritative in my teaching and research during the last two decades.》
  • p. 12, about systematic overestimation of Christianity in Europe, with allusions that there might be financial reason behind such overestimations: 《The statistical image of Europe that is now communicated only re-enforces the image of Europe as a Christian continent, by not giving insight in the internal diversification and erosion. So why is only this broad definition used? Is it for fear of losing power? Or for maintaining the image of the numerically strong “World C” that provides the human and financial resources to “finish the task”? Are matters of Christian finance playing a role? Out of a sense of empire building? Or of a sense of hidden resistance to accept that Europe also is now also a mission field? Is it out of fear of becoming a minority? Fear for ending up statistically weaker than the Muslims? Or an attempt to cling to the influence of the “Western” over the “non-Western” world, based on an image of Europe as still a massive Christian continent?》
  • p. 13; it is a missionary tool designed for a specific strategy of aggression towards what in American missionary Christianity has been conceptualised as the "10/40 window": 《Eric Friede’s sharp analysis points us to the fact that the Atlas is ultimately written from the perspective of the so-called Great Commission Christians, Christians who engage in and support Christian missions, as many essays address the issue of “how to grow Christianity” in a particular region. The mission strategy invoked is then one of identifying within Global Christianity the resources needed for the task, the human resources, the GCC Christians, as well as the Christian finances that could make this enterprise work. An assessment of major tools needed for finishing this task is offered in subsequent sections, like Bible translation is followed by a section on Evangelization, with a division of the world in A, B and C, according to the level “being evangelized”. Statistics are used to motivate missionaries and national workers to mission action with Christian mission being reduced to a manageable enterprise with a dominant quantitative approach and a well-defined pragmatic orientation, “as a typical school of thought coming from modern United States”.》 Kool makes largely reference to: Eric Friede, "Book Review. Atlas of Global Christianity: 1910-2010, by Johnson, T.M. & Ross, K.R. (Eds.), 2010", Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, Theological Librarianship 3(1), 2010.

Among other sources, some of which we have already analysed, Kool makes reference to:

• Brierley, Peter. (2010). "World Religion Database: Detail Beyond Belief!". International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 34 (1): 18–20.
  • I can't access the paper at the moment. However, it is a critical assessment, once again coming from a missionary journal, that raises doubts as to the reliability of the WRD on the basis of the mismatch of the latter's data (purportedly based on censuses) with actual data from censuses, in particular those of the UK. Judd Birdsall and Lori Beaman, in Faith in Numbers: Can we Trust Quantitative Data on Religious Affiliation and Religious Freedom?, Transatlantic Policy Network on Religion & Diplomacy, 22 June 2020, at p. 3 say that the WRD, despite being widely cited and impressive, "comes with limitations. In his review of the Database, the statistician Peter Brierley pointed out that for the United Kingdom the Database used denominational reports, such as Church of England baptismal records, rather than the UK census figures to calculate affiliation. A tally of denominational reporting showed that 82% of Britons were Christian, whereas only 72% of them claimed to be Christian in the UK census". (n.b. Brierley makes reference to the UK 2001 census data, showing that already in 2001 the WRD overestimated Christianity in the UK by at least 10%).

Æo (talk) 22:13, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Appreciate the references. However, again these do not impact WRD much at all. The Kool source on the Atlas mentions that WRD data is used by the Atlas, not that WRD is the Atlas or that the goal of the Atlas was the same as WRD. Just like Pew uses WRD, it makes no sense to associate Pew's agendas with WRD's database just because one uses the other. The Atlas' goal and interpretations numerical data is different than WRD and Kool rightly focuses on the contents of the Atlas, instead of WRD (WRD is not mentioned much throughout the paper). WRD is one data set and is not the only one and attribution solves any issues here on wikipedia. You keep on thinking that these papers are calling for the removal of WRD when they are actually trying to improve it and they continuously praise it overall. They all agree that it is very valuable and merely say that there are limitations to it - just as the same applies to Pew, Gallup, and censuses all around the world. This is nothing new in this and if you ever look at the numbers of nonreligion, for example; from Pew, Gallup, and Cenuses, there are significant discrepancies to be found there between these datasets (easy examples include China, Japan, and numerous countries in Europe like Netherlands and Sweden). They are all flawed and limited. None stands as the authority. Stuff like "spiritual but not religious" messes up the numbers because religion is not perceived in Western sense in most of the world.

If we want to criticize census data, there are papers showing the limitations and issues with that too . Censuses get quantity - but they do not guarantee quality of course. In fact Pew's methodology mentions the limitations of surveys and census too (America has not asked on religion for 70 years, for example). Pew clearly states that "Censuses and nationally representative surveys can provide valid and reliable measures of religious landscapes when they are conducted following the best practices of social science research. Valid measurement in censuses and surveys also requires that respondents are free to provide information without fear of negative governmental or social consequences. However, variation in methods among censuses and surveys (including sampling, question wording, response categories and period of data collection) can lead to variation in results. Social, cultural or political factors also may affect how answers to census and survey questions are provided and recorded." Its pretty obvious that big variations exist between just these datasets alone. Anyways, Pew also mention that they used WRD data for 57 countries as a supplement in their methodology in that same section. Furthermore, Pew acknowledges that statistical reports from religious groups are also valid measures. "In cases where censuses and surveys lacked sufficient detail on minority groups, the estimates also drew on estimates provided by the World Religion Database, which takes into account other sources of information on religious affiliation, including statistical reports from religious groups themselves."

So I don't see much of an issue in light of this. So all of this thread on equating a critique of a dataset = bad dataset is preposterous when you see that all datasets have problems and issues. In fact, there is research indicating that "religion" is invented in surveys and polls (if you are interested see Wuthnow, Robert (2015). Inventing American Religion : Polls, Surveys, and the Tenuous Quest for a Nation's Faith. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190258900.) We know that WRD is used by Pew, CIA, Encyclopedia Britannica, Islamic researchers, and nonreligious researchers among many others. But most importantly it satisfies wikipedia's RS criteria since it has peer review, and is from Brill, an academic publisher.

You cited Brierley, Peter. (2010). "World Religion Database: Detail Beyond Belief!". International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 34 (1): 18–20.. Cool. It says the same thing - that there are limitations. But keep in mind what he also clearly states "It is always easy to criticize any grand compilation of statistical material by looking at the detail in one particular corner and declaring, "That number doesn't seem right." The sheer scope of this database, however, is incredible, and the fact that it exists and can be extended even further and updated as time goes forward in the framework of a respected university deserves huge applause for those responsible for it. Praise where praise is due, even if I am about to critique it." And after reading it, the overall view is positive to WRD, not negative on WRD.Ramos1990 (talk) 02:21, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

WP:IDNHT:

• You write: "...these do not impact WRD much at all". This is your opinion, not that of Kool, and not my opinion or that of other editors for whom the WRD's reliability is questionable.
• "The Kool source on the Atlas mentions that WRD data is used by the Atlas, not that WRD is the Atlas or that the goal of the Atlas was the same as WRD". Kool is clear: "The World Christian Database and the World Religion Database serve as sources for the data of the Atlas", and the Atlas is produced by the very same Gordon-Conwell team.
• As for the rest of your message, it is completely off-topic and diverts from the main theme. Censuses, Pew, CIA, Britannica (of which the latter two are not statistical organisations and only cite figures taken from other sources) are not what is being discussed here. Indeed, Pew-Templeton's Global Religious Futures is affected by the present discussion since it, just like ARDA/WCD/WRD, is a violation of WP:CRYSTAL (pseudodata projections based on Pew's 2001-2010 cycles of surveys, which are being presented throughout Misplaced Pages as hard data for 2020, 2030, 2040, 2050). The fact that Pew used the WRD for some of its data only detracts from Pew's own quality.

Æo (talk) 14:24, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

The Atlas uses WRD as a source for its data, like you mentioned. So does Pew, Muslim researchers, nonreligion researchers, etc. None of this means that WRD is equivalent to the interpretations, contents, views or arguments presented in the Atlas, Pew, Muslim, nonreligion sources. It is just a dataset. In terms of projections, I am sure you already know that ALL projections are wrong. In the last quarter century it was projected by numerous sources and studies that significant parts of the world would not be religious, due to secularization. But this never happened. Projections are usually wrong. But that is a different discussion.Ramos1990 (talk) 16:57, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Not being sure, whether it is the right place, I am repeating my comment regaridng sources for membership data in religious bodies. They should be used according this priority ranking: 1. Data of the religious body itself if officially counted like in Austria and Germany 2. Census data like in India, Indonesia and many other contries 3. Data from high quality independent surveys like in Spain or US 4. CIA data may fill the remainig gaps 5. Data from missionary sources should be avoided! Nillurcheier (talk) 10:55, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, Nillurcheier, in the next days I will proceed with drawing up a summary rationale and a RfC for the deprecation of missionary and projected data. Æo (talk) 01:07, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Summary of general consensus

According to authoritative assessments provided hereinabove:

• The following ARDA/WCD/WRD alias Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary datasets are WP:SPONSORED by Christian missionary organisations, are therefore WP:PARTISAN and are ultimately WP:QUESTIONED; moreover, they are WP:CRYSTAL, since their data are projections from the past (1900) to the future (2050) made on the basis of unclear and non-empirical methodologies (i.e. they lack concrete grounding in data provided by actual surveys of populations):
  • https://www.gordonconwell.edu/
  • https://worldreligiondatabase.org/
  • https://worldchristiandatabase.org/
  • https://www.thearda.com/
• The Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures dataset (n.b. not other studies made by the Pew Research Center) presents problems similar to those of ARDA/WCD/WRD/GC datasets as to the reliability of projections (WP:CRYSTAL; from 2010 to 2050, and sometimes to 2070 and 2100), although in this case the methodology is somewhat clearer (their projections are based on censuses of the early 2000s and Pew's own surveys conducted prior to 2010, the year from which the GRF data were projected; however, note well that Pew's surveys conducted after 2010, focused on religion demographics of the United States in 2014, 2019 and 2021, have already disproven previous GRF projections):
  • http://www.globalreligiousfutures.org/
  • https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/04/02/religious-projection-table/
  • https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/

N.b. the links may not be exhaustive, as the data have been replicated on various other websites.

The problem with these datasets has arisen since they have been passed off in various Misplaced Pages articles as hard data (which they are not, as they are projections). In any case, there is general consensus, both in the discussion hereinabove and in past discussions on other Misplaced Pages talk pages, that projected data and data produced by missionary organisations should never be used to replace census data and data produced by professional (non-partisan) statistical organisations.--Æo (talk) 22:21, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Correction to the "summary of general consensus"

Parts 1 and 2 of the whole discussion clearly show massive disagreements among editors on everything mentioned in the "Summary of general consensus". There was no consensus.

• The sources used "authoritative assessments provided hereinabove" generally support the use of either of the 3 databases they discuss (ARDA, WCD, WRD). These sources do not depreciate theses databases and some specifically mention that they use these databases themselves. I extracted more quotes at the bottom of some of these sources to show context since it looks like ignoring the positive things they say would distort their assessment. Context matters and transparency is important.

• Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures was not discussed much either and even here there were clear disagreements among editors.

• The notion of using projection data was not discussed much throughout this whole discussion and in the little that was mentioned, there were clearly disagreements among editors.Ramos1990 (talk) 01:13, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Replying to your points,

• 1) There is a general consensus that the sources are questionable, both from the present discussion and past ones. In the present discussion, 5 users have raised concerns, while 2 (i.e. you and Foorgood) have continued to repeat the same things to support the datasets. The consensus, from both the present and past discussions, is that these sources should never replace censuses and surveys from statistical organisations; it is not about deprecation, as we have not reached that point yet, and it will require a RfC.

• 2&3) About GRF and projections, I mainly referred to past discussions. In any case, they are against WP:CRYSTAL and passing them off as actual data is very simply an untruth.

--Æo (talk) 00:49, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

We should leave it up to an uninvolved editor to summarize this whole discussion, not you or me. Other editors have not agreed to your points. Most just provided very few comments early on on what makes the source relaible or not per[REDACTED] criteria. None of which look like they mention your points one methodology at all. And none said these were unreliable explicitly either.Ramos1990 (talk) 01:13, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Ramos1990, I agree about an uninvolved closure. However, my summary was not meant to close the discussion, it was meant to provide a rationale for a RfC as the next step. In any case, I have taken part in various discussions concerning this topic over the years, in many of which Iryna Harpy also participated and supported my views; my idea of consensus is built on those past discussions too.--Æo (talk) 01:28, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

P.S. The issue about methodology was first raised by Erp, then further investigated by me, and is mentioned in particular in one of the excerpts from Anne-Marie Kool's paper.--Æo (talk) 01:59, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

RfC: deprecation of Gordon-Conwell's WRD/WCD/ARDA & Pew-Templeton's GRF

QUESTION: Should we deprecate the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary's World Religion Database/World Christian Database, also published by the Association of Religion Data Archives, as WP:SPONSORED, WP:PARTISAN, WP:QUESTIONABLE & WP:CRYSTAL, and the Pew-Templeton's Global Religious Futures dataset as WP:CRYSTAL, thus as unreliable sources in the field of religion statistics and demographics?

Please see:

• The summary of general consensus as a rationale for deprecation, with the main links to the datasets in question.
• The entire discussion above, and in particular the authoritative critical assessments that have been collected.

Further considerations:

• Note well that this RfC for deprecation is unrelated to the "general consensus" elaborated hereabove, which is built on the discussion further above plus the fragmented consensuses about the same issue reached over the years in various Misplaced Pages talk pages (according to which the datasets in question should never replace data from censuses and statistical organisations, as they are built largely on Christian missionary sources and/or speculative projections, not yielded by actual surveys); this RfC will only enforce that consensus through deprecation, in case the community will express itself in favour of deprecation.
• A RfC for deprecation is needed because, despite the aforementioned fragmented consensuses collected over the years, the datasets in question are periodically re-added to Misplaced Pages articles about countries and religion demographics and passed off as results of actual surveys, and this could be better curbed with a deprecation warning.

Nom:--Æo (talk) 19:27, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Survey (GC's WRD/WCD/ARDA & PT's GRF)

If you came here because someone asked you to, or you read a message on another website, please note that this is not a majority vote, but instead a discussion among Misplaced Pages contributors. Misplaced Pages has policies and guidelines regarding the encyclopedia's content, and consensus (agreement) is gauged based on the merits of the arguments, not by counting votes. However, you are invited to participate and your opinion is welcome. Remember to assume good faith on the part of others and to sign your posts on this page by adding ~~~~ at the end. Note: Comments may be tagged as follows: suspected single-purpose accounts: {{subst:spa|username}}; suspected canvassed users: {{subst:canvassed|username}}; accounts blocked for sockpuppetry: {{subst:csm|username}} or {{subst:csp|username}}.

• I suspect that there has been some WP:CANVASSING here, given that an account with no previous involvement with either this discussion or noticeboard has suddenly returned after weeks of inactivity specifically to express a vote here, and that Foorgood has been provocatively counting the votes. Better to remind everyone that this is not a ballot (WP:POLL) with the tag above, and to Foorgood that he has not "won the dispute" as he has been claiming on some talk pages.--Æo (talk) 07:50, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
• N.b.: Foorgood was banned on 3 December.--Æo (talk) 19:50, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Please respond Yes or No.

• No. I'm not seeing reasoning in your arguments here or in past discussion that are compelling. WP:PARTISAN does not affect the reliability of the source, so I'm not sure why you're bringing that up. I think we can all agree that census data should be used where it can, but when we don't have it, we used the best we can find. Unfortunately, humanity has had to rely on religious sources for centuries, across many fields, because they were often the only institution with the means or authority to collect the data. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 16:58, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Pyrrho the Skipper, the problem of reliability is not that these datasets are "religious sources" (there can be datasets provided by religious organisations that are neutral, such as the membership registers published by churches in Germany and Austria). The problem with these datasets is that they have been widely questioned by academic critique as being driven by a systematic bias. Besides the bias, the main problem for Misplaced Pages is that these datasets are projections and are periodically re-added to Misplaced Pages articles, passed off as hard data, often even overwriting data from censuses and reliable surveys held by statistical organisations (e.g. , , ), so even in those cases (and they are the majority) where there are better and neutral sources (censuses and reliable surveys). A good comparison, and precedent, is the CESNUR, which is currently deprecated because it was ascertained to be driven by a systematic bias in favour of various new religious movements. In any case, deprecation is not a complete blacklisting, and in this case it would only be a warning that these datasets are questioned by RS and there are better sources to use. Æo (talk) 17:46, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

• No Below is ARDAs impressive resume from their about page https://www.thearda.com/about/about-the-arda

Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) strives to democratize access to the best data on religion. Founded as the American Religion Data Archive in 1997 and going online in 1998, the initial archive was targeted at researchers interested in American religion. The targeted audience and the data collection have both greatly expanded since 1998, now including American and international collections submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. The ARDA is generously supported by the Lilly Endowment, the John Templeton Foundation, Chapman University, Pennsylvania State University and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

ARDA Advisory Board: Renata Curty (UC Santa Barbara), Joel Herndon (Duke University), Nathaniel Porter (Virginia Tech), Ruth Tillman (Pennsylvania State University), Andrew Tyner (Center for Open Science)

ARDA Affiliates: US Religion Census, Baylor Univeristy, World Religion Database at Boston University, which is part of Brill publishing: https://www.worldreligiondatabase.org/

Here is The Harvard Library calling World Religion Database "a good source of statistics" https://guides.library.harvard.edu/religion and here's The Stanford Library https://guides.library.stanford.edu/religion saying of Arda "Data included in the ARDA are submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. The ARDA allows you to interactively explore the highest quality data on American and international religion using online features for generating national profiles, GIS maps, church membership overviews, denominational heritage trees, tables, charts, and other reports." University of Oxford Library also recommends both of them https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/collections-and-resources/data/finding-data/themes/religion.

Below are multiple book sources that call ARDA and the World Religion Database "Reliable", including the Oxford handbook and Cambridge University: 12, 3, 4, 5

Foorgood (talk) 19:04, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

• No. Having read through all of this, I think that while some individual sources do question the databases noted above (unsurprising given the controversy of religious topics in general), I think there is no basis for deprecation. Given the number of well-respected institutions that recommend the sources, as noted above, I'm inclined to think these are reliable enough for Misplaced Pages's purposes. --Jayron32 19:18, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

• No… but: I don’t think deprecation is the right answer here… but… Perhaps in-text attribution should be required. This would prevent the data being presented in Misplaced Pages’s voice, and alert the reader that there might be bias in its compilation. Blueboar (talk) 20:01, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

• Yes. For details, see my previous reply to Pyrrho the Skipper, plus my previous discussions with Nillurcheier and Lipwe (, ), and Erp (). Moreover note that, as it has been pointed out by NebY in the discussion above, the fact that the datasets in question are listed on the websites of academic institutions (Foorgood has copy-pasted the very same message which started the entire discussion) does not imply that they are reliable and that said academic institutions support them (Drmies even contacted one such institutions and they confirmed this). The solution invoked by Blueboar ("...alert the reader that there might be bias...") would be possible, in my opinion, only through a deprecation warning.--Æo (talk) 20:38, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Aren't users who initiate RFCs not supposed to make a vote? In any case User Ramos1990 would make 5 NOs to your RFC.. Do you not give up when you have been denied?Foorgood (talk) 21:00, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
    • At WP:RFC I have not found a precise rule that forbids the nom to express his vote (if there is such a norm, I will strike my comment). In any case, it's certainly not a double vote. Æo (talk) 21:13, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
      • Foorgood, don't be silly. Of course the nominator has a say here. Why shouldn't they? And Ramos1990 does not count for five. Drmies (talk) 21:38, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
• Yes--meaning, the numbers simply cannot be accepted at face value, and I'm somewhat more critical here than Blueboar, whose opinion I value, is. If scholars agree that for instance the number of Chinese Christians is inflated, then the basic facts supplied by the database are in question. If I read one more time that "Below is ARDAs impressive resume from their about page" or some such thing I'm going to cry--it is very unfortunate that Foorgood keeps repeating the same points no matter how much scholarship Æo cites. I was pinged here because I contacted one of the librarians on whose page the database was linked, pointed them to the discussion (weeks ago), and they told me they would rephrase the "recommendation" on their website--and noted of course how linking something is HARDLY the same as giving a wholehearted endorsement. Foorgood seems to be deaf to such arguments. Randykitty, I'm wondering if you have an opinion here--and the time to read through this long, long thread. I'll add that for me this is a tricky decision, because Brill is one of those publishers that I tell my students are eminently reliable--and not just because they published my book, haha. Drmies (talk) 21:38, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

  Ah yes I will take your word about the librarian. Maybe I will call another librarian and get a statement that they still recommend WRD.. in any case Ramos already stated he will come respond with a NO so the majority will overrule such an absurd request for deprecation. At that point maybe we will finally stop hearing of such "repetitions" you allude to.

  Foorgood (talk) 22:20, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

• No These databases seem to be respected sources by demographers and are NOT partisan. Brill publishes these and it is academic. These databases are actually used by a diversity of scholars and authoritative sources such as scholars of Islam (e.g. The Oxford Handbook of Politics in Muslim Societies), scholars of nonreligion / irreligion (e.g. Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion: Volume 7), Pew Research Center's uses it in own methodology and database (see Pew's methodology and The Palgrave Handbook of Islam in Africa), is used for CIA estimates (per Woodberry in " authoritative critical assessments" link in RFC), and is used by Encyclopedia Britannica (per Liedhegener in "authoritative critical assessments" link in RFC).

I extracted more quotes from the "authoritative critical assessments" link in RFC because upon closer inspection they do not really support the claims in the RFC. They actually show deep respect for these databases, not depreciation:

- Hsu, Becky; Reynolds, Amy; Hackett, Conrad; Gibbon, James (2008). "Estimating the Religious Composition of All Nations: An Empirical Assessment of the World Christian Database" - here is their overall conclusion: "In sum, we find that the WCD religious composition data are highly correlated with other sources that offer cross-national religious composition estimates. For cross-national studies, the WCD may be more useful than other sources of data because of the inclusion of the largest number of countries, different time periods, and information on all, even small, religious groups." Even in the abstract of the paper they state that World Christian Database highly correlated with 4 other databases: World Values Survey, Pew Global Assessment Project, CIA World Factbook, and the U.S. Department of State.

- Woodberry, Robert D. (2010). "World Religion Database: Impressive - but Improvable" - "Despite these criticisms, we can appreciate the editors’ achievement in applying a relatively consistent methodology across the world. Furthermore, the WRD estimates are highly correlated with other cross-national estimates of religious distribution, a conclusion supported by an article by Becky Hsu and others." and also "Still, despite my criticisms, I will eagerly use these data in my research. I do not know of any better data available on such a broad scale and am amazed at the editors’ ability to provide even tentative estimates of religious distribution by province and people group."

- Brierley, Peter. (2010). "World Religion Database: Detail Beyond Belief!" - "The WRD is a truly remarkable resource for researchers, Christian workers, church leaders, religious academics, and any others wanting to see how the various religions of the world impact both the global and the local scenes. It is always easy to criticize any grand compilation of statistical material by looking at the detail in one particular corner and declaring, "That number doesn't seem right." The sheer scope of this database, however, is incredible, and the fact that it exists and can be extended even further and updated as time goes forward in the framework of a respected university deserves huge applause for those responsible for it. Praise where praise is due, even if I am about to critique it."

As others and I have mentioned, ATTRIBUTION would resolve any issues since it would not put anything from any demography source in wikipedia's voice. All sources should be attributed since none are the last word on religious demography.Ramos1990 (talk) 05:30, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

• Yes on World Religion Database with a caveat. In my own examination of the database, I think the detail is beyond belief and I think they fail the Accurate part of CRAAP (https://guides.library.illinoisstate.edu/evaluating/craap) in that they (a) fail to list their sources or describe how they got their numbers in at least a few cases (e.g., North Korea), (b) they are precise to single digits in cases where that is extremely unlikely to be accurate (again North Korea), (c) they don't give error bars. I also noted very few peer reviewed articles that use the data outside of Christian mission related articles. The caveat, no scholar has taken them to task in a public take down. I note that Johnson and Grim are aware of the issues of getting accurate data; it just isn't reflected in the data. If it is determined that World Religion Database is a 'reliable' enough source, I strongly suggest an article on it so readers can make their own evaluations. However, I think it is better to say we lack information on religious demographics rather than use what might not be good. On ARDA, it is a database repository and each database within it must be evaluated on its own merits; ARDA itself is not a source and explicitly says the actual source should be cited. --Erp (talk) 06:37, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

  The CRAAP test is really relevant. I think something similar, or the CRAAP itself, should be adopted as part of the WP:RS policy. Æo (talk) 18:45, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

• No As already mentioned by a few here, Brill is an academic publisher for these databases : see and and do not look partisan as is claimed in the RFC since their databases extensively use empirical data from secular sources like general censuses, polls, surveys in addition to the field records which are quite unique (see for example ). On top of the that, the "criticism" sources mentioned in the RFC as "authoritative critical assessments" are overall constructive criticisms that are friendly to these databases to the point that yes, they either show eagerness to use these databases themselves or give praise to it despite any quibbles. The Hsu 2008 paper clearly states positive vibes "We test the reliability of the WCD by comparing its religious composition estimates to four other data sources (World Values Survey, Pew Global Assessment Project, CIA World Factbook, and the U.S. Department of State), finding that estimates are highly correlated." and also "Religious composition estimates in the WCD are generally plausible and consistent with other data sets." This should not be ignored since that supposed "criticism" paper clearly shows the opposite of the RFC. Like others have mentioned, attribution would be a good practice when using demographic data from any source since no one source is the authority in religion demographics either way. Wareon (talk) 16:45, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

  They do not use census data. That description is misleading. Compare ARDA/WRD Australia to Australia 2021 Census; ARDA/WRD Canada to Canada 2021 Census; ARDA/WRD Switzerland to Switzerland 2020 Census; ARDA/WRD Estonia to Estonia 2021 Census, and so on.

  Indeed, among the critical sources provided in the discussion above, you find, for instance, that:

  • Woodberry 2010: ...the editors seem to have constructed their estimates of religious distribution primarily from surveys of denominations and missionaries, not from censuses or representative surveys of individuals....
  • Liedhegener & Odermatt 2013, p. 9: ...a systematic bias of its data in favor of Christianity is a major, although controversial point of criticism....
  • Hsu et al. 2008, p. 684: ...Figure 1 shows that the WCD tends to overestimate percent Christian relative to the other data sets. Scatterplots show that the majority of the points lie above the y x line, indicating the WCD estimate for percent Christian within countries is generally higher than the other estimates. Although the bias is slight, it is consistent, and consequently, the WCD estimates a higher ratio of Christians in the world. ... On the other hand, the WCD likely underestimates percent Muslim in former Communist countries and countries with popular syncretistic and traditional religions....

  The WCD/WRD correlates with other datasets for statistics about certain religions but not others; in particular, there is a systematic overestimation of Christianity in every country of the world (e.g. the statistics for Estonia, where Protestants are 10% according to the national census, and 24% according to WCD/WRD projection). Æo (talk) 17:17, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

  6 no's to 3 yes's. I want to know at what point will AEO accept the wiki community's decision and stop griping for his opinion to be accepted? Foorgood (talk) 21:56, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

• No: I do not see any reason for a witch hunt. The database is used often by religionists (religionistic = scientific viewpoint on religions, reached on universities, etc) for a quick orientation and to get exact information, which is almost not possible to get elsewhere therefore it is a valuable source. Comparison with other cases on the noticeboard is improper as each case is simply different and the consensus could change over time. So, quickly looking at the case, it looks like there could be some political agenda behind the proposal, but I do not know the case in detail, nor the editor, so I could not tell. But in my opinion, religious intolerance, like other intolerances, should not have any space on Misplaced Pages. --Dee (talk) 17:04, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

  There is no "witch hunt" or "political agenda" here, certainly not from my part. The WCD/WRD, otherwise, has been proven by WP:RS to have a precise agenda. This RfC for deprecation is precisely for the sake of "exact information" and facts, which the WCD/WRD has been abundantly proven not to represent, and has been driven by past consensus and discussions. Exact information is not "...almost not possible to get elsewhere...": official censuses yield exact information on religions and other demographics for most countries. Æo (talk) 18:55, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

  Notice not only demographics in the database, but religion-related info as well, which is not at all available in the official censuses. Pls, check that there are trees in the forest. --Dee (talk) 19:16, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

  P.S. Further evidence: compare ARDA/WRD Manx 2021 data (84.1% Christian) with 2021 Manx Census data (54.7% Christian). A 30% overestimation. Æo (talk) 19:01, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

  9 nos to 3 yes's. This is exactly a witch hunt against a supposed "Christian" source yet AEO has already been told World Religion Database is not even currently affiliated with World Christian Database in any way. Does he not understand the word NO? No idea why Drmies joined this witch hunt either but it's embarrassing. Foorgood (talk) 16:20, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

• No but Pew-Templeton has to be treated with greater caution than I often see. Two examples from my experience, quite apart from the discussion above: editors seeking statistics use figures for 2020 without noting (or maybe knowing) that they're old projections. Their methodology tends to minimise irreligious numbers, which I do see as in accordance with an aim to emphasise that religion is compatible with science and the modern world. If deprecation was a milder term in Misplaced Pages, I would say yes. NebY (talk) 20:42, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
• No. These databases are used by researchers in politics, sociology and demography. Brill is known as a reliable publisher and ARDA seems to be a usable resource and does have many academics from numerous institutions running it. From[REDACTED] policy, I see no issues on it a reliable source and I don't see why it would be seen as problematic. Just attribute like another editor has mentioned.--عبد المسيح (talk) 10:53, 30 November 2022 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that عبد المسيح (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. — عبد المسيح (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

• This user had been inactive for weeks before voting here on 30 November (and making another comment on the talk page of an article I had been working on), wherupon they became inactive again. This account was suspected to be a sockpuppet of Jobas in May 2021, but never checked (see: Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Jobas/Archive#26 May 2021). Tagging Acroterion and Doug Weller, to whom I have already reported concerns about this.--Æo (talk) 19:50, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Genspect

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Are publications and declarations by Genspect reliable sources when commenting on transgender medicine and other transgender topics? Newimpartial (talk) 22:05, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Survey (Genspect)

• No, they are so far from the science that they cannot be taken seriously. XOR'easter (talk) 22:40, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
• Too broad - For medicine? No. But what is meant by “transgender topics”? Please be more specific. Blueboar (talk) 22:57, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

  The language, and hence the intended overall scope, of this filing is identical to those for The Economist, The Telegraph and The Times above. If specific examples would be helpful, I would be happy to offer relevant diffs. :) Newimpartial (talk) 23:02, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

The wording of the others mentioned is of the form "What best describes ...'s news coverage of transgender topics". EddieHugh (talk) 19:10, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

• No They have a position that is in opposition to evidence-based care and is unwavering. A Suitable source for medical topics would base its positions upon the latest evidence, rather than having a fixed position.— rsjaffe 🗣️ 00:58, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• Generally No They're absolutely not a reliable source by themselves. Stuff they put out can be used as a source for the fact that they said something or that they believe something, but not for the truth of the matter asserted. Loki (talk) 01:01, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• No Similar to asking if the Heritage Foundation is a reliable source. You can attribute statements from them, I suppose, though DUE considerations would come into play in such a case. But, otherwise, no, not a reliable source for any medical or scientific topic. Silverseren 01:11, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• Strong No They can be attributed in limited DUE instances where proper, however for general reliability of transgender topics and medicine, definitely not. ~Gwennie🐈｟💬 📋｠ 01:18, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• Strong no - their publications oppose the opinions of multiple legitimate medical associations. They are political publications, not medical ones. Skyerise (talk) 02:10, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• No, generally contrary to medical consensus on the topic. They would be reliable only for attributed positions of the organization itself, but not for general factual statements. Seraphimblade 04:40, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• No no advocacy group is a WP:MEDRS source. Yes for aboutself etc. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 11:18, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• Has anyone ever seriously proposed using things published by Genspect in an article, or is this just an RfC to make a WP:POINT about The Economist/The Daily Telegraph/The Times? Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 20:14, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  Presumably Stella O'Malley was making such a proposal in her comments about Misplaced Pages coverage of transgender topics documented here. Newimpartial (talk) 21:24, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  @Newimpartial: It sounds like when Stella O'Malley said Consequently, articles by gender extremists such as Lee Leveille, are favoured over the more conventional Sunday Times that she wished to have articles by The Sunday Times included on Misplaced Pages (the subject of an RfC we're currently having). Regardless, she said this on the Genspect website, not onwiki. We do not need to have an RfC every time someone complains about Misplaced Pages on their website. This is a waste of time and so my !vote is No with a WP:SNOWCLOSE per WP:SPS.

  That being said, this shouldn't be construed as endorsing your fairly obvious plan of action to designate otherwise reliable newspaper articles as unreliable sources because they use a quote from Genspect. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 17:48, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  Obviously, that is not my plan. But when an otherwise WP:RS decides that it is going to reserve essentially all of its news reaction/"expert" commentary on a topic for sources known to be unreliable and to be associated with a certain extreme viewpoint on that topic, that form of bias is worth noting, innit? If we were talking about 2020 election denialists or holocaust skeptics, I find it hard to believe we would be seeing so much "but BOTHSIDES!" sentiment. Newimpartial (talk) 18:20, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  @Newimpartial: It's certainly a bold choice to compare Genspect to people who deny the Holocaust. Is that hyperbole or do you really believe we should treat them as being in the same category? Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 21:30, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  Today I was alleged by an IP editor to have "multiple learning disabilities" because of my gender identity. Genspect holds essentially the same view, which is also that expressed by a recent ex-admin at RfA. The factual basis of gender identity is not really any more in doubt in the RS literature than the factual basis of the holocaust or the 2020 US presidential election, in spite of what certain editors and admkna would prefer to believe. Newimpartial (talk) 21:42, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• No, excepting only limited use per WP:ABOUTSELF, and even then only when qualified that they are a political advocacy group that works against prevailing medical consensus. Should not be considered WP:MEDRS. --Jayron32 14:09, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
• No, items published by GENSPECT should not be used for facts about transgender medicine, as this is not WP:MEDRS and it should not be used for biomedical information. For non-medical topics on trans issues, it's a partisan advocacy organization and we generally should not be using it as a source for facts in Misplaced Pages articles as such, certainly not to support contentious material about related BLPs. I don't know what "declarations" means in this context, but they are certainly reliable for their own opinion if that's what it's getting at. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 22:57, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Threaded discussion (Genspect)

• Like any other advocacy group, they are reliable as a primary source for statements as to the views of the organization (per WP:ABOUTSELF). The issue isn’t (or shouldn’t be) whether they are reliable, but rather how much WEIGHT to give their views (if any). That is a function of WP:DUE, and is better discussed at WP:NPOV/N. Blueboar (talk) 21:20, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  This. It should be treated as any other advocacy group. MarioGom (talk) 07:50, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Are publications associated with the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine reliable sources when commenting on transgender medicine and other transgender topics? Newimpartial (talk) 22:07, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Survey (SEBGM)

• No — yet another pseudomedical advocacy group. XOR'easter (talk) 22:43, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
• No Same rationale as XOR'easter.— rsjaffe 🗣️ 01:01, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• Generally No Like any WP:SPS they can be used for (some) information about themselves but definitely not for the truth of things they assert. Loki (talk) 01:05, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• No Not an actual scientific organization, though they pretend to be. Should be treated as any other pseudoscience group is. Ie not reliable and there needs to be a really good DUE reason to even use them with attribution. Silverseren 01:12, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• No It's quite fringy. ~Gwennie🐈｟💬 📋｠ 01:25, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• Strong no - their publications oppose the opinions of multiple legitimate medical associations. They are political publications, not medical ones. Skyerise (talk) 02:11, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• No no advocacy group is a WP:MEDRS source. Yes for aboutself etc. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 11:21, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• Yes - an "international group of over 100 clinicians and researchers." Clearly not "pseudomedical" as baselessly described by a couple editors. - LilySophie (talk) 14:58, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  Baselessly? Newimpartial (talk) 15:17, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

• Obviously not. Pseudoscientific junk. Bon courage (talk) 15:14, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• No and WP:SNOW close. Nobody is arguing that we should be using WP:SPS in articles. This is an RfC designed to make a WP:POINT. It's not even an interesting or even controversial point. It's to prove some arcane point in the above discussion on The Economist because at some point in that discussion the reliability of SEBGM was argued about. As Newimpartial said, Also, I meant to point out that your description of James Cantor and other Genspect devotees as subject-matter experts strikes me as hilarious, clueless and contemptible all at once. Congratulations, you have successfully WP:POINTed that out with something that could've been a single RSN post and not a full-blown RfC. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 20:25, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• Absolutely not - Does not conform to our standards for expert consensus organizations, is ideologically based, and disagrees with the mainstream consensus on this topic. Analogous to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons — Shibbolethink 20:28, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• No, only for WP:ABOUTSELF, and even so only when clearly qualified that they are an advocacy group that fights against medical consensus. Should never be considered reliable under WP:MEDRS guidelines. --Jayron32 14:06, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
• Depends on what "associated with" means in this context; a paper written by a qualified researcher associated with the group and published as a peer-reviewed review paper or meta-analysis in an otherwise reliable journal probably meets WP:MEDRS. If this RfC is narrowly construed to items directly published by the society, no, they should not be used for facts about transgender medicine, as this is an advocacy group and not WP:MEDRS; it should not be used for biomedical information. For non-medical topics on trans issues, it's an advocacy organization and we generally should not be using it as a source for facts in Misplaced Pages articles as such, certainly not to support contentious material about related BLPs. It's obviously reliable for its own opinion as a primary source, but that's a tautology and not really relevant analysis standard here. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 23:10, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
• No. Without prejudice of it being used with in-text attribution, when WP:DUE. Same as with Genspect. MarioGom (talk) 07:52, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Threaded discussion (SEBGM)

Question - what prompted this RfC and the one above it on Genspect? Is anyone anywhere, or any article, using this in anything other than an WP:ABOUTSELF fashion? Crossroads 01:20, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

The question was most recently asked (by Springee) here. It has previously come up in this discussion, among others. Newimpartial (talk) 02:07, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

So basically you aren't answering my question but instead are creating a pointy RfC. It's clear you have a strong POV on this subject and are willing to make that POV clear with many, many edits. That said, if three different British news sources, each well respected, are now all "anti-trans" then perhaps the issue isn't that they are magically unreliable in this one area, rather that they don't agree with sources you like. As for these groups, they are advocacy groups and thus their comments, right or wrong, should be largely treated as self published like just about any other advocacy organization. Springee (talk) 02:51, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Are you proposing that their statements should have the same status as, say, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health? Or are you distinguishing between advocacy groups and professional organizations, and classifying Genspect and SEBGM as advocacy groups? I also feel compelled to point out that, in terms of social epistemology, the difference between WPATH and SEBGM is not accurately characterized as WPATH being a source (I) like and SEBGM not being one. Newimpartial (talk) 03:00, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

It does seem to me that WPATH is an advocacy group. It describes itself as the "World" professional association, but its members seem to be almost entirely from the United States. According to its own website, "Professionals include anyone working in disciplines such as medicine, psychology, law, social work, counseling, psychotherapy, family studies, sociology, ..." so it is certainly not composed of qualified physicians. In general this whole subject arouses strong opinions on multiple sides, and perhaps is not yet mature enough for an encyclopedia article at all. Insulation2 (talk) 09:51, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Advocacy groups should all, largely be treated the same way. We don't cite them directly. We have to wait for RSs to cite them and then we only cite what the RS cited. Springee (talk) 03:07, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Are you saying that you consider WPATH to be an advocacy group, then? Because I don't think consensus reality (or community consensus) agrees with you about that. Newimpartial (talk) 03:10, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

WPATH is affiliated with and subserviant to several regional organizations including the ASIAPATH, EUPATH, and USPATH. "majority citizenship of membership" is not how we determine the reliability of an organization. See, for example, the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) whose executive membership also comes mostly from the US. But we still respect their classifications when it comes to species differentiation and naming of viruses on Misplaced Pages. — Shibbolethink 16:54, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

And in terms of answering (your) question, you were raising the question whether the groups platformed by The Economist, which I characterized in the discussion above as "FRINGE", were in fact to be considered reliable. That isn't a question to be answered by my personal opinion but rather community consensus, which can be ascertained on this venue. Nothing POINTey about it - I'm not sure whether you've actually read WP:POINT recently, given your statement here. Newimpartial (talk) 03:06, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

No, you were claiming the Economist was fringe because you didn't like the groups they agreed with. That doesn't make the Economist fringe. It may mean that the particular claim of even an otherwise fringe group shouldn't be treated as such. Anyway, it would be best if you didn't bludgeon the discussion so much. Springee (talk) 03:09, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

In this discussion I have only responded to your comments when they addressed me directly; I don't think BLUDGEON applies to that. And yes, if The Economist consistently cites spokespeople representing FRINGE groups on a certain issue, that makes them FRINGE on that issue. If the magazine consistently platformed conspiracy theorists concerning the 2020 US election, that would indeed make them a FRINGE source on that topic. This seems self-evident to me. Newimpartial (talk) 03:15, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Wow, you're really revealing your own bias here, Springee. And not in the pro-science sense. Are you really claiming WPATH is an advocacy group? Following from your statement here, are you saying that the actual academic sources calling out the bias of British newspapers in this subject area don't matter because said newspapers are reliable no matter what? Silverseren 03:18, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

If you say so. Look, even the American Cancer Association should be treated like an advocacy group. We should be very careful about directly attributing views to any such group. As for the academic sources, we would have to look at them on a case by case basis. I think you and Newimpartial are trying to take comments to an illogical extreme. The discussions above certainly have not shown that we should treat these UK based sources as unreliable for this topic in general. That doesn't mean specific articles/claims can't be found to be unreliable. However, we should also be careful that we aren't discounting such claims simply because we don't agree with them. Springee (talk) 03:36, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Springee, are you referring to the American Cancer Society or the American Association for Cancer Research? The former is indeed an advocacy group, but the latter is a professional body of experts. Newimpartial (talk) 03:44, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, the ACS is what I was thinking of. Yes, they are a professional organization but one of the things they do is advocate for their cause. Springee (talk) 04:29, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

The activity of WPATH corresponds to that of the AACR, not the ACS, so I'm afraid the analogy you are making here doesn't really support your position. Newimpartial (talk) 04:57, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

If you say so. Not that this supports your case for claiming the UK media sources are unreliable for trans issues which is your stated reason for opening this set of POINTY RfCs. Springee (talk) 05:12, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

You misunderstand my reason for filing, then. I simply want the community to decide whether these sources are reliable. You suggested above that because The Economist platforms them, that maybe they are seen as authoritative - if the community were to support that view, I wouldn't want to be out of touch with consensus. Newimpartial (talk) 05:23, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, no, this is a POINTY RfC. Would you have even bothered were it not for the fact that your arguments aren't swaying unconvinced editors above? Springee (talk) 05:56, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

WP:POINT isn't just about having a point, it's about disrupting Misplaced Pages to illustrate a point. In fact, the thing it specifically suggests you're supposed to do if you feel that a particular source does not meet Misplaced Pages standards is express your concerns on the talk pages of articles which cite it, or at the reliable sources noticeboard.

I think Newimpartial pretty clearly does have a purpose behind this RFC, but that purpose is clearly for the benefit of the encyclopedia: namely, preventing people from trying to smuggle in terrible sources. And they clearly had reason to do so, because you, specifically, suggested that those terrible sources were not so terrible after all. Loki (talk) 07:07, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Can you point to someplace where this source was being used incorrectly? Newimpartial's RfC confuses if an advocacy group's claims should be treated as reliable with if they are correct or not. Thus a not reliable answer here doesn't answer if the ideas stated by the group are fringe or not. Yes, this is a POINTY RfC. Springee (talk) 11:17, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

What? If an advocacy group is not known to be a reliable source (except as a source for his own views) then its claims should not be treated as reliable. If the conclusion of this filing expresses a community consensus that its views are not grounded in science, then that is worth knowing. No WP:POINT whatsoever. Newimpartial (talk) 15:25, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

When it comes to citing the opinions of advocacy groups, their own publications are actually the single MOST reliable source possible. Other sources (reporting on their views) may omit details present in the original - or may introduce their own bias, thus misrepresenting the opinion expressed in original. This is why we have WP:ABOUTSELF to begin with.

However, reliability is not the be-all-and-end-all of inclusion. We ALSO have WP:DUE WEIGHT. We have to ask whether the view of the advocacy group significant enough to mention (and if so, how much article space do we give it?… a short sentence? A full paragraph? A sub-section?). THAT depends on the specific context… which article we are talking about? which statement by the advocacy group? The same statement might be DUE in one article, and completely UNDUE in another.

The flaw with this RFC is that it focuses on reliability when it should be focused on DUE WEIGHT. Blueboar (talk) 15:48, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Do you have ideas on how to formulate filings to address DUE WEIGHT in particular? I'm thinking not just of these two sources, but also The Economist on the same issues (where it relies on experts drawn from these two groups). Newimpartial (talk) 16:01, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps you should start by showing where these organizations have been used as sources for a disputed claim. If editors aren't citing these sources then this RfC is a waste of time. Springee (talk) 16:07, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Springee, you clearly expressed the view (above) that if The Economist is presenting these sources as reliable we should revisit whether the community regards them as such. That's all I am doing. Newimpartial (talk) 15:30, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of Ukraine

The founder and chief editor of Encyclopedia of Ukraine was a major Nazi collaborator Volodymyr Kubijovyč who during the war worked closely under Hans Frank in GG. Among other things Volodymyr Kubijovyč was an originator and funder of 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS responsible for war atrocities. After the war Kubijovyč settled in the West.

Is the Encyclopedia of Ukraine a reliable source for WW2 history?

Example:

I’ll present you an article about Ukrainian Nazi collaborator and war criminal Roman Shukhevych responsible for the massacres of approximately 100,000 civilians.

• This is what we say about Roman Shukhevych
• This is what Encyclopedia of Ukraine says about Roman Shukhevych

Notice that in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine there is not a single word about the atrocities Shukhevych committed. Examples of such white-washing in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine are plenty, including the article about Kubijovyč himself, were he describes himself as: exceptional organizer and statesman (while working for the Nazis). - GizzyCatBella🍁 08:48, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

I have posted a link to this discussion at Talk:Encyclopedia of Ukraine and the WikiProjects it belongs to: Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Ukraine, Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Reference works, and Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Books.  —Michael Z. 04:38, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Unlikely Allies covers the issue and role of Volodymyr Kubiiovych in details. quote - ..reconstructs and contextualizes the activities of the Ukrainian Central Committee (UTs) in Krakow under Volodymyr Kubiiovych, the top Ukrainian collaborator in occupied Poland. - GizzyCatBella🍁 20:46, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

What does it say about the Encyclopedia of Ukraine as a reliable source on WWII?  —Michael Z. 22:01, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Can you research the editors of the subjects listed in Category:German encyclopedias next? Gotta be some Nazis there.  —Michael Z. 22:04, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

@Mzajac Can you move your comments into the Discussion section, this is not a please for it. Thanks - GizzyCatBella🍁 22:18, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

No. I’m commenting directly to your problematic statement in the RFC. You didn’t write “a brief, neutral statement of or question about the issue” per WP:RFCST, so it’s on you. —Michael Z. 23:59, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Hm. I see I was replying to a comment posted two days after the RFC, anyway. But your RFC statement is factually incorrect where it states that Kubijovyč “describes himself” as something in an article that he didn’t write, so I think you should strike that out before it’s challenged with more clutter.  —Michael Z. 00:04, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Post your opinion below please

• No - not for the WW2 history. For everything else, perhaps yes. - GizzyCatBella🍁 09:18, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Rossoliński-Liebe writes:

• Kubijovyč was .. sharing with the Nazis many political convictions, including antisemitism and other racism. On 18 April 1941, he petitioned General Governor Hans Frank to purge “Polish and Jewish elements” from the ethnic Ukrainian territories within the General Government. (page 155)
• The Germans considered Kubiiovych to be more loyal to them and thus more appropriate for a Ukrainian leader.. (page 177)
• Kubiiovych asked Hans Frank, head of the General Government, to set up an ethnically pure Ukrainian enclave there, free from Jews and Poles...Kubiiovych asked Frank for a “Ukrainian National Army” or Ukrainian Wehrmacht, which would fight alongside the German Wehrmacht against the Red Army and the “Jewified English-American plutocracy”..Kubiiovych asked Frank to have “a very significant part of confiscated Jewish wealth turned over to the Ukrainian people. (page 226)
• ... that in the first Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Kubiiovych presented a nationalist narrative of the Second World War in Ukraine and did not even include an entry on the Holocaust. (page 405) -

GizzyCatBella🍁 10:10, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

This is a clear example of an ad hominem attack. It doesn’t say a single word about the source under discussion based on reliable sources or academic reviews.

The various edition of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine were edited and written by hundreds of contributors. Kubijovyč died in 1985, before the completion of the final English-language version, a product of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta Faculty of Arts and published by the University of Toronto Press. It is unreal to imply it is some kind of Nazi publication.

It’s true that the much shorter Shukhevych article doesn’t cover alleged UPA atrocities, on which subject Misplaced Pages’s article goes on at length, yet still fails to give a satisfying summary of the difficult Ukrainian politics of memory surrounding WWII between the Nazi and communist empires, a subject that remains complicated and controversial (and currently clouded by the mass of war propaganda). So what does, e.g., Britannica say?

The ad hominem arguments are grasping at straws to attack the encyclopedia.

For example: “in the first Encyclopedia of Ukrainian” (1st ed. 1949–1952, presumably) “did not even include an entry on the Holocaust.” Hm, Britannica, for example, added an article on the Holocaust in 1998. Have we politically vetted the personal history and opinions of Britannica’s first managing editor to determine whether it is an acceptable source? The Internet edition of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine has an article on the Holocaust. Let’s do the same for other major sources?

Kubijovyč “describes himself as” nothing. The authors of the article are clearly identified at the bottom.  —Michael Z. 19:32, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that Britannica had an an article on the Holocaust before 1998, this is the year when it was "added to new online database." The article on London was added in 1998 as well, so probably they just imported their existing articles en masse. Alaexis_¿question? 20:21, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Maybe so. I would be curious when, and highly doubt it was by 1952 since the Library of Congress added the subject heading in 1968 and I don’t believe the name was widely known in English until 1978. Anyway, this argument is absolute pants. —Michael Z. 20:41, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

More on usage of the name in Names of the Holocaust#The Holocaust.  —Michael Z. 21:10, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

• Yes  The Encyclopedia of Ukraine is a better source on Ukraine in WWII than practically any other single source. The field of history is barely sorting out Ukrainian memory politics now, in the midst of a blizzard of anti-Ukrainian war propaganda, and it is unfair to pick on a suspected blind spot to disqualify the work, without any reference to reliable sources or academic reviews of it. As mentioned in discussion below, it is a tertiary source, extremely useful, but as such we should supplement or replace it with secondary sources when we can. —Michael Z. 20:47, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

  Some reviews :

  • Dmytro M. Shtohryn and Robert H. Burger, “Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Volume 1: A-F. Edited by Volodymyr Kubijovyč et al.,” Slavic Review, v 45, n 1 (Spring 1986), pp 106–108.

    “This first of four volumes of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine is the most advanced reference work on Ukraine in the English language.”

  • James Cracraft, “Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Volume II: G–K. Edited by Volodymyr Kubijovyč,” Slavic Review, v 48, n 2 (Summer 1989), pp 318–19.

    “This being said, the present volume is a most worthy effort. If it fairly represents the others in the series (only the first, which I have not seen, has so far appeared), this Encyclopedia of Ukraine will be the standard reference work for all things Ukrainian for some time to come. Students of Russia, Poland, and the rest of Eastern Europe will find it a most useful compendium as well. Any library supporting serious work in these fields should want to have it . . .”

  • Myroslav Shkandrij, “Danylo Husar Struk, editor in chief. Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Volumes 3–5,” Journal of Ukrainian Studies, v 18, n 1 (Summer 1993): pp 225–.

    “Ukrainian scholarship can be a fractious business, but the Encyclopedia appears to have won the admiration, indeed the enthusiastic endorsement, of almost all reviewers.”

  • Oleh Gerus, “Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Volume III, edited by Danylo Husar Struk” (book review), Canadian Journal of History/Annales Canadiennes d’Histoire, v 29, n 2 (August 1, 1994): pp 446–449.

    “As far as one can determine, there are no major errors in this volume. The qualitative composition of the editorial board should assure the reader of the credibility of the encyclopaedia.”

   —Michael Z. 21:04, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

  More sources:

  • Ivashkiv, Roman (2020-11-09). "Translator's Essay". Quiet Spiders of the Hidden Soul. Academic Studies Press. doi:10.1515/9781644693964-035/html. ISBN 978-1-64469-396-4. "Explanations of historical and cultural concepts and brief biographical data about Ukrainian writers and public figures come primarily from the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (hosted by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies), one of the most credible and comprehensive yet also concise online sources about Ukraine."
  • Starko, Vasyl (September 2007). "Historical Dictionary of Ukraine, Zenon E. Kohut, Bohdan Y. Nebesio and Myroslav Yurkevich (Lanham, MD, Toronto, Oxford: Scarecrow Press, 2005), liii, 854 pp". Nationalities Papers. 34 (5): 649–651. doi:10.1017/S0090599200011533. ISSN 0090-5992. "The six-volume Encyclopedia of Ukraine (Toronto, 1984-2001) is the most comprehensive compendium of information on Ukraine in English...Its reliance on many years of research and work that went into the Encyclopedia has resulted in remarkably well-balanced, clear presentation."

  Tristario (talk) 07:51, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

  Addressing one of the few criticisms of the actual source rather than ad hominem comes from Rossoliński-Liebe 2014:452.

  This project, on the one hand, gave rise to a useful and authoritative encyclopedia of Ukrainian history, but, on the other hand, it presented a nationalist narrative of the Second World War in Ukraine and did not even include an entry on the Holocaust”

  This is presented unfairly as a criticism (perhaps exemplifying the criticisms of and controversies surrounding Rossoliński-Liebe’s book).

  Useful and authoritative.  Okay (but it is not only an encyclopedia of history).

  Nationalist narrative.  Nationalism is not inherently negative and has a range of meanings including “identification with one’s own nation” and “advocacy of or support for the political independence of a nation.” That the Encyclopedia of Ukraine is a national encyclopedia is self-evident from its title. Our article encyclopedia gives other examples: the Great Soviet Encyclopedia and Encyclopaedia Judaica.

  No “Holocaust” entry.  The Encyclopedia of Ukraine was first published in Ukrainian starting in 1949 when the name Holocaust wasn’t even used as we know it today (Names of the Holocaust tells us that it first became a Library of Congress subject heading in 1968 and became popularly recognized from 1978.) The full English-language translation of the dictionary part was a monumental 5-volume direct derivative started in 1984. The entry “Holocaust” by Dieter Pohl was added to the online version in 2007. Perhaps it can be accepted that an entire relatively new field of study wasn’t added to an already ambitious print translation project conducted by a diaspora in exile.

  But is it a valid criticism at all? Compare to an even bigger and presumably much better-funded project:

  • 1973, Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 11, 14th revised ed., p 605

    Entry “Holmium” followed by “Holography”

  • 1974, Encyclopedia Britannica Micropedia, Volume V, 15th ed., pp 94–95

    The full text of the entry, with uncapitalized title: “holocaust, usually a sacrifice or destruction by fire. The term is also used to refer to the Nazi slaughter of the European Jews.
    - effects on Christian attitudes 10:325h
    - German occupation of Poland 14:653b
    - Jewish impact and ramifications 10:300h
    - rationale in Christian polemic 4:467d”

  • 1976, Encyclopedia Britannica Macropedia, Volume 8, 15th ed., p 98

    Entry “Holmes, Oliver Wendell” followed by “Holocene Epoch”

  • 2003, Encyclopedia Britannica Macropedia, Volume 20, 15th ed., p 629–634

    The Holocaust, full article and four pages of plates.

  • 2005, Encyclopedia Britannica Micropedia, Volume 6, 15th ed., pp 13–14

    Holocaust , Holocaust Remembrance days

  Only the final print edition of Britannica had a real entry on the Holocaust. The online Britannica published its article in 1998. I presume the first printing to get one must have been around the same time.  —Michael Z. 21:42, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

• Yes (with caveats) As above a number of decent scholarly sources clearly indicate that it's a well respected source. However, it's somewhat out of date, and some important scholarship relating to WWII has been conducted since 1990 (relating to previously inaccessible archives becoming available following the collapse of the Soviet Union), and it may be biased on certain topics, both of which should be kept in mind. I agree with the comments by Mzajac, the background of the founder doesn't necessarily tell you about the source itself. The apparent whitewashing of certain figures likely partially relates to the fact that certain archives and scholarship weren't available back then. David Marples comments about the lack of access to former soviet archives back then here for instance. --Tristario (talk) 08:19, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

  The volume of errata to the English-language edition was published in 2001. The Internet version is updated on an ongoing basis (e.g., the article on Kharkiv National university is updated 2021, per the note at the bottom).  —Michael Z. 14:21, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

  Then when the specific article was updated should be considered. I assume the errata just corrected errors though, and didn't try to bring it up to date Tristario (talk) 23:06, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

  Agree, updates could be considered and like someone already said, I’m also open to revisiting the question of reliability of Encyclopedia of Ukraine in the future. - GizzyCatBella🍁 00:21, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

• Generally no, not for WW2 stuff, although there may be some exceptions which can be discussed on case by case basis. Problems with reliability aren't just who started the encyclopedia but the fact it hasn't been updated, AFAIK, since 2001 or 2003. Ukraine today is a very different place than it was 20 years ago. I'm open to revisiting this question in the future. Volunteer Marek 09:35, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

  The online encyclopedia is updated regularly on an article-by-article basis, and some major-article bibliographies are updated separately. Many WWII articles are dated 1993, but we also see, for example, History of Ukraine 1993 with latest bibliography entry 2011, Holocaust 2007–08, Operation Wisła refers to 2002, bibliography includes 2013, Ukrainian Canadian Servicemen’s Association 2014.  —Michael Z. 14:59, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

  Let's see..let's take a look at the first link you gave us History of Ukraine and let's scroll down to this part as an example:

  On 30 June 1941, the OUN (Bandera faction) issued the Proclamation of Ukrainian statehood, 1941, in Lviv and formed the Ukrainian State Administration headed by Yaroslav Stetsko.

  What's missing there? Well, the Proclamation of Ukrainian statehood, in 1941 was accompanied by violent pogroms conducted by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists where thousands of Jews lost their lives. But wait, there is not a single word about it in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine. So let's take a look at the Proclamation of Ukrainian statehood, 1941 article itself. Perhaps is there? Nope, not a single word. Okay, so let's search the Encyclopedia of Ukraine for the Lviv pogroms of 1941 article. Nope, nothing about it. Do you mind guiding us to the link in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine? - GizzyCatBella🍁 16:11, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

  I guess Misplaced Pages is a bad source on WWII because Act of restoration of the Ukrainian state doesn’t mention the Lviv pogroms either. Maybe a Nazi worked on Misplaced Pages. Let’s dox all the editors and get to the bottom of this.  —Michael Z. 20:15, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

  The extermination of the Jews during WW2 is covered as follows:

  • Mass murder of Jews was carried out throughout Ukraine in 1942–4. Apart from the involvement of individuals and some organized auxiliary units, the Ukrainian population did not take part in these genocidal actions Jews.
  • During the Second World War a small number of individual Ukrainians collaborated with the Nazis in victimizing the Jews. This, however, cannot really be considered a conspicuous example of Ukrainian for three reasons... Anti-Semitism.
  • As part of their systematic effort to exterminate the Jews of Europe (see Holocaust) the Nazis rounded up and killed Jews living in Ukraine ... The Germans' Romanian allies, who occupied Transnistria, also committed war crimes (no mention of Ukrainian responsibilities) Nazi war crimes in Ukraine.
  • The article Holocaust (written in 2007 by Dieter Pohl), however, is a good article, although the following sentence may be a bit of an understatement: There is no doubt that the murder of the Jews was committed by the Third Reich and organized and carried out primarily by Germans and Austrians. Nevertheless, owing to a lack of personnel, these perpetrators of genocidal crimes relied heavily on indigenous auxiliaries ... At least some of the auxiliary police troops, the Schutzmannschafts-Bataillone, participated in the killings. Ukrainian auxiliaries were the main target of criminal investigation after 1943–44. Probably several thousand of them were tried by Soviet courts and received severe punishment. Among the main criminals responsible for the Holocaust in general, however, only some two hundred Germans and Austrians faced justice in other countries.

  Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:40, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

• Generally yes but with serious caveats. I wouldn't deprecate the Encyclopedia as such, as it may be (unless proven otherwise) factually accurate and may contain information that would otherwise not be available. However, I think it is a WP:BIASED source with strong nationalist leanings that make it occasionally unreliable and not authoritative as far as the assessment of historical events is concerned. Take the articles on "Jews" , "Pogroms" and "Anti-Semitism" as examples. The first two are informative and helpful, although at times questionable in their effort to present the Ukrainian people under the best possible light. But the article on "Anti-Semitism" is entirely apologetic and based on questionable distinctions: the distinction between genuine antisemitism deriving from "prejudice", and false antisemitism (mere "hostility") deriving from "significant socio-economic or political conflicts"; and the distinction between genuinely Ukrainian antisemitism, i.e. manifested by Ukrainians, and antisemitism manifested within Ukraine by others, such as the Russians and the Poles. The consequence of these distinctions is that it is difficult to identify major instances of a-s, in the specific sense of prejudice and not simply hostility, that have a demonstrably Ukrainian character. I don't want to have this POV included in Misplaced Pages. To sum up, IMHO:

1. It is a reliable source, but it is also a biased source when Ukrainian national identity is concerned;
2. Its bias does not affect only the articles on WW2 but also other areas of the Encyclopedia. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 11:54, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

The three articles you linked to are dated as last updated respectively in 1988 (note: “it will be updated”), 1993, and 1984, while others have been updated as recently as 2022 (e.g., Crimea). All sources have biases and dating, and the Encyclopedia of Ukraine’s annotations help us identify the respective article’s context, and its updates help keep articles relevant.

What do you mean by “is also a biased source when Ukrainian national identity is concerned”?  —Michael Z. 15:29, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

What I meant to say is that their treatment of antisemitism suggests that the Encyclopaedia's intentions are partly apologetic (see above some quotations). Therefore when the topic of the article impinges upon Ukrainian national identity (vis-a-vis the Jews, and possibly other groups) some bias is to be expected. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:49, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

• Not reliable for WWII, I actually doubt its reliable for anything but there may be a use case. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:45, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
• Yes The source looks generally reliable for general history of WWII, with attribution. An English translation was published by University of Toronto Press. Seems kind of like Encyclopedia Britannica for the British. People have complained about the Encyclopedia Britannica too on some of its articles, but that is generally because these are encyclopedias, not extensive or exhaustive sources. Seems to have positive responses from Ukrainian experts as has been mentioned by others here. I would argue that ATTRIBUTION would solve any issues in this particular case. That way it is not in wikipedia's voice and allows for a Ukrainian view of events.Ramos1990 (talk) 01:20, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

  @Ramos1990 lol...last time I checked Encyclopedia Britannica wasn’t narrated by former high ranking Nazi collaborators, was it? 🙂 - GizzyCatBella🍁 05:01, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

I think this has been extensively answered by Michael Z.. He brings up some reasonable points. However it started is secondary to how it has evolved and how it is used today. University of Toronto Press would probably have never touched it if it was Nazi propaganda.Ramos1990 (talk) 06:36, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

I don’t believe you have checked. You’re only on a crusade about Kubijovyč and everything he’s touched, based on one biased source that mentions him in passing. British fascism goes back to 1922. Go on and get your research project going. Or are you going to stake your reputation on the assertion that the Britannica editions cited throughout Misplaced Pages have absolutely no racial, ethnic, class, or cultural biases, hm? —Michael Z. 18:42, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

• I'm neutral since I don't have enough knowledge of the underlying dispute, but this RfC is a blatant violation WP:RFCNEUTRAL. Your argument that this was written by a Nazi collaborator should go down here, not in the RfC prompt. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 22:05, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

  @Chess Read the RfC again please - where RfC says - was written by a Nazi collaborator? Please adjust your comment, thanks - GizzyCatBella🍁 22:15, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

  @GizzyCatBella: I don't actually know that much about whether or not editors of real encyclopedias (i.e. not Misplaced Pages, where almost all editors are writers) engage in the writing of them. Regardless, The founder and chief editor of Encyclopedia of Ukraine was a major Nazi collaborator Volodymyr Kubijovyč who during the war worked closely under Hans Frank in GG. Among other things Volodymyr Kubijovyč was an originator and funder of 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS responsible for war atrocities. After the war Kubijovyč settled in the West. should be in your reply to the RfC, not above the RfC statement and given prominence. All of your arguments should be below the Post your opinion below please line. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 22:20, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

  👍 @Chess Well, next time. Now is too late. - GizzyCatBella🍁 22:25, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

• Comment. This is a tertiary/overview source, but I think it can be used along with other tertiary sources such "Encyclopedia of Nationalism", EB, etc. Was it criticized in RS for producing "fakes"? Are authors known as revisionist historians? No, it does not seem to be the case. Someone (one of editors-in-chief) collaborating in the past with bad guys" or even being himself a member of a bad organization in past (let's say Communist party or KGB) does not automatically disqualify sources. Is the source known for fact checking/accuracy or for promoting misinformation? Only that matters. My very best wishes (talk) 16:54, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
• There are definitely better sources out there. The encyclopedia is dated - the earliest volumes come from 1949 and the latest were published barely after independence (see here) - this is so old that in a lot of cases, it will basically be meaningless to represent current scholarly consensus. This is basically the greatest concern. I also looked at some of the more controversial articles (like OUN or UPA) and I'd say that the greatest flaw is not that what they tell is false but what they omit. You'd expect an article about the Volyn massacre/genocide/whatever but you won't see one, not even a mention; though it does mention that the Poles launched a mass campaign of Polonisation in the pre-war era and that the Home Army killed thousands of Ukrainians in 1942 (see Subtelny, History of Ukraine, 4 ed., p. 474-475). You won't see in the Cossack-Polish War article (Khmelnytsky Uprising) that Jews were among the most traumatized in the conflict - it only says that Jews largely allied with the Polish nobility. The bias is evident and palpable, so I wouldn't trust it for the whole picture, but it seems OK for what it says. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 16:20, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

  You are referring to different editions, and unfortunately the nomination ignores the differences. I don’t think anyone’s considering the thirteen-volume 1949–52 Ukrainian-language edition. The online edition is derived from the English 1984–93 edition, and continues to be updated, e.g. “Holocaust” 2007, “Jewish National Council” 2022, “Pasmanik, Daniel” 2022.

  The “Cossack-Polish War” article was updated 1984 by Orest Subtelny. If you click through to “Jews” (1998) there’s a paragraph on the Khmelnytsky uprising.  —Michael Z. 17:20, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

  I saw these articles, which are pretty good (though the Cossack-Polish war one is a bit too short; I prefer to use Subtelny's book for the description of the uprising. The issue I have is that those I visited were not updated, and there are many more of these I'm afraid. Even if we assume that the end date is 1993, we basically miss out all research done post-1991 about the USSR years as secret archives were inaccessible until its dissolution. Some articles are better, but most are not very much so. I'd say that updated articles, like the ones you linked, are fine; articles published in the original encyclopedia or its English translation could in general also be acceptable (attributed in contentious fragments), but there are much better resources than these. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 23:04, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

  Okay. But we don’t deprecate sources as “unreliable” because they omit history after their publication date.  —Michael Z. 03:10, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

  Michael Z, it depends. When describing a scene and omit to mention your side's wrongdoings, that yells "deprecate me". When you describe a scene and omit analysing sociological or philosophical factors that lead to the war, well, that is prob ok. Cinadon36 06:30, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

  That’s a completely different argument. Exactly which side do you think each historian who wrote a relevant article for the Encyclopedia of Ukraine was on? Did all of the reliable sources cited about WWII in Misplaced Pages always mention their side’s wrongdoings? Do all neutral sources always mention the wrongdoings that you see omitted? Or are a large proportion of Misplaced Pages’s sources yelling “deprecate me”?  —Michael Z. 19:34, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

  That sounds as whataboutism. But in any case, I explained why there are various degrees, levels and qualities of omissions. Enc of Ukraine does not meet WP standards. Why wont you find a couple of review articles that tell EoU is awesome? That will help you. Cinadon36 05:41, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

  No, it’s not “whataboutism.” It’s trying to put your tangential comment into perspective.

  I listed several reviews above. Perhaps they’ll help you.  —Michael Z. 20:34, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

• YES per Michael. -🇺🇦Слава🇺🇦Україні🇺🇦Героям🇺🇦Слава🇺🇦(talk)🇺🇦 17:13, 24 November 2022 (UTC) The extended confirmed restriction is imposed on edits and pages related to the history of Jews and antisemitism in Poland during World War II (1933–45), including the Holocaust in Poland, broadly construed. Standard discretionary sanctions as authorized by the Eastern Europe arbitration case remain in effect for this topic area.Non-extended-confirmed editors may not make edits to internal project discussions related to the topic area, even within the "Talk:" namespace. Internal project discussions include, but are not limited to, AfDs, WikiProjects, RfCs, RMs, and noticeboard discussions.
• Usually reliable with minor exceptions. Micheal Z. makes a good point that there are some good academic reviews, which are generally positive of this. At the same time, some reviewers correcty point out the nationalistic bias of the publication. As such, it is a reliable but biased source, and should be used carefully/attributed when it comes to aspects of history that are distored in Ukraine (all countries have their own nationalistic biases, Ukraine is not an exception). Nonetheless, I've reviewed several reliable reviews of this work and they treat it as mostly reliable. Remember then it will probably be biased when it comes to the usual nationalistic POV, and move on. PS. To be clearer, for topics related to Ukrainian-Polish-Jewish relations in WWII, I'd support {{better sources needed}}, teriary sources are not best for such controversial issues. I'd be quite curious to know what that encyclopedia says about Holocaust in Ukraine, Ukrainian collaboration with Nazi Germany or Massacres of Poles in Volhynia, if it says anythign about these topics at all? (And I am sure most Polish encyclopedias, for example, gloss over similar dark and humiliating aspects of Polish hstory...) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:42, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

  There is an article “Holocaust.”

  As far as I can tell from brief searching, the massacres of Poles are not represented: the closest I could find is descriptions of Ukrainian–Polish conflict as in the article “Kholm Region,” in the paragraph starting with “After most of the Galician refugees,” which does not acknowledge them. To put it into context of the corpus of sources though, the articles on Poles in Ukraine and Volhynia were updated in 1993. I notice that most references in Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and in its tables are recent, nearly all after the mid 1990s.

  I wonder if we compare this to other reliable tertiary sources of the period, or even today, if it fares poorly. For example, are the massacres even mentioned in the monumental Britannica 2022 at all? All I can find is “With the approach of the front, guerrilla activity in western Ukraine intensified, and bloody clashes that claimed large numbers of civilian victims occurred between Ukrainians and Poles” in the article “Ukraine,” § History, § Ukraine reunited under Soviet rule.

  The “execution by specific omissions” of the source being conducted on this page seems inadequate unless it compares it to any counterexamples.  —Michael Z. 17:48, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

  @Piotrus You wonder what that Encyclopaedia of Ukraine says --> nothing. And Mzajac, Encyclopedia Brittanica isn’t dedicated to Ukraine as Encyclopedia of Ukraine is, so there is no excuse for being silent about difficult topics related to Ukraine. As I already said, I’ll be more than happy to revisit the issue once the Encyclopedia of Ukraine is fully updated. - GizzyCatBella🍁 18:40, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

  I wondered if we compare other sources. Can you give any counterexamples at all?  —Michael Z. 20:15, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

  The problem is that the rather evident bias we identified is not discussed in reliable sources. If it is, it should be mentioned in the reception section I started in the article, everyone is invited to expand it. Anyway, as I said, I think the source is somewhat biased towards nationalistic Ukrainian historiography. Which is to be expected and common for all countries. IF the bias of this source is above average, we need sources for that. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:08, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

  We are not[REDACTED] pages. Editors absolutely have the judgement to decide if a source is reliable. We try to source things in this noticeboard to make reasonable and logical arguments for why a source is or isn't reliable, but we don't need secondary sourcing for that as a replacement of consensus and judgement. Parabolist (talk) 08:08, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

  That's also a good assessment IMHO Szmenderowiecki (talk) 01:37, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

• Bad RfC. I notice that the OP GizzyCatBella and Slava Ukraini Heroyam Slava 123 were participating in this thread which mentioned Roman Shukhevych and Encyclopedia of Ukraine, before GizzyCatBella went to WP:RSN. I agree with Chess that the RfC doesn't appear to fit WP:RFCNEUTRAL requirements. I go further and deplore the suggestion that anything on "WW2 history" should disallow Encyclopedia of Ukraine because bias appears in some Encyclopedia-of-Ukraine articles -- those are appropriate arguments in the relevant Misplaced Pages-article talk pages about specific items only, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:02, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
• Too dated for WWII topics. The historiography of the conflict has advanced dramatically since the end of the Cold War, and much of the literature that is 30 years old has been supplanted by newer sources. That said, I reviewed the article on the Holocaust that was linked in this discussion and it contains a strange turn of phrase:

Apparently some OUN underground groups in Western Ukraine staged or incited anti-Jewish actions in their efforts to sabotage the Red Army's retreat after 22 June 1941. Source: ; emphasis mine.

I've never seen this argument in the literature I read on the Holocaust in Ukraine. It's also bizarre since the anti-jewish violence broke out after the Soviet army had retreated, and often after the German forces entered the area, since they incited most of it or condoned it. This reads like negationist apologia. --K.e.coffman (talk) 11:06, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

I guess it might seem that way if you ignore the rest of the paragraph. Your conclusion is that writer of the article Dieter Pohl  is an OUN apologist? Please offer more evidence than one out-of-context sentence.

If it’s too dated, that mean that we should deprecate all sources 30 years or older on WWII? —Michael Z. 20:44, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

• It's a seriously dated source. it really shouldn't be included unless there just plain aren't more up to date sources—blindlynx 15:18, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

• Yes in the areas where it broadly aligns with other reliable sources. No as a sole source in potentially controversial areas, especially those related to WW2. That said, I see no realistic situation where EoU would be the only available source for WW2-related topics. — kashmīrī  22:36, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Discussion and more opinions/!votes (Encyclopedia of Ukraine)

It's obviously biased, perhaps extremely so (the article about it also says it). It doesn't mean that it's automatically unreliable, but considering that it's a WP:TERTIARY source, I think we can almost always find a better source. Alaexis_¿question? 10:07, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

@Alaexis Exactly. So how should we approach the issue? Always ask for a better source? GizzyCatBella🍁 10:14, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, and for uncontroversial claims, add {{better source needed}}, for controversial ones, remove I guess. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:42, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Also it should not be used to determine the due weight. Alaexis_¿question? 20:15, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Kubijovyč authored over 80 scientific pieces on the geography of Ukraine. I'm sure those are very sound. I have no objection to using Encyclopedia of Ukraine as a reference on the geography, for example. - GizzyCatBella🍁 10:05, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Personally, I lean towards thinking it's not automatically unreliable, it's going to be biased for sure, however, it may also be useful for certain other information. In the case of Shukhevych, for example, I see that other biographical treatments of him, which are widely considered neutral (I think) and factually accurate, use it as a source: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Biographical_Dictionary_of_Central_and_E/RnKlDAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=2473 Cononsense (talk) 11:41, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

The maps of Ukraine in this encyclopedia is excellent for its time and is very high-quality. Very reliable. The rest of it is probably too old to be reliable. Ghost of Kiev (talk) 17:31, 21 November 2022 (UTC)The extended confirmed restriction is imposed on edits and pages related to the history of Jews and antisemitism in Poland during World War II (1933–45), including the Holocaust in Poland, broadly construed. Standard discretionary sanctions as authorized by the Eastern Europe arbitration case remain in effect for this topic area.Non-extended-confirmed editors may not make edits to internal project discussions related to the topic area, even within the "Talk:" namespace. Internal project discussions include, but are not limited to, AfDs, WikiProjects, RfCs, RMs, and noticeboard discussions.

The sole source supporting the “diaspora bias” accusation is Oleh Romaniv, w:uk:Романів Олег Миколайович, a Soviet expert in extractive metallurgy and construction material properties, who changed his specialty to historical memory and politological aspects of the Ukrainian national revival in 1992. The following year he wrote this assessment of the encyclopedia, in the same year he personally initiated the 1993–2003 reprint of the original Ukrainian-language edition in Ukraine. —Michael Z. 03:39, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

It’s even better. The cited source is in Romaniv’s essay in Volume I of the Ukrainian-language reprint.  —Michael Z. 04:40, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

@Mzajac You wrote alleged UPA atrocities (!?) Seriously? That says a lot. - GizzyCatBella🍁 07:54, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

What does it say, @GizzyCatBella? That you’re adding innuendo to your ad hominem arguments?  —Michael Z. 14:39, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

No, what I’m saying is that there is nothing alleged about UPA atrocities and historians agree on it. Do you claim otherwise? Encyclopedia of Ukraine is indeed silent (not a single word) about atrocities UPA commited. - GizzyCatBella🍁 15:30, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

@GizzyCatBella I meant all the alleged atrocities, including proven, unproven, and disproven, okay? Because I haven’t reviewed both articles for discrepancies and accuracy, and I’m not an expert on the topic.

But what is your point? That I’m a Nazi or something? Stick to the fucking topic.  —Michael Z. 16:04, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

No, I didn’t say you are a Nazi or something. Stop. - GizzyCatBella🍁 16:59, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

You implied something when you said I wrote something and “that says a lot.” I think you probably didn’t mean to cast aspersions on me but it was a poor choice of words. I’d appreciate it if you said so. —Michael Z. 20:01, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

The poor choice of words was yours... "alleged atrocities" was the wrong language to use and you know that. Please apologize to GizzyCatBella. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:18, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

I really doubt that Mzajac was saying that there is doubt that the UPA committed atrocities. His explanation seems reasonable. Lots of people put "alleged" if they're just talking about something they don't have a lot of knowledge about (it's commonly done among journalists for all sorts of topics, for instance). Tristario (talk) 23:03, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

(Summoned by bot) Does this source make incorrect statements, or does it omit correct and WP:DUE statements? From the statements made here, my understanding is that it is the latter, in which case it is reliable but biased, and can be used, in conjunction with other sources, to produce a policy-compliant article. However, this does demonstrate why permitting articles to exist with only a single WP:SIGCOV source violates WP:NPOV - such an article reflects that sources POV, not NPOV. BilledMammal (talk) 01:44, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

@BilledMammal

The bias of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine is discussed in scholarly publications including what I already linked.

• Here - page 405

The head of this important academic project was Volodymyr Kubiiovych, one of the major Ukrainian collaborators with the Nazis, and who, after the Second World War, became the S.S.S. This project, on the one hand, gave rise to a useful and authoritative encyclopedia of Ukrainian history, but, on the other hand, it presented a nationalist narrative of the Second World War in Ukraine and did not even include an entry on the Holocaust.

• also (some of those contributed to the development of that Encyclopedia) page 405

The heroic discourse on the OUN-UPA and the “liberation movement” was shaped by a number of other historians and activists, in addition to Poltava and Mirchuk. Some of them were members of the OUN-B, such as Volodymyr Kosyk, Ivan Hryn’okh, Iaroslav Stets’ko, Mykola Klymyshyn, Stepan Lenkavs’kyi, Stepan Bandera himself, Volodymyr Ianiv, Mykola Lebed’, Roman Ilnytzkyi and Taras Hunchak. Others such as Petro Potichnyj were veterans of the UPA, and still others of the Waffen-SS Galizien, such as Vasyl’ Veryha, Oleksa Horbatsch, Roman Drazhn’ovs’kyi, and Petro Savaryn. A number of them, such as Ilnytzkyi, Hryn’okh, and Horbatsch worked at the Free Ukrainian University (UVU) in Munich; others such as Mirchuk and Kosyk were associated with the UVU or completed PhDs at this university. Ianiv was the rector of the UVU from 1968 until 1986, and Drazhn’ovs’kyi from 1993 to 1995. Hunchak was a professor at Rutgers University, Potichnyj at McMaster University. Horbatsch was professor of Slavic languages at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main from 1965 to 1982. Petro Savaryn was chancellor of the University of Alberta from 1982 to 1986. Bohdan Osadczuk, who was neither in the OUN nor the Waffen-SS Galizien but published articles in the collaborationist newspaper Krakivs’ki visits in 1943, was a professor at the Otto-Suhr-Institut for Political Science of the Free University of Berlin from 1966. The falsification of documents was another well-organized and institutionalized activity related to the discourse of extolling and denying. Lebed’, who had whitewashed the history of the OUN-UPA in a monograph published as early as 1946.

• page 406

...for the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, he did not mention that the OUN and UPA persecuted Jews during the Second World War and stated that “in the spring of 1943 thousands of Ukrainian policemen in German service deserted to form the fighting nucleus of the UPA German outposts.” Similarly, he did not mention that in 1944 the OUN-UPA began collaborating once again with Nazi Germany. He asserted that the “UPA began liquidating Polish settlements in Volhynia” but omitted the fact that they also did so in eastern Galicia, and he relativized it with: “This soon escalated into full-scale Polish-Ukrainian ethnic warfare across western Ukraine"

• page 409

Only a very few scholars at that time, such as Ivan Lysiak-Rudnyts’kyi, objected to the apologetic discourses and the use of scholarship for propagating denial and creating various nationalist myths. Nevertheless, even Lysiak-Rudnyts’kyi did not have any problems with silence about Volodymyr Kubiiovych’s past, because the former head of the UTsK initiated the Encyclopedia of Ukraine and supported several other projects that were perceived by the Ukrainian diaspora as being very important.

page 498

The apologetic and eulogizing narrative about Bandera and his “liberation movement” was created not only by nationalist fanatics, Bandera’s hard admirers and far-right activists, but also by a number of scholars who worked at universities in Canada, Germany, France, and the United States. Some of these scholars, such as Taras Hunchak, Petro Potichnyi, and Volodymyr Kosyk were veterans of the OUN or UPA.

I strongly advise users not to use that Encyclopedia as a source for WW2 history or if used, use it with extreme caution and always look for a better source. - GizzyCatBella🍁 08:36, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Again, you’re repeating an ad hominem against a respected publication, without any reliable source backing it, so I’ll respond again (but please stop WP:REPEAT). Your single-source, Rossoliński-Liebe, talks about a historical figure, Bandera, and passim about Kubijovyč, but does not criticize the Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Which other encyclopedia do we disqualify after examining the personal history of one editor?

But “some of those contributed” among over a hundred? What are you trying to establish that this is a Nazi encyclopedia? that Ukrainian academics tend to be Nazis? @GizzyCatBella, you are on the verge of indulging in a witch hunt. What else have you been reading that’s influenced this crass action? Maybe think twice about going there at a time when tens of thousands of Ukrainians are literally being wounded and killed by a nuclear power while it incites genocide by painting the nation as requiring violent “denazification.”

Your sole-source Rossoliński-Liebe’s only apparent criticism is the apparent crime of not having an entry on the Holocaust in the EU’s 1949–52 Ukrainian-language edition, which no one is using for Misplaced Pages! But please, name the other early-’50s encyclopedias that are not guilty of the same. Your repeated arguments remain completely without merit.  —Michael Z. 16:01, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

The current events in Ukraine have nothing to do with it and I fully support the Ukranian side, so please stop, okay?

What inspired me into digging into the issue is this article move request (now I noticed you were the nominator) Kubiyovych seems to be a standard Ukrainian romanized spelling. Kubijovyč looked more like Czech spelling to me. - GizzyCatBella🍁 16:40, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

The name he used in Poland (were he lived before the war, he was half Polish) was Włodzimierz Kubijowicz. But this is irrelevant to the current discussion. - GizzyCatBella🍁 16:55, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Standard Ukrainian romanization is Kubiiovych, but there are other schemes.

Rossoliński-Liebe looks like an important work but also suffers from a bias identified by Oleksandr Zaitsev and subject to criticism by Yaroslav Hrytsak and Yuri Radchenko. None of your arguments have a sound basis, and repeating demonization of Kubijovyč is not helping.  —Michael Z. 19:59, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm not demonizing Kubijovyč, I'm stating the facts.

He was a major Nazi collaborator working directly under Nazi war criminal Hans Frank who was executed for his crimes. Volodymyr Kubijovyc can be seen here (page 341) in the first row, in dark suit raising the right arm in the Nazi Heil Hitler salute.

You complaining about sourcing Liebe? Okay, let's source Rudling and see what he has to say about Kubijovyc.

Here we go:

In organizing Waffen-SS Galizien, Wächter worked closely with Volodymyr Kubijovycˇ, an enthusiastic proponent of ethnic cleansing. In April 1941 he requested that Hans Frank set up an ethnically pure Ukrainian enclave in the General Government, free from Jews and Poles. Kubijovyc benefited from Aryanization of Jewish property and published anti-Semitic materials in the collaborationist press. He asked Governor General Hans Frank to have Aryanized money go to Ukrainians, as it had ended up in Jewish hands, he argued, ‘only through ruthless breach of law on the part of the Jews and their exploitation of members of the Ukrainian people. On 2 May 1943 Kubijovycˇ declared himself ready to take up arms for the Waffen-SS. On 28 April 1943, the day of the proclamation of the formation, he stated:

Today, for Ukrainians in Galicia, is a very historic day, because today’s Act of State one of the most coveted wishes of the Ukrainian people is realized—to fight against Bolshevism with weapons in our hands. This wish was the result of the deeper conviction, that it is our duty not to stay neutral in the great fight for building the new European order, and what we can do for the victory of the new Europe. On these principles, we have based our active role in cooperating with the German government. We did everything that was possible. I have mentioned the voluntary departure of hundreds of thousands of workers to Germany. Their conscious contribution of quotas, the collection of winter clothing for the German armed forces, their large donations of money for military purposes show their readiness. We realize the great meaning of this greatest decision for our people. Therefore, we want to ensure that it will be the best. The formation of the Galician-Ukrainian division within the framework of the SS is for us not only a distinction but our responsibility that we will continue to and maintain this active decision, in cooperation with the German state organizations, until the victorious end of the war. I ask you, governor, to accept our assurances that we will fulfill our responsibilities. This historic day was made possible by the conditions to create a worthy opportunity for the Ukrainians of Galicia, to fight arm in arm with the heroic German soldiers of the Army and the Waffen-SS against Bolshevism, your and our deadly enemy. We thank you from our hearts. Of course, we ought to thank the Great Führer of the united Europe for recognizing our participation in the war, that he approved your initiative and agreed to the creation of the Galicia division. (Pages 339-340

Are we supposed to uncritically trust such an individual and what he later allowed to be written about WW2 in his Encyclopedia of Ukraine?

I don't think so. - GizzyCatBella🍁 21:07, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Says nothing about the Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Pure ad hominem.  —Michael Z. 19:42, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

And Rudling has a borderline WP:FRINGE political bias, having characterized the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association as “ultranationalist lobbies” in Ball and Rudling 2015, “The Underbelly of Canadian Multiculturalism.”  —Michael Z. 21:50, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

I have to append to my remark. Rossoliński-Liebe actually does comment on the value of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, calling it “a useful and authoritative encyclopedia of Ukrainian history.” I missed this because you omitted that part of the sentence the first time you quoted it. I’ve responded in detail above, starting with “This is presented unfairly . . .”  —Michael Z. 21:57, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

WW2 is not the only area where it shows a bias, unfortunately The many historical entries tend to a view that is excessively...nationalist: nationalist in the direction of distorting anachronism with respect to earlier centuries, moral exculpation with respect to atrocious events, assertion of a spurious uniqueness, thoughtless isolationism, and so on.... "Jews" (pp. 385-393) proceeds carefully through this sensitive and incontestably important subject, making various points that my Jewish students should want to know, while still leaving the overall impression that Jews were always intruders in this unfortunate land and that whatever horrible happened to them there was really the fault of Russians, Poles, Germans, or Soviets if not of Jews themselves.It will not do. In the entry "Icon" (pp. 294-297) the famous Vladimir Mother of God, revered for centuries in Russia, is called the Vyshhorod Theotokos on the ground that shortly after leaving Constantinople (where it probably was painted) it resided forabout twenty years (1134-1155) in Vyshhorod....."Human Rights"(pp. 266-267) is an anti-Soviet diatribe Alaexis_¿question? 15:25, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

@Alaexis - Quote from Rudling (page 364)

The OUN(b) maintained contact with Francisco Franco and negotiated for an arrangement to accept former UPA and Waffen-SSGalizien soldiers into Spanish military academies. A center of former Waffen SS-Galizien veterans in London sought to establish a military dictatorship in Ukraine. Others professed themselves to be democrats after 1945, making careers in politics and academia. In contact with majority society the veterns generally omitted their background in the Waffen-SS. Within their community, however, it was regarded as merit. Among the more prominent alumni were Volodymyr Kubijovycˇ, who after the war came to edit the Encyclopedia of Ukraine. - GizzyCatBella🍁 23:29, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

• No Not peer reviewed source.Cinadon36 PS: An argument that has been used by other scholarly articles, is pretty weak. Scholars and academic can use primary or other sources that are deemed unreliable for us, as WP editors. Scholars have been trained on how to use not-exceptionally sources. We have not. Cinadon36 10:33, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

  It’s not a primary source. Numerous scholars have praised it in reviews, without warnings that it’s for professional use only. One lamented that the print version is too expensive for non-specialists to own. Even one of the two sources used to demonize it above calls it “useful and authoritative.” —Michael Z. 17:54, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

  useful and authoritative for topics unrelated to WW2, that’s what they meant. The WW2 history narrated by the Encyclopaedia of Ukraine is .. let's put it this way.. incomplete - GizzyCatBella🍁 18:04, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

  Which sources have a complete WWII history? Your criticisms are presented in a vacuum, without comparison to everything else which you imply is better.  —Michael Z. 18:06, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

  Cracraft 1989: “Any library supporting serious work in these fields should want to have it and, were price not a factor, so should every English-reading Ukrainian serious about his heritage.” —Michael Z. 18:05, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, E.ofU. is great for everything except the 1939-1945 period when it becomes incomplete. I’m putting this mildly - GizzyCatBella🍁 18:48, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

  Please point to some complete sources on the 1939–1945 period. Your criticism is based on a fallacious comparison to nothing in particular. What sources stand the test of completeness and lack any biases, weak spots, blind spots, or omissions? —Michael Z. 19:50, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

  A source does not have to be complete to be Reliable. There are plenty of University publications on WWII, no need for amateur or not established historians. Also, there is bias everywhere, that does not mean publications coming from a nazi apologist and an Ivy league University have the same weight. Cinadon36 07:08, 26 November 2022 (UTC) Ps- it is a matter of epistemonology. We need reliable sources. Only science can offer us reliable sources. Not primary witnesses, advocates, activists etc. When it come to knowledge, nothing match peer reviewed perspectives. This is the knowledge WP has to host. Cinadon36 07:19, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

  Not sure what your point is. Even Ivy League universities are made of people who have points of view.

  The Encyclopedia of Ukraine is coming from dozens of academic professionals, the University of Alberta, and University of Toronto.  —Michael Z. 16:15, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

  Ofcourse @Mzajac (Michael Z) it is not a primary source. I havent made such claim. My point is that the argument "it is being used by scholars hence it is a legitimate source", is not valid. Scholars use various sources we regularly avoid. Cinadon36 18:43, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

• From the evidence above, the Encyclopaedia is very much not something we should be using for WWII history, or any history with a political dimension. It is not reliable. Boynamedsue (talk) 07:35, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

RfC: Behind the Voice Actors

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See the most recent previous RfC on this source here. There is another "RfC" on this page created by me; this is because this is my first time starting an RfC and was confused on how to do so.

Which of the following best describes the reliability of the website Behind the Voice Actors?

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 Eldomtom2 (talk) 11:11, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Discussion (Behind the Voice Actors)

I believe BtVA should be reclassified to Option 3. How on Earth did it manage to get listed as reliable this year? That they claim to do research does not make them reliable, since we have no way of checking that they did indeed do research and they are quite happy to list credits without any sort of public source. That their response in their FAQ to "your credit is inaccurate" is to defend their honour rather than provide information on a correction-submitting process is not a good sign, in my opinion. In fact, as far as I can tell, there is no correction-submitting process, which is a severe problem for any source hoping to be considered reliable, especially as I know for a fact, using actor's websites as sources, that their credits for at least one video game are wrong. If we have no means to know if they are actually doing research and fact-checking, yet keep them as a reliable source, why shouldn't we allow every random website that claims to have a fact-checking process as a source? I know someone will bring up the green tick, but if a credit has a green tick that means there's another, almost certainly better, source we can use. I appreciate this comes very soon after a previous RfC on the same site, but I wasn't aware of that until today and it seems to have been waved through based simply on its own claims of accuracy.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 11:12, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

RfC: 9to5Google.com reliability?

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Which of the following best describes 9to5Google's (9to5google.com) technology articles?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable

Option 3: Generally unreliable: In two citations at GrapheneOS, written by a "Videographer" they mostly un-critically re-publish material from the subject's website or from their Twitter. Although their contact list has some Editor titles, it looks like another ad-infested group blog site, intended to advertise and sell Google products with affiliate links.

To my knowledge, 9to5Google has only been mentioned in passing once: Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_298#PhoneArena_et_al at WP:RSN. Apologies in advance if this RfC is somehow incorrect. -- Yae4 (talk) 22:22, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Option 2 They are reliable for basic facts, X was released on Y, but not for anything contentious and certainly should be considered a biased source. See their about page that starts "9to5Google believes that Google is one of the most important companies shaping the future.". -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:30, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

@Yae4, why are you bothering with this? If it's only been mentioned in passing once, then why do we need to spend hours of editors' time to evaluate it now? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:22, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

An attempt was made to discuss it at Talk:GrapheneOS in August 2022. It was archived already, with no responses: Talk:GrapheneOS/Archive_2#XDA_source_on_Camera_and_PDF_Viewer,_and_9to5Google_source_on_"early_12L_release"_parrot_Twitter? It has been used in many other articles. -- Yae4 (talk) 17:31, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

• Option 3: Generally unreliable. Another technology rumour site, along with sister projects 9to5mac.com, 9to5toys.com and others. Not that they don't get things right; they most often do. But they also present gossip and speculation as facts or announcements. A businessperson, I'd never make any investment decision based on the content of these sites. — kashmīrī  22:47, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

RfC on sources of West Herzegovina Canton symbols

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Are the following sources reliable sources to determine the constitutionality of the West Herzegovina Canton symbols? Aaron Liu (talk) 14:01, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

After discussion at the DRN, the discussion at Talk:West Herzegovina Canton § Flag concerning West Herzegovina Canton's coat of arms and flag (referred to as "the symbols" below) has been moved here. The arguments for and against the sources below are presented on the aforementioned pages. In summary, there were provisions in the canton's constitution defining the symbols that were deemed unconstitutional by the constitutional court in 1998. After that, the canton amended the constitution to remove said provisions in 2000 and passed laws that define and regulate the usage of the symbols in 2003. It might be helpful to note that this RfC was created from an archived discussion here at RSN with no discussion.

Answer Yes or No or the equivalent to each following question:

1. Are Livno-Online, Mayor of the local municipality, RTRS, Federalna RTV, and SrpskaInfo reliable sources to verify that the symbols are currently unconstitutional?
2. Is Interview with an "expert in the field of constitutional law" and "former judge of the Constitutional Court of Yugoslavia and president of the Constitutional Court of FBiH" (Avaz, June 2018) a reliable source to verify that the symbols are currently unconstitutional?
3. Is page 123 of this ombudsman report a reliable source to verify that the symbols are currently constitutional?
4. Is page 63 of this ombudsman report a reliable source to verify that the symbols are currently unconstitutional?
5. Is a page from a blog belonging to Željko Heimer, a claimed vexillology expert, a reliable source to verify that the symbols are currently constitutional?
6. Are the law on the usage of the symbols and the law defining the symbols reliable primary sources to verify that the symbols are currently constitutional?

Aaron Liu (talk) 14:01, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

• Given the acrimonious prior discussions on the issue, I hesitate to weigh in. I don't think that this discussion can or will resolve the dispute because I think that the question of the current constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the flag and symbol are not something resolvable here based on any of these sources. What I think that Misplaced Pages can report based on these sources is that there is a dispute over the constitutionality of the current official flag. As for the sources themselves, here is what I think:

-1 and 2. The sources cited in the first two questions: livno.online, centralnews.live, rtrs.tv, federalna.ba, srpksainfo.com and avaz.ba, all appear to be ordinary reliable news organizations that may be used to report news or what interview subjects said on a subject. So, these sources can certainly be used to report the fact of the court ruling and the statements of interview subjects like the delegate, the mayor or the the retired judge that they claim it is unconstitutional. That does not necessarily answer the question of whether or not the flag and symbol is currently constitutional or not - just that some prominent people believe that it is not.

-3 and 4. I have no idea whether this report is a reliable source or not. I can't read it. Sometimes publications of government agencies are reliable sources, sometimes not, sometimes primary, secondary or tertiary.

-5. It does appear that Mr. Heimer is a recognized subject matter expert on flags, is president of an international society on flags, is frequently cited in other sources, and has been previously published by an independent publisher of at least one book on the subject. (another book was self-published through Lulu) So he is a reliable source on flags and can be used as a reference that this is the "official" flag of the canton. He's clearly not an expert on constitutional jurisprudence of Bosnia-Herzegovinia; so whether or not the flag is "constitutional" or not is not something I would cite him for.

-6. The statute itself is a primary source, and should not be used as a source all by itself. But, coupled with Heimer, it can be cited to support that the flag and symbol are "official". it does not establish whether or not they are "constitutional" or not. Banks Irk (talk) 21:20, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

I concur with Banks Irk.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:41, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Do sources at List of war crimes have to use the term "war crimes"?

Because the first few that I checked on the first Pakistan listing didn't, nor did a few others I checked. Doug Weller talk 12:49, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

• I would say yes… accusing a nation of committing “war crimes” is an extraordinary claim, and “extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources”. Blueboar (talk) 12:59, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

  This brings up a minor but critical nitpick: a nation can't commit a war crime. By definition, war crimes are done by individual soldiers independently of the nation. Conflating war crimes with crimes against humanity would be original research, which the list in question seems to do. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:14, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

• IMO, no. It's way too pedantic to require that. For example, "massacre", "torture", "intentional targeting of civilians", or similar terms commonly understood to be war crimes would work fine. Furthermore, I don't see anything inherently WP:EXTRAORDINARY about a claim of war crimes. For some countries, they are perfectly normal. Though some cases might need stronger sourcing than others. Adoring nanny (talk) 13:57, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

  Massacres, mass killings, and other actions, while commonly among what make up war crimes, cannot be called war crimes in wikivoixe withoit a source explicitly calling it, otherwise that is introducing OR and us likely against NPOV. Calling an event a war crime is a serious allegation and definitely one that cannot be determined by WP editors. Masem (t) 14:25, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

  I still think that's too pedantic. Different words and phrases can say the same thing. You might see "Kriegsverbrechen", "massaker an Juden" or "Ermordung von 10000 Juden". What if a source says "Die dritte Panzerdivision massakrierte 1000 Zivilisten. Dies war eine kriminelle Handlung." None of those, including "Kriegsverbrechen", explicitly uses the phrase "war crime". Adoring nanny (talk) 14:33, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

  I just want to expand on the impracticality of requiring "magic words" for inclusion. The article Nanjing massacre might also reasonably be titled "Nanking massacre", "Rape of Nanjing", or "Rape of Nanking". All terms refer to the same event. Would we not accept all as synonymous? What should be the status of Iris Chang's book "Rape of Nanking", which is a widely-distributed and highly-detailed description of the event? To me it seems obvious that Chang is a terrific source for the article, even though she uses "rape" instead of "Massacre", and "Nanking" instead of "Nanjing". I would not want the usability, or non-usability, of her work to depend on whether or not a user noticed that yes, on page xxx, she did in fact once use the term "Nanjing massacre". Adoring nanny (talk) 14:49, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

  I'm with you here, Adoring nanny. I don't think magic words are necessary and the phrase "war crime" or a cognate (like "Kriegsverbrechen") need not appear in a source to describe it as such. The border between summary and original research is not always as distinct as we might like. That said, the sourcing would still have to be very clear (e.g., "this action was in direct violation of international law" or some such) as it is clearly a serious accusation. As ever, reasonable minds may differ on the subject. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:56, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

  Compared to terms that describe the type, scale, and tradegy of the event, like massacre, "rape of...", and so on, "war crimes" carries a potentially legally binding accusation to it. It is not a type of synonymous term that you describe above. Masem (t) 14:59, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

• I am not sure that the inclusion criteria for this list have been well defined.The UN and the ICC have definitions as to what constitutes a war crime so I think we need not rely on "commonly understood", that's a bit vague for inclusion criteria. Since many cases don't get to court, informed sources (historians, legal experts) are needed to back up any claim in addition to it fitting the inclusion criteria. If it is a war crime (potentially), I don't see that such experts would not just say so, at least for crimes in modern history, WWII and after, say. Selfstudier (talk) 14:34, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
• I say definitely yes because otherwise we're veering into original research. It would be preferable to see the term used in peer reviewed articles for historical events like the ones described in the Pakistan article, but, I guess, some leeway is ok as to which sources are actually used. Particularly for ongoing or recent events.--RegentsPark (comment) 14:53, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
• I would say not universally so. It is far too pedantic to disallow something which is described by synonyms of "X", or which meets the definition of "X", but where the source doesn't use the magic word "X". This should be true of any topic. There may be some disagreement over whether something does or doesn't meet such definitions; but if so then WP:ONUS and WP:CONSENSUS applies; if consensus determines that something meets such a definition, then there is nothing wrong with including it. --Jayron32 16:05, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
• I think I'm more or less in line with Jayron and Dumuzid's perspective, that generally we should require a direct mention of war crimes but can potentially infer the same from RS coverage that does not explicitly use that phrase if it is sufficiently clear from context. I would quibble with the examples that Adoring nanny brings up above, as while it is generally an extraordinary claim to accuse someone of war crimes, war crimes by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan are abundantly well-documented and established, and editors would generally have no trouble substantiating such claims even if not every source specifically calls it a war crime. _signed, Rosguill 16:25, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

  Right. Just as an addendum, I think it's pretty hard to imagine a source describing a war crime with sufficient clarity to describe it as such without using the phrase or a variation thereof, but it is certainly possible. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 16:28, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

• Even if the magic words "war crime" were used, it should come from a competent source, not merely a "reliable source". Torture is always a crime, but in your example of Maqbool Hussain even taking everything in the given sources as fact it is possible that this is not a "war crime". International law in the area is complex with varying interpretations and may not follow what most would consider justice. Of course that argument would more often used be used for denial of war crimes. Using magic words or not both accusations and denials should come from competent sources, which journalists most likely are not. fiveby(zero) 17:44, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
• I think they do, at least in a larger sense (we don't need to get pedantic about it saying "X was a war crime" if its a book about war crimes, coverage under the umbrella in that case would be enough). Its important to remember that "crime during a war" =/= war crime. Journalists in particular throw about the term so much that its lost much of its meaning for non-academics... Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:08, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
• I agree with Masem, Fiveby, and Horse Eye's Back. There should be a very high bar before calling something a war crime in Wikivoice. There should be a general academic consensus that a specific incident meets the criteria of a war crime. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:19, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
• Torture, massacres, intentional targeting of civilians, etc., aren't necessarily war crimes. We shouldn't use the phrase unless the sources do, because it has a specific meaning, as do "crime against humanity" and "genocide", these are not synonyms. A source saying that somebody massacred civilians isn't enough to say "war crime" in wikivoice. I don't believe there are RSes that cover war crimes but don't use the phrase, just like I don't believe there are sources about genocide that don't use that word, or sources about horses that don't use the word "horse", etc. Levivich (talk) 00:13, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
• To be a bit more technical: if more than one source is given for an event listed as a war crime, at least one of them of sufficient quality should explicitly call it a war crime. It isn't necessary for all of them to use that name. Zero 01:14, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

  Actually, I think realistically we want a majority of sources to be able to call something a war crime, at least in Wikivoice. If, say, only the WAPost called an action a war crime but no other major RS used that language in covering the same event, then we would only be able to include the WAPost's assessment with attribution. Masem (t) 03:34, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

  I would be slightly cautious about this because it's easy to produce huge numbers of documents that only mention something in passing; what matters most are the ones that go into depth on it. Additionally, how an event is referred to can differ over time - contemporary accounts of a battle might not reference war crimes that happened there (possibly even because they weren't known, but possibly because the journalists were being extremely cautious at a point in time when things were not well-known and evidence was limited) - but if later academic coverage comes to a clear consensus that it was a war crime, we should cover it as such. And that leads into a final point - sources are not equal in weight. If there is a clear, unambiguous academic consensus that something is a war crime, we must call it such even if eg. news sources do not do so. --Aquillion (talk) 06:03, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

• I would say mostly yes. There may be a few situations where they use words that unambiguously have the same meaning, but especially for lists (where we have limited ability to include context), we want to be extremely careful. --Aquillion (talk) 06:03, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
• It looks like the lists are covering from Hague Convention of 1899 to present, and during that time there are significant changes in international law as to the nature of the conflict and those protected as well as what would be considered a crime. What is the intention of the list, to present to the reader the incidents that would now be considered "war crimes", or those that would violate the laws at the time and only by signatories to the treaties? Urkun is on the list but i am not sure that would fall under the Hague Convention, but might be described by a source as being a "war crime" under today's standards. fiveby(zero) 17:39, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
• I was going to say something very similar to the last post. This is the advantage of requiring the source to state explcitly that it is a war crime - it sidesteps that and other WP:ORish issues. DeCausa (talk) 18:08, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
• War crime is a technical (legal) term for certain type of actions. To constitute a war crime, the action must fulfil certain criteria and, importantly, be determined as such by a competent court. It's wrong to call something a war crime in wikivoice where there have only been allegations or accusations. It's akin to calling someone a murderer: we can use this term only after the person has been found guilty in a court of law. Same for war crimes IMO. — kashmīrī  22:52, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
• I think the magic word "war crime" isn't necessarily needed. Any violation of the laws of war — where it is clear and unambiguous that the was the laws of war were violated – can be described as a war crime without reliable sources. For example: the 2011 Helmand Province killing, where a British Marine carried out a field execution of a wounded Taliban insurgent, can be uncontroversially described as a war crime despite the tenor of the debate regarding it in the British public and press. Sceptre (talk) 17:27, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
• A reasonable criterion for inclusion, which has been more or less consistently followed in War crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine is that 1) in principle, the source must use the words "war crime" to describe the incident; 2) however, this is not strictly necessary if the incident, as described by sources, uncontroversially qualifies as a war crime (e.g., torturing a prisoner of war). By the way, in compiling a list of war crimes, the problem of anachronism must be solved. E.g, the indiscriminate bombing of cities did not qualify as a war crime prior to the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva conventions; should we describe the bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, etc., as war crimes? I believe we shouldn't. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 17:44, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
• Concur with Adoring_nanny and Sceptre. If the source describes things that are uncontroversially classified as war crimes (within the proper timeframe), then we don't need the magic words "war crime" to appear in the source. Our job as encyclopedists is to summarize in our own words what the sources are telling us, not to just plagiaristically parrot them.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:33, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
• Yes, I think the source must use the term "war crimes" in most cases. This is sufficient because such pages do not have to be only about war crimes proven in a court (there are few of them), but any events that have been discussed in RS as possible war crimes because such discussions (including what exactly constitutes war crime) are clearly on the subject. Should the participants make conclusions based on their own interpretation of Geneva conventions and what is constitute "war crime" in cases when the source does not explicitly discuss possible "war crimes"? That depends. Sometimes, this is plainly obvious, and there is strong consensus. Then "yes". In other cases this is not at all obvious, which leads to prolonged disputes. In such cases, I would say "no". My very best wishes (talk) 16:21, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Myths and images of the "enemy" in historical science and textbooks

1. Source: A. Yunusov. Myths and enemy images in historiography and history textbooks in independent Azerbaijan

2. Anti-Armenian sentiment in Azerbaijan#Indoctrination_in_schools

Hello community! I hope you're doing well! From this page of Leibniz Institute for International Textbook Research institute it is clear that "Myths and enemy images in historiography and history textbooks in independent Azerbaijan" is a report presented by the Arif Yunusov at the International Conference "Memory Wars?" 2009. Questions are: Is presentation at scholarly conference sufficient to consider Arif Yunusov's report as reliably published? Is it acceptable to use it as a source for Misplaced Pages, and if so, what type of source is it? Primary? Secondary? Other?

There is no distinction between Arif's report and any other report presented by an individual contributor at any other conference. Arif Yunusov's report, in my opinion, should be regarded as his own opinions, because it was not published by reliably scholarship, and so did not go through the process of fact-checking and accuracy checking, nor was it peer reviewed, however, I'd want to know what the community thinks.

Thanks, 21:00, 17 December 2022 (UTC) A b r v a g l 21:00, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

• Historian Arif Yunus is reliable, and he's more than qualified to talk about Armenia/Azerbaijan. He and his wife Leyla Yunus, described as "Azerbaijan's most prominent human rights campaigner", were jailed for allegedly "spying for Armenia" , 15 months later allowed to leave for the Netherlands.

"Mythen und Feindbilder in der Historiographie und Schulbüchern für Geschichte im unabhängigen Aserbaidschan" is a legit publication of materials presented by Yunus - who's also Head of the Department of Conflict and Migration Studies at the Institute of Peace and Democracy at a conference Internationale DAAD-Tagung „Krieg der Vorstellungswelten?“ Der Zusammenhang von Schulbuch und Konflikt im postsowjetischen Zentralasien, Südkaukasus und Moldau, Braunschweig, 12.-18.07.09, available online at Leibniz Institute for International Textbook Research institute page. Written by Yunus and published by Georg Eckert Institute, the source is reliably published by an academic institution. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 21:37, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Gregory Wilpert

Can Gregory Wilpert's books be used as a source in Misplaced Pages without attribution? He is the owner of Venezuelanalysis (generally unreliable per WP:RSP), was the director of Telesur English (unreliable per WP:RSP) from 2014 to 2015 and is currently an editor at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. They're used in many articles about Venezuela and Venezuelans, and I want to know if an author's involvement with unreliable sources (and what made them be considered unreliable) can affect the reliability of the author's other publications. Hegsareta (talk) 22:38, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

• Wilpert has been published widely in peer-reviewed journals on Latin America and has contributed to many books on the topic published by reputable publishing houses. He has a clear pro-Chavista perspective, which is no worse or better, for our purposes, than having a clear anti-Chavista perspective. Or, indeed, a position intermediate between the two. However, there is an active community of anti-Chavez users on this website who really, really don't like him and object vehemently to any pro-Chavez sources being used on wikipedia. And even the consensus around Venezuelanalysis being unreliable is not particularly strong, tbh. Boynamedsue (talk) 16:17, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
• I'd say assess case by case. Generally, involvement in bad sources is not a good sign, but that doesn't mean every text they contribute to is unreliable. A lot of it would be opinion, which we should use with attribution if it has due weight thanks to publication in a reliable source. If it's a factual claim made in a peer-reviewed article, we can usually use it. If it's a thinktank publication, we should apply a large pinch of salt, as we probably would for thinktank publications in general. Can you give any particularly difficult examples? BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:34, 19 December 2022 (UTC) Sorry, I just realised the question is specifically about books. I think it might depend on the publisher: if it's a reputable publisher, might be usable, but with some caution. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:35, 19 December 2022 (UTC) Looking for an example, I see Economy of Venezuela (which has a bunch of flagged bad sourcing) cites a book of his published by Verso. I'd say a book published by Verso should be treated something like an opinion piece in a larger left-wing magazine; it's not robust scholarly peer reviewing, even if some its authors are major academics and experts.BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:39, 19 December 2022 (UTC) Also worth looking at Economic policy of the Hugo Chávez administration, which has lots of problematic sourcing. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:57, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Proceedings of Hungarian association

Is Proceedings of Hungarian association a reliable source for history topics, including history of the USSR, or it is an SPS? Paul Siebert (talk) 00:14, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Is there a specific example of where this source is being used currently? Curbon7 (talk) 00:53, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Interesting Engineering

Do editors consider Interesting Engineering to be reliable source?

It started out as a now-defunct blog on Blogger, and my understanding is that blogs generally aren't considered reliable. However, the online magazine (in its current form) has been used as a source for major media outlets like The New York Times and BBC. Ixfd64 (talk) 20:50, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ixfd64, they seem to be a reliable online engineering publication with offices in New York and Istanbul. They hire journalists, have editors, and have a fact checking policy. StarryGrandma (talk) 18:38, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

That's good to know. I wanted to use it to cite a statement a while ago but wasn't sure if it was considered a reliable source. Thanks. Ixfd64 (talk) 18:52, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Floridapolitics.com

This source seems to have been used quite a bit recently, especially to report endorsements in US Elections. Looking at the site, I see no statements about editing policy and it looks like it may just be a glorified blog. Seeking opinions on whether this is a reliable source.

2022_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_Florida is a page that the source is used extensively. Slywriter (talk) 18:06, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Floridapolitics.com has been publicly accused of being a "pay-for-play" blog. Most recently, NPR exposed the site and its publisher's association with scandal where Florida Power and Light paid the site for favorable reporting. In fact, the publisher admitted the site does not adhere to ethical journalistic integrity standards. "Peter Schorsch acknowledges he doesn't observe traditional journalistic practices when deciding what to cover. In an interview, Schorsch says he practices "combination journalism": He says Florida Politics' coverage is not dictated by advertisers, but it often gives them favorable coverage. And, he says, sometimes he gives them more coverage."

Hope this helps. Jejasi (talk) 21:35, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

For trivial coverage, like candidate lists, campaign finance, or certain campaign coverages, (i.e. where it's sourced in relation to 2022 United States House of Representatives elections in Florida), it seems to be fine. For controversial topics or topics related to companies, it seems better off avoiding. Some reporters also appear to be more reliable than others. Curbon7 (talk) 00:48, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

"Some reporters also appear to be more reliable than others?" I disagree. No matter the reporter's apparent credentials, when the editor in chief is taking money from directly from candidates and instructing his reporters on what to cover, how much to cover, and how to cover, the source should not be considered reliable. The publication admitted they uphold limited or no journalistic integrity standards. There are likely other more reliable sources that report on the same information and it is better to use those sources. Jejasi (talk) 16:43, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

There is no mention of him taking money from candidates; in fact, stating that uncited amounts to a WP:BLP violation, and quite a bad one. As I stated above and judging based on that NPR article: seems fine for politics, seems not fine for companies. Curbon7 (talk) 16:54, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

wordhippo.com

An online thesaurus of unknown authorship, not much used on Misplaced Pages, but seen on a talk page to support a claim that the plural of "narrative" is "narrative" in "commonly used contexts". (It is a collective noun, which may agree with plural verbs in some varieties of English, generally British, but that is something different, not explained on the site.) It is also used in WP main space to support a WP:BLUESKY set of synonyms for the article's topic. Just plain Bill (talk) 18:49, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

• Wordhippo authorship is nonrelevant. Re proprietorship, the site indicates it was built by Kat IP Pty Ltd, a company based in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia.
• A linguistic distinction between naratives (explicitly plural & collective noun) e.g., "conflicting narratives" versus narrative (implicitly plural & mass noun) e.g., "their life stories in narrative are exaggerated" may be beyond the scope of generic thesaurases and might well be beyond the interest (if not, the comprehension) of ordinary readers. The Wordhippo site suffices the interests of an average reader.
• An opinion that "watercraft, also known as a water vessel or waterborne vessel" represents a WP:BLUESKY set of synonyms is a textbook case of Ipse dixit. On the contrary, those synonymous terms, together with the Wordhippo cite, support statements that were challenged or questioned elsewhere (and in rare cases, expounded) in the pertinent article and in other outside sources.
• The watercraft article isn't the proper venue to debate the contextual implications of using watercraft versus watercrafts in a given context. Nevertheless, the Wordhippo site gives grammatical guidance for anyone who wishes to argue the saliency of a particular use. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 21:04, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

In this case, authorship does matter. Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. The division of KAT IP Pty Ltd responsible for wordhippo looks like an app developer and vendor. As demonstrated by the gibberish that could plausibly lead an "average reader" to believe that "one narrative, several narrative" is proper English of any variety, whoever they hired to build the app are lexicographical lightweights, definitely not worthy of being regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject.

I did not see a "citation needed" tag on the synonyms before the appearance of the wordhippo source. If you know of a place where they "were challenged or questioned elsewhere", kindly show link(s) to it; otherwise, ipse dixit right back atcha. (This paragraph is out of scope here in RSN, and may be answered at Talk:Watercraft.) Just plain Bill (talk) 07:59, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

• Let's not conflate authorship with reliable publication process. Speculate all you want about the motives and abilities re Wordhippo as a publisher and whatever authors are responsible for its contents, but apply the same speculation to sites like Oxford and Merriam-Webster, whose authorship is similarly unknown to those who don't work there (or those who don't otherwise have collateral info about its editors) and who similarly have an online financial model based on webhosting other entities' ads.
• The synonyms were challenged starting here, based on their singular versus plural manifestation. The discussion dragged on at Talk:Watercraft#Singular/plural until ThoughtIdRetired submitted this edit resulting the last stable version pertaining to your interest re synonyms.
• Discrepancies re synonyms are also evident in the Types section if the watercraft article: "Most watercraft may be described as either a ship or a boat. However, numerous items, including surfboards, underwater robots, seaplanes and torpedoes, may be considered neither ships nor boats." Key term is may be since the underlying issue relates to a synonymous versus hypernymous relationship re the various meanings. That same issue is where Oxford, Merriam-Webster, WordHippo, inter alia, can't agree.

Kent Dominic·(talk) 18:00, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Do you honestly think wordhippo is in the same league as Oxford or Merriam-Webster? Not even close. Kindly stick to the topic at hand, which is the reliability of wordhippo.com, not those well-established dictionaries. Do you have any basis for claiming wordhippo's publication process is reliable?

If you want to conflate citations for watercraft synonyms with that article's plural/singular kerfuffle and pontificate about that at length, do it somewhere else. Just plain Bill (talk) 19:12, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

It seems impossible to discover Wordhippo's editorial methods for ensuring that their entries are accurate. Without that, they do not meet the criteria for an RS. I think we classify this as a self-published source.

Incidentally, Wordhippo's site does contain, in a relatively unobvious corner some interesting provisions and disclaimers, including language that might be a limitation on our ability to discuss their content, since they refer to personal use only. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 20:15, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Ensuring the accuracy re methodology is up to the readers. Being self-published and accurate aren't mutually exclusive. Wordhippo's disclaimers are standard boilerplate. Regardless, the cite has a "Cite US bit of info, and its entries are nonetheless subject to fair use implementation. Kent Dominic·(talk) 22:58, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Remind me who initiated the interest in authorship. Then explain what metrics to apply when determining what league a cited source might be in. I won't mention how I've logged, as of today, 1,229 internal inconsistencies at one of those sites. Hint: it ain't WordHippo. And, remind me again: Who raised the issue about synonyms, and who asked for the pertinent links? Kent Dominic·(talk) 22:51, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Do I detect a bit of legal training there, User:Kent Dominic, in ignoring the question that you cannot answer? The key point is that we have no idea how Wordhippo goes about ensuring the accuracy of their content. By way of comparison, the OED is known to have robust procedures that are occasionally mentioned in the press. Furthermore, they are the product of a well-recognised publishing house, the Oxford University Press. Wordhippo do not have the benefit of a recognised publisher, as they are self-published. We need to know more about them. If we do not know how Wordhippo work to achieve accuracy, they are not an RS.

Your Ensuring the accuracy re methodology is up to the readers seems to put the burden of accuracy on the person reading the source – I presume by "reader", you mean the Wikpedia editor. If that is the way you suggest Misplaced Pages works, then what is the point of the source in the first place? It doesn't work that way. If you mean that the editor who wants to use a source should demonstrate that they are an RS, then that is correct, the burden on them is to come up with the evidence of methods to check accuracy. We do not seem to have that here.

The issue on their legal stuff is that they say they are for personal use only. Does that preclude a Misplaced Pages editor from using them (think of the number of views some pages get)? At the least, is a valid question. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 00:03, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

What relevant question did I ignore? It's beneath me to reply to bandwagon rationale re how many ppl like Site A or an argumentum ad verecundiam re how many ppl revere Site B. Some things can be judged valid per se. Let's not disparage Site C because it doesn't have the tradional laurels.

Here's the only salient point: The watercraft article intitally equated watercraft and certain vehicles. I objected primaily to the use of a mix-matched singular-to-plural case, which risked conflating a synonymous relation versus a hypernymous relation. Someone (whom it was I don't recall) objected to the lack of a cite in the lede that finally achieved consensus. I provided the Wordhippo cite because it contains the largest corpus of synonyms for watercraft among all of the sites I've seen AND it takes into account divergent meanings of watercraft in a way Merriam-Webster and Oxford address only summarily. The accuracy of the synonymous terms, as listed at Wordhippo and as judged by anyone who's even minimally educated, speaks for itself. The comparably larger volume of the terms, vis-a-vi Merriam-Webster and Oxford, is self-evident to anyone who's even marginally able to read.

Re the burden of proof whether a cite comes from a RS: There's no WP rule that says the onus is on the editor who provides the cite versus one who challenges it. Regardless, I didn't cite WordHippo to imply that the site on the whole is a RS. I'm just saying now that I continue to believe how the cite in question withstands rigorous scrutiny. And, yes, it's for you and other editors to decide whether to agree or disagree with that assessment.

It's irrelevant how Wordhippo got and vetted the goods on its site. Whatever baraometer suits an editor's taste for being "well-recognized" is similarly irrelevant. I suspect a site like Etymonline is not nearly as well-recognized as Merriam-Webster and Oxford, yet those two (*ahem*) "RSs" routinely skirt the boundaries of plagiarism in using Etymonline's source material. Who publishes Etymoline? Who writes and edits the stuff there? I, for one, couldn't care less. Same goes for WordHippo, for the Glossary of Literary Terms, and for Literary Devices and Terms, to name a couple of my own lesser-known go-to sites that you might not approve as reliable sources. Kent Dominic·(talk) 01:30, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Let's go through this as a numbered list:
(1) The relevant question is "what evidence do we have that Wordhippo is a Reliable Source?"
(2) As a general principle, if any content in a Misplaced Pages article is challenged, it is the role of the person supporting that content (not necessarily the one who added it in the first place) to justify its presence in the article. You see this in WP:BURDEN. I presume that you would not question that ensuring that a source is an RS is part of the "demonstrate verifiability" stipulation that you will find at that link.
(3) Your statement "The accuracy of the synonymous terms, as listed at Wordhippo and as judged by anyone who's even minimally educated, speaks for itself" seems to say "if a source agrees with me, then it is a Reliable Source". That is not the way that Misplaced Pages works, because otherwise it would simply be full of editors' opinions, rather than the verifiable facts that are the basis of this encyclopaedia.
(4) As to how to determine if something is an RS, look at WP:RS. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 09:07, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

'Twas the same one who called a content dispute at Watercraft out of scope for this thread, and suggested that part of the discussion continue at that article's talk page. Metric? Just a funny smell coming from a nondescript LLC with an app dev and marketing department, and the app itself launched in '08. Nameless authorship is a red flag not yet offset by a history of publication. Just plain Bill (talk) 00:18, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Skip the blathering argumentum ad verecundiam and answer these two questions: (1) Was any info inaccurate re the Wordhippo cite given in the Watercraft article? Do you know of any RS that provides as much info as Wordhippo on the topic. Regardless, if your underlying concern is the lack of need for any synonyms in the lede, you might voice that concern on the watercraft talk page rather than tilting at Wordhippo's windmills. Kent Dominic·(talk) 01:40, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

• A relevant part of the WP:RS guidance is that sources are expected to have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. I think that it would perverse to argue that Oxford or Merriam-Webster do not have such a reputation; conversely, I see no evidence that Wordhippo has such a reputation. On the question of whether it is a reliable source for questions about the use of words, I would say no, unless evidence is presented that it has garnered that reputation. Otherwise it's just another random website, put together for commercial gain by people of unknown levels of expertise. Girth Summit _(blether) 10:22, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

  As for cherry-picking a relevant part of WP:RS, I'll concede not only that WordHippo, the Glossary of Literary Terms, and Literary Devices & Terms lack the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy attributed to Oxford, Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, and Columbia. I'd hasten to add, however, that one's unfamiliarity with a given source doesn't exclude one's prerogative for due diligence in applying the WP:RS guidelines wholesale.

  To cherry-pick another part of the guidline: context matters. "Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Misplaced Pages article and is an appropriate source for that content." I did my due diligence in this case and found the WordHippo site vastly surpassed the reliability of Oxford, Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, and Columbia re terms that are analogous to or associated with the term, watercraft.

  I'd caution against any assumption that the reputation of an Oxford, Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, and Columbia makes it impervious to WP:RS challenges. Let's not debate the slippery slope questions of when those publications' abilities and activities (hampered, IMHO, by their online presence, quick lexical turnarounds, and ever-increasing reliance on webhosting revenue) impair their WP:RS cache. Let's not debate the slippery slope matter of when a WordHippo, Glossary of Literary Terms, or Literary Devices & Terms might cross some nebulous threshhold of "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Let's not impugne the WP:RS guidlines for failing to mention that using common sense is an indispensable factor that ought to be at work in making an associated determination. Kent Dominic·(talk) 14:46, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Can Blogs be Reliable?

If an online news publication (which may be considered a "blog") holds congressional press credentials, publishes investigative news material, and is cited by sitting members of the U.S. House and Senate in official correspondence, is that site a reliable source? I am asking because FloridianPress.com investigated financial ties between AHA International School and a Chinese education company in the wake of the U.S. government leasing the property to house migrant children. The article seems to be relevant to the AHA International School's history, particularly its closure and subsequent use of the property, yet when I attempted to include it as a citation, it was removed as an unreliable source. Any assistance would be appreciated. Jejasi (talk) 21:47, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

• The reliability of such publications is discussed in WP:SPS. Blueboar (talk) 22:33, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

  An answer that rote is unlikely to help resolve the specific conflict raised.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:25, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Side note, a source that doesn't fulfill the RS criteria is not categorically excluded from Misplaced Pages, it just doesn't count as fulfilling requirements (such as wp:ver) for a source that does meet the criteria. North8000 (talk) 21:32, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

• Floridian press was spammed into articles by an account likely connected to the website, which is what caused initial removal. Looking at the site, there's no policies to be found that show any effort at reliability is maintained. Slywriter (talk) 17:09, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Nova24tv.si

Hello! I would propose that the Slovenian news portal https://nova24tv.si/ is put on MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist (with the possibility of whitelisting individual pages). The Slovenian fact-checking site Oštro found it to be "among the most significant contributors of misinformation in Slovenia". It summarised Breitbart (blacklisted here) over 550 times,. At the moment, it is used approximately 100 times in the English Misplaced Pages, but I have started to remove the links. Other sites are also mentioned in a recent report, but this one is the most topical. --TadejM 09:41, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

I support this motion, Nova24tv is not considered a reliable media in Slovenia. Tone 09:51, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Update: A discussion is also being held at sl:Pogovor o Wikipediji:Brez izvirnega raziskovanja. --TadejM 01:03, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

In view of the discussion, I consider that it will be best to leave Nova24tv.si out of the blacklist at the moment. However, the links should be carefully checked.

The left-wing media Necenzurirano and Mladina are not much better. Their links (, ) should also be carefully reviewed. --TadejM 02:41, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Particularly Mladina seems spammy. (almost 200 links). I mean, how can a clearly left-wing magazine be used to reliably source an article on Far-right politics in Slovenia? --TadejM 02:48, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I've now tagged two articles – Far-right politics in Slovenia and Slovenian Democratic Party – as using unreliable sources and therefore most probably biased (please see the discussion there). --TadejM 03:20, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Sexual violence in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine: mass rape and rape as a weapon of war

I'd welcome more contributions to the discussions going on at Sexual violence in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. One deals with NPOV and DUE, but the other one is about sources, and the issue is: do we have enough independent and reliable sources to state with wikivoice in the lead that Sexual violence in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has been committed by Armed Forces of Russia, including the use of mass rape as a weapon of war? Sources on mass rape are detailed in the Overall scale section, and sources on rape as a weapon of war are in the Claims of intent section. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:31, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

In addition to the multiple sources already present in the article, there’s about a whole dozen additional sources given in this discussion . Gitz6666 is just wasting people’s time. Volunteer Marek 17:44, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Speaking of wasting people's time, it would be nice if at least one of the sources you shared were to directly state that rape is systematic/weaponised, instead of attributing that opinion to specific individuals or talking about "fear" and "allegations" of rape being systematic/weaponised in Ukraine. This would give you an argument to conclude that we can also state this with wikivoice. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 18:11, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

As pointed out already , pretty much all the sources do exactly that. Your inability to parse the sources is your problem, not everyone else's. That is exactly why you're wasting other people's time. Volunteer Marek 18:58, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

@Gitz. Yes, you waste other people's time. This is RSNB, but you did not even bother to specify any source you are asking about, and you did not challenge any source here as unreliable. My very best wishes (talk) 02:31, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

As I said, sources are detailed in the article. They are not unreliable. But IMO they don't support the claims on "mass rape" and "rape as a weapon of war". Therefore, the lead section fails WP:V. However, you're probably right that RSN is not the appropriate place for this discussion: if I'm not wrong, this topic better fits ORN. If so, unless anyone objects, I'm inclined to close this discussion and open an identical thread there. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 18:36, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Are Mercator Institute for China Studies and London Review of Books reliable?

I was previously translating the Industrial Party (China) to the English Misplaced Pages, but one experienced Chinese Misplaced Pages editor (User:Fire-and-Ice) took issue with my citing LRB and Mercator as reliable sources in the article, especially regarding the misuse of translation in the image. I want to know whether these are reliable under this topic, or I should make a significant change? Thanks for your opinion. ときさき くるみ 16:47, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

I would say that the LRB needs to be assessed on a case by case basis as they publish a range of opinion pieces from both experts and non-experts, both in their print edition and their blog. If I understand correctly, the cited piece is from a series of lockdown diaries by Wang Xiuying, about whom very little information is available. I wouldn't see a reason to distrust it, but it might be sensible to include attribution if it was the only source. Here, it appears to be used simply to confirm that gongye dang should be translated as ‘the technology party’ or ‘the industrial party’ and refers to techno-optimism. Doesn't seem controversial? BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:09, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: Actually not only that, LRB source was also used to imply that the Industrial Party support advanced technology and that is one main concern. User: Fire-and-Ice said on Chinese Misplaced Pages:

I would say I am not that familiar with the reliablity of LRB so I decide to put it here. Another concern is that Fire-and-Ice states that the source (actually, all the sources within the article) could not imply that Industrial Party is relevant or in support of technocracy. Again, I'm not that familiar with technocracy so I would also like to put the question here. ときさき くるみ 12:20, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

LRB is indeed literary but it often includes academic commentary and original reporting. In this case, it's hard to judge as they give no information on the author. If it was the sole source for something controversial, I wouldn't use it, but if it is one of many sources saying broadly the same thing it seems fine. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:13, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Gōngyè 工業 is invariably translated as "industrial" in normal usage. Translating it as technology would be unusual. Cambial — foliar❧ 14:34, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Malta Today and The Malta Independent

A question has arisen whether Malta Today and The Malta Independent are reliable sources. I don't know enough about either to know for sure. The resolution of the edit request at Talk:Henley & Partners#Restore section that was deleted improperly rather depends on the answer. At first blush these look like reasonable sources to me, and both are notable, but experience with notable but unreliable publishers in the US tells me to seek more input from people more familiar with Malta and its media outlets.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:56, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Looking the shitshow of that page history, I can't even tell where the claim that these two newspapers are not RS comes from or which specific articles are being referred to. Both newspapers appear to be pretty clearly reliable, broadly. Specific articles may be placed advertisements, but this generally does not reflect on the reliability of the source if it is clearly marked as a paid article (for example, CNN marks when they're running a paid article, The Times of India frequently does not). Curbon7 (talk) 00:42, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, I linked above directly to the discussion in question, which cites both of the articles specifically (first two sources used).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:39, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Ah I didn't see the refbox. Looking at the sources, I don't see too big a problem as far as reliability. There are some weasel words in the articles ("an innovative partnership") but these articles seem like reporting on a current event rather than a paid article. Curbon7 (talk) 16:32, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I know Malta Independent as the newspaper Daphne Caruana Galizia worked for, which strongly suggests to me it is a good source, including on business matters in Malta. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:26, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

nerima-kanko.jp

Is (was) this a reliable source? Saw it mentioned on Kyōhei Ishiguro's page and while it doesn't seem particularly untrustworthy to me, from what I gathered on their twitter they're officially an advertisement agency for the Nerima ward in Japan. The site has since been majorly redesigned or passed hands or something and most of the old articles have gone defunct (the source on Ishiguro's page needed to be swapped out with the web archive) which also does not fill me with confidence with regards to their reliability. 216.164.249.213 (talk) 17:26, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Source used for two different articles

I'd like to get some thoughts on whether a source some of us want to use at and Bob Tomalski should be considered reliable. The source is an investigative podcast . - Who is John Galt? ✉ 20:42, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

My view is that one podcast is not enough. It is WP: PRIMARY, and has almost no coverage outside its own promotional material. I've reverted edits enough times to be close to 3RR though my view remains that I'm on the right side here because of policy. doktorb _words 21:06, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I wrote this on the talk page, but I consider what the podcast is to be more important than the fact that it's a podcast (or just one podcast). This is a podcast that appears to have gotten little-to-no attention in other reliable sources, so we don't have any reason to think it's reliable for such a claim. Without anyone else talking about it, and without some sort of well-documented expertise of the people involved, it's indistinguishable from a random YouTube video in terms of reliability. It's fairly recent, so it may be picked up by some press soon, but for now I'd say omit. — Rhododendrites \\ 21:23, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

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