Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 240

LaMar C. Berrett was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a professor at Brigham Young University. He published a book, Discovering the World of the Bible with basically treats everything in the Bible as a historical fact. Editors are now inserting the "history" of people like Rehoboam, Solomon, David and Noah into the article of Dura, Hebron, based solely on the Biblical mention (AFAIK, there is considerable discussion among archeologist if anyone of the 4 mentioned people actually ever existed....).

I consider this profoundly unhistorical. Wikipedia should not be a vehicle for people to use for spreading their religious beliefs as facts. What does other people think about this? Huldra (talk) 20:32, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

This is not a work of history. It is a religious tract. It is reliable only for the beliefs of the author. Richard Keatinge (talk) 06:58, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

It's not quite a religious tract. It could possibly be a RS for attributing biblical locations to modern day settlements - which is a subject of interest of many. Such attributions should not be presented as fact - but as a belief. Berrett himself for Dura, Hebron qualifies his stmt as "where some believe Noah was buried".Icewhiz (talk) 07:12, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

As she professor of religion she does have expertise in the field anyhow she can be used attributed as she reliable for her own words.--Shrike (talk) 07:37, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

The bible story relevant to a location can be mentioned in an article on that location, but it cannot be presented as fact. Berrett can be used as the source for some sentences that clearly state that they are about the bible story. All it needs is "According to the Bible.." in some places. However, if Berrett's view on the meaning of the bible story is not standard, it must be decided whether to attribute the text to her or to remove it altogether. Zero^talk 08:44, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Ahem, LaMar C. Berrett was male, not female. Also, as Zero noted, the LSD meaning of the bible story os not standard...besides some of the belief simply do not match modern science, see eg Genetics and the Book of Mormon and Archaeology and the Book of Mormon. If we are going to accept LaMar C. Berrett views in Dura, Hebron, then shouldn't we also have, say, a section about how the earth actually was created in 7 days in the History of Earth? Huldra (talk) 20:40, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Well, I've removed the crackpot source,-we have far better- so this is all moot. Just insert 'mythical biblical figure', which can be sourced a zillion times. Apart from regularly shootung a lot of people in Dura, Israel has yet to claim it owns the place because Noah died there, which means that in Jewish tradition, this pre-Abrahamic figure doesn't (yet) figure or function as a warrant to nab more real estate.Nishidani (talk) 20:45, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Dont give them ideas! Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:59, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Actually there is a lot more manuscript evidence for biblical history than other widely accepted historical documents. We also have jewish and arab tradition as to where certian events were supposed to happen. A religion professor is perfectly qualified to assemble evidence and tradition to connect Place A to Person B. Just cite the source correctly and carry on. Legacypac (talk) 17:34, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

An editor removed basic bio info [3] sourced to a Radio Free Europe interview with the article subject. I'm pretty sure we can take the subject's word for his age and schooling in an interview on RFE. This info is not easily sourced elsewhere as no one in the English speaking world cared much about Konstantin Kilimnik until he became a key person in the Mullier investigation in the last few days. Is there any problem with RFE as a source in this context? Legacypac (talk) 17:29, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

This is rather deceptive, though I'm sure it's meant in good faith. The source is actually not an interview. It's an article describing an interview, and it's published by Radio Free Europe, which as I understand it is a propaganda agency of the U.S. government, unlike other government-funded but independent broadcasters like NPR or PBS. The subject of the article is an individual who is believed to be Russian intelligence and who is now known to be involved in the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. The content at issue involves much more than the subject's name and includes details about the subject's support for exiled former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. We simply should not be relying on a U.S. government propaganda outlet for this sort of material. (I am not watching this page, so please ping me if you want my attention.) --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:44, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• Radio Free Europe is a propaganda outlet of the US Government. At best it could be used for non-controversial information on subjects unrelated to the US government. It would be amazingly bad to use it as a source about someone connected with the investigation into the affairs of the head of state of the US government. Only in death does duty end (talk) 01:23, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Dr Fleischman's assessment is incorrect. The source is clearly labeled an interview in the title. The interview is being used to support what the article subject (KK) told the reporter about his own age, university attended, and one job in the 2000s predating meeting Manafort. What kind of propaganda purpose would reporting KK's self disclosed background have exactly? Does anyone think RFE falsely reported these basic bio details and if so, why? Also reporting on what KK said about about his own activities should be fine - KK might even be lying about his actions but we report what KK said and to who he said it. Legacypac (talk) 02:00, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

That article is not a write-up of an interview. It's not a series of questions and answers between interviewer and subject, it's just a news article that includes a few quotations from the subject. The article was obviously written by a staff member of Radio Free Europe who very selectively edited whatever interview might have taken place to choose some quotations from the subject to place among the prose of the article. There's no way for us to know what the context of any of those quotations was because of the way this article is formatted. If Radio Free Europe were a trusted source, then this wouldn't be an issue, their own reputation would guarantee the reliability of their methods and we could assume that the article is giving an accurate portrayal of the subject. But Radio Free Europe is a propaganda agency with no reputation for reliability or fact-checking, so this article could be giving a false portrayal of the subject through manipulative use of selective quotation, or it could just be an outright falsehood (though I think that's unlikely). Red Rock Canyon (talk) 17:04, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

You just described a known propaganda outfit as 'unlikely to use outright falsehood' - just let that one sink in a minute... :) Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:33, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

A discussion at Talk:Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (season 4)#Johnny Blaze centers on whether two tweets, each of which has since been deleted, can be used to support a contentious claim.

The particulars, which may or may not be pertinent, involve an unnamed guest character in a TV episode. Neither the producers nor the writer, the sole authoritative sources, named the character, nor have they discussed fan theories. In tweets that have since been deleted (and to my mind recanted), a recurring-guest actor and the visual-effects supervisor each claimed, without stating their source, that they they believed the unnamed character was Johnny Blaze, a character from the comic books. This seems like rumor or here-say, and while I suppose we can say "So-and-so and So-and-so believe the character was Johnny Blaze," the article states it as definitive fact. Thoughts about citing a contentious claim to withdrawn tweets? --Tenebrae (talk) 21:53, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Was the tweet or its deletion covered by an RS? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:14, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

The deleted tweets are not the only sources being used, with still existing tweets like the ones here also supporting the claim. And the issue here is more whether a tweet being deleted means that it was untrue. I don't think we can make that assumption, as the explanation we were given for not getting a straight answer about this in the show is that there were legal issues so it is more likely that the tweet legally had to be taken down. - adamstom97 (talk) 23:56, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Unless they are archived directly (not just a screenshot someone has uploaded) deleted tweets fail WP:V. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:22, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

i note both tweet have archive. IUpdateRottenTomatoes (talk) 21:46, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

OK. So tweets that have been retracted are considered reliable sources. Tweets making unconfirmed statements about a third party's intent that the third party never says or confirms are considered reliable sources. Am I getting that right? --Tenebrae (talk) 22:41, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Meh, can someone link me the archived tweets so I can see the context? Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:42, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Only in death you can see here: [4] [5]. however i note format is bad, need to move page down to see real tweet. IUpdateRottenTomatoes (talk) 22:46, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Two main problems that would prevent me from using either. 1st tweet (Gabriel Luna) is from a verified account but gives no context. 2nd tweet gives context (Mark Kolpack is an employee who worked directly on the issue in question and so should be a reasonable primary source for what he was working on) but is an unverified twitter account - which we almost never ever use. While I agree its highly unlikely this is an impersonation account, our use of tweets is almost exclusively as primary sources from the subjects concerned - where their identity has been verified. Were the second tweet from a verified account, I wouldnt have a problem with a sentence along the lines of 'believed by the visual effects supervisor on Agents of Shield to be Johnny Blaze' - but thats the extent of it. As its not verified, I couldnt even go that far. Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:59, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Agree with Only in death does duty end, while the tweet can be verified to have existed (one part of WP:V) their reliability is not at all established per the above (the other part of WP:V). Arnoutf (talk) 06:32, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Would it be alright for me to copy the above two comments to Talk:Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (season 4)#Johnny Blaze? It might help us reach a consensus. Alternately, if anyone would care to comment there, that also could help.--Tenebrae (talk) 21:04, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi, is this source "Facing One Qiblah: Legal and Doctrinal Aspects of Sunni and Shi'ah Muslims"[6] reliable for pre-Islamic Arab history? The source assert on extremely controversial topic concerning historical figure, Umayya ibn Abd Shams. Ahmad Kazemi for instance is specialist on the field of Islamic law, and other authors are concentrated in the study of the religious scripture, not history. I asked the editor to provide reliable materials for the claim, he simply ignored and asserted on the reliability of his source. Best regards. Nabataeus (talk) 21:46, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

What on Earth are you on about? It is not being used for pre-Islamic Arab history but rather for a claim made by someone. I did ignore you but rather Kansas Bear said that it was reliable. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:50, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

I say it’s reliable too. This has nothing to do with pre-Islamic Arabs ...—>Farawahar (talk) 22:03, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Umayya ibn Abd Shams is pre-Islamic Arab figure. And as I said, the claim was made by Ibn al-Kalbi, who is acknowledged as unreliable authority by medieval Islamic scholars and even a considered to be a liar.^[1][2] I made these two points very clear and explicit, and asked you nicely to provide reliable materials. Nabataeus (talk) 22:04, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes Umayya ibn Abd Shams is pre-Islamic Arab figure, but that is not the content that is being supported by the source. What the source is claiming is that Ibn al-Kalbi made a claim about him. Threatening to mention this to an admin is not what I would call nicely either. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:09, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

@Farawahar: Please stop (Personal attack removed). It is getting tiresome. Nabataeus (talk) 22:10, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Don't accuse editors of things when they just are just helping. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:13, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and I said ibn al-Kalbi is deemed and acknowledged unreliable authority (sources provided),^[1][3] he is known to be a liar as his father. I made it clear from the beginning and you thought of it as irrelevant. Nabataeus (talk) 22:15, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

I would not accuse if i had no evidences Emir, anyway, you’re right, this is not the point here.—>Farawahar (talk) 22:21, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

What does that have to do wit anything Nabataeus? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:23, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

My comment of accusation was at Nabataeus, not you Farawahar. I also removed the personal attack. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:23, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, then i badly misunderstood—>Farawahar (talk) 22:30, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Nabataeus, what’s the problem with giving the name of the person we’re talking about ?—>Farawahar (talk) 22:35, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Why did you change the headline? Is that even allowed? Anyway, it have everything. It's unreliable, thus should be removed as far as WP:RS is concerned. Nabataeus (talk) 22:33, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

I have explained on your talkpage about the headline. Not sure what you mean by Anyway, it have everything. It's unreliable, thus should be removed as far as WP:RS is concerned. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:35, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

And Kansas Bear explained you too.—>Farawahar (talk) 22:39, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

What is there to not understand? You said: What the source is claiming is that Ibn al-Kalbi made a claim about him. I replied ibn al-Kalbi is considered to be unreliable (Sources provided). Nabataeus (talk) 22:43, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That is irrelevant, we are just saying that he made a claim not whether it is reliable. What do you not understand? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:46, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

I am inclined to disagree, Wikipedia reflect reliable materials. It don't state what is found in unreliable sources, primarily for accuracy. The policy is very explicit.

• Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. This means that we publish the opinions only of reliable authors, and not the opinions of Wikipedians who have read and interpreted primary source material for themselves. Nabataeus (talk) 22:56, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Multiple editors have said that the source is reliable. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:52, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Just one editor, and he said "it appears to check out". As for Farawahar we had intense disputes and she have this pattern. Let's wait the opinions of other neutral editors please. Nabataeus (talk) 19:00, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

I have said it is reliable, so has Farawahar and so has Kansas Bear You attempted to engage in WP:FORUMSHOPING by trying to evade the result here and bring this up at User_talk:GreenMeansGo#Reliable_source?. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:19, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

I made this edit based on my reading of Carter (which I "read online free" on JSTOR), but when I looked a little bit deeper it seems like Carter confused Yoshitada (Basho's master) with Yoshikiyo (Yoshitada's father), as he calls the man Yoshikiyo but gives him Yoshitada's pen name and death date. Given how our article only currently cites Carter for info on Basho's early life, I'm not sure if we should just throw him out since, even if it's just a misprint (not unlikely), he's got a significant detail about the topic for which we cite him -- Basho's early career -- wrong. Should we just use him for the rest and ignore when details like this are wrong?

Honestly, the reason it concerns me is that I only added a reference to Yoshikiyo because of the error that I took at face value at first, and now I'm wondering if Yoshikiyo should even be named in the article.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:37, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

This is a perennial problem on Wikipedia.[7] A bunch of reliable sources made an understandable mistake. We keep catching it over and over. New editors keep reinserting it by citing the older sources.

I say, 1) find a source documenting that Carter made a mistake and that this is not original research on your part. Did Carter him/herself ever issue a retraction or even just quietly use the correct name in a later work?

2) Correct the article text and put a <!--Hidden note saying something like "Yes I know Carter says 'Y2' instead of 'Y1' but see talk page."--> advising editors to check the talk page before changing it back.

3) Make a permanent note on the talk page (I'm not sure how you'd do this) that says "ABOUT CARTER SAYING YOSHITADA/YOSHIKIYO! Dude just made a mistake. Here is the source confirming that the otherwise reliable Carter made this specific error. Here is the DATE of that source. Please do not use any Carter material from before this date as a source on this matter."

Does anyone know how to make a permanent talk page notice like the one I've described? Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:25, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

{{Template:Editnotice}}, I would think, like the one in Barbara Walters about her birthdate. (Edit Barbara Walters to see it. - Nunh-huh 02:54, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

If you can't find a source showing that Carter made a mistake but you are still convinced that he did, then you should remove the content that you added. Just because a reliable source says something doesn't mean that you personally have to add it to the article if you don't feel confident about it. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:30, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Actually Darkfrog24, I believe Hijiri 88's problem is that Carter is the only citable English source which mentions that Basho may have served as a "cook" or hireling in the "kitchen" at the Todo household. And this is what the Jp wiki page says, which is closer to "prevailing view".

To quote Kotobank: "the now prevailing view is that Basho was a not an official vassal but a hired commoner (hokonin 奉公人)"[8]

It is more easily citable in English that Basho was hired "officially as a page" (koshō ja:小姓),[9] but support for this is apparently outdated. For Basho to serve as a page ("a vassal"), he had to be elevated to samurai-hood (士分), and scholars have doubted this happened.[10]--Kiyoweap (talk) 11:25, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

I think this Carter source is valid, and can be used to cite outside the mistake. Maybe it should not be the lone source, but to supplement a nother Japanese or any language source that supports an equivalent claim. --Kiyoweap (talk) 12:44, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

If Carter contradicts most other sources on this topic, regardless of what language they are in, then Carter should not be considered reliable even if he meets all our other RS criteria. I guess Carter could still be used if it is mentioned in-text that his views contradict those of other sources. I'd make an exception if Carter's work were specifically a review or reaction to those earlier works that has since come to be well-regarded in the field. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:40, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Well, I thought I made it clear that though Carter lacks visible assenters in English, there are other statenments in agreement in recent Japanese scholarship.

So Carter is usable. Just add Japanese sources that agree with him so it doesn't appear like it is one man's fringe theory.

I also didnt mean to imply Carter should be one-sidedly be used. For balance, mention the opposing theory that Basho became a page (as Carter fails to mention it) with proper context. --Kiyoweap (talk) 08:48, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

You seem to have the solution then. Just add the corroborating Japanese-language sources. This is just me, but I image Google Translate would work well enough to convince any doubters that non-English sources at least mention the issue at hand. Darkfrog24 (talk) 06:00, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I'd like to ask the community what they think of this as a source? I was specifically thinking of using it to cite Europe '72#Track listing, which currently has no other source (the tracks and times are present on the LP, but not the recording dates and venues). I appreciate it meets the letter of WP:SPS; however, Grateful Dead fans are an organised bunch, and pride themselves on factual accuracy for live dates in particular. The site clearly identifies its source material, updates are restricted to the site's owners, but notification of mistakes and corrections are welcome. So it does have peer review and does cite information published in other trustworthy sources. The simple reason I'd prefer to use deaddisc.com is it's easier to access; I appreciate we have WP:SOURCEACCESS, but that doesn't help us when we have an article that can't be fact checked easily. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:27, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Jamsphere

http://jamsphere.com/

is mentioned in many articles [11] but we have no article on the website (or independent music magazine and radio network as they describe themselves [12]).

I'm particularly interested in whether articles at Jamsphere might be useful in establishing notability for the artist Sophia Radisch [13] and/or for the Indie record label of which she is a partner. Andrewa (talk) 23:27, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

@Andrewa: I don't think I'd use it to prove notability, but the site distributes a printed copy of the magazine worldwide, has specific named authors and cannot be updated by the man off the street. Therefore, I don't personally see an issue with it being used to cite basic facts from an interview, for example. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:31, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, that's exactly the sort of advice I was after. Andrewa (talk) 11:37, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

https://style.pk

This site cannot be reliable because it has wrong information about people. For example there are two people called Sana Javed. There's a cricketer, Sana Javed (cricketer) and an actor, Sana Javed. Style.pk put on their website that the actor, Sana Javed, was once a cricketer and then moved onto becoming an actor. Style.pk apparently has joined these two people with the same name together. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Plum3600 (talk • contribs) 06:23, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Is wikiquote a RS? Currently used in Hanlon's razor. NE Ent 18:00, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Fortunately it's not the only source (this is the other and it's pretty much beyond reproach). It may well be intended more as a note than a reference. To answer the question, since it's user generated content, no. Not by a mile. Kleuske (talk) 18:05, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

That's what I thought. I removed it from the article. NE Ent 18:27, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

This article Bell & Ross (a "luxury" watchmaker) currently has just two references. One is a page of the website "The Watch Quote".

This page at The Watch Quote -- a page that's unsigned, doesn't cite its sources (even in the most informal, journalistic way), and doesn't claim even to have started to test any claim -- looks to me like a mere PR puff piece. The website's "about" page suggests nothing critical or thoughtful. Rather, the mission of the website seems solely to fluff up enthusiasm for buying expensive wristwatches. Of course many websites do this kind of thing; but (for example) camera websites make a big thing of testing the resolving power of lenses, describing color casts and ergonomics, etc.

Or do I misunderstand? (I should add that the sources provided for articles on other watchmakers tend to look just as bad.) -- Hoary (talk) 07:55, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

The Watch Quote reference is absolutely terrible, Hoary. I looked at the "Who are we?" page, which is as fulsome as their page on Bell & Ross (and as the other "brand sagas" that I sampled) and it contains the suggestive statement that The Watch Quote was created "to enter into genuine partnership with the great horology brands and professionals". Looks like the "partnership" involves the brand professionals writing their own page, doesn't it? (And, possibly not relevant here, but did you look at the site's background image?) As for the article, which I would be very happy to PROD, were you able to read the second reference, "Letter from France: Bell & Ross, born from a businessman and a designer"? I get a 404. Is there some way of fixing this? It's from 2007, and I understand there's something involving the Internet Archive... these are mysteries to me. Bishonen | talk 08:23, 9 April 2018 (UTC).

The archive page is from March 2016. I have seen quite a lot of junk lately and am in no condition to assess this article's notability or sources, other than to agree that it's weak all the way down. Johnuniq (talk) 09:14, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, John. I've added it to the footnote, though possibly not in the neatest way, if somebody would like to check. Europastar is a specialized magazine about "the world of watches", and I think its capacity for establishing notability for a watch brand is extremely slim. (Nevertheless it's referenced in lots of our watch articles, see this search; you may want to take your machete to those, Hoary!) So both the references in Bell & Ross are from highly specialized watch media, and I don't think they say much about notability in the wider world. The "Further reading" article Bell & Ross Sets Records at Paris Auction from 2012 may actually be a tiny bit better for notability, but that too is from a specialized watch magazine. Article PRODded. Bishonen | talk 10:20, 9 April 2018 (UTC).

Update: My PROD has been removed by a user who added a third reference.[14] They are of course welcome to do that, but I'm not really impressed by the new reference either, so I've taken the article to AfD for more eyes: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bell & Ross. Bishonen | talk 15:37, 9 April 2018 (UTC).

At Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Talk:Shroud of Turin#Deleted sentence "However, none of the hypotheses challenging ..." as not sourced there is an ongoing discussion about what sources are and are not reliable regarding the Shroud of Turin. It would be helpful if some knowledgeable editors from this noticeboard would look over the discussions and comment on the decisions being made. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:37, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Small Ukrainian news website. I see it's included in Olena Sibiriakova but I'm unsure about its reliability as a whole.

Is it reliable to cite with? 2A00:C98:2060:A008:4:0:0:1 (talk) 17:37, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Good question. I'm not familiar with this website at all... ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 17:42, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Interesting source. I am not certain about it and its reliability or credibility as the previous responder, but it looks like be addressing real problems. There is very limited information about it. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 18:00, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

This edit. I wouldn't even know how to verify it. Of course there's the possibility this is WP:UNDUE, but I guess that's for another board. Always a bit frustrating when an edit raises several policy issues. Doug Weller talk 18:49, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

This had come up before, back when someone (outside WP) posted the material they got back from a FOIA request of the FBI's files related to GamerGate. We did not use the actual material , until a third-party RS noted the request and commented about it, placing the material into context for us. We should not use an FOI request on its own as a source anywhere, due to a combination of WP:V and WP:NOR. --Masem (t) 18:55, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

• AdvertCity (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Are any of the sources cited by this article, WP:RS? Guy (Help!) 07:14, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

@JzG: I would say "no" but then somebody might subsequently point out that one might be (although it doesn't invalidate my argument). Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:40, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Going over them...

• While technically published in a blog format, I would say that Rock Paper Shotgun is definitely reasonable to cite as a review (it has an editorial board, basic fact-checking, and is established enough at this point to have a significant reputation in the field.) I would never cite it for statements of fact outside of bare-bones descriptions of games, but I think it's generally accepted policy to cite established reviewers for statements of fact in that limited capacity...? They have enough of a reputation as a reviewer that they can be cited for commentary, coverage and opinion with an in-line citation, at the very least, and therefore qualifies as one of the two "significant commentary" sources required under WP:NVIDEOGAMES.
• Siliconera and Destructoid are probably also usable in the same fashion (which means there's enough here to satisfy WP:NVIDEOGAMES, if barely.) There are a few other lower-tier reviewers here that can probably also be included, if only for commentary, but I'd be a bit more skeptical about them.

And almost everything else is unusable or trivial. Basically, I'd say that it needs serious cleanup, but that the RPS, Siliconera, and Destructoid reviews are sufficient to write an article around. They're technically blogs, but they employ decently-sized editorial teams, they're extremely high-profile reviewers to the point where their staff can be considered professionals in the field, and are therefore usable for the narrow and specific situation of providing commentary on a game or basic, uncontroversial facts about its features, gameplay, development history, etc. I would add that their reliability is probably limited to that very specific topic area, where they can be credibly said to have reputation and expertise - I wouldn't cite them for much else - but within that narrow field they are absolutely top-tier sources (and I mean that literally, in the sense that I wouldn't unequivocally put any sources above them when considering cites for that purpose.) Based on that I'd say it can probably dodge AFD, if only barely, but I wouldn't be terribly shocked or upset if the AFD resulted in deletion, either. --Aquillion (talk) 05:43, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Destructoid is a known "not a great reliability" source since they do not make it obvious which articles are edited and which are not (ref WP:VG/RS esp this talk discussion). --Izno (talk) 13:47, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

• popular culture hell. my response to this is similar to the response i gave to the query, Question about blogs, a year ago, namely: "the problem with blogs in popular culture is that it opens the door to sliding into the gutter of content that is gossip and trivia.... What is a high quality source for content, oh say here for example: Sorry_Mrs._Carter#Critical_reception?" What is a high quality source for video games? WP is completely submerged in the blogosphere in just about every popular culture article we have. 23:42, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
  • The answer is that we assess blogs the same way as any other source, just with increased scrutiny towards whether they fall under WP:SELFPUBLISH (which does lead to an automatic fail for the vast majority of them, because they trivially don't pass it.) Blogs aren't universally forbidden simply because they publish in a blog format, they're usually forbidden because so many of them are self-published personal websites, lacking both editorial controls and the reputation that WP:RS requires. But if something published in blog format passes both of those criteria, it's a usable site, and at least for Rock, Paper, Shotgun we can confirm that it meets the editorial controls requirement (here is its staff); and for its reputation, we only have to look at how it is cited by other publications. I don't see how people can look at all of the available information about RPS and say that it falls under WP:SELFPUBLISH. Obviously we can't cite random fly-by-night review-blogs with no stable staff, no editorial controls, and no reputation, but WP:RS does not support rejecting a source solely because it publishes in a blog format - it just warns that we should be particularly careful that they usually lack the reputation and editorial controls WP:RS requires, even if they look flashy and professional at first glance. It's also important, as usual, to remember that reliability is contextual - the reliability necessary to cite RPS for games commentary and for basic, uncontroversial statements about a game's features is far lower than what would be necessary for eg. citing them for information about a WP:BLP, say. --Aquillion (talk) 18:52, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Not about the reliability, but note that the Rock Paper Shotgun references are simple announcements. I see there's an AfD discussion. --Ronz (talk) 19:49, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

As it leans heavily on the issue of reliable sources, some of you have been following Wikipedia's cryptozoology saga for some time now (if not, here's a summary of what's going on). Anyway, one particularly problematic article has been list of cryptids, which appears to be nothing more than a pseudoscientific content fork of lists of legendary creatures. If you've got the time and patience, please weigh in over at Talk:List_of_cryptids#Merge_proposal_with_lists_of_legendary_creatures. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:32, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

A while ago, LewisJAbbey (talk · contribs) added Vaunter to multiple articles such as Zion I, Jacob Banks (singer), North Mississippi Allstars, Grouplove, Miike Snow, Don Diablo, Charli XCX, Mood Rings (band), Tinashe, Eddie Brock, and A Head Full of Dreams Tour. It looks like a self-published source to me. I would like to know if Vaunter can be used as a reliable source in the Wikipedia. 153.205.162.241 (talk) 13:28, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Not a reliable sources considering there is an About Me section where the author calls the website "my blog". Meatsgains^(talk) 01:38, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Can the website "Oh,The Horror!" be treated as a reliable source for critical reviews of this particular genre of films. My concern has to to do with this addition made to Candyman (film). I believe the actual review intended to be cited can be found here, but I have concerns as to whether the site itself and the reviewer are considered to be WP:RS for Wikipedia's purposes. I'm not sure if the site is generating it's own reviews by established professional movie reviewers or even whether the content is WP:UGC. The only information I can find about the reviewer "Wes R." on the website is this which does give the impression that this person is a widely recognized movie reviewer/critic per by WP:NEWSBLOG or WP:SPS. My concerns are also because the editor adding this content might have done so to try and prove a point based upon this user talk page post. Anyway, I've removed the content for now so that the source can be assessed; if the consensus is that it's OK, it can be re-added. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:34, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Not sure this means much, but my browser (I use Chrome mostly) opens the Oh, The Horror! but on the "not secure" setting. Apart from that, looking at the content, I don't see any immediate problems with it. --Juicy Oranges (talk) 01:45, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Fifteen references were removed with this edit. Can someone sort the satisfactory sources from the unsatisfactory sources for me? I'm kinda new here. 79.67.81.118 (talk) 04:03, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Comment: See Talk:Aromanticism#RfC: Should this article be merged? for where the discussion is taking place. The IP, who actually is not that new, keeps adding random online sources to the article. I've already pointed the IP to the WP:Reliable sources guideline. I'm not objecting to sources like The Washington Post or HuffPost unless they're being used to generalize aspects of the topic in ways that do not adhere to the WP:Neutral policy. I'm objecting to sources like this highlandecho.com source, the "Parade, Beach Pride, and Beach Pride Parade" source (well, so-called source), and this scaddistrict.com source. Sources like that. The IP is adding any and everything to the article in the hopes of saving it, when the quality sources on this topic mainly discuss it within the context of asexuality and, more broadly, romantic orientation (although not that broadly since romantic orientation mainly concerns asexuality as well)...hence the merge proposal. If we were to have an article on this topic, the way the IP is building it is not the way to go. There have also been WP:Synthesis issues. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:25, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

I have spaced out your comment because I hope that a third party will answer. 79.67.81.118 (talk) 05:22, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

I reverted this heading per WP:TALK. Not only is it not needed and doesn't help anything, I did not place my comment under a separate heading and I don't want it there. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:29, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi, I've been improving Glen Nelson. The only source I can find for his birth year is his worldcat record. Can I cite the worldcat record for his birth year? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 17:44, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Leave it out as per WP:BLPPRIVACY --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:49, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

WP:BLPPRIVACY only mentions date of birth, not year. Do you consider an authority record a primary source? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 20:02, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

This issue straddles OR, NPOV, BLP, and RS (however, this is filed solely on RSN). The article in question is Collaboration in German-occupied Poland‎ (some prior discussion - Talk:Collaboration in German-occupied Poland#Use of wPolityce.pl coverage of a facebook post as source for history. The text in question was at some point diff):

According to Jan Grabowski some 200,000 Jews were killed directly or indirectly by Polish collaborators.^[1]

Some editors have supported[15][16] (vs. some opposition) changes along these lines to a form such as this (version as of 4 April):

According to Jan Grabowski's erroneous arithmetic^[1][2][3] 200,000 Jews were killed directly or indirectly by Poles.^[4] Grabowski (2013) arrived at this number through a circular reference from Friedländer who in turn,^[5] misquoted Antony Polonsky's 2004 paper.^[6] Polonsky limited his estimate to registered Jewish survivors as of June 1945 while a lot more survivors were still arriving and registering with CKŻP; or, not registering at all. Grabowski, in his circular reference, also failed to acknowledge the timeframe, and erred by implying that the low estimate included all survivors.^[1][2][3][7] Meanwhile, by mid 1946 the recorded number had risen to about 205,000–210,000 survivors (with 240,000 registrations and over 30,000 duplicates).^[8][9]

Some background - Jan Grabowski is a Canadian Holocaust historian who is generally well respected world-wide who has estimated Poles killed some 200,000 Jews during the Holocaust (in an academic book, I think a few papers, in a couple of media interviews) which was further repeated by multiple media outlets (see google news search for Grabowski 200,000 Jews). The Polish government has objected to this,[17] as have other elements in Polish society.[18][19]. The second version (calling the Grabowski's estimate an error in Wikipedia's voice, and containing a rather long analysis on why this is allegedly so) is sourced to the following sources:

1. [20][21] - two pieces in wPolityce.pl covering the comments (on Facebook) of Polish ambassador to Switzerland Jakub Kumoch (I'll note he does have a PhD from 2015 - I think in political science, but his career has been in journalism and foreign affairs per [22][23]). wPolityce is described in the Telegraph as "Right-wing wPolityce.pl news website", and by The Atlantic as "Pro-government media outlets like the website wPolityce.pl".
2. [24][25] two identical op-eds by Piotr Zaremba (on gazetaprawna and dziennik) - who in one paragraph supportively mentions Jakub Kumoch's claims.
3. All the other references in the text are there to source claims by Kumoch - they pre-date Grabowski's estimate. e.g. Kumoch claims Grabowski reaches this number via a circular reference (with mistakes along the way) - so there are references for each paper Kumoch mentions in his facebook posts. These papers do not, in and of themselves, advance Kumoch's argument (of there being an error in those papers, and Grabowski's estimate relying mostly on those papers.

Finally - I shall note that there have been widely covered legislative changes in Poland in regards to free speech on the Polish role in the Holocaust.[26] Which already possibly have some effects on the ground.[27][28]. However - to be fair - this probably has little impact on wPolityce whose editorial line was compliant with the new legislation well prior to it being passed.

Question: Is this use of the comments of the Polish ambassador to Switzerland on facebook, coverage thereof in wPolityce.pl and and op-ed by Piotr Zaremba, and use of citations to reference some of the ambassador's claims an appropriate source (attributed or unattributed) for Holocaust history?Icewhiz (talk) 05:51, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

They are an appropriate source for the view of Holocaust history as expressed by the current Polish government. They establish nothing about what took place or how it is generally interpreted. His political role indicate he may not be expressing a reliable position for any of that, but rather a view based on his and their politics. DGG ( talk ) 05:21, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Agree with DGG. Incidentally, the version above seems confused.

According to Jan Grabowski's erroneous arithmetic 200,000 Jews were killed directly or indirectly by Poles. Grabowski (2013) arrived at this number through a circular reference from Friedländer who in turn, misquoted Antony Polonsky's 2004 paper. Polonsky limited his estimate to registered Jewish survivors as of June 1945 while a lot more survivors were still arriving and registering with CKŻP; or, not registering at all.

Was it the arithmetic that was (allegedly) wrong, or were the data (allegedly) misunderstood? Is the problem that Friedländer cited Grabowski, or that he/she cited Polonsky? (And if the former, what does "circular" mean?) Et cetera. (I'd look at Polonsky's book myself, but I don't have a copy.) -- Hoary (talk) 07:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

I will note that I do not quite understand the circular claim here myself. What I do see is the Polish ambassador attacking Polonsky's estimate of surviving Jews in Poland (distinct from surviving Polish Jews - as most Polish survivors escaped to the Soviet Union) - criticizing his his of registrations in CKZP by June 1945 (an early cutoff to avoid counting Jews who returned from the Soviet Union to Poland after the war). I am not sure we should evaluate the merits of the ambassador's claims, but I will note that I am unsure Grabowski relied in whole on Friedländer (who cites Polonsky) - while he does cite this, his estimate of survivors in Poland maybe based on additional material (and this is a well trodden path).Icewhiz (talk) 19:12, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Per NPOV it's not Wikipedia's place to take a position on whether a historian was erroneous. We may quote who alleges he was erroneous, but we may not use that allegation as a supporting reference for us to assert it as fact. The problem here is less about whether sources are reliable, it's more about how they are being used to push a point.

We do have sources however which state that the numbers are erroneous (it's actually a combination of bad data (early guesswork) and circular referencing which repeats the bad data) and Grabowski himself backed off the number (though that depends on who and when asked him and how he tried to spin it - he hasn't exactly been consistent here which complicates the matter). Regardless, the 40k-50k Jewish survivors that Grabowski relies on for his estimate has no basis in scholarly sources or reality (the actual number is closer to 330k) and we do have sources which note that.Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:43, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

The 330k includes Jews who fled to the Soviet Union (and survived outside of Nazi control) and made their way back to Poland at the end of the war (which Grabowski (and Polonsky) attempt to exclude on purpose - as they did not survive inside of occupied Poland). The sole source currently presented for the assertion that Grabowski's math is wrong is the Polish ambassador's Facebook post (and reporting on that post by the internet portal wPolityce (+ a paragraph in an op-ed by Piotr Zaremba).Icewhiz (talk) 14:47, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Jan Grabowski is a Canadian Holocaust historian who is generally well respected world-wide who has estimated Poles killed some 200,000 Jews After the criticism, Grabowski has now stated that he never claimed that and this number includes Jews killed by Germans[29].As to wpolityce.pl, it does satisfy criteria regarding RS as to presenting statements made by state officials. --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 21:53, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

His exact statement was "More than 200,000 Jews were killed, directly or indirectly, by Poles in World War II" (Haaretz, 11.02.2017). "Indirectly" clearly means denunciation, so what you suggest is a retraction isn't one. François Robere (talk) 22:57, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Indeed. All of Grabowski stmts /writings were with "directly or indirectfly" or "responsible for". Some right wing political elements attacking him may have said otherwise - but all of his writings and mainstream coverage of him (which is quite wide for a historian) has been quite clear on this. Grabowski includes in his figure Jews handed over to the Nazies by Poles - note this is not a unique metric - it is used by other holocaust historians elsewhere. In the interview above (responding to questions in attacks against him) Grabowski merely said he never said Poles killed 200,000 directly - which is easily verified by looking at the 2013 book, or the 2017 interview to Haaretz [30]. Stmts made by state officials on facebook are not a valid source for historical research.Icewhiz (talk) 03:58, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

^[1] IPN statement.Xx236 (talk) 10:27, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

The same authors were unable to prove 120,000 few years ago. ^[2]Xx236 (talk) 11:57, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

I was advised by an IP editor to post here regarding ongoing discussion at [31] between myself and another editor since the end of last year over which label best suits the opening paragraph regarding the ideology of National Party (Ireland). Originally the argument centred on whether to use Irish nationalist or nationalist. However, the other editor pushed through the description neo-nationalist to describe said party and cited an article by thejournal.ie (an Irish news-blog) and an article in the Irish Times in favour of this description. However, neither of these sources use the label neo-nationalist. The argument in support of that label is that the proclaimed policies as detailed in the previously listed secondary sources are indicative of neo-nationalism, claiming that it's a WP:SKYISBLUE issue. Yet no source, either by the party or by reliable secondary sources, uses the label neo-nationalist and to date the only person who has used the label neo-nationalist to describe the party is this particular editor.

In response to this lack of a source I have stated it ought to be removed and replaced with the more appropriate nationalist descriptor, as the nationalist label is explicitly used by a reliable secondary source to describe the programme of the National Party: "whose nine principles espouse a nationalist, anti-abortion, anti-EU, anti-immigration platform." The continued insistence on the use of the neo-nationalist label is surely a violation of WP:NOR as a sourced label (nationalist) is being discarded in favour of an unsourced label (neo-nationalist). Also it is important to note that I have on many occasions attempted to compromise (in fact this current nationalist description I am advocating for is a compromise from my earlier attempt to use Irish nationalist), all of these attempts at compromise have been arbitrarily rebuffed. It should be noted also that the party's official website's About Us section is evidently advocating a more nationalist or Irish nationalist position than a neo-nationalist one, however this is discarded out of hand by the other editor alleging it violates WP:PRIMARY.

The argument is now being framed on the issue of consensus. But consensus cannot be achieved due to the fact that really only two editors are presently engaged. It is important to note that in the beginning no consensus was sought for nor was any achieved by the editor in pushing through his favoured neo-nationalist description. Therefore, it makes the most sense to use the description which has been backed up by a reliable secondary source over that which has not (nationalist, as opposed to neo-nationalist). One doesn't need to understand the complexities of Irish politics to see that the sourced description should trump the unsourced description. I have attempted to explain to the other editor the reasons I believe their favoured description is less appropriate than (Irish) nationalist, to no avail. Therefore we are rather stuck over this particular issue. Third party help at resolving this would be most appreciated.Irishpolitical (talk) 13:41, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Without getting into the other issues involved, I simply want to know whether jewsrock.org should be accepted as a reliable source? An old article, now archived, is being used as a source in the Neil Peart article, and an editor argues that this means it is acceptable to be used as a source in another article. I find that logic dubious, so I'd like some other opinions. Looking at their front page, I'm wary about using it. Does anyone have any knowledge of this page? Thanks. ---The Old Jacobite_{The '45} 11:45, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Not opening for me. Lorstaking (talk) 03:04, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, it's apparently only available at archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20080502185912/http://www.jewsrock.org:80/index.cfm ---The Old Jacobite_{The '45} 17:07, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

The 1959 Iraq and 1963 Iraq sections were removed from the "United States involvement in regime change" article: [33] As can be seen on the respective Talk page sections: [34] and [35] we have tried to resolve this. The editor alleged that these sources are "fringe" and "garbage" or based on unreliable sources, and posted these sections on the WP Fringe Theories Noticeboard. There, the editor was told by the administrator that no fringe issue has been raised and the discussion on that Noticeboard was closed by that administrator.

I then re-added these sections to the article. They were removed again. Watered down sections have recently been added to the article. The watered down versions omit all but one or two of the many original sources I had posted for each section, and also omit a lot of the substance of each section. Also, the watered down versions have a wishy washy he said/she said style for some key points. I first went to WP:DRN but was told that this Noticeboard is where this should be resolved.

Essentially, the editor claims that s/he has gone through the scholarly literature on the subject and that the scholarly consensus refutes the statements of all the sources I posted. As I see it, the editor has done some major OR which, in the editor's mind, renders as "garbage" or "fringe" such sources as PBS Frontline, UPI, Boston Globe and several scholarly works cited and others. The editor cites sources that state that based on their review of US govt documents and other sources, they have no evidence that the US was involved. But given the nature of US covert operations, including the important doctrine of plausible deniability to protect senior US officials, one would not expect to find readily available documentary sources or other "smoking guns." Given the covert history, the fact that I could find a single RS should be sufficient.

The editor claims that extraordinary claims require extraordinary RSs. I don't see any claim in these sections that is extraordinary. The US has supported many, many coups and, more generally, has toppled many governments around the world, especially in the Middle East (and in some other areas of special US concern), as this article and many other sources demonstrate. So we should use the standard WP rules.--NYCJosh (talk) 18:35, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

It looks like the other editor presented numerous academic works and published books backing up their points, and those sources are clearly higher quality and more relevant than some news reports. Scholarly works of political science, history, and international relations should obviously be given more credence than news articles. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 19:08, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Red Rock Canyon. I fixed the link in the discussion above to the older version of the article showing the two full sections (1959 and 1963) that I had contributed.

I've got scholarly books in the footnotes, incl. a book published by Princeton U. Press, one by Harper Perennial. GPRamirez5 also added another one, by Cambridge U. Press: "As early as February 1960, the CIA had begun to plan Qasim's assassination...The US...helped coordinate the plotters, in return for their promise to destroy the Iraqi Communist Party." Mike Wells, Nick Fellows, History for the IB Diploma, Paper 2: Causes and Effects of 20th Century Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), p. 222. https://books.google.com/booksid=HVSwDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA222&dq=1963+iraq.+cia&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjI_7DBt4jaAhUG44MKHYUADzsQ6AEIQjAF#v=onepage&q=1963%20iraq.%20cia&f=false

Regarding the distinction between scholarly works and major newspapers, I certainly agree that in the case of, say, a complex area of natural science a newspaper report can water down to the point of misrepresenting actual findings described in a technical journal article. But in this case, these are not complex news stories presenting complex statistical relationships. Researchers who had their findings published in newspapers had sources, for example, former officials who told their stories, that were unavailable to academics sitting in a university poring over US govt records. Let's take even the "Opinion" piece that was criticized as such. Roger Morris is a former US foreign policy official who had access to sources unavailable to most university researchers, and then broke the story in the NY Times (it's one of my footnotes). The NY Times labeled it "Opinion" because it had no way to do independent vetting of the story in the manner NY Times vets its news stories. But, remember, these are covert operations, so having an inside source like Morris is a homerun for historical truth. In any event, I am not wedded to that source, I have several of major newspapers, plus the books mentioned. --NYCJosh (talk) 21:57, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

For quality sources on the scholarly consensus, we needn't look further than the Cambridge University Press textbook for the International Baccalaureate Diploma:

As early as February 1960, the CIA had begun to plan Qasim's assassination...The US...helped coordinate the plotters, in return for their promise to destroy the Iraqi Communist Party.

—Mike Wells, Nick Fellows, History for the IB Diploma, Paper 2: Causes and Effects of 20th Century Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), p. 222.

But if you really need more, there's this:

Significantly, the Ba'athists used the interim period to organize a...anti-Qasim front. The American CIA, likewise, was deeply involved during this tumultuous period: "American agents marshaled opponents of the Iraqi regime...The CIA's 'Health Alteration Committee', as it was tactfully called, sent Kassem a monogrammed, poisoned handkerchief..." Ba'athist forces and army officers overthrew Qasim on February 8, 1963 in collaboration with the CIA.

-Jacqueline S. Ismael, Tareq Y. Ismael, Glenn Perry, Government and Politics of the Contemporary Middle East: Continuity and Change (Routledge, 2015), p. 239 - GPRamirez5 (talk) 22:11, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Okay, sorry, I just saw that you had mentioned PBS, UPI, and the Boston Globe, which definitely shouldn't be used to contradict academic sources from the relevant field. But if you've got scholarly sources that say one thing, and the other editor's got equally legitimate sources that say something else, I don't see how this is an issue of reliability. Why not try to find some kind of compromise that acknowledges the differing views of different expert sources? It seems like you're trying to insert text that takes these events as established fact, disregarding any source that says anything to the contrary, and the other editor is trying to do the same thing from the other perspective. Try to follow NPOV by giving due weight to the different viewpoints based on their representation in relevant sources. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 22:24, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I for one would be willing have TTAAC's view represented with the understanding that it is the minority report. I don't think we would be here if he'd have constructively added his research to NYCJosh's edit in the first place, rather than slashing it out wholesale. [36]- GPRamirez5 (talk) 18:09, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

• I provided two detailed studies of Iraq—United States relations (Hahn 2011 and Gibson 2015), which are considered among the most thorough in the underdeveloped historiography, as well as an entire chapter (Citino 2017) devoted to a high-ranking official in Qasim's government (Mahdawi), who has not previously been the subject of such academic scrutiny. GPRamriez5 has not provided any in-depth sources on Iraq. Rather, he relies on a brief snippet (with no citations) from a textbook on Causes and Effects of 20th Century Wars as well as a more detailed treatment in Government and Politics of the Contemporary Middle East: Continuity and Change to provide support for his supposed "majority view." That is nonsensical, and only underscores GPRamirez5's lack of familiarity with Iraq—centric scholarship. Many, if not most, major histories of Iraq do not even mention these allegations, for example Charles R. H. Tripp's highly-regarded A History of Iraq. Yet that's the problem with minority or FRINGE claims—if, like GPRamirez5, one specifically looks for sources (of whatever quality) using suggestive search terms like "1963 iraq. cia," the sources that one finds will necessarily be weighted in favor of that minority view. (By contrast, I can't exactly use major sources like Tripp to "refute" allegations that they deign to discuss!) Furthermore, throughout this entire dispute, GPRamirez5 has consistently conflated academic discussion of the 1963 coup with the single April 2003 news report alleging American complicity in the Ba'th Party's famous October 1959 assassination attempt on Qasim. Yet it is the latter claim (which NYCJosh wanted to state as fact in wikivoice) that I originally called FRINGE—and, indeed, to anyone even vaguely familiar with any relevant scholarship, it should be immediately obvious that there are few categories of FRINGE that are fringier than this section. GPRamirez5 appears to be implying (without saying so outright) that this uncorroborated news report is a widely accepted historical fact—but he hasn't found even one academic source that discusses it, with the exception of Gibson 2015 (which debunks it).
• NYCJosh's edits were completely unacceptable in any form, in that they used highly unreliable sources including a New York Times op-ed prominently labelled "opinion," a url ending in .org, a Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq mailing list email by a random person, The American Spectator, ProCon.org, a deadlink to Salon's (actually AlterNet's) "35 Countries Where the U.S. Has Supported Fascists, Drug Lords and Terrorists," and a Boston Globe op-ed by two nonspecialists for all sorts of crazy, FRINGE nonsense about the CIA's supposed "operations center in Kuwait" and its alleged role in personally recruiting Saddam to facilitate the Ba'th Party's famous October 1959 assassination attempt on Qasim—going far beyond what RS (including those cited by GPRamirez5) state on this topic, and presenting these allegations as fact in wikivoice. WP:TNT comes to mind. Now that NYCJosh has been told that journalistic sources like "PBS, UPI, and the Boston Globe [let alone ProCon.org!] ... definitely shouldn't be used to contradict academic sources from the relevant field"—something that competent editors should have already known—it's mind-boggling that GPRamirez5 won't just drop the stick and concede the obvious point that none of NYCJosh's "sources" constituted RS for the content in question.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 19:52, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, TheTimesAreAChanging, there you go again, with vituperative attacks against editors, a cavalier attitude to all of the sources I and GPRamirez5 had marshaled (incl. scholarly ones), etc. Please get off your high horse now. We have some work to do here.

As a point of departure, if a work of scholarship fails to mention the 1959 assassination attempt or the 1963 coup, or fails to mention a US connection thereto, that should not be understood as *contradicting" a RS newspaper article, like UPI or the NYT Morris piece. Rather, that should be understood as not engaging in a discussion of our issue (US regime change). In a similar vein, just because a scholarly source fails to mention a detail, like the operations center in Kuwait, does not contradict a newspaper account that provides it.

I am willing to drop the ProCon source. --NYCJosh (talk) 21:20, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

The content guideline WP:RSOPINION actually states that opinion editorials are perfectly acceptable as long as they're attributable to relevant experts. All that's necessary to make NYCJosh's New York Times source full regulation is to add "according to former National Security Council member Roger Morris..." - GPRamirez5 (talk) 00:13, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, but it would still run into UNDUE territory if an op-ed was the only available source for a claim. Conversely, if there were much better sources for the claim, why cite the op-ed?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 00:24, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Why? Well, perhaps because having a Guggenheim Fellowship, Morris is one of the most distinguished scholars in the country. Or maybe because he in fact isn't the only source for the claim. Or maybe because his article appears to have been cited more frequently by academics than Gibson's book.-GPRamirez5 (talk) 13:20, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Red Rock Canyon, it's now four messages here since I offered TheTimesAreAChanging a compromise. He's also responded on the article Talk page with a message that entered "all caps" territory...Do you have any thoughts on where this discussion now?-GPRamirez5 (talk) 04:10, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

I honestly only responded in the first place because I misread the initial post and thought the issue was different than it is. I'm not very familiar with this subject, and I'm not interested in reading all these various academic sources to come to a conclusion. Hopefully someone else more experienced can help. Maybe go to dispute resolution. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 04:29, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

EC: As explained here, GPRamirez5's idea of a "compromise" was literally to delete the scholarship in favor of the op-ed, which seems strikingly inconsistent with Red Rock Canyon's very sound advice.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:34, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Red Rock Canyon, I don't want to belabor the point, but we can all agree that AlterNet's "35 Countries Where the U.S. Has Supported Fascists, Drug Lords and Terrorists" is not a suitable RS for historical facts stated in wikivoice, correct? I ask because NYCJosh has decided to ignore this discussion and edit war that source back into the article without consensus ([37], [38]). He misattributes the article to Salon, which reposted it, and asserts that "Salon is RS and is notable."TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:29, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

I have made revisions to the article, since Red Rock Canyon stated he can't help us. My new revisions to TheTimesAreAChanging's verison have been deleted by TheTimesAreAChanging in a matter of seconds. There is no way anyone could have read my new footnotes that fast. The discussion continues on the article's talk page.--NYCJosh (talk) 20:53, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

But I would appreciate Red Rock Canyon's view on whether Salon is RS.--NYCJosh (talk) 20:55, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Content added to Sharon Statement:

"Evans said he was influenced by the works of reknown conservative thinkers such as F. A. Hayek, Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley Jr., and Whittaker Chambers."
— Edwards, Lee. "This Document Established the Five Central Themes of Modern Conservatism." The Daily Signal. 11-Sep-2015

Lee Edwards is a highly respected historian and his credentials are impeccable. Based on our policies this content should be restored.

1. Lee Edwards is a reliable

Lee Edwards is an eminent historian and expert on the US conservative movement. He has published 25 books and his work has been on the NY Times bestseller list. His work is a valuable addition to any article.

2. The Daily Signal is reliable

• The Daily Signal reporting is considered reliable enough to be quoted by major news organizations including Fox News,^[1] CBS,^[2] Slate,^[3] and Daily News.^[4]

• Daily Signal has a reputation for fact checking according to Salon.com: "Those publications [The Daily Signal] do not regularly engage in fabricating news or running stories that are poorly sourced and ultimately prove to be false. ".^[5]

• Some consider Daily Signal a biased source. The Reliable Sources policy explicitly states that "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective" and acknowledges that sometimes biased sources are superior to neutral sources.^[6] Obviously, this is one of those instances.

Therefore, because of the high quality of the source, and since policy supports this source, the content should be restored.– Lionel^(talk) 13:25, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

I need feedbacks here on the relibilty of the two following sources:

• Kenneth M. Pollack; Daniel L. Byman; Martin S. Indyk; Suzanne Maloney (2009). "Toppling Tehran". Which Path to Persia?: Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran. Brookings Institution. ISBN 9780815703792.
• Christopher C. Harmon; Randall G. Bowdish (2018), "Advertising: The People's Mujahideen e Khalq", The Terrorist Argument: Modern Advocacy and Propaganda, Brookings Institution Press, ISBN 9780815732198

The article in subject is People's Mujahedin of Iran, please see the content on this version. Pahlevun (talk) 15:42, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

The Brookings Institution has been under investigation recently for receiving funds from various government lobbying groups, and "some scholars say they have been pressured to reach conclusions friendly to the government financing the research". The Iranian Regime has been one of the political groups funding publications by the Brookings Institution, and because the Iranian Regime considers the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) a political threat, and because some argue that “for the right amount, the Brookings Institution will play your tune”, it then becomes a questionable source considering the subject at hand. London Hall (talk) 16:13, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

:::I already know your personal speculations. Providing a source that says Ploughshares Fund funded National Public Radio in 2016 has nothing to do with the source in question. Pahlevun (talk) 16:37, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

The Brookings Institutions has received funding from various Iran Regime representatives (this is not a personal speculation): “Independent Iran analyst and writer Hassan Daioleslam has noted that during these years the Brookings Institution, which previously had been dormant on Iran issues, suddenly woke up and started to produce an unprecedented number of round tables and publications that preached friendship and ‘dialogue’ with the mullahs.” The Iranian Regime funding Western think tanks and Universities is not something new, and has massively increased in recent years, the Alavi Foundation been one of the most notorious recent cases.^[1][2] London Hall (talk) 18:30, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

:Your "Independent Iran analyst and writer" is linked to the MEK. Pahlevun (talk) 20:14, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

He is not linked to the MEK, Iran Regime sources claim he is on account of a smear campaign and court case the Regime launched (and lost) against Daioleslam in 2015. London Hall (talk) 09:30, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

That's incredibly misleading. Firstly CAIR is not the "Iranian regime." Secondly the lawsuit had nothing to do with whether Daioleslam was a member of the MEK so it's irrelevant. Thirdly Pahlevun's source refers to people other than CAIR accusing the man of being MEK. Brustopher (talk) 12:16, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

• 1) The National Iranian American Council is an Iranian lobby group (NIAC – not “CAIR”).^[1][2][3]
• 2) “MEK/NCRI is the most significant rival to NIAC in Washington. In 2007, a series of stories were published by Hassan Daioleslam, a journalist who, according to NIAC sources, was formerly linked to MEK.” (only mentioned this because of Pahlevun’s comment above)
• 3) See #2 above, but in case you’ve missed it: “a journalist who, according to NIAC sources, was formerly linked to MEK.”
• 4) Getting back to the topic, here are more references that claim the Brookings Institution receives funds from Iran lobbying groups:^{[4][5][6][7][8]} London Hall (talk) 19:11, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

militaryfactory.com is paraphrasing a lot of Wikipedia articles and other sources like army-guide.com and maybe more and sometimes it combines them. I noticed that due some editors adding militaryfactory.com article as sources to Nora B-52. It was used as source for operators of Nora B-52 but all text including operators is mostly paraphrased from older Wikipedia articles about Nora B-52.

For example:

https://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=701 - paraphrased Nora B-52 Wikipedia article.

Example of paraphrased text on militaryfactory.com

• "The B-52 first emerged in an original "K0" form which featured a manual power drive, open-topped turret, and line-of-sight-engagement-only. The "K1" mark introduced a partially-covered turret design with onboard navigation system, digital Fire Control System (FCS), and improved automation. The "M03" then followed from the K0 and K1 mark and it was this finalized form adopted for service by the Serbian Army (the export variant then became the "KE" mark). The "K-I" brought along a fully-enclosed turret with complete NBC crew protection, improved armor protection, improved FCS, and upgraded communications suite. The "K2" is the latest in-development Nora mark intended to improve on the former design's ammunition support, gun accuracy, rate-of-fire, FCS, and overall automation."

• "Design work was handled by the Military Technical Institute (Belgrade) with manufacture ongoing through the Complex Battle System Factory of Velika Plana."

• "At least ten prototypes were completed to prove the design sound with frontline units beginning to receive these systems in 2014."

Example of texts from original wiki article - in this case used older version of wiki article before some new edits:

• B-52 operation depending on version is fully automated, including a 36-round autoloader. It is made in several versions:

K0 (first serial variant, open turret, manual power drive and light of sight) K1(S) (differences from K0:semi-open turret, full automatic, independent automatic navigation, automatic fire and control system, smaller crew number) M03 (semi-open turret, automatic based on K0,K1 designs with S designation for Serbia Army) KE (semi-open turret, full automatic export variant) K-I (K1 with additional armored full automatic with closed turret, new stronger chassis, radar on barrel for measuring projectile trajectory and speed, NBC protected cabin and turret, automated fire-suspension system, smoke grenade launcher, intercom for crew and new software) designated S for Serbia

Newest in development K2 (25 liter chamber, higher rate of fire, laser guided long range ammunition, smaller crew, new automated functions, smaller weight~25 tonnes, automatic leveling of gun in north direction,new smoke and light grenade).

• "The Nora B-52 is a 155 mm self-propelled howitzer weapon system developed by Military Technical Institute Belgrade for export and domestic use."
• "At least 10 prototypes is drawn from only one place on Earth that ever mentioned so high numbers of Nora B-52 prototypes" - old Wikipedia entry of Nora B-52 article dating from 2013 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nora_B-52&oldid=562869450 that was latter corrected to appropriate number

https://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=681 - paraphrased ATMOS 2000 Wikipedia article

Cites operators from ATMOS 2000 article including Cameroon as biggest from earlier version of wiki article https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ATMOS_2000&type=revision&diff=603510182&oldid=602556655

Example of paraphrased text on militaryfactory.com

• "Soltam Systems developed its ATMOS 2000 wheeled Self-Propelled Artillery (SPA) at the turn of the century as a private venture primarily aimed at the export market. In a departure from the usual tracked, self-propelled guns popular with many ground forces of the world today, Soltam's approach was such that a wheeled truck design was selected for its inherent mobility, lower operating/procurement costs, and off-the-shelf repair capability when compared to more expensive, more complicated tracked models attempting to fulfill the same battlefield role. The chassis includes an armored crew cabin at front with a flatbed section at rear, this area typically mounting a 155mm gun system for indirect artillery fire. The vehicle was developed as a somewhat modular product allowing for various caliber guns to be fitted to the flatbed section or the gun unit to be sat upon a local truck of choice for the foreign customer."

Example of texts from original wiki article

• "The ATMOS was developed as a private venture and is aimed mainly for export markets, although it has already been demonstrated to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Wheeled self-propelled guns are usually cheaper to procure than their more common tracked counterparts, have lower life cycle costs and are easier to operate and maintain. In addition, they also have greater strategic mobility and do not rely on Heavy Equipment Transporters (HETs)."
• "...the system is offered with various gun calibers, ranging from 39 to 52 calibre, in order to meet different customer requirements."

https://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=685 - paraphrased CAESAR self-propelled howitzer Wikipedia and army-guide.com article

Example of paraphrased text on militaryfactory.com

• "This overall weight, and the contained dimensions of the vehicle itself, are wholly by design for transportation incentives allow including moving the CAESAR via railway flatcar, naval vessels (including landing craft) or through the air in the belly of aircraft such as the Transall C-160, a Lockheed C-130 Hercules or the new Airbus A400M Atlas (the air transport option is for the CAESAR unit alone for the crew and resupply truck must be flown separately). The gun is cleared to fire NATO-standard 39- or 52-caliber 155mm projectiles as well as Extended Range, Full Bore (ERFB) ammunition which conforms to international JB MoU munition specifications."

Example of texts from army-guide.com article

• "As well as being transported by air, for example Lockheed Martin Hercules C-130 and Transall C160, CAESAR can also be carried by landing craft, surface ships and railway flatcars.

Nexter Systems have also developed an ammunition resupply vehicle which carries containers of ammunition (projectiles and charges) which can be rapidly unloaded using an onboard hydraulic crane. A total of six containers are carried which hold a total of 72 rounds (projectiles and charges) of 155 mm ammunition. Conventional bagged charges can be used as well as the more recent modular charge type.

Versatility, mobility, easy to operate, combat readiness and survivability are the key features of this new 155 mm/52-caliber weapon system which is fully interoperable with the NATO 39 cal. equipment and 52 cal. JB MoU."

Example of texts from wiki article that is combined with army-guide article on militaryfactory.com

• "It can be transported by C-130 or A400M, and has a maximum firing range of approximately 42 km (with ERFB shell), and more than 50 km (with rocket shell)"

There is many more examples that could be found while reading militaryfactory.com which acts as some sort of Content farm and or Web scraping and because of that it should not be considered as reliable source on Wikipedia. Loesorion (talk) 01:02, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

• Non-RS: self-published, dubious source. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:17, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

• Source: Bracke, Gerhard (1997). Gegen vielfache Übermacht—Mit dem Jagdflieger und Ritterkreuzträger Hans Waldmann an der Ostfront, an der Invasionsfront und in der Reichsverteidigung [Against Manifold Supremacy—With the Fighter Pilot and Knight's Cross Bearer Hans Waldmann on the Eastern Front, on the Invasion Front and in Defense of the Reich] (in German).
• Article: Hans Waldmann (fighter pilot)
• Content: Most of the article

I am cleaning up Good Articles with cleanup tags and came across this article. It has been tagged with unreliable source, with a comment on the talk page saying it is an extremest publisher. I don't speak German or know much about military historians, but would like to know whether this article should be delisted due to this source (which is used to cover a large percentage of this article) or if the tag can be removed.

@K.e.coffman, Auntieruth55, and MisterBee1966: as the tagger, commentator and major editor respectively. I will also leave a message at the MilHist wikiproject. AIRcorn (talk) 02:13, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

If the de-wiki article on publisher VDM Heinz Nickel is to be believed, they acquired the extreme right-wing publisher Schild-Verlag in 2004, and publish memoirs and other accounts by non-historians of WWII figures. I can't make out whether they are an SPS or not, but I see no author come-ons on their website. They also sell model aviation kits, and other paraphernalia. Mathglot (talk) 08:30, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Thanks. It does not look terribly promising then. AIRcorn (talk) 20:04, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

They also publish Luftwaffe unit histories, which are perfectly fine, IMO. So not an SPS, nor can they be solely judged on their memoirs. Which I've never seen and have no way of knowing how biased they might or might not be.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:05, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

@Aircorn: please see my comments below. My assessment of this source from VDM Heinz Nickel is similar. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:28, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I nearly combined them. If I hadn't come across them individually I probably would have started one general discussion. I will wait to for other comments before deciding what to do at these articles re Good status. AIRcorn (talk) 20:30, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I left some background information on Gerhard Bracke on the talk page.[39] In a nutshell: He is a leading member of the esoteric and extremist Bund für Gotteserkenntnis (see Mathilde Ludendorff) and is, among other things, of the opinion that England had forced Germany to go to war in 1939.--Assayer (talk) 10:51, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I have come across another Good Article with the Unreliable source tags. This book is Schumann, Ralf (2014). Ritterkreuzträger Profile Nr. 13 Rudolf Frank — Eichenlaubträger der Nachtjagd (Knight's Cross Profiles Nr. 13 Rudolf Frank — Oak Leaves Bearer of the Night Fighter Force) (in German). UNITEC-Medienvertrieb. OCLC 883388135. ASIN B00JQ4TPDO  (16 June 2014). and the article is Rudolf Frank. It alos is used to reference most of the article. The issue again seems to be the reliability of the publisher. @K.e.coffman, MisterBee1966, and Ian Rose:AIRcorn (talk) 20:04, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

First, here are my general comments on German language sources from VDM Heinz Nickel [de] and similar militaria / revisionist publishers. These are questionable sources, which tend to be hobbyist and / or non-independent in nature and skew towards fan fiction and hagiography. Undertones of war-time Wehrmacht propaganda are also present since that’s where the origins of the sources often lay.^[1]

This particular booklet seems to be part of the Landser-pulp literature, known in German as Landser-Hefte, which aims to heroicise the military men and strays into historical fiction while doing so. Franz Kurowski is the prime example of such authors. These books promote the concept of Nur-Soldat ("merely soldier") which celebrates the martial accomplishments of military men with a focus on their medals, "ace" status, enemy materiel destroyed—ships sunk, aircraft downed, tanks "busted", bridges blown up,— and so on. The authors are mostly obscure and self-trained.

Here’s the description of the source that I found on German eBay (sorry for Google translate; I included the original German as hidden text):

Here are more of the profiles from the same series: RITTERKREUZ Profiles. The subject of the article does not seem to be particularly notable, as the description alludes to: “remained rather unknown after the war”. He does not a de.wiki page, so I doubt that other sources, suitable for GA, are available on him. K.e.coffman (talk) 23:49, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Again, let's be careful of painting with a broad brush here. I'd agree that this publisher's biographies are unlikely to be unbiased, given the advertising, but other books, if any, may well be perfectly neutral. They'll need to be assessed on their own merits, barring use of similar advertising.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:14, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia should avoid using the Landser-Hefte. Today they appeal to the small number of persons in Germany who idolize the Nazi era. During the cold war the Western Allies in NATO wanted to build up the West German military so they encouraged a German military tradition, they puffed Wehrmacht fighter pilots and tank gunners into heros, Rommel, Guderian and von Manstein became super heros in US Army publications like Military Review. The WW2 German military was puffed by the US military as an example to emulate because of superior unit cohesion. They cited the discredited statistics of the German High Command to prove how efficient the German Army was in battle. On Wikipedia we should avoid the publications that idolize the Nazi era military and use only reliable academic sources.--Woogie10w (talk) 01:36, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I came across a past discussion that's relevant here as it touched on both VDM Heinz Nickel and Landser-Hefte publications:

• Talk:Joachim_Helbig#Unreliable_sources_tag_(2)

--K.e.coffman (talk) 03:55, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

@Aircorn: are you satisfied with the scope of the discussion that has taken place? K.e.coffman (talk) 02:41, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Yeah. I am interested in cleaning up or delisting Good Articles so having some closure in regards to these as a whole is fine. AIRcorn (talk) 23:02, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Is this article (ZOROASTRIAN ESCHATOLOGY INFLUENCE ON JUDAISM) a reliable source and academic for wikipedia in religion studies? --Dandamayev (talk) 12:33, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

No. This is an assignment by a graduate student. It wasn't published in a journal (or conference), nor is the author an expert in the field.Icewhiz (talk) 12:48, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

agreed. DGG ( talk ) 04:37, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Is this article reporting on a survey of the members of the North American Vexillological Association a reliable source for the following statements:

• "In 2001, a survey conducted by the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA) placed Wisconsin's flag 65th out of the 72 Canadian provincial, U.S. state and U.S. territory flags. The NAVA stated that about half of U.S. states used blue fields making them difficult to distinguish and the survey ranked flags with words and complex seals the lowest. The NAVA survey "favored strong, simple, distinctive flags" and ranked "seal-on-a-bedsheet" type flags the lowest."
• "In 2001, the North American Vexillological Association surveyed its members and other flag enthusiasts on the designs of the 72 U.S. state, U.S. territorial, and Canadian provincial flags. Members ranked the Washington state flag 47th out of the 72 flags surveyed, with a score of 4.53 points out of 10.[30] Washington's flag was criticized for its complicated seal, use of lettering, and similarities to other U.S. state flags that used seals on solid colors."

32.218.39.142 (talk) 02:01, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

• Is there some suggestion that this is something more than a hobbyist's group? If not, then I can't see it being considered a reliable source, nor having due weight for that opinion. --Calton | Talk 02:35, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

According to North American Vexillological Association, the organization is devoted to "the scientific and scholarly study of flags", so much more than a hobbyists' association. Its journal, Raven: A Journal of Vexillology, is peer-reviewed. (See: [40].) 32.218.39.142 (talk) 02:45, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

the organization is devoted to "the scientific and scholarly study of flags". That's a claim, not a fact.

peer-reviewed. By whom? It also say Articles are subject to a juried review, and are accepted for publication based on criteria set by the Editorial Board.

So, again, some third-party EVIDENCE that this is something more than a hobbyist's group? --Calton | Talk 03:25, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Looking at the documentation itself, the author of the article was the editor of the publication that printed it, an apparent conflict of interest, and the article itself states “those who seek to create or improve flags should disclose that their agenda is not scholarly but activist[,]” and the the author considered himself an activist, thus the author himself disclosed that the internet survey was not scholarly. Also, the article disclosed that the survey was subject to manipulation because, as the article notes, “for a brief period in March, Texas led the rankings after NAVA president Dave Martucci mentioned the survey in a radio interview on Texas Flag Day. But the subsequent three-day flurry of responses (likely from Texans) was eventually diluted by other responses and Texas fell back into second place. Others betrayed their partisanship in their comments, such as “Long live the green flag” from a Washingtonian.” The poll did not rely on a represenative sample, which is a generally accepted norm in the social sciences — as described here: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/fb86/b710d1f4aa1f70eaa3cb65ad7d3ca9c9a8b4.pdf. In this instance, the source is not reliable.Georgepreble (talk) 11:16, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

1. "That's a claim, not a fact." By your rigorous standards, the American Association for the Advancement of Science's statement that The AAAS seeks to "advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people." is a claim, not a fact, and therefore everything they write is suspect. Ridiculous.
2. "the author of the article was the editor of the publication that printed it" The usual procedure when this happens is for another editor to be in charge of the editing and review process.
3. No one is claiming that the survey is scientifically rigorous, only that it represents the opinions of the respondents in the North American Vexillological Association.
4. Surveys often have comments sections so that respondents can make comments about anything they wish: the survey itself; their feelings; etc.
5. Again, no one is saying the opinion poll met the highest scientific rigor; it was an informal poll just like thousands of other polls used in Wikipedia (e.g., "best place to live", "favorite character"; "reader's choice"; polls of film fans. Wikipedia has entire articles devoted to unscientific polls, e.g., People's Choice Awards, Historical rankings of presidents of the United States, U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Ranking, ad nauseam. As long as the the nature of the poll is described, there is nothing wrong with including information from it. 32.218.152.250 (talk) 13:30, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

The examples you cite actually point the other way. The US News rankings have a described methodology that relies on objective data of outputs/inputs in addition to survey data; although criticized, as noted in the article, the methodology is replicable as also noted in the article. Using the NAVA survey methodology, it is not replicable. It appears that all of the public opinion polls for the historical ranking of the Presidents are representative sample polls. For the historian polls, the sample is presidential experts. The NAVA survey did not survey experts, unless you are claiming that all NAVA members are experts in flag design (which is not claimed by the survey itself). As for the People's Choice Awards, the first round is conducted through a representative sample, with the public voting on that statistically valid sample.

The Wikipedia policy disfavors isolated studies such as this one.

There is no indication of transparency in any peer review process, and the article is expanded version of an earlier press release by the group, which suggests that it is essentially a self-published primary source.

To say that it only represents the opinions of the respondents is true but misleading, as are the statements that were deleted. First, each survey/poll represents the opinions of the respondents. What gives those opinions usefulness is that those opinions are gained from a representative sample of the country (or some other community) and that gives some assurances that the opinions reflect those of the population as a whole. That is, a survey of a 1,000 adult representative sample should yield the incidences of the reported opinions in a country of 323 million. The terms "survey" and "poll" have a generally accepted meaning as being soundings of representative samples. In this instance, the statement is misleading because it suggests that the survey/poll was of a representative sample. This survey only represents the opinions of those ~400 respondents and not the opinion by proxy of the U.S. or any other part of the world.Georgepreble (talk) 18:35, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

• Seems legit RS: the Journal does appear to publish legit university scholars, eg [41], in the present online era it appears indexed here [42] and in the old paper era at university [43]. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:02, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

This point goes only to 1/3 issues for reliable sourcing: the publisher. Per the RS policy, "[a] claim of peer review is not an indication that the journal is respected, or that any meaningful peer review occurs."^[1] The issues here are the work itself and the creator.Georgepreble (talk) 18:35, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, no. The issue is that a regarded publication in the relevant academic topic (vexillology) published a poll - you don't have to believe that poll, just like you don't have to believe anything in any journal. But a question of design is always going to be a matter for the critiquing community to comment upon. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:53, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

I haven't bothered to read your long-winded personal opinion of the research because the bottom line is that no one appointed you "research God" and your second-guessing the quality of the research is original research. 32.218.152.250 (talk) 18:44, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

It is not original research. It is evaluating the credibility/reliability of a source, which is what Wikipedians do. The errors are evident on the face of the source itself. 18:51, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Do you have a secondary source saying that the survey is lousy? If so, cite it. If not, your personal opinion is irrelevant. 32.218.152.250 (talk) 19:04, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

• This was a member's survey of NAVA correct? Then its a valid primary source for what NAVA members think and should be phrased as such. The next question (to answer UNDUE claims) is "Why are NAVA member's opinion on the flag relevant?" and the answer to that is "Because NAVA runs a peer-reviewed journal on the subject of flags, if their opinion is not relevant about the design of a flag, absolutely no one else's is." Only in death does duty end (talk) 19:08, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm come to dislike this source for two reason: 1) I suspect it is low quality on the basis that I'm not convinced the author knows how to conduct a scientific poll; and 2) I don't understand why anyone would care what NAVA thinks. Someguy1221 (talk) 06:24, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Regardless of IDONTLIKIT, multiple publications: [Washington Post] [Wall Street Journal], [Public Television], [The Hill], [Idaho State Journal], and the list goes on, still use the NAVA poll to report on and discuss flags. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:41, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

vhscollector.com is a database website used to collect and present information on VHS and other former home media format releases from around the world by different distributors. The content on the site, whilst contributed with evidence and research by members, is organized, verified and published by the website's owners and staff, with a credit to the user out of respect. Unlike IMDb or any wiki, the content is not freely edited and can only be changed by site staff. I wish to use the site as a source for when citing home media releases for various feature films and television series and would like to know the consensus on its use as a reliable source, not including page comments and forum posts published by users. Currently, there aren't many reliable sources in regards to providing information for these home media releases, especially for VHS from the 1970s to 90s, and this is the closest I could find that provides the information I need. --AnonUser1 (talk) 04:46, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

A more specific question regarding cryptozoology that I would like to get some uninvolved opinions on (I would urge those already involved in the discussion at talk:list of cryptids to hold off, lest we just reproduce that thread here).

What kind of sourcing is required to call a subject a "cryptid", a term in cryptozoology? Are cryptozoology sources themselves sufficient to include the term in relation to subjects about which other sources do not use that term?

To elaborate, obviously cryptozoologists and cryptozoology works are reliable sources for what cryptozoologists believe (of course, per WP:FRINGE, some qualification via other sources is required), but I'm mainly asking about when sources justify inclusion. Cryptomundo.com and newanimal.org are two sites that pop up in many of our folklore/mythology/legend/popular culture articles, but there are also a number of encyclopedias/books like this one published by mainstream publishers.

A hypothetical: Let's say we have an article like bigfoot (let's not get hung up on the specifics of this example, though, since it's among the most likely to have other sources about it), which is very notable well outside of cryptozoology. If no sources other than cryptozoology websites/books/magazines claimed bigfoot as a "cryptid", would it be appropriate to include that in the article? What about in a list of cryptids? Is it a list of creatures that cryptozoologist publications have claimed as cryptids, or is it a list of subjects that more mainstream and/or academic sources have called a "cryptid"?

Note that this discussion takes something for granted: that cryptozoology sources should not be disqualified outright based on WP:FRINGE -- since it's rare we disqualify sources as such, it seemed most productive to ask the former question here first.

— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:55, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Let's be clear here: we're talking about a tiny fringe group here (cryptozoology), not academics, eg. folklorists (folkloristics) or biologists (biology). In scholarly works, folklorists certainly do not use the term cryptid, a term coined by cryptozoologists to replace monster and which implies a central tenant that marks cryptozoology as a pseudoscience: the idea that a creature from the folklore record might be, say, a hidden dinosaur that we just can't detect. For this reason — and an array of others — cryptozoology receives harsh criticism from academics. Before weighing in on this topic, please first read this essay on Wikipedia and cryptozoology. Thank you. :bloodofox: (talk) 19:02, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Giving this thread a bump before it gets archived. If there's no additional input here, an RfC will likely have to be next. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:21, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Assuming that, in a given case, sources that use the term "cryptid" are considered to be suitable and reliable sources for a cryptozoology article: then I see no issue with using that term in summarizing the content of these sources. I can't agree with the attempted stigmatization of the terminology in the essay linked above; List of cryptids gives a well-hedged definition, and as long as there's no claim that terming something a "cryptid" asserts any sort of mainstream zoological credentials, using that definition is informative and should be uncontroversial. - Maybe that RfC wouldn't be a bad idea, though, just to clear the air. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:52, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Note that list of cryptid's discussion regarding cryptid is taken from Cryptozoology, where the use and etymology of the term is explained more in depth, including the context of its coinage. Note that the word cryptid is very rarely used in media , and when it is used, it appears to be under the influence of a related Wikipedia article that used it at the time. Again, it's important to highlight that cryptozoology consists of a tiny fringe group over represented on Wikipedia, today itself all but dead as a subculture.

Unless we're specifically talking about crypozoology, we should not be using this term in Wikipedia's coverage of folklore-related or biology-related topics per WP:UNDUE, WP:FRINGE, WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE, WP:RS, and a buffet of other policies. If anyone deems an RfC necessary, go ahead, but as anyone who regularly works with Wikipedia's coverage of folklore-related topics can tell you, this time would be far better spent cleaning the heaps of pseudoscience from our folklore-related articles. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:17, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

@Elmindae: Assuming that, in a given case, sources that use the term "cryptid" are considered to be suitable and reliable sources for a cryptozoology article -- this is a big part of the question in this thread. A similar question to when an "in-universe" source is reliable for articles about that universe. If there were a concept related to The Simpsons that did not receive coverage except in the various Encyclopedia of the Simpsons or simpsonsguide.com (I'm making these up btw -- no idea if they're real), should we be covering that. Then, beyond that, to what extent is the reliability of those sources affected by WP:FRINGE. If it were, say, a pseudoscientific medical treatment called goofiology that claimed to cure cancer without scientific evidence, we simply would not be covering it if the only sources about it were the goofiology.com and Encyclopedia of Goofiology (again, making these up). We would only cover its claims to the extent they have received coverage by mainstream, reliable publications. Should treat cryptozoology the same way? Should we only cover it according to sources that are not themselves associated with cryptozoology/cryptozoologists? What weight should cryptozoology books have? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:14, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites: I started to write a long reply to that, but found that honestly, I find I don't have a clear answer. I would have no problem applying that cut-off to the Simpsons example, but I don't find it obvious for the term 'cryptid' - which merely shows where my personal bias lies for considering things general background knowledge :) Basically, I would assume that if a subject is primarily known for its importance in field A and there is a certain critical mass of material, then including coverage from that field is appropriate, and that includes the terminology used in that field. To what extent that is applicable to the term 'cryptid' is unclear to me; I would say it easily qualifies, but apparently that is not clear to others. - I think an RfC might indeed be useful here. RfCs that attempt to codify topic-specific applications of policies generally are - particularly for a policy that happily underwrites this type of in-universe wanking while at the same time arguably proscribing the use of a single widely-used term across an entire subject area. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 12:16, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

New editors can now cite certain publishers' websites without completing a Captcha. I have proposed that we also exempt major newspapers, etc. Please comment there, and suggest more URLs. Certes (talk) 12:48, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

1.[44] 2. White Privilege

"The most fundamental problem for this or any proposal to offset white privilege is this: American whites’ advantages do not constitute white privilege. Therefore, there’s nothing that needs to be offset in the first place."

It would be a reliable source for the author's attributed opinion, if it's determined that the particular source here merits inclusion, which is a question for consensus determination on the article talk page. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 16:37, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

I would echo this. The source is verifiable, so it qualifies to cite Spencer, but whether or not Spencer qualifies as an authority on "white privilege" is a separate question. I'm not familiar with him but a cursory review would indicate that he lacks the usual academic credential (a PhD. or similar professional accreditation) or the usual recognition from peers (other topical subject matter experts in concurrence with his expertise). I would proceed with limited expectations. LargelyRecyclable (talk) 17:50, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Source: [45] Article: White Privilege

Content:

Friedersdorf argues that White privilege may be counter productive since its focus on race replaces the theory of color-blindness with a hyper-emphasis on group identity which in turn leads to doomed ‘Balkanisation’. [Reference: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/the-limits-of-talking-about-privilege/386021/]

--— Preceding unsigned comment added by Keith Johnston (talk • contribs) 11:52, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

An attributed statement to him seems fine. The Atlantic is a notable publication and Friedersdorf isn't a crackpot. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 11:54, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

As an attributed opinion, this is a perfectly fine source. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 14:29, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

This heinously misrepresents the source, as has been discussed on the article's talk page in mind-numbing detail. Friedersdorf is not arguing that "white privilege may be counter productive". For one thing, who is saying it's "productive"? Friedersdorf acknowledges that it exists and is a serious issue, making this summary of the source misleading and selective. Grayfell (talk) 20:34, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) The content is not supported by the source. What we do in WP is summarize sources; the proposed content doesn't summarize it. Friedersdorf describes the reality of white privilege thoroughly and has no question that it exists nor that it is important. What he discusses, is what is happening in some schools where (he says) it is being taught theoretically by people of one generation to another, and white kids are sitting around talking about it in clubs they form. He looks at all this as just navel-gazing and more or less useless and perhaps dangerous. He seems to think that direct experience of people who lack white privilege is something that would serve these kids much better. The beginning part of the content - "Friedersdorf argues that White privilege may be counter productive" is no where in the source and is actually nonsense. It would be like saying "Friedersdorf argues that sex may be counter productive" if he were writing about sex education. Jytdog (talk) 20:51, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, there are three things going on here so please be clear what we are agreeing or objecting to:

1) Is the Atlantic a reliable source?

2) Is Friedersdorf a reliable source?

3) Is the summary fair? Friedersdorf says:

"nothing in U.S. history leads me to believe that encouraging people to regard whiteness as the core of their identity will end well." He isn't saying its productive.Keith Johnston (talk) 22:28, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

You continue to conflate the thing with how people talk about or deal with the thing. Again, sex is not the same thing as sex education; white privilege and how these elite schools and students in them are addressing it, are not the same thing. Friedersdorf is objecting to the latter; he absolutely sees and describes white privilege itself. I don't know how to say it more clearly than that. Jytdog (talk) 00:03, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Note, i fixed your indenting. Jytdog (talk) 00:11, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks and good point, theory and practice are two different things. Could you be clear if you object to the Atlantic or Friedersdorf as a reliable source in principle? Keith Johnston (talk) 06:29, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

I fixed the indenting of the above. Sources are generally not declared as reliable in principle. Just about any source might be reliable for something (such as that the source exists). What counts is the combination of source + assertion. Johnuniq (talk) 08:53, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Keith thanks for replying and acknowledging some level of problem, but you are still missing the main problem with your proposed content. This is not a "theory/practice" thing, like say how well even given Christian practices his or her religion, or good laboratory practice and how well any given lab implements it. The difference is between a thing and how people teach or talk about it or deal with it. Another example of the kind of conflation you are making would be between History of the United States (events that actually happened) and how US history has been taught. Sticking that analogy into your proposed content we get "Friedersdorf argues that the history of the united states may be counter productive" - the statement is just nonsense. About your two questions, see what Johnuniq wrote above. I think what you are angling at is really a WEIGHT question - namely "if we are able to agree on some way to summarize this source, would the resulting content be noteworthy to include? Would it be DUE or UNDUE? That is not a question that we can answer at RSN. RSN is only about whether a given bit of content is reliably sourced. The actual proposed content here, is not. Jytdog (talk) 17:46, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

"The statement is just nonsense" Uh, yeah WP:IRS says analysis from intellectuals published in the atlantic get more weight than self proclaimed wikipedia intellectuals. I mean, when The Atlantic publishes "Jytdog's treatise on race" let us know, but until then... 185.65.206.138 (talk) 18:19, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

• 1. The Atlantic is a reliable source, and has been for 150 years.
  2. Friedersdorf is an authoritative, well-respected journalist who writes about his analyses, interpretations, and beliefs about events. He is well respected.
• Mathglot (talk) 11:56, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

IOTA (cryptocurrency) has a new version which appears to me to be entirely primary sourced. I'm in dispute with another editor over this - more eyes would be welcomed. See also Talk:IOTA_(cryptocurrency)#Huge_primary-sourced_addition_-_what's_useful_here? - David Gerard (talk) 19:56, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

@David Gerard: Might be better to post this at WP:COIN. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:10, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Regarding this subsection, do the sources claiming the occurrence of the book-burning incident in old Persia bear enough weight compared to the ones refuting it? What I see hear is big names saying it did not happen versus non-history scholars saying it did. Please, advise.--Kazemita1 (talk) 18:29, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

No, unless there is a clear consensus one way (and I note one of the sources does not link).Slatersteven (talk) 18:33, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

I am sorry @Slatersteven:, so do you advise to curtail the claims of book-burning?--Kazemita1 (talk) 02:22, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi! is it ok to use newspaper Página 12 as a source? I know it is on spanish section of Wikipedia and it's commonly used there, but I thought I should I ask on the english section about it. Thanks!

Agustin6 (talk) 20:02, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, Página 12 can be used as a reliable source but with caution on controversial information. Meatsgains^(talk) 01:44, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Currently English Wikipedia's Krampus lead makes the current claim:

The origin of the figure is unclear; some folklorists and anthropologists have postulated it as having pre-Christian origins, and that in Norse or Germanic mythology, he was the son of the goddess Hel.

While this will alarm individuals with a background in ancient Germanic studies (or folklore studies more generally), more surprising still is that Wikipedia sources this claim to the National Geographic website, which you can find here.

Now, the 2013 (updated 2017) National Geographic site article doesn't offer any source for associating Hel with Krampus. There's no mention of any folklorists or anthropologists, just this:

Krampus, whose name is derived from the German word krampen, meaning claw, is said to be the son of Hel in Norse mythology. The legendary beast also shares characteristics with other scary, demonic creatures in Greek mythology, including satyrs and fauns.

The words "Hel in Norse mythology" contain a link to Encyclopedia Mythica, which has been blacklisted on Wikipedia since 2010 for being a highly inaccurate, highly monetized site that we used to have all over our myth articles (ancient Wikipedia editors may recall MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/September_2010#Pantheon.org and "Encyclopedia_Mythica"_(pantheon.org)).) While it wouldn't be surprising to find something like that on the site, a look at the Encyclopedia Mythica entry's Archive.org reveals that Encyclopedia Mythica never made such a claim, so maybe the author just used EM as an outlink for Hel as an entity (interestingly, EM seems to have been influenced by Wikipedia's far more accurate article on the topic over the years, but that's beside the point).

I've been unable to find a single reliable source that associates the Old Norse figure Hel with the contemporary Alpine (generally Austrian) Krampus. Contemporery academics in the field don't breach this. There's nothing in Simek, Lindow, or Orchard, or any of the typical specialist handbooks and encyclopedia on the topic, nor dedicated works from, say, Hilda Ellis Davidson or any of the usual ancient Germanic studies author-academics one would turn to for these topics. As there's a huge gap between space and time between Krampus and Hel, that's not really surprising.

Given the quality of the rest of the article, it appears the National Geographic site author might have just found this somewhere on the internet and went with it, and so it ended up on our Krampus article. I'm finding it hard to say where the claim originates exactly, but the internet is rife with intensely spammy sites like ancient-origins.net making the claim after the National Geographic site piece. (Outside of that, note that this just cites the National Geographic piece and recites it nearly word for word — ouch!. This late 2015 Vox article also makes the claim and cites the National Geographic article).

I think this claim and source need to be removed from the article. Beyond My Ken (talk · contribs) feels differently. He says that "The only question ... is whether National Geographic News is a reliable source, and I would say that it is".

I've seen similar discussions come up here in the past. What to do in this situation? :bloodofox: (talk) 08:41, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Reliability varies and is not absolute. National geographic may generally be considered an ok source, but academic sources are of course much more reliable, and should be trusted over magazines that are written for a layman audience by a layman who probably just googled it, without a citation to a source. Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:22, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

National Geographic might generally be a reliable source, but this sort of information has to come from somewhere. How could the author have known this, especially when it appears nowhere else? At a certain point we have to conclude that a dubious assertion with no evidence to back it up just can't be trusted, even if the assertion is hosted by a reputable site. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:34, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

That is what attribution is for "according to...". As to the idea this is just NG [[46]], [[47]],[[48]] Granted not academic (and most likely not RS) but this is not something made up by one person. So I think whqat we may have is an interesting theory that may have a bit more legage then is being represented here.Slatersteven (talk) 09:42, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

All three are after the national geographic source, and probably copied it from there/various other internet crappy websites.

Two links are from the same "book" which is just a collection of stackexchange answers. I tracked it down to this question and the answer cites Smithsonian...which cites, you guessed it, the National Geographic piece! - and the other is a fiction book................................................................................. Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:50, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

by "most likely not RS" do you mean even glancing at the book tells you it isn't, not by a 1000 miles? Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:53, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Indeed. Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:44, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

I would agree with most of what others have written above; National Geographic is usually a reliable source, but I am going to say that, for this particular claim, they are not. I have been noticing a disturbing trend in popular sources to link virtually all modern holiday traditions with ancient paganism. It has become almost an automatic response. (Got a weird custom? Clearly it must be pagan. Nevermind if there is no mention of it earlier than the Reformation.) No one seems willing to consider the far more likely possibility that these traditions are modern folkloric developments. For instance, I have encountered more than one article from The Guardian making the absolutely ridiculous claim that Easter was originally a holiday in honor of the Sumerian goddess Inanna, an entirely erroneous notion that derives from the nineteenth century anti-Catholic conspiracy theorist Alexander Hislop. As excited as I am whenever I find Sumerian mythology being mentioned in the news, it always drives me crazy to find that it is in the context of such ludicrous nonsense and complete lack of fact-checking. --Katolophyromai (talk) 10:07, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Yeah in general popular sources should be taken with at least a pinch of salt (and often a handful) about anything academic, because journalists aren't experts; even if it is in say the New York Times doesn't mean it is correct Galobtter (pingó mió) 10:15, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Doing a search of pre 2013 results gives mostly results about the (fiction) book krampus the yule lord which apparently has this in its story. Nothing much else. Most likely indeed that the author of the piece just found it somewhere on the internet. Galobtter (pingó mió) 10:07, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

[[49]] (in fact the NG piece seems to be lifted wholesale from this), how about the smithsonian? [[50]], yes I know they are citing the NG, but is not the whole point of RS is that if an RS quotes it so can we?. So where does this put us?Slatersteven (talk) 10:18, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Considering the book was published in 2016 I somehow consider it unlikely that the NG piece took it from that. The sheer lack of anything before the NG source and abundance after severely points to its dubiosity. There has to be an actual original source predating the NG source. Being spread around doesn't mean it is reliable. Galobtter (pingó mió) 10:30, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

• I need to find a source for this, but I am pretty sure that Krampus originated with Joulupukki, not Hel. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:43, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

I stand by my position that this should not be included at all, even as an attributed statement. The national geographic source is not a work of serious scholarship. It was not written by a historian or anthropologist whose opinion might be significant. This was written by a journalist. And that means we should consider her source of information, not what she wrote herself. Since no such source is known, we should just ignore it. This is much the same as when a dubious scientific/medical fact appears in a newspaper, or even a news section of a medical journal. It shouldn't be attributed, or even used at all. If the source of the information cannot be found, just ignore it. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:25, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Please point to where in WP:RS or WP:V there is any requirement that information is only allowed in our articles if it is supported by "serious scholarship". Of course, a scholarly citation would be better, of course it would be nice to have the information supported by something from a folklorist, but WP:RS doesn't require the best possible source, only that a source be reliable.

My reading of the above discussion is that some editors are deciding the National Geographic News is not reliable in this circumstance not because of any extrinsic information, or intrinsic problem with the source, but because they don't agree with the information, i.e. WP:IDLI -- and that simply is not a criteria by which we judge reliability. Certainly it's not impossible to say that a source is reliable under these circumstance but not reliable under those, but we don't pick and choose those circumstances based on the content, we do it based on information or evidence of unreliability under those circumstances.

So, someone here needs to provide a valid criteria for saying that National Geographic News is not a reliable source for this information, something that is not "Well, they got it wrong this time." Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:07, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Please see WP:CONTEXT. :bloodofox: (talk) 06:24, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't understand. WP:CONTEXT seems to be about linking, which I don't think is an issue here -- is it? Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:32, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Oops, mixed up my shorthand — I meant WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. :bloodofox: (talk) 06:34, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Yep, that. Also, possibly WP:REDFLAG. Here's the thing... National Geographic News should not be used for this sort of thing, really ever, at all. Look at the claim: "some folklorists and anthropologists". We should be citing those folklorists and anthropologists, not a news clipping! But it appears that no one can confirm they exist. This makes it utterly impossible to determine whether this claim is even verifiable, let alone significant. There's no citation, no one is named, and there's just nothing to go on. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:16, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

WP:CONTEXTMATTERS already covers this as a guideline based rationale, but anyhow - They got it wrong this time is perfectly valid reason not to include - do you want an encyclopedia full of wrong??(cf WP:IAR if you really want to) The national geographic source itself says that some folklorists have postulated - so there has to be preexisting material on it. But there isn't even a hint of that.. Galobtter (pingó mió) 07:21, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

National Geographic needs to be handled with care, particularly when they report "astonishing" discoveries. See this article published after NG announced the discovery of "thousands of former homes, palaces, elevated roads, urban centers, complex irrigation systems and other signs of advanced civilization in the jungles of northern Guatemala." It's an interview with Michael E. Smith who says at the end of the interview:

"these data have tremendous potential to contribute to our knowledge of the ancient Maya. They can revise our figures for Maya populations, for their farming systems, their housing and domestic organization, and other topics. But right now, these things exist only as potential results, not as actual findings. So that is the “no” sense of my answer. Right now, with the available information, we have no greater understanding of the Maya. That will have to wait until the hard work gets done. The LiDAR data have to be ground-truthed (checked on the ground), processed by computers and analyzed carefully.

It is significant that these finds are reported by the National Geographic Society, an organization whose interest in publicity and spectacular claims often takes precedence over their interest in solid scientific results. Many public announcements of archaeological findings are based on technical articles published in peer-reviewed journals. That is a sign that there has been a real advance, sanctioned by colleagues and journal editors. The new LiDAR finds have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, because they are still preliminary. Another feature of the hype that comes from an organization like National Geographic Society is that the finds are announced as if they were the first time anyone though to apply LiDAR to the Maya area. But in fact, archaeologists have used LiDAR in other parts of the Maya zone for seven or eight years now."

See also this more detailed article by him.[51] Doug Weller talk 12:23, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

After reading this discussion, I'm pretty sure that NG should not be cited for this, attributed or not. If the claim can't be sourced to at least one person expert in the subject, it is FRINGE. Zero^talk 13:58, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

America’s recent love affair with the Krampus, like any infatuation perhaps, tends to distort the object of its interest. Brom’s Krampus the Yule Lord provided a specious backstory for the figure spun from Nordic mythology and presented him as an enemy of Santa Claus. Unfortunately the Nordic connection concocted by Brom has sometimes been accepted as fact and even repeated in a 2013 National Geographic article “Who Is Krampus? Explaining the Horrific Christmas Devil.” As will later be discussed, the folklore may occasionally hint at a connection to Scandinavian tradition, but Brom’s presentation of the Krampus as the son of the divine Loki is pure fantasy.
--- Al Ridenour, The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas: Roots and Rebirth of the Folkloric Devil, Feral House, 2016 [52]— Preceding unsigned comment added by Zero0000 (talk • contribs)

So Krampus the Yule Lord did indeed inspire it and indeed why all the results pre-2013 that I found (as I said above) were about it. Well that should hopefully settle it, then. Galobtter (pingó mió) 15:35, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Great insight here. Thanks for taking the time to dig into this, all! :bloodofox: (talk) 15:51, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, I was waiting for an editor to give citation for 'origin myth' of Krampus - this whole discussion would have been much shorter, because a connection to pre-Christian Germanic (Nordic) myth is not all that shocking. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:04, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks to everyone for this discussion, which has been eye-opening. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:55, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Following this discussion[53] on talk page Does this is [54] reliable source for this edit [55]--Shrike (talk) 10:28, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm guessing it would be reliable for an interview (it is associated with Tablet (sister company) and has an editor - not sure it is clearcut). However, I can point out that you can source the same information from Hebrew outlets that are definitely RS - haaretz and walla.Icewhiz (talk) 11:03, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

For this information, that's more than enough. It is an information that is not controversial and provided by the person herself during an interview. Pluto2012 (talk) 17:12, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Can this thesis: Foster, Zachary (November 2017). "Southern Syria". The Invention of Palestine (thesis). Princeton University. pp. 19–23. ISBN 9780355480238. Docket 10634618. Retrieved 9 February 2018.

...be used to cite the following at Southern Syria: "The term was used in Arabic primarily from 1918-20, during the Arab Kingdom of Syria period."

The thesis states on pages 20-21:

The Arabs described “the area that became Israel,” as Meir put it, in at least ten different ways in the decades prior to World War I, roughly in this order of frequency: Palestine; Syria; Sham; the Holy Land; the Land of Jerusalem; the District of Jerusalem + the District of Balqa + the District of Acre; southern Sham; the southern part of Sham; the Land of Jerusalem + the land of Gaza + the land of Ramla + the land of Nablus + the land of Haifa + the land of Hebron (i.e. cities were used, not regions); “the southern part of Syria, Palestine”; and southern Syria. The Arabic term “southern Syria” so rarely appeared in Arabic sources before 1918 that I’ve included every reference to the phrase I’ve ever come across in the footnote at the end of this paragraph (it did appear more often in Western languages). Golda Meir, Mikhaʼel Asaf and my Shabbat hosts were right about Southern Syria, but by focusing only on the facts that supported their arguments and ignoring all the others, they got the story completely wrong. They used facts to obscure the history. If the term rarely appeared in Arabic before World War I, how do propagandists even know it existed? Before World War I, they don’t. It took me nearly a decade to find a handful of references, and I can assure you few if any propagandists are familiar with its Arabic usage before 1918. But that changed dramatically in 1918, when the term gained traction for a couple of years until 1920. That’s because the Hijazi nobleman Faysal revolted against the Ottoman Empire in 1916 during the First World War (alongside “Lawrence of Arabia”), and established an Arab Kingdom in Damascus in 1918 which he ruled until the French violently overthrew him in 1920. During his period of rule, many Arabs in Palestine thought naively that if they could convince Palestine’s British conquerors the land had always been part of Syria—indeed, that it was even called “southern Syria”—then Britain might withdraw its troops from the region and hand Palestine over to Faysal. This led some folks to start calling the place southern Syria. The decision was born out of the preference of some of Palestine’s Arabs to live under Arab rule from Damascus rather than under British rule from Jerusalem—the same British who, only a few months earlier, in 1917, had declared in the Balfour Declaration their intention to make a national home for the Jews in Palestine.

The thesis was supervised by Princeton’s Cyrus Schayegh, Director, Program in Near Eastern Studies; Associate Professor of Near Eastern Studies, and has been published on Princeton’s website.

Pinging those editors in the ongoing article talk page discussion @Jonney2000 and Shrike:

Onceinawhile (talk) 16:14, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Would you want to use this source (page 77) to say that Palestinian started to be used by the locals in the modern sense (not Jesus) - circa 1898? This is a contentious topic area - PhD dissertations (and this one is filled with quite a bit of polemic (look at pages 50-70)) are not the best source. It is probably best to chase his references for this statement (which is not the main topic of his work - which is the use of Palestine as a term).Icewhiz (talk) 16:28, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Icewhiz, with respect, I was looking for input from editors not heavily involved in editing the Israel Palestine area on Wikipedia.

But, as an aside, the 1898 reference checks out.

And we can't chase his references here - if you read the paragraph above you'll see it states that this is his research, and one he has been working on for 10 years. I have looked and have not found any other scholars having looked in to this topic, ever. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:36, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

I can say with some OR (and a recollection of some sources I read once) that Damascus Eyalet used to contain the whole area until 1865... As I understand the thesis he is recounting what he found in Arabic, but the extent of Arabic political writing within the Ottoman empire was limited prior to the 20th century - and much was written in Ottoman Turkish. You yourself asked involved editors to comment in thisndiff! I think this stmt, if used, would have to be attributed as he is saying he himself found nothing. This has some weight - but is not authorative. In general - PhD dissertations are not a great source for contentious claims (and this one is one).Icewhiz (talk) 19:30, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Just FYI : for anything concerning the Birth of the Palestinian identity, I advise : Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, Columbia University Press, 2010. Pluto2012 (talk) 17:24, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Pages 165 and 167 of Khalidi are consistent with Foster's PhD dissertation, but are focusing on identity rather than overall usage of the term. So it helps provide comfort that Foster is correct, but cannot replace or supersede it. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:41, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

What about : Gerber, Remembering and Imagining Palestine: Identity and Nationalism from the Crusades to the Present, McMillan, 2008, pp.165-166 ? The author says roughly the same as here above in the PhD thesis

And I am quite sure that Benny Morris, in Victims says the same I think but I only have this in French.

(edit) In Victims, Benny Morris refers to a newspaper named Filastin found at Jaffa in 1911 and that during the 10 years before WWI, the term Palestine entered in common langage among Arabs. The merging with Syria (with the use of the word Southern Syria) only appears starting 1919 and not to last long. Pluto2012 (talk) 19:08, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

That is Falastin (newspaper), Huldra (talk) 21:34, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Great find Pluto. Here is the quote from Gerber, p165-166:

It is interesting that even as late as 1918 Palestine was regarded as an independent entity. Syria was not seen as a mother-country. The idea of amalgamation was to emerge about a month later, following a strenuous campaign by its supporters. But the documents relating to the initiation of the proposed fusion show what was newly constructed and what was the original (and traditional) mode of self-perception. Thus, the document that speaks about the election of candidates to the first Palestinian congress starts by saying inter alia: muqat`at suriyya al-janubiyya al-ma`rufa bi-filastin, that is, the land of Southern Syria, known as Palestine. In other words, what everybody always knew as Palestine is henceforth to be named Southern Syria. Put differently, the writers were fully aware that had they called the country simply Southern Syria, nobody in the Middle East would have known what they were talking about. But no one needed a map or a dictionary to know what the term Palestine meant. This document also offers a simple explanation for the then popularity of the Syrian option: It was simply the case that for a brief moment Syria was an independent, not to say Arab, country. In Palestine everything was different, and the future looked very bleak indeed. The way in which the term Southern Syria was explained by the term Palestine is not confined to a single document. In fact, a more or less similar variant appears in all the documents from this period that mention the term “Southern Syria”: Southern Syria is given as the name of the country, despite the fact that the known term is Palestine. Obviously, Southern Syria was not a traditional name, or even a formal geographical definition. On the contrary, the way in which the term Palestine is always used to explain Southern Syria supports the conclusion that it was quite well known to everybody in the area in 1914 and could not have been invented because of Zionism or for any other reason.

It confirms Foster’s position, although doesn’t analyse pre-1918 usage directly.

I just read Morris’ Righteous Victims in English, primarily pages 35-36. Like Khalidi, what it says is consistent with Foster, but Morris doesn’t talk about usage of the term. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:39, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Taking into account Icewhiz’s attribution proposal and Pluto’s finds, we could use Gerber primarily, with a following reference to Foster as follows:

Princeton PhD Zachary Foster has stated that, in the decades prior to World War I, the term “Southern Syria” was the least frequently used out of ten different ways to describe the region of Palestine in Arabic, noting that “it took me nearly a decade to find a handful of references”.

Onceinawhile (talk) 20:54, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't think it needs "Princeton PhD" if the citation makes clear that a thesis is being cited. Zero^talk 04:06, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

I would say that "Zachary Foster in his doctoral dissertation has written that,....". We can assume Foster will do bigger and greater things than being a PhD (and he might have already) - but we should make clear this is a dissertation.Icewhiz (talk) 05:09, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

I think we can use wikipedia's voice to state the words "southern Syria" were not use and after to attribute it took a decade for Zachara Foster to find a handful of them. Pluto2012 (talk) 01:38, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

I have used

• Rhode, Harold (1979). Administration and Population of the Sancak of Safed in the Sixteenth Century. Columbia University.

quite a lot...and that was a phD for Columbia University. I have never used "in his doctoral dissertation has written that" etc..because I simply have not found any mistakes in it. (No matter what I personally think about the Harold Rhode political opinions..)(Ok, so I haven't studied the defters, as he did...but others have found the same results as he did, take Umm al-Faraj as an example.)

On the other hand, I would never, ever cite Frantzman phD for the Hebrew University on Wikipedia: again, not because of Frantzmans political opinions, but because that thesis is absolute trash. Mistakes on virtually every other page, so it simply cannot be trusted.

So, I would say, until you find sources which contradict Foster, we can use it (like I use Rhode)..perhaps with a note in the source that this was a PhD etc (Note to self: change standard Rhode ref to indicate that it was a phD) Huldra (talk) 21:34, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

"Drew Cloud is everywhere. The self-described journalist who specializes in student-loan debt has been quoted in major news outlets, including The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and CNBC [...] But he’s a fiction, the invention of a student-loan refinancing company." --Guy Macon (talk) 21:26, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Drew-Cloud-Is-a-Well-Known/243217 Source --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:52, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Yep. Popular mass media sources can be manipulated, gamed and tricked for commercial, malicious or even humorous ends. That's why we need to be careful about sourcing and treat incompetent editors who don't recognize (or tendentious editors who pretend not to recognize) this kind of problem more appropriately than we sometimes do. But unless "Drew Cloud"'s analyses have been cited somewhere on Wikipedia this doesn't really seem like an issue for RSN at this time ... ? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:16, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm not even sure this is a problem. "Student Loan Report, LLC " might even be more RSey than "Drew Cloud" (independent journalist) - in either case there would be WP:BIASED issues - but we don't have a requirement (I think) that authorship (or opinion) be attributed to a tangible person (some media outlets do - therefore such a psuedo-name is a means to get your foot in the quote farm door).Icewhiz (talk) 11:33, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

True enough, but I would think if a news source sees fit to attribute a claim to a particular individual (and then retracts when it turns out that individual was a fiction), we probably shouldn't be claiming it as factual in Wikipedia's voice to begin with; and if someone to whom we attribute content turns out not to exist, we shouldn't continue implying they do. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:04, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

If we were to deem the pseudo-name as significant (e.g. some of "Tyler Durden" (fringey yet widely read) psuedo-name on zerohedge may be significant), and we were quoting it, we would probably want to footnote this (e.g. "footnote - actually Student Loan Report, LLC" or Student Loan Report, LLC, "footnote reported at the time as Drew Cloud"). Icewhiz (talk) 12:12, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi Folks, There is an Afd going over at Chris S. Sims (game designer). There was a reference to this site, here: [56]. Regarding these two refs.

<ref>[http://www.ennie-awards.com/blog/congratulations-to-our-2016-award-winners/ 2016 ENnie Awards]</ref> <ref>[http://www.ennie-awards.com/blog/about-us/2015-ennie-award-winners/ 2015 ENnie Awards]</ref>

Is that a valid sources. Thanks. scope_creep (talk) 16:39, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

For what as he is not mentioned?Slatersteven (talk) 16:52, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

I think he is 2015 and 2016 award winner. Is that what your saying?

No, I am referring to the two links here, I cannot see his name.Slatersteven (talk) 16:57, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

I have just noticed that myself. I originally removed them, because they were blogs, and thought they were dud. However, the filing editor who put them in, wants them back in. The first ref, the game is: Curse of Strahd (Wizards of the Coast) *Silver Winner* under Product of the Year category, seems to be the only linking criteria, that I can see. scope_creep (talk) 17:04, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Then we have an issue as [[57]] does not list him as having worked on it.Slatersteven (talk) 17:11, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Slatersteven. scope_creep (talk) 20:09, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi. I am interested in writing a separate biography article on Mitsuye Endo, the plaintiff in Ex Parte Endo. The most accessible biography I have found is https://densho.org/mitsuye-endo/ . Would you-all consider that WP:RS? Thanks. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:26, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi Guys,

I am an Electrical Engineer and pursuing Ph.D. at FIU, USA. I am running my own portal and would like you to look at it and see if you consider it as a reliable resource in case i add my website link as a reference to any topic.

PS: (It was suggested by one of the editors at Wikipedia)

Here is the link to my website:

http://electricalacademia.com

I'm waiting for your cordial response. Thank you

Ahmed

I am sorry, Ahmed, but your self published website is not a reliable source by Wikipedia standards. I wish you success in your ventures. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 08:03, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

No, sorry, per above. (See also, Wikipedia:Spam). Thank you for your inquiry. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:11, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Anyone know anything about this site – http://www.americanforeignrelations.com? It's used pretty heavily at Rogue state and a handful of other articles. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 07:46, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

• Color me skeptical. Deeply skeptical. No "About" page, author, or sponsoring organization visible. And the title "Encyclopedia of the American Foreign Relations" is not grammatical English usage. E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:20, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

wealthx.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

There was a notorious sockmaster in Greek finance and football called Antony1821 (probably the same guy as Mikenew1953) Mikenew1953 was famous for make a fake 2015 list of List of Greeks by net worth (see talk). Now Equity2019, a checkuser confirmed sock of Antony1821 , keep spamming wealthx.com as the citation of net worth of Greek people, which those people are not covered by forbes.com. So, any one think that site wealthx.com is reliable? Matthew_hk tc 20:21, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

@Matthew hk: Could you give an example of a citation? Looking at their current homepage it seems more like they are showcasing their services rather than making a claim of someones net worth. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:48, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Cleaning up the sock edit one by one (instead of mass revert, the sock just respawn with dynamic ip). For example this and this edit the sock added the link that i can't tell it is reliable or not. Matthew_hk tc 20:53, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

I would say that the dossier probably is RS. It is a "hand-curated" collection from a company who aims to make money off the dossiers accuracy. The company has ~200 employees in 5 different countries and has multiple people with the title "Director, Research Operations". There is also some WP:USEBYOTHERS as shown at their article Wealth-X. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:06, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

I searched the archives and I couldn't find a concrete answer if Inquisitr is unreliable within Wikipedia as whole. I've always considered it unreliable as their stories are suspect and at one time, maybe still the case, anybody can write for them. Doing some further researching, the Media Bias/Fact Checking website has said they quoted the conspiracy/pseudoscience website Natural News. Slate, The Desk, K5 News, Psychology Today, and Buzzfeed have apparently criticized them for their inaccuracy of reporting. The Professional Wrestling project has put Inquisitr in the list of sources to avoid. I was checking Inquisitr's wrestling section and the one article used Sportskeeda. Sportskeeda is not a reliable source at all. Again, just wanting a concrete answer. Mr. C.C.^{Hey yo!}_{I didn't do it!} 19:57, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

It's a news aggregator, so in nearly all cases it would be better to cite whatever it is they're citing. According to their about page, they have no staff writers, and instead rely on contributors. While it says that "All contributors are evaluated, and their articles graded, on a regular basis", there is no indication of any editorial oversight over what is published and in fact it says of the contributors: "their opinions do not reflect that of the Inquisitr’s management and editorial teams" (!). So no, I would say not. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:31, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I'll second that and for exactly those reasons. Definitely not a reliable source. :bloodofox: (talk) 21:55, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

I got that it's an aggregator, but they also have some original articles too. But regardless, thanks for the response. Mr. C.C.^{Hey yo!}_{I didn't do it!} 00:17, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Recently an editor (@Guy Macon:) invited other editors at the fringe theories noticeboard to checkout the state of Shroud of Turin. After looking it over, I also have a lot of concerns about what's happening at the article, and I think editors here should take a look at it. First, consider these sources:

• [58] - An amateur website with a sidebar on every page that says "Is the shroud real? Probably. The Shroud of Turin may be the real burial cloth of Jesus."
• [59] - Another amateur website operated by the "Shroud of Turin Education and Research Association, Inc." It opens with the the following lines: "The Shroud of Turin is a centuries old linen cloth that bears the image of a crucified man. A man that millions believe to be Jesus of Nazareth" and hosts stuff like this.
• [60] - Evidently a file repository with a blank index page
• [61] - Either a dead link or another file repository

These sites are currently being used to host a variety of files there, and the general tone of the article (for example, "A 2013 study published in a theological journal followed a 'Minimal Facts approach' ... concluded 'that the probability of the Shroud of Turin being the real shroud of Jesus of Nazareth is very high'.") leads me to believe we have a problem here. As Wikipedia is not a digital reliquary for promoting fringe theories regarding objects traditionally associated with or belonging to this deity or that demigod (relic), I'm thinking the article could use more source-critical eyes. :bloodofox: (talk) 17:23, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Holy moly. Obviously those sources should not be used for any statement of fact. I grabbed another source at random to look at, too, just going up from the bottom of the article. It was this utterly ridiculous paper that was somehow published by a Wiley-published journal (The Heythrop Journal). We have a whole subsection about it via "Minimal Facts" -- an apt name for its methodology if I've ever seen one. The quote that we use (basically "it's very likely that it's authentic") is based on the determination by the author that Jesus's body was actually resurrected and citing figures like "According to Swinburne, there is a 97% probability that the resurrection event occurred". — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:19, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Bloodofox: In a technical WP:TPO violation, I changed your link to Fringe Theories Noticeboard above, to the dest page I believe you intended. Feel free to revert if I'm mistaken. Mathglot (talk) 22:33, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing that, Mathglot! :bloodofox: (talk) 23:03, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

There is a lot of passion generated by this page. I agree some of the pro-1st C AD sources should not be here, but some of the pro-14C AD sources are also questionable. For example source [17] Schafersman, Steven D. (14 March 2005). "A Skeptical Response to Studies on the Radiocarbon Sample from the Shroud of Turin by Raymond N. Rogers".

About the pro-1st C AD site shroud.com/, what it says, as quoted above, is "The Shroud of Turin is a centuries old linen cloth that bears the image of a crucified man. A man that millions believe to be Jesus of Nazareth". This is actually correct and unbiased if you read it, rather than just assume since it's a pro-1st C AD site it must be bonkers. I believe this site is generally used as a repository for papers e.g. papers from The 1978 Scientific Examination by STURP, and summarizes those papers in a fair way. This characterization of the site is consistent with the comment by Rhododendrites above about the source from shroud.com. Regarding that particular source, it may or may not be ridiculous, should or should not have been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but it was. So it is a valid source.

The source shroudstory.com is being used to verify the statement "The dirt was found to be travertine aragonite limestone". Seemingly an innocuous statement? Possibly too much information and unnecessary, but I don't see it as pro-1st C AD or pro-14C AD. Aarghdvaark (talk) 08:44, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Currently "shroud.com, that "pro-1st C AD site", appears in the article text 45 times. I think that says everything about the article, and why ridiculous items such as the one Rhododendrites (talk · contribs) mentions feature so prominently. What a mess! :bloodofox: (talk) 22:10, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, as explained above shroud.com provides a depository of sources for articles about the Shroud of Turin. That's what it does. Hence the number of times it will come up in the references when searched. However, all of the ones I tested went to original articles, except a presumably uncontroversial simple list of STURP investigators. I also tested the Higgs Boson article, and what do you know, CERN came up in the references an awful lot :) Aarghdvaark (talk) 03:46, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

The references must be to the papers themselves. It's also undesirable, for several reasons, to re-use commentary. However, it may at times be convenient to hyperlink, not to partisan sites, but to files which they may host. Richard Keatinge (talk) 08:08, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Note that there's also the issue of copyright. Please see discussion at Talk:Shroud_of_Turin#WP:FRINGE_and_religious_relics_and_reliquaries. :bloodofox: (talk) 16:33, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

May Haaretz be used unattributed in Jan Grabowski (historian) to state His father was a Jewish Holocaust survivor from Kraków and who took part in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising; his mother, a Christian and came from a family of Polish nobility.? The relevant source is 'Orgy of Murder': The Poles Who 'Hunted' Jews and Turned Them Over to the Nazis, Haaretz, Ofer Aderet Feb 11, 2017 and the relevant paragraph is Grabowski was born in Warsaw into a mixed family. His father was Jewish, from a Krakow family that assimilated well into Polish society, survived the Holocaust by hiding in Warsaw and took part in the 1944 uprising by the Polish underground there, which cost the lives of some 200,000 Poles and resulted in the city’s near-total destruction. His mother is Christian from a veteran, noble Polish family. He has relatives in Israel..Icewhiz (talk) 12:32, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

• Just to be clear, persons "nobility" sources are being sought as per discussion here [62] since there are no other sources to back it up, "according to Haaretz" has been added.GizzyCatBella (talk) 14:29, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

  See also Talk:Jan Grabowski (historian)#Nobility, Talk:Jan Grabowski (historian)#Ethnic marking of sources and implied doubt for previous discussion.Icewhiz (talk) 15:05, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Note Haaretz is a paper of record, and as such shouldn't require special attribution. François Robere (talk) 19:36, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi. I think that this song is an Eurodance song according to this source:

"[FRESH] Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa - One Kiss". Rebrn.com. Retrieved 4 May 2018.

Is this a reliable source? Can I call this song an Eurodance song? Karamellpudding1999 (talk) 09:40, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

@Karamellpudding1999: Rebrn is just one of many sites that scrape Reddit and rehost everything. Reddit is a forum, which fails WP:UGC, hence it's not reliable. Hayman30 (talk) 10:33, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Hello. I have been engaged on a debate on the talk page for the article on Involuntary celibacy. I anticipate that some of this might get moved to the noticeboard for neutral point of view instead but, as I've had the policy on reliable sources quoted at me several times, I thought that I would ask here. In the discussion, I have been asked to give reliable sources to argue against the claims made in the article. As I understand it, that is not how the reliable-sources policy works. The burden is on the person adding content to provide a reliable source, especially if they are making a bold claim. If someone else doubts the claim, then they can scrutinise the source and, if successful, remove the content. I don't see any need to provide a counter reliable source. For example, if someone adds content that all who oppose British independence from the EU are enemies of the people and references a Daily Mail article, then I don't need to provide a reliable source to say that they are not enemies of the people: I just say that the Daily Mail is not a reliable source. Please correct me if I am wrong here.

I believe that the guidance on recentism and on media reporting after terrorist attacks is also relevant. Reports in the mass media after the Toronto attack have not been balanced on the subject of the incel communities, just as media reporting after 11th September 2001 was not balanced on the subject of Islam and media reporting after the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings was not balanced on the Northern Ireland conflict. There are been involuntary celibates since the beginning of time and the word "incel" began with a mutual-support group set up by a woman, but the Wikipedia article currently defines involuntary celibacy as a misogynist movement based on sources that I do not think are sufficiently robust to support such a bold claim.

To go through the sources that I question:

In the opening passage, it states

Discussions in incel forums are often characterized by resentment, misanthropy, misogyny, white supremacy, and the endorsement of violence against sexually active women and more sexually successful men.

This seems to be a bold claim for an encyclopedia and in need of robust evidence. There is one pinned specifically to misanthropy from Vox, which I would argue is not a robust source. There are also five other sources given from the mass media. I don't think that this is sufficient, as allowing this as reliable could allow several other ideologies to be described as characterised by such bad traits in the opening statement. I could probably find five articles published in the British press that say that the Brexit campaign is racist or that the Remain campaign is anti-democratic, but they would presumably not be accepted as justification of such a claim. I argue that the same principle should apply with the sources for this passage, which were all published in April 2018 after the attack in Toronto. They are from The Guardian, The Atlantic, Global News, National Public Radio and the Globe and Mail.

Later on in the article, it states:

These communities are characterized by misogyny, the glorification of violence, and racism.

I don't think that the four references provided here are sufficient for the same grounds as above, although admittedly only two of these were published after the Toronto attack. There is a first from The Guardian, a second from The Guardian, one from NBC and one from Vice. The claim about racism in incel forums seems particularly tentative, as this is only stated in the NBC article and not in the other three.

A claim is made here:

Many male incels also believe that modern society is gynocentric, and that women are predisposed to hypergamy.

The source is this article, which is a good academic source in itself. However, the part about hypergamy seems to come from page 12, and the text does not mention male incels. I don't think that this backs up the claim.

At the end it says:

According to an incel Reddit subforum called /r/braincels, someone who has metaphorically "swallowed the black pill", been "blackpilled", or LDAR (which stands for "lay down and rot")", has come to "the real or perceived socially unspoken realisations that come from being a longtime incel."

The sources are mostly from websites that I do not think are robust: WBUR, Quartz, the Daily Dot and Your Tango. Furthermore, none of these sources mentions /r/braincels specifically. The Irish Journal source is actually one of the better sources currently in the article and it does mention /r/braincels specifically, but the quote is taken out of context in describing blackpills as ways that users communicate their state of mind.

If I am judged to be wrong and these are considered reliable sources, then I might suggest some other sources to act as reliable sources for another point of view. For now, I can suggest this article as useful to add balance, as it acknowledges that some incels are just keen to support one another. My preference for now is for the claims above to be removed or at least reworded significantly, rather than add sources with similar shortcomings to illustrate other points of view on the subject. Epa101 (talk) 10:32, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

I'll allow others comment on the reliability of the existing sources, but I do want to point out that the article you're suggesting be added is a blog post. I had included it in the article until someone pointed that out to me—the website doesn't make it particularly clear. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:45, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

  You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums#Popcrush. — JJMC89 (T·C) 19:47, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

In the context of a BLP, is the blog "Artvoice" (as it currently exists, regardless of prior iterations) a reliable source? For the last fortnight, several accounts have been trying to insert the claim that Nicki Clyne is married to Allison Mack. Mack has been indicted in connection to the NXIVM cult/MLM/organization, and since her arrest, there has been an echo-chamber of gossip sites repeating the unsourced claim that the arraignment "revealed" that Mack married Clyne. Since no reliable source has repeated that allegation, I have been removing it from the article. Now the blog "Artvoice" (which has been highly critical of Nxivm and regularly features columns by Frank Parlato, a professional Nxivm critic/whistleblower) has excerpted what it claims to be a transcript of the arraignment. [63] Anticipating that someone will reinstate the Mack/Clyne claim citing this source, I want to get some guidance ahead of time: Does this article constitute a reliable source for a contentious claim about a living person being married to an indicted criminal suspect?- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 17:34, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

No, it's not a sufficient source.

Also, in case anyone asks later, the actual transcript of the arraignment, even if it were unquestionably accurate, would not be sufficient for this purpose (because of specific rules against using court documents at WP:BLP). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:23, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

The article Collaboration in German-occupied Poland mentions Stanisław Estreicher, a Polish academic and politician, who is said to have refused Nazi cooperation in 1940. All of the sources cited are from 1940-1945:

• News Flashes from Czechoslovakia Under Nazi Domination. The Council. 1940.
• School & Society. Science Press. 1940.
• The Polish Review. Polish information center. 1943.
• Bramstedt, E. K. (2013-09-27) [1945]. Dictatorship and Political Police: The Technique of Control by Fear. Routledge. ISBN 9781136230592.

Later sources that were cited either do not mention the claim, or use the phrase "was reported" (Jan T. Gross, Polish Society under German Occupation (1979), 126-130).

My observations are as follows:

1. Two or three of the sources seem to be contemperous or near-contemperous news bits ("seem", as they're not available online and I can't verify the exact context of two of them). I believe they should be treated as WP:RSBREAKING as, despite their age, they were written shortly after the event based on the limited information that was available at the time.
2. The one academic source is from 1945; given that the very first historical analyses of the war appeared in the 1950's ([64][65]), and the first widely-circulated account (Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of the European Jews) in 1961, 1945 seems "too new" as per WP:AGE MATTERS.
3. Finally, given the age of the field (~70 years), something published as early 1940-1945 seems too old to be cited as pertinent with no supporting material (again WP:AGE MATTERS).
4. Due to the above, the claim should either be re-sourced or qualified with "according to contemporous sources" (similar to what the 1979 source does), or removed.

Your opinions?

François Robere (talk) 06:02, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Sources from the 1940s, writing about the events of the 1940s, should be treated as primary sources. You can WP:USEPRIMARY source, but you need to be careful. Qualifying the statement with a phrase such as "according to contemporaneous sources" is a reasonable approach. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:03, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

This is probably more an WP:UNDUE issue than a WP:RS issue - if no one bothered to write about this later (on a quite well written topic area - WWII history is one of the most widely written topic areas) - it probably isn't significant.Icewhiz (talk) 07:15, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Is this website a reliable source? it has a lot of aircraft specifications on it but I am not sure where the info comes from. ^{[Username Needed]} 12:06, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

@Username Needed: It doesn't look reliable per our standards (unclear credentials, missing evidence of professional expertise, vague impressum, apparently accepts user-contributed content). 2 archived threads at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history/Archive_129 (search for "factory") and 1 thread at Talk:MP 40/Archive 1 seem to confirm this assessment. You could also ask the involved Wiki projects on their project talkpages, if you want additional feedback from other more knowledgeable editors beyond these conclusions. GermanJoe (talk) 20:59, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Is the book Antidepressants a reliable source for the article Lithium (medication)? selfworm^Talk) 20:50, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Speaking only for myself, I believe it is reliable. The book is published by a reputable publisher (Infobase Publishing) and one of the two co-authors, DJ Triggle, has literally hundreds of articles as a co-author or thanks in scholarly pharmacology journals to his credit. The only possible caveat is it has a 2009 publication date so might fail in the presence of more recent information. Chetsford (talk) 22:54, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Elon Musk#Family is using sources such as consequenceofsound.net, youtube.com, mashable.com, and People. May I request a review of the sources used in that section? --Guy Macon (talk) 23:57, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Generally the sources there are fine, but there are problems. There's a Daily Mail link, that must go. The Mashable one can be replaced with a better source, as that divorce was widely reported. CoS is generally okay when talking music, but here it is also replaceable as many many better sources are reporting the Grimes/Musk scene. The Youtube TED talk from Julian Musk is perfectly fine - it's not a copyvio (TED Talks published it) and it's her self-statement. Everything else is okay, not in the realm of TMZ-like reporting. --Masem (t) 00:08, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

People Magazine is a gutter trash celebrity gossip rag. I wouldn't use it, ever, for anything.- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 01:41, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

People is generally considered RS for famous people information, specifically for details on their personal lives. Several previous RfCs on this noticeboard have determined that. If the information is possibly contentious, find a secondary source other than People, but for things like family life of the rich/famous, People might be about as RS as you can get.Bahb the Illuminated (talk) 02:41, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

The material verges on the "breathless red top" level- Having a child die of SIDS would only be relevant if SIDS were otherwise relevant (charity work or the like). Otherwise it is puerile gossip stuff. As is the extended commentary on on-again-off-again divorces and the like. It is not relevant to the notability of the person. If People says your favorite cereal is "Trix" - does it really belong in an encyclopedia? 140K characters? Too long by half if one really thinks it has any density of useful information about the person. Collect (talk) 20:21, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Hello, I am aware that I am still learning my way around WP, but I think I understand the difference between a primary source and a secondary source, as well as what is not a medically reliable source.

I have tried to include research authored by academics/experts citing both their university link and the official research link. Here is one example.

https://www.mailman.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/smoking-rise-among-pregnant-women-depression https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376871617303459

HERE IS WHY I THINK IT IS SECONDARY- there is no original research. All data is from NSDUH and described elsewhere, SAMSHA. (Redacted)

Thank you for helping me understand this policy better. This is just one article that could be seen as a MEDRS. I am not sure and would like oversight.Mrphilip (talk) 07:48, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

I have removed excessive non-free content from your post. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 11:45, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

The first link is a press release; the second link is obviously a primary source. This is not even a little ambiguous. Read WP:MEDRS and especially WP:MEDDEF.

You are being way too aggressive on a topic with discretionary sanctions and you are going to get blocked or have your editing privileges restricted. Jytdog (talk) 00:15, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

@Mrphilip: The study referenced in both your sources is the same study. It is a single study which means it is a primary source and so not MEDRS compliant. Until a study has been replicated there is no guarantee that the study and its results are accurate or factual. Because we have readers who look to Wikipedia for safe health related information we must "try to use sources that have an overview of current understanding of the topic, to make recommendations, or to combine results of several studies. Examples include literature reviews or systematic reviews found in medical journals, specialist academic or professional books, and medical guidelines or position statements published by major health organizations." This kind of source suggests greater accuracy in the information. It takes a while to get the hang of sources and especially MEDRS so hold on.(Littleolive oil (talk) 02:13, 10 May 2018 (UTC))

Got it. Nothing was done with the original data, it was just collected by a different party and no one has reviewed this analysis of this one study of that data. Appreciate the clarification Littleolive oil .Mrphilip (talk) 04:28, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

And please ask for help if you don't quite understand. I am happy to help and there are lots of editors who will help you get up to speed. Its far better to ask for help than revert which can start an edit war and which seldom does anyone any good.(Littleolive oil (talk) 17:45, 10 May 2018 (UTC))

Hi, this is actually in reference to an AfD discussion on Brown University Traditions, with the original page here.

I'm currently undecided on the AfD but while searching I did find one significant potential source Brown University 2012 - Traditions. Its publisher is College Prowler (now seemingly called Niche) However despite some research, and a quick flick through the three mentions I found when typing it into the archive search, I wasn't sure whether it is a reasonable source to use.

Any help much appreciated,

Nosebagbear (talk) 08:41, 11 May 2018 (UTC)